Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/357

Charles Dickens] the woods, feeding on the fruits of the earth, and clothing themselves with the skins of wild beasts, until Fohi taught them to build huts and make dwellings. To the same hero is ascribed the origination of agriculture, commerce, marriage, and the doctrine that reason came from heaven. He is said also to have given instructions for rearing silkworms, building bridges, and making use of beasts of burden. From this point the history proceeds clearly enough, describing the extension of the culture thus initiated to the south, the commencement of a state and government, and the rise and fall of different dynasties.

Twenty-three centuries before the Christian era, it is evident from the prevailing testimony of historical documents, that there was no state. The same is the case with Asia up to the present time. Among the Chinese, indeed, the moral will of the emperor is the law; but in India generally the freedom of the subjective agent is altogether wanting. We have thus among the Hindoos a people, but no state. A principle of despotism, and the practice of tyranny, describe the common condition of affairs among Orientals. The monotony of such a condition affords no materials for history proper, and will not bear telling, in plain, unsophisticated prose. It requires fiction for its embellishment, and the march of numerous verse. As for the Hindoos, we are truly told by a German philosopher, they are by birth given over to an unyielding destiny, while their spirit revels in the ideal, so that they exhibit in their mental operations a contradictory process. There is, he adds, on the one hand a dissolution of fixed, rational, and definite conceptions in their ideality, and on the other a degradation of it by its identification with a multiformity of sensuous objects, whereby all that happens is dissipated in their minds into confused dreams. In a word, what we call historical truth and veracity—intelligent, thoughtful comprehension of events, and fidelity in their representation—nothing of this sort should be expected from them. The same writer seeks to explain this deficiency in their intellectual character, "partly from the excitement and debility of the nerves, which prevents the Hindoos from retaining an object in their minds, and firmly comprehending it, for in their mode of apprehension, a sensitive and imaginative temperament changes it into a feverish dream; partly from the fact that Veracity is the direct contrary to their nature. They even lie, knowingly and designedly, where misapprehension is out of the question."

The association of truth with prose is a great argument in its favour, as also its power of distinctly stating facts without reference to their dignity, and, if necessary, in all their littleness and meanness. There was an opinion at one time that even history could not condescend to these, but it has learned at length to care for small things, as well as for great; and even romance, which once wandered among the strange for the wild and wonderful, now finds in the familiar, sufficient material for the excitement of the marvellous in the reader. The simple flower at our feet is as surprising to a well-constituted mind as the star in the heavens. Prose can easily take cognisance of both. At the same time, it can equally, and with the same facility, deal with the most sublime truths of philosophy, and give definite expression to the most abstract propositions. It can treat both of details and principles, however minute in their forms, or extensive in their developments, and conduct both to a rational conclusion. How difficult it is to do this in verse, those who have attempted to write philosophical poems have fatally demonstrated. The Essay on Man would have been more suitably written in prose, and the errors in its argument would have been more readily detected. The metrical form casts about all its statements the same degree of splendour, whether false or true, and we fail to make the requisite distinctions in the equality of the brightness. Didactic poetry, in general, has suffered from the inapplicability of verse to its specific subjects; and of late no skilful writer has ventured into the troubled arena, preferring the pleasant and peaceful paths which abound in the domain of simple, unsophisticated, and uncompromising prose.

We learn the most of India through Greek history, which was written in prose. But it is the empire of Persia that first connects itself with history after the Chinese. In Persian history we recognise a development of intelligence in its human form, and under conditions which best suit those of prosaic composition. Light has been worked from the darkness, and manifested itself in the consciousness of man. To this fact the doctrines of Zoroaster have express reference. His books were written in prose in the Zend language, a language which is connected with the Sanscrit, and was spoken by the Persians, Medes, and Bactrians. The light which they recognise is not without its opposite; and an antithesis is stated, but as proceeding from one and the same universal being, or unlimited All, which is named Zeruane-Akerene, wherein the dualism originates. We are not yet sufficiently acquainted with these books, and depend too much on tradition. Ctesias, a Greek historian, had, it is stated, direct access to the archives of the Persian kings. A few fragments, however, only remain. Herodotus and Xenophon give us abundant information, as do also the later Hebrew writers. The former mentions many facts respecting the Babylonians and the Medes, and the Assyrian-Babylonian empire; also respecting the Chaldeans, a later people; while from the Jews, who were carried captive to Babylon, we have reliable accounts of the organisation appointed for the government business, of the extent of its commerce, and of the depravity of its manners. Grecian art and poetry had early penetrated Lydia, to which the Greek colonies on the border of the western coast of Asia Minor were subject, as they were also to Persia. Ultimately Persia becomes an empire in the modern sense—consisting of a number of dependent states, yet retaining their individu-