As to what thou didst ask regarding the history of the
philosophers: history, prior to Alexander of Greece, is extremely confused, for
it is a fact that only after Alexander did history become an orderly and
systematized discipline. One cannot, for this reason, rely upon traditions and
reported historical events that have come down from before the days of Alexander.
This is a matter thoroughly established, in the view of all authoritative
historians. How many a historical account was taken as fact in the eighteenth
century, yet the opposite was proved true in the nineteenth. No reliance, then,
can be placed upon the traditions and reports of historians which antedate
Alexander, not even with regard to ascertaining the lifetimes of leading
individuals.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a Tablet, New resources available at Online
Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
