PART VITI. 



MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 



PERIODICAL WORKSv 



IN all nations and states, the progress of the sciences has 

 been uniformly slow. When the temples of Egypt, and the 

 porticoes of Athens, were the archives of history and philo- 

 sophy, human acquirements remained in a manner stagnant, 

 in the obscurity of the hieroglyphics, and in the verbal pre- 

 cepts of the masters. The Romans, to vv^hom the knowledge 

 of the Greeks devolved, propagated in every part of the globe 

 the refinement of their ideas, conjointly with the glory of their 

 triumphant arms. With the prosperity of the empire, civili- 

 zation, study, and literature, received a proportionate increase. 

 Soon, however, this smiling scene underwent an entire change : 

 the establishment of two empires, in the east and in ,the west ; 

 the successive revolutions in each of these dominions ; the wars 

 carried on by the barbarians ; the irruptions made by them 

 into almost every part of Europe ; and other analogous events, 

 caused the sciences and fine arts to disappear, and in that 

 point of view may be said to have brutalized society. Then it 

 was that the monk, retired from the world, or voluntarily 

 obscured according to the conception of men, was the sole 

 depository of these arts, and of these sciences, more especially of 

 those which are termed abstrad. In the cloisters, the judge, 



the 



