t not seek to confine the action of later peoples to a mere borrowing
of arts or institutions.

Yet some recent historical writers, in their eagerness to set up
indigenous civilisations apart from those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, pass
to the opposite extreme. We are prepared to find civilisation developing
wherever the situation of a people exposes it to sufficient stimulation,
and we do find advance made among many peoples apart from contact with
the great southern empires. It is uncertain whether the use of bronze
is due first to the southern nations or to some European people, but the
invention of iron weapons is most probably due to European initiative.
Again, it is now not believed that the alphabets of Europe are derived
from the hieroglyphics of Egypt, though it is an open question whether
they were not derived, through Phoenicia, from certain signs which we
find on ancient Egyptian pottery.

If we take first a broad view of the later course of civilisation we see
at a glance the general relation of east and west. Some difficulty would
arise, if we pressed, as to the exact stage in which a nation may be
said to become "civilised," but we may follow the general usage of
archaeologists and historians. They tell us, then, that civilisation
first appears in Egypt about 8000 B.C. (settled civilisation about
6000 B.C.), and in the Mesopotamian region about 6000 B.C. We next find
Neolithic culture passing into what may be called civilisation in Crete
and the neighbouring islands some time between 4000 and 3000 B.C., or
two thousand years after the development of Egyptian commerce in that
region. We cannot say whether this civilisation in the AEgean sea
preceded others which we afterwards find on the Asiatic mainland.
The beginning of the Hittite Empire in Asia Minor, and of Phoenician
culture, is as yet unknown. But we can say that there was as yet no
civilisation in Europe. It is not until after 1600 that civilisation
is established in Greece (Mycenae and Tiryns) as an offshoot of AEgean
culture. Later still it appears among the Etruscans of Italy--to which,
as we know, both Egyptian and AEgean vessels sailed. In other words, the
course of civilisation is very plainly from east to west.

But we must be careful not to imagine that this represents a mere
transplantation of southern culture on a rude northern stock. The whole
region to the east of the Mediterranean was just as fitted to develop a
civilisation as the vall