pics. In such a country as Mexico, where maize is probably indigenous, and abounding in useful vegetables, settled communities would scarcely fail to be formed, and these would inevitably be consolidated and extended by conquest. These American communities, however, contained no element of progress, and so far from possessing any inherent energy, would, in all probability, have fallen asunder, and retrograded, even had they been kept secreted from European power and enterprise. The peninsula of Yucatan, whose civilization was, beyond all doubt, older than that of Mexico, was in progress of disintegration when Grijalva visited its shores. If there is any truth in Mexican traditions, their Toltec ancestors were more civilized than they; and, above all, the vast works remaining in the valley of the Mississippi, proves that not only barbaric civilization, but even the vast communities which possessed it, may perish. The highest perfection of this civilization was the Peruvian, in whom all individual spirit was destroyed, and every one toiled not for himself, but for the community: it was, in fact, the practice of socialism without its dogmas, where, to speak St. Simonianism, every one was rewarded according to his capacity, and each capacity according to its works. It says little for the tendency of our own civilization, when an attempt is making to render France what Peru was with St. Simon for its Manco Capac.

This abortive nature of social tendency is equally visible in the old as in the new world. Hindoo and Chinese progress have long been arrested; and even the civilization of Greece, combined as it was with some degree of political freedom, was essentially so narrow and incapable of expansion. From the Homeric period, until that of the critics and mystic philosophers of Alexandria, the Greek mind became exhausted, and nothing more was left for it to do. It is only in modern Europe that the elements of civilization combining stability with progress are to be found.

There are two other considerations which tend to point out the comparatively modern date we must assume as the starting point of human society the recent discovery of America, and

In

the remarkable changes which have taken place in the grammatical structure of languages. Nothing is more remarkable than that the new world should have remained so long secluded from the commerce and enterprise of the old; and had mankind any claims to the antiquity which Hindoo or Egyptian fables claim, even chance would have opened a path across the Atlantic, as it had driven colonies of the Malay race, upon every inhabitable rock and coral-reef in the Pacific. the course of thousands of years, repeated chances, or the progress of navigation, would have conducted to America, as a combination of boldness and fortune led the Northmen to Newfoundland, in the eleventh century. Even timid coastings along the shores of Africa, had they been frequently repeated, would inevitably have led to the discovery of Brazil; and we know that the Portuguese, under Cabral, seeking to double the Cape of Good Hope, were driven upon the coast of South America, and thus made the discovery of the new world by chance, which, only seven years before, had been accomplished by one of the noblest efforts of human enterprise.

The history of languages appears to lead us to a similar inference. We have sufficient evidence that the different families of mankind were separated by their languages at a very remote period. The Hebrew and Egyptian could not understand each other in the days of the patriarchs; and the Chinese, Sanscrit, and Zend, possess an equal antiquity. We cannot date the Greek later, and the topographical names of Western Europe prove the antiquity of the Celtic and German. The higher we ascend, we find the distinction of languages the more bold and pronounced. No three languages can be more diverse than the Chinese, Sanscrit, and Hebrew. At the period when they were first spoken, the respective nations could have had but little intercourse, either from conquest or commerce. The Indo. European tongues, such as the Sanscrit, Greek, and German, all possessed a common character. They were rich in forms of declension of nouns and conjugations of verbs, indicating, by the various terminations of the words, all the relations of time, place, and number. These peculiarities indicate unconquer

ed or secluded races; but they have long since disappeared. The Sanscrit in the east, and the Latin in the west, are only known as the parents of a progeny of secondary dialects, which have lost their inflections, and supply their place by propositions and auxiliary verbs. The cause of this change, as Adam Smith has observed, is conquest and colonization. If these secondary languages can in every case be traced back to their parent, we cannot allow an unlimited antiquity to the primary tongues. We know of no period in which mankind was not engaged in wars and conquests, and this circumstance prevents us from extending the age of the older languages. The Hindoos, Persians, and Romans, from the nature of their countries, exposed to invasions which changed their social systems, or at least the governing powers, bear evidence of those changes in the structure of their languages; while the Chinese, from their remote situation and vast numbers, have re

mained unmodified, and retained their language unaltered, since the period when their ancestors first established themselves in their present abodes.

The earliest writer, with whom we are acquainted, who controverted the generally received opinions respecting the savage state, was Dr. Doig, Master of the Grammar School of Stirling. The wild speculations of Lord Kames on this topic, produced two letters on the savage state from the schoolmaster of Stirling. In these letters he proved, by a distinct investigation of ancient history, that so far from finding any presumption for Lord Kames' views, the whole tendency of the evidence pointed to an opposite conclusion. He also remarked, that we have no example of a nation emerg. ing from barbarism by its own efforts, unaided by foreign influence. It is creditable to Lord Kames, that these controversial letters laid the foundation of an enduring friendship between him and his learned opponent.