silence. Hence they would infer that we are not precluded by the Mosaic writings from supposing, that at the time of the great inundation other portions of mankind may have saved themselves in different manners and places. They therefore look to the higher regions of the earth, and find three elevated ranges in the neighbourhood of the three distinct stems into which we find mankind divided. The lofty range extending from the Black Sea to the east of India has been at all times regarded as being, either itself or the lands south of it, the original seat of the Caucasian race. Still more east, beyond Tibet and the desert of Cobi, rises another range, regarded as the original seat of the Mongol race which dwells around it: and the Mountains of the Moon and their branches are thought to point out the primitive abodes of the Negro race. America, it is probable, was not, till long after, adapted for the abode of man.

These, however, are all questions of curiosity rather than of historical importance. At the dawn of all history we find the various races of mankind distinct, and no history informs us of the origin of the differences. We have therefore only to consider them in their separate states, or as intermingled with and affecting each other.

Original State of Man.

Another point which has given occasion to a good deal of ingenious conjecture, is the original state of mankind. Philosophers, on surveying the human race in its different situations, have traced out four distinct states,— those of the mere fruit and plant-eater, the hunter, the herdsman, and the cultivator,—and have generally inferred that man has progressively passed through all these states, commencing at the lowest. Yet this is still but mere conjecture, unsupported by any historic evidence. No tribe has ever yet been found to civilise itself; instruction and improvement always come to it from abroad; and experience would rather lead to the inference, that the savage is a degeneration from the

civilised life. In the very earliest history, that of the Bible, we find the pastoral and agricultural life co-existing almost from the commencement of the world; at all periods we find man possessed of the useful and necessary arts, the master of flocks and herds, the employer of the spade, the plough, and the sickle. It is in vain we seek for commencement, all is progress. In imagination, we may conceive a time, when the human race was in the lowest degree of culture; but, on enquiry, we every where meet the arts, meet men collected into societies, meet property, legislation, and government.

It may perhaps be collected from the testimony of the sacred Scriptures, and from the deductions of philosophy, that man has always existed in society, and that the first societies were families, the first form of government patriarchal : and the following may be stated as the most probable hypothesis; namely, that man commenced his existence in the social state under the mild and gentle form of government denominated patriarchal; that his first nourishment was the fruits of trees and plants, which ripened in abundance for the supply of his wants in some temperate and fertile region of the earth, possibly that at the south of Caucasus, or where now extends the paradisal vale of Cashmeer; that gradually he became a keeper of flocks and herds, and a cultivator of corn; that families spread and combined; and that from their union arose monarchies, the most ancient form of extended civil government.

It is in this last state that we propose to consider mankind, and to trace the great and important events that have taken place among the various stems and branches of the human race; to show how, beneath the guiding energy of the Creator and Ruler, the great machine of human society has proceeded on its way, at times advancing, at times apparently retrograding, in the path of perfection and happiness. And the final result of our view of the deeds and destinies of man will, we trust, be a firm conviction in the mind of every reader that private and public felicity are the result

alone of good education, wise laws, and just government, and that all power which is not based on equity is unstable and transient.

It is to the Caucasian race that the history of the world must mainly confine itself, for with that race has originated almost all that ennobles and dignifies mankind it is the chief depository of literature, and the great constructor of philosophical, political, and religious systems. We shall restrict ourselves, therefore, chiefly to the history of that race, briefly premising views of the state and character of the Æthiopians, the Mongols, and the Indians.

Ethiopians.

We have already observed, that under this name are included all the inhabitants of Africa whose bodily conformation does not prove them to be of the Caucasian race. The indefiniteness of the term Ethiopian employed by the Greeks, and applied by them to all people of a dark complexion, and the similar indefiniteness of the Hebrew Cush, prevent our being able positively to say whether the obscure traditions of the Æthiopian power extending along the Mediterranean to the straits of Gades, and of that people having, under their king Tearcho, made themselves so formidable to the inhabitants of the coasts of the Ægean, are to be understood of a purely Negro empire, or of, what is much more probable, a state like that of Egypt, where the lower orders of society were of Negro, the higher and dominant classes of Caucasian race. Within the historic period of both ancient and modern times, the Ethiopian race only appears as furnishing slaves for the service of the Caucasian, to whom it has been always as inferior in mental power as in bodily configuration. Though modern travel has discovered within the torrid wastes of Africa large communities ruled over by Negro princes, and a knowledge of many of the useful arts, yet civilisation and policy have never reared their heads in the ungenial

clime. As literature has never been theirs, whatever revolutions may have taken place among them are buried in oblivion, and they claim no station of eminence in the history of the world.

The Chinese.

The Mongols stand far higher in the scale of intellect and in importance than the Æthiopians. As we proceed, we shall find them striking terror into Europe by their arms and their numbers. One nation of this race, the Chinese, has long been an object of curiosity to the western world, from its extent of empire and the singularity of its social institutions.

The Chinese empire occupies an extent of surface equal to that of all Europe, containing within it every variety of soil and climate, and natural production; thus rendering it in itself perfectly independent of all foreign aid. In its social institutions it has presented through all periods a model of the primitive form of government, the patriarchal, and an exemplification of the evil of continuing it beyond its just and necessary period. In China all is at a stand-still; succeeding ages add not to the knowledge of those that have gone before; no one must presume to be wiser than his fathers: around the Son of Heaven, as they designate their emperor, assemble the learned of the land as his council; so in the provinces the learned in their several degrees around the governor; and laws and rules are passed from the highest down to the lowest, to be by them given to the people. Every, even the most minute, circumstance of common life is regulated by law. It matters not, for example, what may be the wealth of an individual, he must wear the dress and build his house after the mode prescribed by ancient regulations. In China every thing bears the stamp of antiquity: immovableness seems to be characteristic of the nation; every implement retains its primitive rude form; every invention has stopped at the first step. The gradual progress towards perfection of the

Caucasian race is unknown in China; the plough is still drawn by men; the written characters of their monosyllabic language stand for ideas, not for simple sounds; and the laborious task of learning to read occupies the time that might be employed in the acquisition of valuable knowledge. Literature has been at all periods cultivated by a nation where learning (such as it is) is the only road to honour and dignity, and books beginning with the five Kings of Con-fu-tsee, which equal the four Vedas of India in the honour in which they are held, have at all times been common in this empire. A marked feature in the Chinese character is the absence of imagination: all is the product of cold reason. The Kings speak not of a God, and present no system of religion: every thing of that nature in China came from India.

The uncertain history of China ascends to about 2500 years before the Christian æra; the certain history commences about eight centuries before Christ. According to Chinese tradition, the founders of the state, a hundred families in number, descended from the mountains of Kulcum, on the lake of Khukhunor, north-west of China; and hence the middle provinces of Chensee, Leong, Honan, &c. were the first seats of their cultivation. These provinces are in the same climate as Greece and Italy. Twenty-two dynasties of princes are enumerated as having governed China to the present day, the actual emperor being the fifth monarch of the twenty-second or Tai Tsin dynasty. Of these dynasties, one of the most remarkable is the Song, which ruled over the southern empire at the time China was divided into two, and fell beneath the arms of the Yver or mingled nomadic tribes, led to conquest by the descendants of Chingis Khan. This line, which reigned from A.D. 960 to 1280, distinguished itself by the encouragement of the arts and sciences; it cultivated relations with Japan, fostered trade and commerce, and in all things went contrary to the established maxims of Chinese policy, and while it lasted the empire bloomed beneath its sway; but the hordes of the desert levelled its glories, and its fate has