Daniel's notes on Heroes Of History

To me history is a part of philosophy. 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 color all the aspects of external reality, but you can also achieve a large perspective by studying history; which is the study of events in time—rather than of things in space.

Man can be traced to about a million years before Christ. Agriculture can be traced no farther back than to 25,000 B.C. Man has lived forty times longer as a hunter than as a tiller of the soil in a settled life. In those 975,000 years his basic nature was formed and remains to challenge civilization every day.

Probably it was woman who developed agriculture, which is the first soil of civilization. She had noted the sprouting of seeds that had fallen from fruits or trees; tentatively and patiently she planted seeds near the cave or hut while the man went off to hunt for animal food. Women had domesticated the sheep, the dog, the ass, and the pig; now she domesticated man. Man is woman's last domestic animal, only partially and reluctantly civilized. Slowly he learned from her the social qualities: family love, kindness (which is akin to kin), sobriety, cooperation, communal activity. Virtue now had to be redefined as any quality that made for the survival of the group. Such, I believe, was the beginning of civilization—i.e., of being civil citizens.

With the beginning of civilization, began the profound and continuing conflict between nature and civilization—between the individualistic instincts so deeply rooted in the long hunting stage of human history, and the social instincts more weakly developed by a recently settled life. Each settlement had to be protected by united action; cooperation among individuals became a tool of competition among groups—villages, tribes, classes, religions, races, states.

Military expeditions correspond to hunting for food, or fuels, or raw materials; a successful war is a nation's way of eating. The state—which is ourselves and our impulses multiplied for organization and defense—expresses our old instincts of acquisition and pugnacity because, like primitive man, it feels insecure; its greed is a hedge against future needs and scarcity.

Those powerful instincts (acquisitiveness, pugnacity, ready sexuality) 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 po-lice, partly by a precarious general agreement called morality.

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 I am good, and to those who are not good I am good; thus all get to be 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... overcomes the hardest.

The ancients who wished to illustrate the highest virtue throughout the empire first ordered well their own states. Wishing to order well their own states, they first regulated their families. Wishing to regulate their families, they first cultivated their own selves. Wishing to cultivate their own selves, they first rectified their hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts. Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.

Things being investigated, knowledge became complete. Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere. Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified. Their hearts being rectified, their own selves were cultivated. Their own selves being cultivated, their families were regulated. Their families being regulated, their states were rightly governed. Their states being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.

About 1600 B.c. a hardy people called Aryans entered India from the north, settled down as conquerors, became a master class, established or confirmed a caste system, developed a Sanskrit language basically akin to the languages of Europe, and produced a literature of which some fragments have come down to us as four Vedas, or Books of Knowledge. They consist mostly of prayers, hymns, and religious rituals; partly of Upanishads—religiophilosophical conferences between master and pupil.

What peace there would be in the heart that had cleansed itself of every personal desire!—and what heart that had not so cleansed itself could ever know peace? Happiness is possible neither here, as paganism thinks, nor hereafter, as many believe; only peace is possible, only the cool quietude of craving ended, which is Nirvana. And so, after seven years of meditation, Gautama went forth to preach Nirvana to mankind.

Buddha taught through moral parables, or a pithy pentalog like his "Five Moral Rules": Let no one kill any living being; Let no one take what is not given to him; Let no one speak falsely; Let no one drink intoxicating drinks; Let no one be unchaste— which apparently forbade all sexual actions or desires.