180 DIVERSITY OF RACES. 



distinct, the elements of their civilization were almost identical.* 

 Yet however, many of their sacred books, as the Yedas of the 

 Brahmins and the Zenda vesta of the Magi, were written in 

 foreign and similar tongues, but understood only by the priests. 



Again this ancient civilization itself bears the marks of a for- 

 eign origin. It is such a strange composition of refinement and 

 barbarism, of exalted ideas mingled with the lowest conceptions 

 of sense, such a peculiar combination of the most refined truths 

 of religion and philosophy, with a mass of childish superstitions 

 and ridiculous notions, as to be accounted for on no other suppo- 

 sition. The Chinese have at the present day implements of 

 science of the use and application of which they are totally 

 ignorant. They have been acquainted with the art of printing 

 for thousands of years ; yet even now it is but a laborious system 

 of wood-engraving. For ages they have used the magnetic 

 needle but to gaze at in toys, and have compounded gunpowder 

 but to blaze in fire-works. The Indians have had many beautiful 

 specimens of sculpture, but valued them only for filling the 

 dark and loathsome caves connected with their superstitions. 

 The Chaldees were conversant with many sublime truths in As- 

 tronomy, which they brought into use only in reading destinies 

 in the horoscope. The Egyptians applied a superior knowledge 

 in architecture only to rear huge pyramids and obelisks to cumber 

 the earth. In short, over all this vast region, from the Pacific 

 to the Great Desert, we find the vestiges of a progress far 

 beyond the genius of the people, the elements of a civilization 

 which, from their present inferiority, from the history of the 

 past, and more than all from that eternal immobility which has 

 stamped its identity on the annals of four thousand years, we 

 must infer, they never were capable by themselves of acquiring. 

 It seems as if in remote ages the fragments of some noble and 

 perfect machinery had been carelessly scattered over Southern 

 Asia, which a wondering race had preserved as toys or as relics. 



The existence of permanent hereditary castes in all the Empires 

 of the East, from the first faint glimmerings of their history, 



*Pricbard. vol. 4, p. 480 and 556. Creppo's Cham., p. 207. Multe Brun, 

 vol. 1, p. 567. 



