Note 96 — Chapter III · THE PROBLEM OF WORLD-HISTORY

I will only mention here the distances apart of the three Punic Wars, and the series—likewise comprehensible only as rhythmic—Spanish Succession War, Silesian wars, Napoleonic Wars, Bismarck’s wars, and the World War (cf. Vol. II, p. 488). Connected with this is the spiritual relation of grandfather and grandson, a relation which produces in the mind of primitive peoples the conviction that the soul of the grandfather returns in the grandson, and has originated the widespread custom of giving the grandson the grandfather’s name, which by its mystic spell binds his soul afresh to the corporeal world.