PERFECTIBILITY OF MAX. 177 



what seem such, of stone, bronze, and iron imple- 

 ments, are the interpreters to us of this progress. It 

 may be that these are but the memorials of insulated 

 races, separated and degraded from a higher primitive 

 stock. Time and wider research can alone solve this 

 question. We are unravelling the Assyrian, Babylonian, 

 and Persian histories by sculptured monuments and 

 cuneiform writings, and the caves and mounds of these 

 countries may afford us hereafter the record of still 

 earlier times and races of men. Without venturing 

 to affirm the result, it is probable that this path of 

 enquiry will lead us here also only into a ruder form 

 of humanity, and that our knowledge will never go 

 beyond this point. 



Another path, however, is open, more easy and 

 familiar than that just denoted. Still seeking to reach 

 the future through the past, but under less obscure con- 

 ditions, the comparison at once suggests itself between 

 the attainments of the highest civilisation of antiquity 

 and those of the age in which we live. We cannot, 

 indeed, carry this comparison authentically farther than 

 to Greek and Eoman antiquity. Egypt and the great 

 Asiatic empires have left us marvellous monuments of 

 older date ; but their semi-civilisation was either 

 arrested or degraded by time, or by the influx of more 

 barbarous races, obliterating the advances that had 

 been anteriorly made. 



A comparison between ancients and moderns can- 

 not, however, come within the narrow compass as- 

 sumed by Sir W. Temple, Bentley, and Boyle in their 

 angry controversy. It is difficult, indeed, to bring 



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