PHYSICAL CONTEMPLATION OF THE UNIVERSE. 117 



indicate the progress that has been made toward the recogni- 

 tion of the unity of nature. Both portions — not separated ar- 

 bitrarily, but by determined principles — have the same rela- 

 tions to one another as the studies from which they have been 

 borrowed. The history of the civilization of mankind com- 

 prises in itself the history of the fundamental powers of the 

 human mind, and also, therefore, of the works in which these 

 powers have been variously displayed in the different depart- 

 ments of literature and art. In a similar manner, we recog- 

 nize in the depth and animation of the sentiment of love for 

 nature, which we have delineated according to its various 

 manifestations at different epochs and among different races 

 of men, active means of inducement toward a more careful 

 observation of phenomena, and a more earnest investigation 

 of their cosmical connection. 



Owing to the diversity of the streams which have in the 

 course of ages so unequally diffused the elements of a more 

 extended knowledge of nature over the whole earth, it will be 

 most expedient, as we have already observed, to start in the 

 history of the contemplation of the external world from a sin- 

 gle group of nations, and for this object I select the one from 

 M'hich our present scientific cultivation, and, indeed, that of 

 the whole of Western Europe, has originated. The mental 

 cultivation of the Greeks and Romans must certainly be re- 

 garded as very recent in comparison with that of the Egyp- 

 tians, Chinese, and Indians ; but all that the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans received from the east and south, blended vvith v/hat 

 they themselves produced and developed, has been uninter- 

 ruptedly propagated on our European soil, notwithstanding 

 the continual alternation of historical events, and the admix- 

 ture of foreign immigrating races. In those regions in which 

 a much greater degree of knowledge existed thousands of years 

 earlier, a destructive barbarism has either wholly darkened 

 the pre-existing enlightenment, or, where a stable and complex 

 system of governm.ent has been preserved, together with a 

 maintenance of ancient customs, as is the case in China, ad- 

 vancement in science or the industrial arts has been very in 

 considerable^ whilr*. the almost total absence of a free inter- 

 course with the rest of the world has interposed an insuperable 

 barrier to the generalization of views. The cultivated nations 

 of Europe, and their descendants who have been transplanted 

 to other continents, may be said, by the gigantic extension 

 of their maritime expeditions to the remotest seas, to be fa- 

 miliarized with the most distant shores ; and those countries 



