The Philosophy of History. Friedrich von Schlegel

incidental circumstance in primitive history; for our great business is with the moral and intellectual progress of man. But even in respect to this more important object, the circumstance which we allude to should not be passed over in silence, as it tends to exemplify, illustrate and confirm the principle we have already had occasion to enforce; namely that we ought not to estimate by the narrow standard of present analogies and vulgar probabilities, all those facts in primitive nature and in primitive history which strike us as so strange, mysterious, and marvellous; provided they be really attested by ancient monuments and ancient tradition. We should ever bear in mind what a mighty wall of separation—what an impassable abyss—divides us from that remote world both of nature and of man. I refer to the unanimous testimony of ancient tradition respecting the gigantic forms of the first men, and their corresponding longevity, far exceeding, as it did, the present ordinary standard of the duration of human life. With respect to the latter circumstance, indeed, there are so very many causes contributing to shorten considerably the length of human life, that we have completely lost every criterion by which to estimate its original duration; and it would be no slight problem for a profound physiological science to discover and explain from a deeper investigation of the internal constitution of the earth, or of astronomical influences, which are often susceptible of very minute applications the primary cause of human longevity. By a simpler course of life and diet than the very artificial, unnatural and over-refined modes we follow, there are even at the present day numerous examples of a longevity far beyond the ordinary duration of human life. In India it is by no means uncommon to meet with men, especially in the Brahminical caste, more than a hundred years of age, and in the enjoyment of a robust, and even generative vigour of constitution. In the labouring class in Russia, whose mode of living is so simple, there are examples of men living to more than a hundred, a hundred and twenty, and even a hundred and fifty years of age; and although these instances form but rare exceptions, they are less uncommon there than in other European countries. There are even remarkable cases of old men, who after the entire loss of their teeth, have gained a complete new set as if their constitution had received a new sap of life, and a principle of second growth. What, in the present physical degeneracy of mankind, forms but a rare exception, may originally have been the ordinary measure of the duration of human life, or at least may afford us some trace and indication of such a measure; more especially as other branches of natural science offer correspondent analogies. On the other side of that great wall of separation which divides us from the primitive ages—in that remote world so little known to us, a standard for the duration of human life very different from the present may have prevailed; and such an opinion is extremely probable, supported as it is by manifold testimony, and confirmed by the sacred record of man's divine origin.

      In order better to understand and judge more correctly of the biblical number of years in human life, we ought never to overlook the very religious purport of the symbolical relation of numbers in the divine chronology. We should thus ever keep ourselves in readiness, as, according to the expression of Holy Writ, the hairs on a man's head are numbered—and how much more so the years of his life!—and as nothing here must be considered fortuitous, but all things as predetermined and regulated according to the views of Providence. Again, as the Scripture often mentions that, in the hidden decrees of his mercy, the Almighty hath graciously been pleased to shorten the duration of a determined space of time:—as, for example, a course of irreversible suffering—or on the other hand, hath added a certain number of years to a determined period of grace, or prolonged the duration of a man's life; it behoves us to examine which of these two courses of divine favour be in any proposed case discoverable. In the extreme longevity of the holy Patriarchs of the primitive world—a longevity which as has been long proved and acknowledged, must be understood with reference only to the common astronomical years, the latter course of the divine goodness is discernible, and human life in those ages must be regarded as miraculously and supernaturally prolonged.[42] In the duration of Enoch's life, that holy prophet of the primitive world, whose translation was no death, but which, as the exit originally designed for man, should on that account be considered natural, the coincidence with the astronomical number of days in the sun's course round the earth is the more striking, as in the number of 365 years the number 33 is comprised as the root—a number which, in every respect and in the most various application, is discovered to be the primary number of the earth. For, with the slight difference of an unit, the number of 365 years corresponds to the sum of 333, with the addition of 33; but the number of days strictly comprised in those 365 years amounts to four times 33,000, with the addition of four times 330 days.

      With regard to the gigantic stature attributed to the primitive race of men, by the authentic testimony of universal tradition;—a testimony which it is easy to distinguish from mere poetical embellishment or exaggeration—it is singular that those who are otherwise so disposed to apply the analogies of nature to the human species, should in this instance at least hold up the now ordinary scale of human bulk as the only standard of probability and certainty. The remains, more than once alluded to, of that primitive world which has perished, show that of the elephant, rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, the largest of all existing animals, there were originally from twenty to thirty different tribes and species which are now extinct. Of the mammoth, that gigantic animal of antiquity, remains of which are found not only in Siberia and America, but in the different counties of Europe, near Paris, and even in this immediate neighbourhood, a great number of various species have been also proved to have existed from the investigation of these antediluvian remains. Even of animals more familiar to us, bones and other remains have been discovered of a very unusual and truly gigantic size. Bulls' horns fastened together by a front-bone—antlers of stags, and elephants' tusks have been found, which prove those animals to have been of a dimension three, four, and even five times greater than they usually are at present. If in this elder period of organic nature, and of an animal kingdom which has become extinct, this gigantic style was so very prevalent, is it not reasonable to infer a similar analogy in the human species, so far at least as relates to their physical conformation, especially when this analogy is unanimously attested by the primitive Sagas and traditions of all nations?

      As regards our sacred writings, I must observe that they tacitly imply and indeed pretty clearly attest the superior stature as well as great longevity of the first men; while, on the other hand, they represent the really gigantic structure of body as an organic degradation and degeneracy, originating in the illicit union of the two primitive races—the Cainites and the Sethites—an union which was the source of universal corruption—as the all-destroying deluge was a mighty judgment brought about by the pride and wickedness of those giants, and was indeed against these principally directed.—Even at a later period, the Scripture speaks of some nations of giants, that, prior to the introduction of the Israelites into the promised land, occupied several of its provinces, such as Moab, Ammon, Bashan, and the country about the primitive city of giants—Hebron. These tribes are represented as celebrated for valour indeed, yet as inclined solely to warfare, wild, and wicked; and even the individual giants, that appear in the age of Moses and in the history of David, are described as peculiarly monstrous from their great corporal deformity. The only savage tribe now existing, (as far as our present knowledge of the globe can enable us to speak,) possessed of a very uncommon, enormous and almost gigantic stature—the Patagonians of America, are at the same time noted for their personal deformity. With them it is the upper part of the body that is of such a disproportionate length, for when seen on horseback they appear to be real giants, and hence they were so accounted at first. When on a closer inspection we see the whole length of their bodies in the attitude either of standing or of walking, we perceive indeed they are of the very extraordinary height of from seven to eight feet, but not of that gigantic stature which the first impression led us to suppose, and which may so naturally have given rise to exaggerated accounts.

      After all this, and what has been above stated, I need say no more than frankly declare that, as to these two points, the extraordinary longevity and gigantic stature of the first men—I never could have the courage to raise a formal doubt against the plain declaration of Holy Writ, and the general testimony of primitive tradition. The full explanation, the more correct conception, and the perfect comprehension of these two facts are perhaps reserved for a later period, and the investigations of a deeper physical science.

      There exist also monuments, or rather fragments of edifices, of the most primitive antiquity, which,