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.

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.

Although some ancient nations, like the Egyptians, Chaldæans, and Assyrians, had, at a very remote period in the past, reached a stable form of government and a high degree of civilization, yet the beginnings of history, so far as the COURSE OF EMPIRE is concerned, may properly enough be placed in the fifth century before Christ. There are many authenticated dates and facts previous to that time, but then, through the wars of Persia with Greece, the Eastern world was first brought into close and active connection with the West, and the great historic movements with which we are concerned originated.

With the Persian Empire we first enter on continuous history. The Persians are the first historic people; Persia was the first empire that passed away. While China and India remain stationary, and perpetuate a natural vegetative existence even to the present time, this land has been subject to those developments and revolutions which alone manifest a historical condition. — HEGEL.

A multiplicity of histories first met and commingled in that of Persia. The Persian Empire extended itself over the whole of Western Asia, and into Europe and Africa; it drew together Bactria, Parthia, Media, Assyria, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, Asia Minor, Armenia, Thrace, Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. The voice of the Great King was law from the Indus on the east to the Egean Sea and Syrtian Gulf on the west, from the Danube and the Caucasus on the north to the Indian Ocean and the deserts of Arabia and Nubia on the south. · - ROBERT FLINT.

Of European nations, the one which has the oldest written history is the Greek. But of this people, also, the early traditions are poetical and legendary. The narratives of the earlier time were not written till long after the events described. In the Homeric poems, the " Iliad” and the "Odyssey," we have the picture of a state of society which may, in some of its features, have existed; but the stories in which these descriptions abound are now gen

erally regarded as mythical. Subsequent to this first period there are a few dates, like those of the First Olympiad (776) and the legislative reform of Solon (596), which can be fixed with considerable accuracy; but it is not until we reach the time of the Persian Wars, at the commencement of the fifth century before Christ, that authentic Greek history can be said to begin. It is with Greece, also, that the history of individual freedom, as contrasted with the despotic governments of the Oriental nations, begins, leading to an expansion of the human mind, which manifested itself in a most remarkable political and intellectual development.

Greece lies here, the focus of light in history. HEGEL.

In the vast regions of the East, we have found forms of civilization which, chiefly affected by the course of mighty rivers, have struck us as strange from their enduring stability and unchangeableness. The first step we take in entering the European continent brings us into a new world full of activity and fresh historic life, in which we at once are sensible of a home-like feeling. The Greeks are the first to afford us the picture of personal inner development, and of a national life unfolding with free consciousness. If those Oriental nations in their narrow, limited civilization only awaken interest in historical examination, the Greeks, on the other hand, reached an absolute height of culture, presenting a model worthy of admiration for all ages, and an inexhaustible fountain-head for all higher effort. Although thoroughly national, their whole mental life was so elevated, so filled with universal human significance, that it constitutes the indestructible basis for the development of all future ages, and in the everlasting struggle of the beautiful and the true with antagonistic principles, Greece, like an Athene Promachus, has victoriously preceded all champions of these nobler qualities. — LÜBKE.