ent first exhibited in Greece,
endeavouring to ascertain its character at successive epochs, and
thereby to judge of its complete nature. Fortunately for our purpose,
the information is here sufficient, both in amount and distinctness. It
then remains to show that the mental movement of the whole continent is
essentially of the same kind, though, as must necessarily be the case,
it is spread over far longer periods of time. Our conclusions will
constantly be found to gather incidental support and distinctness from
illustrations presented by the aged populations of Asia, and the
aborigines of Africa and America.

[Sidenote: The five ages of European life.]

The intellectual progress of Europe being of a nature answering to that
observed in the case of Greece, and this, in its turn, being like that
of an individual, we may conveniently separate it into arbitrary
periods, sufficiently distinct from one another, though imperceptibly
merging into each other. To these successive periods I shall give the
titles of--1, the Age of Credulity; 2, the Age of Inquiry; 3, the Age of
Faith; 4, the Age of Reason; 5, the Age of Decrepitude; and shall use
these designations in the division of my subject in its several
chapters.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The world is ruled by law.]

From the possibility of thus regarding the progress of a continent in
definite and successive stages, answering respectively to the periods of
individual life--infancy, childhood, youth, maturity, old age--we may
gather an instructive lesson. It is the same that we have learned from
inquiries respecting the origin, maintenance, distribution, and
extinction of animals and plants, their balancing against each other;
from the variations of aspect and form of an individual man as
determined by climate; from his social state, whether in repose or
motion; from the secular variations of his opinions, and the gradual
dominion of reason over society: this lesson is, that the government of
the world is accomplished by immutable law.

Such a conception commends itself to the intellect of man by its
majestic grandeur. It makes him discern the eternal in the vanishing of
present events and through the shadows of time. From the life, the
pleasures, the sufferings of humanity, it points to the impassive; from
our wishes, wants, and woes, to the inexorable. Leaving the individual
beneath the eye of Providence, it shows society under the fing