that the architectural skill of the
Peruvians was far from insignificant. They constructed edifices of
porphyry, granite, brick; but their buildings were for the most part
low, and suitable to an earthquake country.

[Sidenote: The stages of human development always the same.] I have
dwelt at some length on the domestic history of Mexico and Peru because
it is intimately connected with one of the philosophical principles
which it is the object of this book to teach, viz., that human progress
takes place under an unvarying law, and therefore in a definite way. The
trivial incidents mentioned in the preceding paragraphs may perhaps have
seemed insignificant or wearisome, but it is their very commonness,
their very familiarity, that gives them, when rightly considered, a
surprising interest. There is nothing in these minute details but what
we find to be perfectly natural from the European point of view. They
might be, for that matter, instead of reminiscences of the spontaneous
evolution of a people shut out from the rest of the world by impassable
oceans, a relation of the progress of some European or Asiatic nation.
The man of America advanced in his course of civilization as did the man
of the Old World, devising the same institutions, guided by the same
intentions, constrained by the same desires. From the great features of
his social system down to the little details of his domestic life, there
is a sameness with what was done in Asia, Africa, Europe. But similar
results imply a similar cause. What, then, is there possessed in common
by the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, the European, the American?
Surely not climate, nor equal necessities, nor equal opportunity. Simply
nothing but this--corporeal organization! As automatons constructed in
the same way will do the same things, so, in organic forms, sameness of
structure will give rise to identity of function and similarity of acts.
The same common sense guides men all over the world. Common sense is a
function of common organization. All natural history is full of
illustrations. [Sidenote: Analogy between societies of men and societies
of animals.] It may be offensive to our pride, but it is none the less
true, that in his social progress, the free-will of which man so boasts
himself in his individual capacity disappears as an active influence,
and the domination of general and inflexible laws becomes manifest. The
free-will of the individual is supplanted by ins