HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION OP THE UNIVERSE. 179 



ledge has largely flowed, and which gave the first impulse 

 to a class of ideas and feelings most intimately connected 

 with the civilization and intellectual elevation of a nation 

 or a race. ( 278 ) We do not by any means regard as 

 unimportant the elements of knowledge, which, flowing 

 through the great current of Greek and Eoman cultivation, 

 were yet derived in a variety of ways from other sources 

 from the valley of the Nile, Phoenicia, the banks of the 

 Euphrates, and India ; but even for these we are indebted, 

 in the first instance, to the Greeks, and to E-omans sur- 

 rounded by Etruscans and Greeks. At how late a period 

 have the great monuments of more anciently civilized 

 nations been directly examined, interpreted, and arranged 

 according to their relative antiquity ! It is only within a 

 very recent period that hieroglyphics and cuneiform in- 

 scriptions have been read, after having been passed for 

 thousands of years by armies and caravans, who divined 

 nothing of their import. 



From the shores of the Mediterranean, and especially from 

 its Italic and Hellenic peninsulas, have indeed proceeded 

 the intellectual character and political institutions of those 

 nations who now possess the daily increasing treasures of 

 scientific knowledge and creative artistic activity, which 

 we would fain regard as imperishable ; nations which spread 

 civilization, and with it, first servitude, and then, involun- 

 tarily, liberty, over another hemisphere. Yet in modern 

 Europe too, as it were by a favour of destiny, unity and 

 diversity are still happily associated. The elements re- 

 ceived have been various, and no less various have 

 been their appropriation and transformation, according 

 to the sharply contrasted peculiarities, and individual tone 



