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 proven 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. Read
more…
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Authorized translation of unpublished Tablet of
'Abdu'l-Baha to Ethel Rosenberg in 1906 in reply to her questions about the
Tablet of Wisdom. Research Department, Baha'i World Centre. Published pp 78-81
in ‘Ethel Jenner Rosenberg, the Life and Times of England's Outstanding Baha'i
Pioneer Worker’, by Robert Weinberg (George Ronald,Oxford, 1995)