None Of Her Children Has Done Justice To The Poets And
Philosophers Of Persia Or Of India.
They have even been better
known to her merchant scholars than to her poets and thinkers by
profession.
You may look in vain through English poetry for a
single memorable verse inspired by these themes. Nor is Germany
to be excepted, though her philological industry is indirectly
serving the cause of philosophy and poetry. Even Goethe wanted
that universality of genius which could have appreciated the
philosophy of India, if he had more nearly approached it. His
genius was more practical, dwelling much more in the regions of
the understanding, and was less native to contemplation than the
genius of those sages. It is remarkable that Homer and a few
Hebrews are the most Oriental names which modern Europe, whose
literature has taken its rise since the decline of the Persian,
has admitted into her list of Worthies, and perhaps the _worthiest_
of mankind, and the fathers of modern thinking, - for the
contemplations of those Indian sages have influenced, and still
influence, the intellectual development of mankind, - whose works
even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are, for the most
part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lions had
been the painters it would have been otherwise. In every one's
youthful dreams philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and
with singular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years
discover its local habitation in the Western world. In comparison
with the philosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe
has yet given birth to none.
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