History,
Philosophy and Language: A Happy Case of Will Durant’s Heroes of History
vishal bhadani
Department
of Communication Skills, MEFGI, Rajkot
From the
school days, I had developed a strange distaste for reading any history or
philosophy due to the dull language. However, reading The Story of
Philosophy by Will Durant changed my perception about the two great
subjects. He has ways with the words. In fact, the whole exercise made me love
the concept of history and philosophy, at times more than literature.
Then the
book called A Case for India was a booster in my relationship with
history. Will Durant knows philosophy and that’s why knows how to use language.
The lesson that I learnt is, no subject is dry or dull except the writer makes
it with poor language.
Finally, icing
of the cake was his third book that I have recently read, Heroes of History which
happens to be transcriptions of his radio talks on his voluminous work The
Story of Civilization. I am not going to critique his language, philosophy
or history. Rather, I am presenting to you, slices from the book so that you
decide for yourself.
DISCLAIMER:
You might fall in love with reading History and Philosophy!
Excerpts from
the book:
“To me
history is a part of philosophy is an attempt to achieve a wide perspective, a
large perspective of life and reality—a large perspective which will then
determine your attitude toward any part of reality or life, for example, will
it make you more understanding and forgiving? Now you can achieve a large
perspective in at least two ways, one through science, by studying the various
sciences that colour all the aspects of external reality, but you can also
achieve a large perspective by studying history, which is the history is the
study of events in time---rather than of things in space I gave up the first
kind, because I felt that it was too external and mathematical; it was unreal
to the element of vitality that the I found in myself and in other things. I
said that I will study history to find out wants man is –I can’t find that out
through science. So that history is the attempt to achieve in time.
Consequently, if you will allow me to say it, I believe I am a philosopher
writing history.
*
Human
history is a fragment
Furthermore,
in those thousand times a thousand years, man had to be pugnacious, always
ready to fight---for his food, his mate, of his life. If he could, he took more
mates then mates than one, for hunting and fighting were mortally dangerous and
left a surplus of women over men; so the male is still pugnacious [or pugnacious]
by nature. He had little reason to contracept, for children became assets in
the hut and later in the hunting pack. For these and other reasons
acquisitiveness, pugnacity, and ready sexuality were virtues in the hunting
stage—that is, they were qualities that made for survival.
Brilliant
though he may be, he is basically tributary to the female, who is the womb and mainstream
of the race.
Man is
woman’s last domestic animal; only partially and reluctantly civilized.
But it
realized that if acquisitiveness were not checked it would lead to retail
theft, wholesale robbery, politics corruption, and to such concentration of
wealth as would invite revolution.
If pugnacity
were not checked, it would lead to brawls at every corner, to domination of
every neighborhood by its heaviest thug, to the division of every city by rival
gangs. If sex were not controlled, it would leave every girl at the mercy of
every seducer, every wife at the mercy and youth, and would make not only every
park, but every street, unsafe for any woman. Those powerful instincts had to
be controlled, or social order and communal life would have been impossible,
and men would have remained savages.
The
hunting—stage instincts were controlled partly by law and police, party by a
precarious general agreement called morality. The acquisitive impulses were
checked by outlawing concentration of wealth. The spirit of pugnacity was
restrained by inflicting punishing injury to persons or property. Sexual
impulses—only slightly less powerful than hunger—were disciplined to manageable
order by banning their public excitation and by trying to channel them at an
early age into responsible marriage.
Civilization
is social order promoting cultural creation.
*
All things
in nature work silently. They come into being and possess nothing. They fulfill
their function and make no claim. All things alike do their work, and then we
see them subside. When they have reached their bloom each returns to its origin.
Returning to their origin means rest, or fulfillment of destiny. This reversion
is an eternal law. To know that law is wisdom.
*
If you do
not quarrel, no one on earth will be able to quarrel with you…..Recompense
injury with kindness… To those who are good, and to those who are not good I am
good. To those who are sincere I am sincere, and to those who are not sincere I
am also sincere, and thus all get to be sincere. The softest thing in the world
in the world… overcomes the hardest.
To the
Chinese the ideal is not the pious devotee but the mature and quiet mind.
*
Wise man
does not speak, for wisdom can never be transmitted by words, only by example
and experience. If the wise man known more than other men he tries to conceal
it; “he will temper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the
obscurity of others. He agrees with the simple rather than with the learned,
and does not take hurt from the novice’s contradiction.” He attaches no
importance to riches or power, but reduces his desires to an almost Buddhist
minimum.”
*
