158 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



and to observe how many blanks on the surface of 

 the globe exist in them at this comparatively recent 

 period, within the recollection of the grandfathers, 

 and even of some of the fathers, of living men. 

 Within the last forty years, as I had occasion to 

 notice in a previous passage, steamboats, and rail- 

 ways, and electric telegraphs have quite changed the 

 position of man. Our last inventions seem to be of 

 weapons and engines, which have revolutionised the 

 art of war. One effect of these inventions is to 

 place the superiority of Europeans over all the less 

 civilised nations of the globe upon an unassailable 

 height. The suppression of the Indian Mutiny was 

 much to be ascribed to the perfection of our Enfield 

 rifles and improved artillery. The same auxiliaries 

 gave us an easy triumph over the Chinese in the 

 march to Pekin, and the Abyssinians were destroyed 

 by the fire of our troops, without being able to take 

 a single life in our ranks. 



Now there is an important deduction to be drawn 

 from this brief retrospect. When we speak of the 

 Progress of Mankind, of the advance of Civilisation, 

 we in fact mean the progress of the European por- 

 tion of the human race, and the advance of Civili- 

 sation among their populations. All this astonishing 



