150 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



national character, all the records of his glorious 

 history, bear the unmistakable impress of the 

 European type. We can trace in the Eoman quali- 

 ties akin to our own. We can thoroughly sympathise 

 with his lofty patriotism, and his indomitable con- 

 stancy of purpose. We feel that he is made of the 

 same materials as ourselves. But we are sensible 

 that we have nothing in common with the Chinese 

 or the Persians at any period of their history. From 

 the earliest origin of the European Nations, at least 

 from the earliest time when any knowledge of their 

 existence has been handed down to us, we find them 

 exhibiting a marked difference from, and evincing an 

 incontestable moral and intellectual superiority over, 

 the older civilisations of Asia. It is not merely 

 that they have surpassed them, but that the whole 

 of their national character is essentially different. 

 This is shown in their writings, in their political 

 institutions, and in their history. 



Another great event the greatest in the life of 

 mankind served at once to exhibit and to complete 

 the essential difference between them. Christianity 

 had its birth on Asiatic ground, but the seed never 

 germinated there. Any considerable sect of Jewish 

 disciples does not appear to have survived the age of 



