Relative History of Asia and Europe, S 



the office just described, was enjoyed, with some occasional and 

 perhaps merely apparent exceptions, by various Asiatic nations; as 

 it has since been fulfilled by the inhabitants of Europe, and at 

 some future time, probably, will be possessed by those of Ame- 

 rica. In the earliest ages, every great division of the globe ap- 

 pears to have been peopled from Asia : the authority of the 

 Sacred Records, and the testimony of the traditions and the his- 

 tory of all the nations of the Eastern Hemisphere, concur in 

 establishing the fact, that Europe received her chief population 

 from the East, by the way of the ancient Scythia ; or the tract of 

 country situated to the north-east of the Caspian sea, bounded 

 eastward by the mountains of Imaus, which formed part of the 

 present Belour and lesser Altaian chains, and on the west by the 

 river Tanais, the Don of modern geography. So likewise have 

 we strong grounds for believing, that the western shores of the 

 two Americas were first peopled from the eastern coasts and 

 islands of Asia, by way of the Eastern and Pacific oceans; whilst 

 the tide of population appears to have rolled southward into 

 Africa, from the Caucasus, through Asia Minor, Syria, and 

 Egypt. 



In the next age of the world, during which flourished the 

 mighty empire of Egypt, and the first great nations which arose 

 in the countries between the river Indus and the eastern termi- 

 nation of the Mediterranean Sea, Asia continued to be the 

 fountain-head of knowledge and of the arts, of commerce, and 

 of civilization; for the renowned state first mentioned, though 

 forming a part of the African continent, as to geographical posi- 

 tion, must yet be regarded, in its ancient relations to the rest of 

 the world, as a region of Asia, 



Hitherto the enjoyment of religious light had been directly 

 attended, as would appear always to be the case in a right order 

 of things, by the possession of the highest degree of genuine civi- 

 lization, and of temporal power. But the history of the Jewish 

 nation presents an anomaly in this respect, which, though we can 

 merely glance at it in this place, would form a novel subject of 

 inquiry for the Divine and the Philosophical Historian. The dis- 

 pensation of pure Theism granted to Noah and his descendants, 



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