On the Influence of the Semitic Races in the History of Civilization
By Ernest Renan
Posted in The Herald of Progress No. 198,Pages 5 & 6
Dated: December 05, 1863
By Ernest Renan
Posted in The Herald of Progress No. 198,Pages 5 & 6
Dated: December 05, 1863
Select quotes:
"The Arab, at least, and in a more general sense the Mussulman, are today further removed from us than they have ever been. The Mussulman (the Semitic spirit is especially represented in our day by Islam), and the European are, in the presence of one another, two beings of a different species, having nothing in common in their manner of thinking and of feeling. But the march of humanity is owing to the struggle of these contrary tendencies, by a sort of polarization, in virtue of which each idea here below has its exclusive representative. It is in this collectiveness that all contradictions are harmonized, and that a supreme peace results from the clash of elements in appearance enemies. This assumed, if we seek to know what the Semitic race has given to this grand and living organic whole that we call civilization, we shall find that, first, in government, we owe them nothing. Political life is, perhaps, that which the Indo-European have the most indigenous and correct. It is they alone who have understood liberty, who have comprehended at the same time the State with the independence of the individual. "
[snip]
"But never among them do we find those centralized despotisms, crushing out all individuality, reducing man to the state of an abstract function without a name, as we see in Egypt, at Babylon, in China and among the Mussulmanic and Tartaric despotisms."
[snip]
"The East, especially the Semitic Orientals, have never known a midway between the completest anarchy of the nomadic Arabs and a despotism at once the most sanguinary and uncompensated. The idea of public policy and public welfare fails to be conceived by these nations."
[snip]
"The ancient Hebrews and the Arabs have been, or are, by moments, the freest of men, but on condition of having a chief the next day to decapitate them at his single pleasure. And whenever this arrives, there is no cry of a violated right"
[snip] to be continued
"The Arab, at least, and in a more general sense the Mussulman, are today further removed from us than they have ever been. The Mussulman (the Semitic spirit is especially represented in our day by Islam), and the European are, in the presence of one another, two beings of a different species, having nothing in common in their manner of thinking and of feeling. But the march of humanity is owing to the struggle of these contrary tendencies, by a sort of polarization, in virtue of which each idea here below has its exclusive representative. It is in this collectiveness that all contradictions are harmonized, and that a supreme peace results from the clash of elements in appearance enemies. This assumed, if we seek to know what the Semitic race has given to this grand and living organic whole that we call civilization, we shall find that, first, in government, we owe them nothing. Political life is, perhaps, that which the Indo-European have the most indigenous and correct. It is they alone who have understood liberty, who have comprehended at the same time the State with the independence of the individual. "
[snip]
"But never among them do we find those centralized despotisms, crushing out all individuality, reducing man to the state of an abstract function without a name, as we see in Egypt, at Babylon, in China and among the Mussulmanic and Tartaric despotisms."
[snip]
"The East, especially the Semitic Orientals, have never known a midway between the completest anarchy of the nomadic Arabs and a despotism at once the most sanguinary and uncompensated. The idea of public policy and public welfare fails to be conceived by these nations."
[snip]
"The ancient Hebrews and the Arabs have been, or are, by moments, the freest of men, but on condition of having a chief the next day to decapitate them at his single pleasure. And whenever this arrives, there is no cry of a violated right"
[snip] to be continued
"In science and philosophy we are essentially Greek. The search for causation, knowledge for its own sake, are what we have no trace of before Greece, are what we have learned of her alone. Babylon had a science, but no scientific principle par excellence - the absolute fixity of the laws of Nature. Egypt was acquainted with geometry, but did not create the elements of Euclid. The old Semitic intellect is, by its very nature, anti-philosophic and anti-scientific. In Job the search for causation is represented almost as an impiety. Ecclesiates, science is declared to be vanity. Aristotle, his contemporary nearly, and who might with more reason have said that he had exhausted the universe of knowledge, never for once speaks of his weariness. The wisdom of the Semitic never came from parables and proverbs.
We often hear of an Arabian science and philosophy, and during a century or two in the middle ages the Arabs were really our teachers, but it was only till we had comprehended the Greek originals. This science and this philosophy were but a shabby translation of the science and the philosophy of Greece. At the revival of letters, and on the appearance of authentic Greece, these worthless translations became valueless, and not without reason did all the philologists of the period undertake against them a veritable crusade. Besides, on careful examination, this Arabian science had nothing Arabian about it.
The groundwork is purely Greek, and among those who created it, there is not a pure Semitic; they were Spaniards and Persians, writing in Arabic. The philosophical part that the Jews play in the middle ages is also that of interpreters. Their philosophy is the Arabian, without modification. One page of Roger Bacon contains more veritable scientific insight than the whole of this second-hand science, respectable, surely, as a traditionary link, but utterly void of grand originality."
We often hear of an Arabian science and philosophy, and during a century or two in the middle ages the Arabs were really our teachers, but it was only till we had comprehended the Greek originals. This science and this philosophy were but a shabby translation of the science and the philosophy of Greece. At the revival of letters, and on the appearance of authentic Greece, these worthless translations became valueless, and not without reason did all the philologists of the period undertake against them a veritable crusade. Besides, on careful examination, this Arabian science had nothing Arabian about it.
The groundwork is purely Greek, and among those who created it, there is not a pure Semitic; they were Spaniards and Persians, writing in Arabic. The philosophical part that the Jews play in the middle ages is also that of interpreters. Their philosophy is the Arabian, without modification. One page of Roger Bacon contains more veritable scientific insight than the whole of this second-hand science, respectable, surely, as a traditionary link, but utterly void of grand originality."
3 comments:
"Besides, on careful examination, this Arabian science had nothing Arabian about it."
EXACTLY!
They used translations of Greek works and presented them as their own. They took the number 0 from India and slapped "Arab" on it.
There has been nothing original that came out of Arabs. Not a thing!
By the way, the link gives me a 404.
I'd say perhaps the Jihad is an Arab original. Otherwise Islam is just one big cultural 404.
I'm finding the topic of Islam was discussed more frequently than expected in the nineteenth century papers of NY.
NYSHistoricNewspapers.org illustrates the topic not at all unusual.
An article dated October 22, 1882 in the Sunday Eagle discussed the viability of the Mahdi in light of the decaying Caliphate, titled "ISLAM'S MESSIAH", "Moslem Expectations on the Subject", "The Fallen Fortunes of the Crescent ~Unity of the Caliphate and the Messianic Doctrine The Mohady and the Time of his Coming ~ He Cometh Not ~ The Situation of To-day".
If interested, I have the text of that article retyped since the photo image of the paper is difficult to read, and will provide it for posting if interest exists.
Though, I find the lack of political correctness in each report refreshing -perhaps, not so surprising, the material is as relevant today as it was over a hundred years ago! These reports suggest students of that period were not shielded from the reality of the dangers of Islam.
Anyway - just wanted to say thanks for posting the article.
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