y sound objection to an hypothesis
which bears so strongly the stamp of probability. But this
supposition acquires a still greater degree of probability when we
apply it to the totality of the discoveries in question. All were
made in Eastern Asia; all were unheard-of in the West. Communication
took place: it was continued for a century and a-half, and ere
another century had elapsed, all these inventions were known in
Europe. Their origin is veiled in obscurity. The region where they
manifested themselves, the men who produced them, are equally a
subject of doubt. Enlightened countries were not their theatre. It
was not learned men who were their authors; it was common men,
obscure artisans, who lighted up, one after another, these unexpected
flames. Nothing can better demonstrate the effects of a
communication; nothing can be more in accordance with what we have
said above as to those invisible channels, those imperceptible
ramifications, whereby the science of the Eastern nations penetrated
into Europe. The greater part of these inventions appear at first in
the state of infancy in which the Asiatics have left them; and this
circumstance alone, almost prevents our having any doubt as to their
origin. Some are immediately put in practice; others remain for some
time enveloped in obscurity, which conceals from us their progress,
and they are taken, on their appearance, for new discoveries; all are
soon brought to perfection, and, as it were, fecundated by the genius
of Europeans, operating in concert, communicate to human intelligence
the greatest impulse known to history. Thus, by this shock of
nations, the darkness of the middle age was dispersed. Calamities,
which at first aspect seemed merely destined to afflict mankind,
served to arouse it from the lethargy in which it had remained for
ages; and the subversion of twenty empires was the price at which
Providence accorded to Europe the light of modern civilization."

The Mongol dynasty of the Youen occupied the empire for a century. After
having shone with a brilliancy, the reflection of which spread over the
most remote regions, it ended with Chun-Ti, a feeble prince, more mindful
of frivolous amusements than of the great inheritance which had been left
him by his ancestors. The Chinese regained their independence; and
Tchou-Youen-Tchang,