COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



the extent of their coast line. No doubt — 

 above all — the Mediterranean is justly sacred 

 to the student of history as partly the civilizer 

 of the peoples who upon its waves first courted 

 adventure, and conducted commerce, and im- 

 parted to each other cosmopolitan sympathies 

 which could never have been evoked but for 

 some such intercourse. All this may be granted. 

 But as civilization advances, the organized ex- 

 perience of past generations becomes to a greater 

 and greater extent the all-important factor of 

 progress. As Comte expresses it, in one of his 

 profoundest aphorisms, the empire of the dead 

 over the living increases from age to age. if 

 we contemplate, from a lofty historical point 

 of view, the relative importance of the factors 

 in the environment of our United States, I be- 

 lieve we shall be forced to conclude that the 

 victory of the Greeks at Marathon, the con- 

 quest of Gaul by Caesar, the founding of Chris- 

 tianity, the defeat of Attila at Chalons and of 

 the Arabs at Tours, the advent of the Normans 

 in England, the ecclesiastic reforms of Hilde- 

 brand, the Crusades, the revolt of Luther, the 

 overthrow of the Spanish Armada, and the 

 achievements of scientific inquirers from Archi- 

 medes to Faraday, have influenced and are in- 

 fluencing our social condition to a far greater 

 extent than the direction of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, or the position of the Great Lakes, or the 

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