228 COSMOS. 



probably have supervened in both cases. It is to the same 

 causes which procured for the Romans a dominion over the 

 world — the Pwoman spirit and character — and not to external 

 and merely adventitious chances, that we owe the influence 

 exercised by the Romans on our civil institutions, our laws, 

 languages, and culture. It was owing to this beneficial in- 

 fluence, and to the intimate alliance of races, that we were 

 rendered susceptible to the influence of the Greek mind and 

 language, while the Arabs directed their consideration princi- 

 pally only to those scientific results of Greek investigation 

 which referred to the description of nature, and to physical, 

 astronomical, and purely mathematical science." The Arabs, 

 by carefully preserving the purity of their native tongue, and 

 the delicacy of their figurative modes of expression, were en- 

 abled to impart the charm of poetic coloring to the expression 

 of feeling and of the noble axioms of wisdom ; but, to judge 

 from what they were under the Abbassides, had they built on 

 the same foundation with which we find them familiar, it is 

 scarcely probable that they could have produced those works 

 of exalted poetic and creative art, which, fused together in one 

 harmonious accord, are the glorious fruits of the mature season 

 of our European culture. 



PERIOD OF OCEANIC DISCOVERIES.-OPENING OF THE WESTERN HEM- 

 ISPHERE.— EXTENSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE, AND THOSE 

 EVENTS WHICH LED TO OCEANIC DISCOVERIES— COLUMBUS, SE- 

 BASTIAN CABOT, AND GAMA— AMERICA AND THE PACIFIC— CABRIL- 

 LO, SEBASTIAN VIZCAINO, MENDANA, AND QUIROS.— THE RICHEST 

 ABUNDANCE OF MATERIALS FOR THE FOUNDATION OF PHYSICAL GE- 

 OGRAPHY IS PRESENTED TO THE NATIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE. 



The fifteenth century belongs to those remarkable epochs 

 in which all the efforts of the mind indicate one determined 

 and general character, and one unchanging striving toward 

 the same goal. The unity of this tendency, and the results 

 by which it was crowned, combined with the activity of whole 

 races, give to the age of Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, and 

 Gama, a character both of grandeur and enduring splendor. 

 In the midst of two different stages of human culture, the 

 fifteenth century may be regarded as a period of transition, 

 which belongs both to the Middle Ages and to the beginning 

 of more recent times. It is the age of the greatest discover- 

 ies in space, embracing almost all degrees of latitude and all 

 elevations of the earth's surface While this period douliled 



