The Orient-as-therapy-for-the-West trope descended from Quinet through the nineteenth century

Evidence

Massignon’s investment in this view came, I think, by way of the entire nineteenth-century tradition of the Orient as therapeutic for the West, a tradition whose earliest adumbration is to be found in Quinet. In Massignon, it was joined to a sense of Christian compassion: So far as Orientals are concerned, we ought to have recourse to this science of compassion, to this “participation” even in the construction of their language and of their mental structure, in which indeed we must participate: because ultimately this science bears witness either to verities that are ours too, or else to verities that we have lost and must regain. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 692

Categorization

• XREF: Tracks a core Orientalist mechanism—Orient as complement to Western lack—that later readings will link to discourses of Muslim spirituality as remedy for Western materialism.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 692