WE have to begin with the Oriental World, but not before the period in which we discover States in it. The diffusion of Language and the formation of races lie beyond the limits of History. History is prose, and myths fall short of History. The consciousness of external definite existence only arises in connection with the power to form abstract distinctions and assign abstract predicates; and in proportion as a capacity for expressing Laws [of natural or social life] is acquired, in the same proportion does the ability manifest itself, to comprehend objects in an unpoetical form. While the ante-historical is that which precedes political life, it also lies beyond self-cognizant life; though surmises and suppositions may be entertained respecting that period, these do not amount to facts. The Oriental World has as its inherent and distinctive principle the Substantial [the Prescriptive], in Morality. We have the first example of a subjugation of the mere arbitrary will, which is merged in this substantiality. Moral distinctions and requirements are expressed as Laws, but so that the subjective will is governed by these Laws as by an external force. Nothing subjective in the shape of disposition, Conscience, formal Freedom, is recognized. Justice is administered only on the basis of external morality, and Government exists only as the prerogative of compulsion. Our civil law contains indeed some purely compulsory ordinances. I can be compelled to give up another man’s property, or to keep an agreement which I have made; but the Moral is not placed by us in the mere compulsion, but in the disposition of the subjects—their sympathy with the requirements of law. Morality is in the East likewise a subject of positive legislation, and although the moral prescriptions (the substance of their Ethics) may be perfect, what should be internal subjective sentiment is made a matter of external arrangement. There is no want of a will to command moral actions, but of a will to perform them because commanded from within. Since Spirit has not yet attained subjectivity, it wears the appearance of spirituality still involved in the conditions of Nature. Since the external and the internal, Law and Moral Sense, are not yet distinguished—still form an undivided unity—so also do Religion and the State. The Constitution generally is a Theocracy, and the Kingdom of God is to the same extent also a secular Kingdom as the secular Kingdom is also divine. What we call God has not yet in the East been realized in consciousness, for our idea of God involves an elevation of the soul to the supersensual. While we obey, because what we are required to do is confirmed by an internal sanction, there the Law is regarded as inherently and absolutely valid without a sense of the want of this subjective confirmation. In the law men recognize not their own will, but one entirely foreign.
Of the several parts of Asia we have already eliminated as unhistorical, Upper Asia (so far and so long as its Nomad population do not appear on the scene of history), and Siberia. The rest of the Asiatic World is divided into four districts: first, the River-Plains, formed by the Yellow and Blue Stream, and the Upland of farther Asia—China and the Mongols. Secondly, the valley of the Ganges and that of the Indus. The third theatre of History comprises the river-plains of the Oxus and Jaxartes, the Upland of Persia, and the other valley-plains of the Euphrates and Tigris, to which Hither-Asia attaches itself. Fourthly, the River-plain of the Nile.
With China and the Mongols-the realm of theocratic despotism—History begins. Both have the patriarchal constitution for their principle—so modified in China, as to admit the development of an organized system of secular polity; while among the Mongols it limits itself to the simple form of a spiritual, religious sovereignty. In China the Monarch is Chief as Patriarch. The laws of the state are partly civil ordinances, partly moral requirements; so that the internal law—the knowledge on the part of the individual of the nature of his volition, as his own inmost self—even this is the subject of external statutory enactment. The sphere of subjectivity does not then, attain to maturity here, since moral laws are treated as legislative enactments, and law on its part has an ethical aspect. All that we call subjectivity is concentrated in the supreme head of the State, who, in all his legislation has an eye to the health, wealth, and benefit of the whole. Contrasted with this secular Empire is the spiritual sovereignty of the Mongols, at the head of which stands the Lama, who is honored as God. In this Spiritual Empire no secular political life can be developed.
In the second phase—the Indian realm—we see the unity of political organization—a perfect civil machinery, such as exists in China—in the first instance, broken up. The several powers of society appear as dissevered and free in relation to each other. The different castes are indeed, fixed; but in view of the religious doctrine that established them, they wear the aspect of natural distinctions. Individuals are thereby still further stripped of proper personality—although it might appear as if they derived gain from the development of the distinctions in question. For though we find the organization of the State no longer, as in China, determined and arranged by the one all-absorbing personality [the head of the State] the distinctions that exist are attributed to Nature, and so become differences of Caste. The unity in which these divisions must finally meet, is a religious one; and thus arises Theocratic Aristocracy and its despotism. Here begins, therefore, the distinction between the spiritual consciousness and secular conditions; but as the separation implied in the above mentioned distinctions is the cardinal consideration, so also we find in the religion the principle of the isolation of the constituent elements of the Idea;—a principle which posits the harshest antithesis—the conception of the purely abstract unity of God, and of the purely sensual Powers of Nature. The connection of the two is only a constant change—a restless hurrying from one extreme to the other—a wild chaos of fruitless variation, which must appear as madness to a duly regulated, intelligent consciousness.
The third important form—presenting a contrast to the immovable unity of China and to the wild and turbulent unrest of India—is the Persian Realm. China is quite peculiarly Oriental; India we might compare with Greece; Persia on the other hand with Rome. In Persia namely, the Theocratic power appears as a Monarchy. Now Monarchy is that kind of constitution which does indeed unite the members of the body politic in the head of the government as in a point; but regards that head neither as the absolute director nor the arbitrary ruler, but as a power whose will is regulated by the same principle of law as the obedience of the subject. We have thus a general principle, a Law, lying at the basis of the whole, but which, still regarded as a dictum of mere Nature [not as free and absolute Truth] is clogged by an antithesis [that of formal freedom on the part of man as commanded to obey positive alien requirements]. The representation, therefore, which Spirit makes of itself is, at this grade of progress, of a purely natural kind—Light. This Universal principle is as much a regulative one for the monarch as for each of his subjects, and the Persian Spirit is accordingly clear, illuminated—the idea of a people living in pure morality, as in a sacred community. But this has on the one hand as a merely natural Ecclesia, the above antithesis still unreconciled; and its sanctity displays the characteristics of a compulsory, external one. On the other hand this antithesis is exhibited in Persia in its being the Empire of hostile peoples, and the union of the most widely differing nations. The Persian Unity is not that abstract one of the Chinese Empire; it is adapted to rule over many and various nationalities, which it unites under the mild power of Universality as a beneficial Sun shining over all—waking them into life and cherishing their growth. This Universal principle—occupying the position of a root only—allows the several members a free growth for unrestrained expansion and ramification. In the organization of these several peoples, the various principles and forms-of life have full play and continue to exist together. We find in this multitude of nations, roving Nomads; then we see in Babylonia and Syria commerce and industrial pursuits in full vigor, the wildest sensuality, the most uncontrolled turbulence. The coasts mediate a connection with foreign lands. In the midst of this confusion the spiritual God of the Jews arrests our attention—like Brahm, existing only for Thought, yet jealous and excluding from his being and abolishing all distinct speciality of manifestations [avatars], such as are freely allowed in other religions. This Persian Empire, then—since it can tolerate these several principles, exhibits the Antithesis in a lively active form, and is not shut up within itself, abstract and calm, as are China and India—makes a real transition in the History of the World.
If Persia forms the external transition to Greek life, the internal, mental transition is mediated by Egypt. Here the antitheses in their abstract form are broken through; a breaking through which effects their nullification. This undeveloped reconciliation exhibits the struggle of the most contradictory principles, which are not yet capable of harmonizing themselves, but, setting up the birth of this harmony as the problem to be solved, make themselves a riddle for themselves and for others, the solution of which is only to be found in the Greek World.
If we compare these kingdoms in the light of their various fates, we find the empire of the two Chinese rivers the only durable kingdom in the World. Conquests cannot affect such an empire. The world of the Ganges and the Indus has also been preserved. A state of things so destitute of [distinct] thought is likewise imperishable, but it is in its very nature destined to be mixed with other races—to be conquered and subjugated. While these two realms have remained to the present day, of the empires of the Tigris and Euphrates on the contrary nothing remains, except, at most, a heap of bricks; for the Persian Kingdom, as that of Transition, is by nature perishable, and the Kingdoms of the Caspian Sea are given up to the ancient struggle of Iran and Turan. The Empire of the solitary Nile is only present beneath the ground, in its speechless Dead, ever and anon stolen away to all quarters of the globe, and in their majestic habitations;—for what remains above ground is nothing else but such splendid tombs.