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THE COURSE OF EMPIRE

Westward the course of empire takes its way. BISHOP BERKELEY.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;
An hour may lay it in the dust.

BYRON.

The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.

LONGFELLOW.

INTRODUCTION.

THE

HE early history of all the older nations is wrapped in impenetrable darkness. Our knowledge of the most distant periods is confined to a few traditions which have come down to us for the most part embodied in the form of myths, and to such conclusions as may be drawn from the study of language, from ancient remains, and from the general results of civilization.

Of such times we know nothing, save the broad results as they are measured from century to century, with here and there some indestructible pebble, some law, some fragment of remarkable poetry which has resisted decomposition. — FROUDE.

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The word myth (uvos, fabula, story) in its original meaning signified simply a statement or current narrative, without any connotative implication of truth or falsehood. Subsequently the meaning of the word (in Latin and in English, as well as in Greek) changed, and came to carry with it the idea of an old personal narrative, always uncertified, sometimes untrue or avowedly fictitious. The myths were originally produced in an age which had no records, no philosophy, no criticism, no canon of belief, and scarcely any tincture either of astronomy or geography, but which, on the other hand, was full of religious faith, distinguished for quick and susceptible imagination, seeing personal agents where we look only for objects and connecting laws. - GROTE.

History in the proper sense may be regarded as confined to the Caucasian1 branch of the human family, and

1 The Caucasian race is distributed by ethnologists into three great divisions 1st. The Aryan or Indo-European (from Iran, the "land of light," the

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does not concern itself much with the peoples of the greater part of Asia. The stationary and unprogressive character of much of Oriental society places it outside of the great current of world progress which it is the office of the general historian to describe. Only those Eastern peoples, even of the Caucasian race, which have been brought into close connection with the Western world, have much interest to us, and they principally in the degree of their connection with European civilization. Among the nations outside of the Caucasian race, the vast empire of the Chinese stands forth as having attained a considerable degree of civilization. They, and some other peoples of the East, were far advanced when Europe was a wilderness, but their arts and learning have not been progressive, and were stereotyped ages ago. While barbarous tribes have since reached a high civilization, the Eastern mind has shown few signs of development, and the old culture of the East is still unchanged. The people of the East, with whom may be classed the Mexicans and Peruvians in regard to the stationary character of their civilization, have thus exercised but little influence on the general progress of the world.

Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.1

TENNYSON.

old name of Persia); 2d. The Semitic (from Shem, in Biblical story the son of Noah); 3d. The Hamitic (from Ham, another son of Noah).

The Aryan division includes the following peoples: Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, Celts, and Slaves.

The Semitic division includes the Hebrews, Phoenicians, Assyrians, and Arabs. The Hamitic division comprises the Egyptians and Chaldæans.

The various peoples of Asia not included in either of the above divisions, such as the Mongols and Turks, are usually classed together under the common designation of Turanian nations (Turan, i. e. the “land of darkness"). Besides the great populations of Eastern Asia, a few scattered remnants of older tribes in Europe, such as the Fins, Laps, and Basques, are also so designated.

1 In the Middle Ages the name "Cathay " was sometimes applied to the whole country of China.

China and India lie, as it were, still outside the world's history, as the mere presupposition of elements whose combination must be waited for to constitute their vital progress. HEGEL.

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The genius of the Europeans is different from that of the Asiatics, who of all nations are the most patient of despotism. ARISTOTLE.

Asia may be called the land of unity, in which everything has been unfolded in great masses, and in the simplest relations; Europe is the land of freedom, that is, of civilization through the antagonism of manifold individual and isolated energies. SCHLEGEL.

The great mass of events in Oriental history is summed up in one brief and typical narrative in the Hebrew Scriptures, "The people who followed Omri were more than the people who followed Tibni. So Tibni died and Omri reigned." From this it follows that there are large portions of Oriental history which are alike unprofitable, and well-nigh impossible, to be remembered by any but those who make Oriental history the study of their lives. . . . Not a spot, not a year, of Western history deserves entire neglect; whole centuries and empires in the East may be safely passed over by all except professed Oriental historians. FREEMAN.

Slow conquests, long struggles of race against race, amalgamations, insensible growth and development of political systems, to which we are habituated in the records of the West, are unknown to the countries lying eastward of the Hellespont. In every case a conqueror rapidly overruns an enormous tract of territory, inhabited by many and diverse nations, overpowers their resistance or receives their submission, and imposes on them a system of government, rude and inartificial indeed, but sufficient ordinarily to maintain their subjection, till the time comes when a fresh irruption and a fresh conqueror repeat the process, which seems to be the only renovation whereof Oriental realms are capable. The imposed system itself is, in its general features, for the most part, one and the same. The rapid conquest causes no assimilation. The nations retain their languages, habits, manners, religions, laws, and sometimes even their native princes.—RAWLINSON. Jealous China, dire Japan, With bewildered eyes I scan. They are but dead seas of man.

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