ERA AND DURATION OF ARCHAIC MAYA CIVILIZATION. 149 



analogous to all other forms of life. At first there is the long period of growth, 

 during which the whole tendency is to vigor and unification ; then comes the season 

 of maturity, the duration of which is about equally dependent upon the nature of the 

 subject and the environing conditions ; after that the whole tendency is toward decay 

 and disintegration, which commonly take place in the briefest period of all. We are 

 apt to judge only from the ephemeral existence of modern nations surrounded by 

 co-equal antagonists. As our glance goes back, however, we see longer and longer 

 stretches, till in Egypt we find one almost commensurate with that of the ancient 

 Mayas. 



Let us, finally, consider for a moment the possibilities of duration for that Maya 

 empire. The Mayas were a primitive, pure-blooded, united people. No ancestral 

 prejudices or racial jealousies could spring between them. Whatever tendencies there 

 were dependent on the inscrutable laws of nature must all have been in common. 

 They were strong in numbers, and stronger still by their great and solitary enlighten- 

 ment. They occupied a territory that is practically a fortress. To the east, south, and 

 west there is not area enough to harbor savage foes in numbers that would have been 

 formidable even if coalesced, and to the north, if necessary, they could oppose their 

 united forces. No other great nation ever occupied so secure a position. Hence, the 

 question of danger from outside sources is practically eliminated from the problem of 

 their national existence. Their unity of origin, the simple numeral worship indicated 

 by their monuments, the civic spirit to be inferred from the absence of all warlike 

 insignia in the inscriptions, point unmistakably to a happy, contented, peaceful state 

 of internal affairs, akin to brotherhood. Under such conditions, how long might not 

 a nation endure'? We go back ten thousand years and find them then civilized. 

 What other tens of thousand years may it have taken them to reach that stage ? 

 From the time of the abrupt termination of their inscriptions, when all suddenly 

 becomes a blank, back to that remote first date, the apparent gradations in the growth 

 of their civilization are so gradual as to foreshadow a necessity for their 280,800 

 recorded years to reach the point of its commencement. Manifestly, we shall have to 

 let out the strap that confines our notion of history. The field of native nationality in 

 America promises, when fully explored, to reveal dates so remote that it will require a 

 wider mental range to realize them. 



biol. Ci::iTR.-.YMER., Archaeol. 20 



