37 



ence to all its results. That whether he acted or not, the 

 eternal principle that creates, and modifies, and renews, and 

 sustains all things, would be still the same. 



Under .these combined influences man in Asia, has ever re- 

 mained the same. We have seen him exhibiting no striking 

 evidences of mental or moral advancement, bequeathing us no 

 important discoveries in art or science ; handing down to us no 

 trophies of his victories over the elements of nature. Exclusive 

 of what foreign agency has effected, when have we ever wit- 

 nessed an alteration in the manners, customs, laws, or insti- 

 tutions of India, China, or central Asia? The sun that glad- 

 dens this day has risen upon the same, with few or no modi- 

 fications, that were dawned upon by the sun of Zoroaster. 

 Centuries have there come and gone, and left no impress. 

 Let foreign influence cease to operate, and they never will 

 leave any. As soon may we expect to see the Egyptian 

 mummy bursting the cearments of its sepulchre, and display- 

 ing anew the energies of a life long lost, as to see the Asiat- 

 ic competing with the European and American in the actings 

 and doings of this world. 



Industry, government, the arts, religion, philosophy, there 

 form one mingled mass. No attempt at separation. No ef- 

 fort at developement. We see every where exhibited the 

 same dull, dead uniformity ; the same Sahara of the mental 

 and moral world. 



It is true, we have witnessed physical movements of man 

 in Asia. On that wide waste of desolation, the central pla- 

 teau, have roamed the Scythian of the ancient ; and the Tar- 

 tar of the modern world. We have also seen mankind there 

 move in masses. Individuals, or tribes, accidentally collected 

 together, or united through the influence of some command- 

 ing genius, that has casually appeared among them, have, 

 at different times, descended from that elevation, and invaded 

 the domains of civilization. The immense bodies of men 

 that, in the fourth and fifth centuries, moved from that nur- 

 sery of nations, that birth place of European ancestry, found 

 nothing sufficient to stop their onward progress until they' 

 reached the Atlantic ocean on the shores of Portugal. 



