Vestiges of civilization: or, The aetiology of history, religious, aesthetical, political and philosophical

Introduction

r.VGK.

§ 1. Theories— the more general, the more intelligible popularly; reason of

the contrary projiulice; Its remetiy, . . . • . '3

^. Necessity of a theory of History; detaiUt of, exemplitied in Macaulay,

Prescott, Xiebuhf, . • • • • * , ' '^

;?. Prhiciplo <>i, indicated in early Greek literature ; applied to graduate the present state ot' liistorical composition, determines it to be ^yritton in Ameiioa, bioi,'i-aphically, in Uritaiii, empirically, in Germany .^cholastically, in lYanco, philosophically ; no^vhere scientiiically, . ».^

4. Consequences of. lackim; this scientirtc theory, . . . . '-^3

5. Adymitaijes to accrue from establishin;; it, .... -o t>. In what inai\ner the present \york undertakes to supply it, . . ^i/ 7. Character and scope of the task as embracing the theory of Cnilization, .lO

GENERAL DIVISION.

!?. Civilization divided into three Parts or Cycles, named Mythological, MetaphysiciU, Scientific ; then preceded by a prefatory Part in exposition of the theory, . . . • • • ■ '^"^

Chapter I. Analysis Of The Human Mind

9 Current theories of Mental philosophy untenable, . . . :>5

lo! Fallacy of the Metaphysical Schools; illustratetl in the Monkish Liturgies, 37

11. Phronolosrical systems', their defects and excesses, . . .38

12. Perception aiialvzed and illustrated, . . • . • . • li

13. Is the sole uicuhy of Mind ; the other "powers," its progressive modes, 45

14. This established deductively; confirmed from a noted error of Gall;

also other historical facts,' . . _ . • , • . • ^^

15. These mental modes or Processes reducible to nine, and resolvable into

three i^eneric Series or triads, of which the successive development constiuites the Cycles of Civilization ; confirmed by certain unexplaineil structures' in the brain, and thus suggesting some now views of Phrenologs", . • • •,•,•. <.',.•■ "^^

16. This theory confirmed Mathematically, from Plato's doctrine of the tri-

an'1-le ; Morally, bv the stages of individual growth, namely, infancy, adolescence, maturity ; Physiologically, by the three centres of vitwl or<^'anism, the stomach, heai-t and brain; Historically, by the traditional attribution of the mental functions to each of these organs; Theologically, bv the trinities of all duly developed religions, . 54

17. These three series of perceptive Processes resvdt from three progressive

types of conception, which are Life, Will, Reason, . . . (M

18. Difinition of Conception, and the other terms of the mental analysis, . 65

IV CONTENTS.

Chapter II. Analysis Of Cos Mic Al Nature

PAGE.

§ 19. Relations the sole objects of Perception, . . . . .66

20. The repugnant tlieories of Fitche and Shelling to the contrary both

absurd ; refutation also of Berkley and Hume"; confirmed by the vagaries of Leibnitz, ftlalbranche, &c. . . . . . ib.

21. The positive or scientific conception of the Universe, . . .71

22. Chronological order of its creation, and interdependence of its organic

23. These arrangements the necessary results of motion operating upon

matter, through space and time, and in the three mathematical forms of Number, Extension, Figure, . . . . . .87

24. The phenomena of Life and Thought no real exceptions, . . 97

25. True principle of a natural Classification of the Sciences ; cause of pre-

vious failures; new construction of Aristotle's Categories ; examination of the objections and the substitutes of Mr. Mill, . . .98

26. Comparison of the mental and mundane scales in the specific series, . 102

27. Same correlation tested in the terras of the generic series, . . 107

28. Summary results of the Chapter, . . , . . .109

Chapter III. Analysis Of Imetiiod

'*9, Definition of Method; confirraed etyraologically; value of this evidence, III

30. Induction the sole method ; misapprehension of it by Bacon . . ih.

31. Three Cycles or systems of Induction, the Logical, the Analytic, the

32. Three specific forms of each cycle or kind; determined deductively, . 116

33. The nine species verified historically; errors of Mr. Mill and others, 119

34. Like verification of the three systems; Condiliac's theory and its critics, 126

35. True theory or fundamental law of Induction ; vei-ified in the Rational

stage ; refutation of the opposite systems of Mill and Whewell, . 132

36. Induction in its Vital and Volitional Cycles; unfolds the same series, . 138

37. Procedure in the former by Divinification; why the first Cycle is named

Mythological, . . . . . . . .140

38. Procedure on the Will-principle by Revelation ; why the second Cycle

is termed Metaphysical, • . . . . . . ib.

39. How man himself could in both have been the type of conception, ac-

cording to the axiom of proceeding from the known to the unknown ; misapprehension of this rule by British writers, , . .145

40. Explanation of the correlative terms simple and complex, general and

special, abstract and concrete, &c., ..... 149

41. The successive failures of previous systems of Method all incidental to

the law of progression, ....... 154

GENERAL RECAPITULATION.

42. Human error symbolized in original sin; harmony of the three ana-

lytic scales of 5iind, Matter, and Melhod exhibited in a diagram, . 160

43. Successive origin and order of dignity among arts and institutions, . 164

44. Identification of the nine organical lav.'s of nature in the specific series

of nine sciences, ........ 169

45. Astionomy and Geology both generic sciences ; embracing respectively

the Mathematical and Physical triads, . . . . .171

4G. Sociology, or the science of society, the third genus ; and as the last,

embracing the whole evolution, ...... 173

17. Conclusion, that Society is a natural body or being, the highest of actual organizations, and to be superadded to all the extant maps of nature, even that of Comte, . . . . . .179

CONTEXTS.

ANALYSIS OF MOTIVE.

PAGE.

. 187

§ 48. There are fundamentally but two motives, pleasure and pain, .

49. Socially termed good and evil ; their nature polaric, in both cases, . iSS

50. Their historical recognition, in the heaven and hell of the theologians, ib.

51. Chief convicting arguments answered, . . . • -1^^

PART II. Etiology ofHistm-y

INTRODUCTORY.

52. Chronological determination of the three Cycles on the map of history, IDO

53. Order and incidents of their geographical evolution, . . .191 54^ Succession and synchronism of the corresponding generic methods exhibited in a diagram, .....•• 1^3

55. Two additional tests of the investigation, . . . . .195

MYTHOLOGICAL CYCLE.

DIVISION.

56. The three axioms submitted by the theory to be tested by history ; their

embodiment in the general forms of Arts, Institutions and Sciences, . 197

CHAPTER I. Philosophy of the Fine Arts

57. Deflnition, division and classification of, . . . , • 1^7

58. Comparison of the aggregate results v/ith the theory and application of

the latter to the several Arts in detail, . . . , . 2Q0

LANGUAGE.

59. The Verb the sole element of Speech ; confirmed by analysis of the

60. Grammatical forms of all idioms, and their true principle of classification, 205 01. Natural formation of languages explained and exemplified, . .211

62. Proceeds upon three sorts of verbal vocables, Denominatives, Determi-

natives, Conjunctives, . . . . . . .214

63. The processes of affixation the result of polarity in Lai^uage, . . 216

64. Tested in the ancient classic, and the American Indian, idioms, . 217

65. Objections to the new theory of language anticipated, . . .218

66. It solves not only the regularities, but even reputed eccentricities, of

all languages ; instanced in the Sanscrit family, the Chinese, &c. . 219

67. Ludicrous errors of American and other philologers on these subjects;

philosophy of the ignorance, ..... .222

MUSIC.

68. Origin, primitive grade of, and formation, on the ground of speech, . 224

69. Comparison of the results with the theoretical tests, . . . 226

POETRY.

70. Deflnition and general division of; according to the theory, into Epic,

Lyric, and Dramatic, ....... 227

71. The Epic subdivided into Mythologic, Heroic, and Social, . . 229

72. Rationale of the division, . . , . . . .230

73. The Mythologic epic traced historically in its three progressive stages, 231

74. The Heroic epic verified similarly ; the three formations identified in

the typic result of the Iliad; also in Ossian, &c., . . .234

75. Social epic; its theme Woman; begins with satirizing her; why, . 239

76. Elements of, traced in the Hesiodic poems, the Jewish Scriptures ; its

complete type in the Odyssey, . . . . . .240

Contents

§ 77. Difference ofepoch and diversity ofauthorship of the two Homeric epics, 244

78. .artificial or imitated epics, ancient and modern, . . . 246

79. The Lyric form; its three stages exempUfied historically, . . 250

CHAPTER II. Philosophy of Human Institutions

105. Society, distinction of from the Pr^c-social ages, . . . 291

106. These ages divided into the Frugivorous, the Hvmter and the Shepherd, ib.

107. The Agricultural state characterized ; the foundation of Society proper, 294

108. Progressive division of all governments into Patriarchal, Monarchical,

109. Principle of, in the Physical Cjde ; Democracy, no governmental form, 297

110. Stages of Patriarchy, tribes, castes ; illustrated in India, Egypt, Peru, 299

111. Supersession of the Military by the Priestly castes ; consequence of the

destruction of the latter in Greece, . . , . . . 301

112. Organization of Society upon 677ace; result the City ; constitution of in •

113. The final development of in the Patriarchal republic; diagram of the

whole evolution, ........ 304

1 14. European fossils of this primitive form the Popes and Patriarchs of the

Catholic Church, . . . . . . . .307

115. Conformity of the whole to the three tests of the theory, , . 308

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III. Philosophy of the Heathen Religions

PAGE.

§ 116. Definition of religions in general; principles of, Force, Fraud, Duty, . 310

117. Ministers of ; their origin, and relations to society, . . .311

118. Division of Religion into Divinities, Riles, Doctrines, . . . 312

DIVINITIES.

119. General distinction of, into Good and Evil illustrated, . . . ib.

120. The Evil earliest ; first instance Night ; this, the Inorganic formation, 313

121. Common subdivision of both classes into Inorganic, Organic, Social, . 315

122. Fetichistic worship ; diviuification of their food by savages ; the Cath-

olic eucharist, ........ 317

123. The first or Sabeistic worship in its gods of Goodness, . . .310

124. Why man divinifies himself the last of all objects, . . . ib.

125. Origin and nature of Polytheism or hero-worship, . . .321

126. Receptacles of the deified Spirit ; first Inorganic, such as tombs, stars, 323

127. Next, Organic, vegetables and animals; the latest mythology of Egypt, 324

128. Why its civilization here failed ; cause of the riddle of the Sphinx, . 325

129. This resolved in Greek statuary, which supplied the final class of en-

velopes for the gods, ....... 327

RITES.

130. Progressive division of, into Sacrifice, Ceremony, Prayer, . . 328

131. Curious exemplifications of their conformity to the theory, . . 329

DOCTRINES.

132. Turn all upon a future life ; notion of, necessary in mental infancy, . 331

133. After existence come the considerations of form and place ; the Forms, 333

134. Historically illustrated in the usages of all primitive nations, . . 330

135. Gradual abstraction of the "spirit" from the buried body exemplified, 337

136. Death considered by savages an absence ; hence it has no proper name

in their idioms, ........ 33S

137. Successive efibrts to preserve the body ; Inhumation, Embalming, In-

138. Origin, explanation and illustration of the Metempsychosis, . . 342

139. Places of the soul, Tartarus, Elysium, Purgatory, progressively, . 345

140. Their regular apposition in high and low localities along the earth, . ib.

141. Their uniform direction to the " West" explained, . . . 347

142. The future state of the first Cycle not one of '' reward and punish-

ment ;" error of Wai-burton's Divine Legation explained, . . 348

143. That the Hebrews belonged to this barbarous period proved from

various criteria, ........ 350

144. Concluding reflections, ....... 353

Chapter IV. Systems

Philosophy of the Ancient Schools of Speculation.

145. The Greek sects of the physical epoch, Ionic, Eleatic, Italic, . . 353

146. Character and position of Pythagoras and Socrates as introducing the

Ethical series of sects, ....... 355

147. Division of these, the Academic, Epicurean and Stoic systems as types, 358

148. How each of these sects explained the existence of Evil, . . ib.

149. The Greeco-Roman expectation of a messiah in Esculapius, . . 360

150. Historical career of the Jews ; their prophesies of a messiah brought

151. Solution of the problem of Evil By the Mosaic cosmogeny, . . 363

SCIENCES.

152. The three Mathematical forms; alone attained in this Cycle, . . 366

1*

Vin CONTENTS.

Part III. Metaphysical Cycle

INTRODUCTORY.

PAGE.

§ 153. Readjustment of heads of investigatiou ; commences with Systems, . 367

154. The Christian system contrasted with the Heathen; consonance of the

contrast with the theory, . . . . . . , ib.

155. Comparison in the results of method ; also, of conceptual views, . 370

156. General comparison, . . . . . . .371

CHAPTER I. Philosophy of the Christian Religions

157. Peculiarities of the Mosaic monotheism as distinguished from that of

158. Application of the theory to Christianity confined to the head of Doc-

159. Revival of the Greek schools in the three great heresies of the Church, 376

160. Manichteism ; its Christian form the Divine and the Human will^ . 379

161. Import of the attack of Pelagianism upon Original sin, . . .380 16:2, Position of Pelagius; dilemma or double-edge of his doctrine, . 381

163. Position of Augustine ; absurd consequences of the doctrine of Grace, 382

164. Succeeding modifications of both the Heretical and Orthodox sides, . 384

165. Occasion of Interpretation ; its three principles ; first result in " Dog-

matical" theology, . . . . . . . .385

166. Rationale of the second or " Moral" formation, .... 386

167. Rise and reason of the third formation named the " Scholastic," . 387

168. Character and cause of the Protestant Reformation, . . . 388

169. Calvinism the most correct logical exhibition of the Christian system, 390

170. Triumph of the heretical principle of Human will over the Divine, . 392

171. The Catholic Church, and the secret of her perpetuity, . . . 393

172. Her "ambiguous middle" between heresy and orthodoxy, . . 395

173. How maintained, by a partition of the clergy into Secular and Regular, 396

174. Representative of the two instruments of Progress — Abuse and Disorder, 398

175. The Regular or " Casuistic" side etfectually heretical ; not so in theory, 401

176. This proved, in its final development the Jesuits, . . ,402

177. Their worst "maxims" conformable to the Christian hypothesis of duty, 403

178. Does the end justify the means ? the question debated between a Jesuit

and Janseuist, ........ 405

179. Decided in favor of the Jesuit, by the true theory of Christianity,

130. Theological position of the Port-Royalists defined,

131, Progressive spirit and results of Jesuitism— Religion of the Future, 182. Synthetic formation of Christianity ; Socinianism; Rationalism,

■ 133. Romanism the opposite alternative of the Protestant sects ; and Pusey ism a half-way house on the passage. Conclusion,

ERRATA.

ill note, p. 78, towards the end of first paragraph, for "inquiries" read inquirers. In p. 115, about the middle, the phrase "I repeat" should succeed "still," and

'• a" be or.

In p. 205, about a third from the top, the word "co-operation" should be plui'al. lu p. 251, 10th line from the bottom, for "those" read of. In p. 339, 5th line from bottom, for " lament of Kenach" read or kcenach.

TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE :—

You are said, by panegyrists (including yqurselves), to be a " reflecting" people. Even detractors allow you to be a calculating one. That you are, at all events, a reading people may certainly be pretended, without incurring the least suspicion of either bias. I am, however, content to reckon but upon the qualities admitted on all hands, in addressing the following pages to your common sense, for your common service. At the same time, I shall be gratified, nor of course at all surprised, to find you vindicate an equal title to the foremost and principal attribute. But you must be indulgent to a natural weakness, should I judge, in this particular, by that everlasting test of the scribbling generation, who measure the capacity of the public but by its special reception of their own wares.

Respecting the real claims of mine, perhaps a word of explanation may be pardonable in publishing anonymously. Not, however, to point out by name, like the labels of a Dutch picture, the merits which, if any there be, you are hoped to find upon perusal. The more humble as well as honest purpose is to spare the trouble of perusal to any amongst you who may look for merits to which the work makes no pretension. It makes no pretension, then, I frankly declare, to be a picture-book in letter-press ; it was designed for people past their mental childhood. It contains not, I think, a single munchausen story or " thrilling" description 5 though many things far more fitting to excite emotion, nay astonishment, in those who feel with any class of nerves below the scarf-skin. It is not written in the style called " rapid;" which it deems but piebald declamation, the clonic spasms of a sick, not the tonic vigor of a sound, intellect. Nor is it a book of mere statistics, though founded solely upon facts. Its doctrines are not decanted from the British periodicals ; nor even backed with the ponderosity of erudite quotation. Indeed, there are not perhaps half a dozen references in the volume ; an abstinence possibly due, however, not more to virtue than to necessity, the whole library of the writer, at the place of composition, consisting of a few miscellaneous notes and no very gnat-straining memory. In fine, from cover to

X DEDICATION.

cover, your name is not once mentioned as the most free and enlightened and accomplished nation of the earth 5 though the work, I think, would do more than most that has been written to inform you precisely as to what and where you really are, and do it in a way to spare you the blush of modesty or any other. Such among you as lead for those things should, therefore, turn at once elsewhere ; they axe to be found, as the lawyers phrase it, in all the books. The sort of book I offer you is a comprehensive compend, at once of original principles^ original discussion^ and original explanation. Nor, for all this (I must go on to own it, at the risk of damaging the publisher), do I pretend to have obtained its doctrines in any one of the mesmerio states. Indeed they will rather be found to savour of a very unspiritual vigilance. So that, in method as well as matter, they are things a good deal rarer than the literary comfitures enumerated. And they are also, I think, more suitable to your higher wants and better tastes.

Allow me to justify the apparent presumption of this opinion by a few reflections.

Suppose a people (whether real or hypothetical, does not matter) which, still comparatively young in the career of nationality, should moreover have commenced it under the following peculiar circumstances : That the population consisted wholly, by direct immigration or proximate descent, of the physically laboring, and therefore mentally undeveloped, classes. That the soil had also to be reclaimed from the wilderness. That the scientific processes, no less necessary to the situation, than impossible to the origination of the colonists themselves, could be derived from the mother countries, where many ages of elaboration had prepared the national intellect for the flower and fruit of taste and thought. And that, enriched by the joint agencies of universal industry, boundless physical resources and the energetic appropriation of the mechanical products of foreign mind, the nation supposed should be pushed precociously from the useful to the ornamental ; where imitation, having lost the guidance of practical necessity, and with it the minor faculty of special adaptation, would expend its burgess opulence in affectation of arts and letters, with a discernment as proverbial as the profusion.

Now the consequence of this unfortunate or perhaps fortunate knot of influences it were not hard to predict from pure deduction. In the mental character of such a community will meet the seemingly opposite extremes, of self-opinionativeness and credulity — both, for want of breadth and depth. Its literary essays will scarce rise to any of the elevated walks of thought ; they will be parasitical, plagiaristlc, per-

DEDICATION. XI

sonal in matter, and in manner vague and vapid and verbose : for tiie national intellect (its presumption notwitlistanding) will be trite, timorous, time-serving — an empty head being as unable to stand upright as an empty bag, save by inflation. As to the knowledge of such a people it will be an odd but quite natural jumble of the most hard-headed practicalism with the most soft-headed mysticism. For want of the principles of method, as well as the processes of discovery — of which there was occasion to import but the productive results — it will be open to the coarsest quackeries, political, philosophical, literary, and the rest, if only the imposture be duly baited with the mystic name of science, and submitted to the infallible intelligence of the Chosen people in question. In short, this people, misconceiving the mechanical implements of its rapid prosperity, borrowed gradually and imperceptibly, to be the products of its own invention, will be led to push its " enterprise" into the field of letters and philosophy. Every man of them, with the art of reading, will think he holds thereby the key to the most recondite of the scientific contents of books ; and if his written lucubrations have ever stared him in the village newspaper, he doubts not his ability to manufacture the books themselves — if not also in fact the sciences to boot. Not original books, indeed ; not your theoretical reveries. He is too " practical" a man himself, and his estimate of the public intelligence too patriotic, for that. His insolently humble object is but to shorten still the road of learning, all royal or republican as it ran, one would tliink, already.

Might we not, in this slight fancy sketch, after the manner of Lavater, consider, with profit, certain points of resemblance to ourselves ? It is not that we borrow both our arts and our amusements, if only we borrowed them, as we did our institutions, with discernment and daring. It is through borrowing, more or less, that nations have come to civilize each other. But there is a difference between borrowing and imitating. And it is no less than that between a loan and a theft. The former naturally tends to the interest of both the parties 5 the latter, to the real detriment of thief as well as victim. The unage may appear ungracious. But it will be pardoned, for the faithful brevity with which it paints the situation, at least in policy if not morality, of this country tovN^ards British literature.

ISTor is this all, though bad enough. It were bad enough to be bare imitators, hollow echoes, of even the best models. But it seems a perversity quite peculiar to leave the selection of this mental nutriment to men whose previous course of reading scarce ever passes the T&jige of a type-stick, and whose notions of literature, even as a thing

XU DEDICATION.

of traffic, are of a like catch-penny compass. The agents, however, are naturally of the same block as the contraband ; like publisher, no less than " like priest, &c." But the people tolerate the depravations of the piratical of either calling, only for want of that well-principled and thorough training in their legitimate guides, which alone does all that men themselves can do to give independence to intellect, and thus originality to literature and dignity to nations.

For this, however, even the highest education were insufficient ; there must, also, be high inducements to mantain its impulse in after life. For, so long as money makes the man and meanness makes tha money, the easier route of degradation will be preferred, and the American Youth would drop the college culture which obtained them but contempt, take the counter or the bar-room as the road to Congress or to consideration, and with some scheme of peddling patronage tach their talents as well as conscience to the draggling train of some v/riggling demagogue of the day. This might make them " smart'- men ; a thing in which we abound already, and which, moreover, is but the meagre crop of a shallow soil ; whereas the products of towering thought demand the deeper loam of labor. But to give men fortitude to mature the discipline of the college in the closet, in opposition to the rushing current of universal example, they should be shown that there was no blunder in expecting to "go a head," w^hUe appearing to sit stock-still to the five senses of the bustling vulgar. This, acoorduigly, it is one of the first duties of a popular government to give ; and of the press, in case of omission, to inculcate.

And the press, who should be the torch-bearers to light us out of darkness, are they, for the most part, not mere beacons, divulging to others that we are in it ? In fact, taken with the demagogues they echo, they should perhaps rank with the pii'atical publishers, as an obstacle to the mental advancement of the country. For flattery is scarce less baneful to multitudes than to monarchs, whose dynasties, in a few generations, we see it besot into downright idiocy. Instead of ever suggesting what you are not, and have not done, but ought to be and do ; they are constantly telling you that your perfection is already unrivalled in both respects. There is no shading in their platitudes ; they leave no perspective for your progression. It is not thus that men or nations are stimulated to great things. It was not so that the first of generals, one who could marshal motives as he did armies, made still grander the grandest nation of the earth. ISTever, even beneath the memorable " sun of Austerlitz," did he praise those prodigies of valoiir without reserve. — Soldiers, you have done well i you have captured so

DEDICATION. Xm

many thousand prisoners, taken so many stands of colors, so many pieces of cannon ; you have beaten an enemy two or three times your number ; you have scattered to the winds the coalitions of kings 5 you have subj ugated Europe from Madrid to Moscow ; and this while poorly clad and ill-provisioned. But, soldiers, there are still greater tilings for you to do ; you have not yet equalled the armies of Caesar and Alexander. Here — in this double suggestion, of something greater to be always done, and that theUke has been done by others — we recognize the genius born to move men to great achievements.

And especially would these stimulants befit the American people, who have at least one originality, and one well vvorth a dozen others j I mean docility. Like Ajax, they want but light to brave the very immortals of European genius ; and to seek it, they need but to know that they do want it. Practically, the London fair will do something to this end , The following pages may have the effect, upon the broader ground of principle, not perhaps to supply this light, but to show at least its absence ; to open you a double vista, along the transverse track of time, through the mountain piles of merchandise that shut in your horizon 5 to perforate the locusi-cloud of noisome pohticians that hides the sun of your true greatness in the firmament of the future.

So much for the special traits for which the book has been addressed you formally. As to the motives of the writer's frankness, I submit they should less be questioned than had he chanted you as ^' great, glorious and free" at every page. He in truth is one who would have you free not only politically but also mentally ; gi-eat not merely materially but morally, magnanimously ; glorious in somethincr of that which has made sacred to all posterity the petty canton of craggy Attica ; while the treasures of Babylon, the commerce of Carthage and the conquests of Rome are long forgotten or detested : one in fine, who would have you the august model, not the adroit monkey, of the nations ; and this not more for your ov/n, than the general sake of humanity. And it would be precisely for this reason (if self-respect did not also forbid it) that he does not flatter you, in even that immemorial license-to-lie, a dedication. He, however, pays you a higher compliment than dedication has ever paid, that of trusting you can hear and profit by unpalatable truths, told as well of the patron himself as the subject.

THE AUTHOR.

Oo, iittlc book from this my solitude, T cast thee on the waters ; go thy way,

And if, as I believe, tliy vein be good, The world will find thee . . . [ut no distant day.J

SOUTHEV.

YESTiaES OF CIYILIZATION:

OR

THE ^ETIOLOGY OF HISTORY,

mTEODUCTIO^^.

Explanatory of tlic Object and Character of the Worl-.

§ 1. Let it be repeated incessantly : vSociety, the human intellect, is entering, and for the first time, upon the Ages of Science. It is an advent to be hailed with joy, but to be met with preparation. It brings to man the savingtruth and the resting term from those blind disorders which have hitherto beset his social and his mental career; bat the boon is offered him on condition that he shall be, this time, his own redeemer. In proclaiming the new era, then, it should be expounded intelligently; not echoed mechanically, as by a parrot or newspaper.