5 



ratives of the first travellers ; and it seemed 

 to be the duty, of a philosopher, to refuse 

 assent to every observation made by the 

 missionaries. 



Since the end of the last century, a happy 

 revolution has taken place in the manner 

 of examining the civilization of nations, 

 and the causes which impede or favour its 

 progress. We have become acquainted 

 with countries, the customs, institutions, 

 and arts of which differ almost as widely 

 from those of the Greeks and Romans, as 

 the primitive forms of extinct races of 

 animals differ from those of the species, 

 which are the objects of descriptive natural 

 history. The society at Calcutta has thrown 

 a luminous ray over the history of the 

 people of Asia. The monuments of Egypt, 

 which are at present delineated with sin- 

 gular precision, have been compared with 

 the monuments of countries the most re- 

 mote ; and my own recent investigations on 

 the natives of America appear at an epocha> 

 in which we no longer deem unworthy of 



