their own
intellectual Organization.--Example of the Manner in which this has
been done in China.--Its Imperfection.--What it has accomplished._

_The Organization of public Intellect is the End to which European
Civilization is tending._

A Philosophical principle becomes valuable if it can be used as a guide
in the practical purposes of life.

[Sidenote: General summary of the work.] The object of this book is to
impress upon its reader a conviction that civilization does not proceed
in an arbitrary manner or by chance, but that it passes through a
determinate succession of stages, and is a development according to law.

[Sidenote: Individual and social life have been considered;] For this
purpose we considered the relations between individual and social life,
and showed that they are physiologically inseparable, and that the
course of communities bears an unmistakable resemblance to the progress
of an individual, and that man is the archetype or exemplar of society.

[Sidenote: in the intellectual history of Greece;] We then examined the
intellectual history of Greece--a nation offering the best and most
complete illustration of the life of humanity. From the beginnings of
its mythology in old Indian legends and of its philosophy in Ionia, we
saw that it passed through phases like those of the individual to its
decrepitude and death in Alexandria.

[Sidenote: and the history of Europe.] Then, addressing ourselves to the
history of Europe, we found that, if suitably divided into groups of
ages, these groups, compared with each other in chronological
succession, present a striking resemblance to the successive phases of
Greek life, and therefore to that which Greek life resembles--that is to
say, individual life.

For the sake of convenience in these descriptions we have assumed
arbitrary epochs, answering to the periods from infancy to maturity.
History justifies the assumption of such periods. [Sidenote: The
contrasts its ages display.] There is a well-marked difference between
the aspect of Europe during its savage and mythologic ages; its
changing, and growing, and doubting condition during the Roman republic
and the Caesars; its submissive contentment under the Byzantine and
Italian control; the assertion of its manhood, and right of thought, and
freedom of action which characterize its present state--a state adorned
by great discoveries in science, great inventions in art, additions to
the comforts of