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. It is to be remembered that the Romantics held that the simplicity of religious dogmas defined the original state of man and its corollaries that monotheism was anterior to polytheism and primitive revelation had progressively degenerated. Once a people has unfolded its spirit to its fullest expression – from the Romantic point of view – it has fulfilled its role in history and only ‘repetition’ (revivals), stagnation and decay could follow. Müller's conclusions concerning the Veda recapitulated this central Romantic thesis. Moreover, Romantic
our sectarians’, who were half religious and half political, setting themselves up as ‘judges between masters and apprentices’. He thought they fostered discontent and insubordination among Africans, partly because they themselves sprang ‘from the lower classes, ignorant of human nature’ and were ‘warped and perverted’ by ‘religious dogmas’. Moodie, Ten Years , I, p. 204