all discern, in spite of the heterogeneous materials
and the various histories and fortunes which are found in the race of
man during the long period I have mentioned, a certain formation amid
the chaos--one and one only,--and extending, though not over the whole
earth, yet through a very considerable portion of it. Man is a social
being and can hardly exist without society, and in matter of fact
societies have ever existed all over the habitable earth. The greater
part of these associations have been political or religious, and have
been comparatively limited in extent and temporary. They have been
formed and dissolved by the force of accidents, or by inevitable
circumstances; and when we have enumerated them one by one we have made
of them all that can be made. But there is one remarkable association
which attracts the attention of the philosopher, not political nor
religious--or at least only partially and not essentially such--which
began in the earliest times and grew with each succeeding age till it
reached its complete development, and then continued on, vigorous and
unwearied, and still remains as definite and as firm as ever it was.
Its bond is a _common civilisation_: and though there are other
civilisations in the world, as there are other societies, yet _this_
civilisation, together with the society which is its creation and its
home, is so distinctive and luminous in its character, so imperial in
its extent, so imposing in its duration, and so utterly without rival
on the face of the earth, that the association may fitly assume to
itself the title of 'Human Society,' and _its_ civilisation the
abstract term 'Civilisation.'

There are indeed great outlying portions of mankind which are not,
perhaps never have been, included in this Human Society; still they are
outlying portions and nothing else, fragmentary, unsociable, solitary
and unmeaning, protesting and revolting against the grand central
formation of which I am speaking, but not uniting with each other into
a second whole. I am not denying, of course, the civilisation of the
Chinese, for instance, though it be not our civilisation; but it is a
huge, stationary, unattractive, morose civilisation. Nor do I deny a
civilisation to the Hindoos, nor to the ancient Mexicans, nor to the
Saracens, nor (in a certain sense) to the Turks; but each of these
races has its own civilisation, as sepa