creation of the world, to the universal deluge | tent of their ideas, had discovered the use in 1656.

If we go back to the earliest ages of the world, we observe that, if man, placed by the Creator upon the surface of the globe, had possessed no other resources than those which he could derive from his hands, and his corporeal strength, he would have been capable only of doing mechanically, what would have been suggested to him by imperious necessity, and his existence, after fifty-eight centuries, would have differed but little from that of the animals: but the sovereign Author of the universe had endowed him with intellectual faculties of a superior order. Soon the habit of seeing, observing, reflecting and comparing gave new power to his understanding.

of fire, the employment of wood and stone, the fabrication of brick, and the art of working iron and brass, and had invented various tools, instruments and utensils. Finally, Noah's ark, if it was such as it has been represented, [and the biblical account of it is true, ED.] could not have been made without art and industry, and gives us a high idea of the talents of the first men of nature. The second epoch, from the deluge to the foundation of Rome, in the year 3250.

After the dreadful catastrophe, which had swallowed up the whole world, with the exception of Noah and his family, we find in the sacred text, that this patriarch planted the vine, and expressed from it an intoxicating liquor. We see afterwards that men, either to escape a new deluge, or to reach the skies, which they believed to be near them, erected the tower of Babel, a rash and daring enterprise, but which nevertheless, carried even to a certain extent, supposes powerful conception and great resources.

The posterity of Noah so increased, that families dispersed, some going into Egypt, some into Asia, and some into Greece. Hence the origin of the Hebrew, Arabic, Phenician, Greek, Persian, Chinese, and other languages.

Agriculture and the care of flocks appear to have been the first occupations of the human race. The wealth of the most ancient patriarchs consisted of numerous heads of cattle. The skins of these animals supplied them with clothing; their flesh and their milk, joined to the fruits of the earth, sufficed to nourish the descendants of Adam and Eve. When the first ages were passed, families became too numerous to subsist together within a limited space. They dispersed, established themselves at first at a little distance from each other, and formed colonies. It was then that wants began to Egypt became the cradle of the arts. multiply. Men became more familiar with Astronomy, that is to say the observation of the phenomena of nature, united their forces, the stars, began by fixing chronological and their thoughts. The necessity of measures, and the division of months, years making themselves understood, produced and centuries. The astronomical dance of signs, gestures, sounds and words. Ideas the Egyptians indicates the anterior origin were modified, application was made of of sacred and profane dances, always accomthem to things of immediate necessity; and hence the origin of the first inventions. Tubal Cain invented, it is said, the art of forging iron; Seth passes for the inventor of astronomy and writing; according to the historian Josephus, the children of Seth erected two pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, to leave to their posterity a memento of the knowledge acquired by their fathers. Jubal invented music.

panied by instrumental music. To Sesostris, the tenth king of Egypt, is ascribed the invention of geography. The obelisks of Egypt, the celebrated city of Thebes, the immense labyrinth, built near lake Mæris ; lake Maris itself, from ten to twelve leagues in circumference, excavated by the hand of man; the two pyramids, erected in the midst of its waters, and each supporting a colossal statue, the famous pyramids of Memphis, constructed in imitation of the tower of Babel, and the statue of Memnon, were so many monuments, some of which, still existing, attest the power and industry of this first people of the earth.

But there remain to us no monuments of those remote ages; those which then existed were buried under the waters of the universal deluge. There is no trace of antediluvian industry. Tradition has scarcely transmitted to us the names of some of Egyptian colonies passed into Asia, exthe first inhabitants of the earth; all that tended from the shores of the Mediterrawe can gather from the text of the Sacred nean to China, and transported with them Scriptures is, that human industry had the knowledge which they had acquired in made some progress; since, within a pe- their own country. Hence the origin of the riod of time which embraced, at the most, Chaldeans, Tyrians, Phænicians, Babylofive or six generations, men had succeeded nians, Medes, Assyrians, Persians, and Chiin forming a language adapted to the ex- Inese.

The Chaldeans dispute with the

Egyptians the invention of astronomy. Na-industry among the Greeks. Cecrops foundvigation and commerce had their rise among ed there twelve cities which composed the the Tyrians and Phoenicians. There were kingdom of Athens. Cadmus and his Phomanufactories of glass at Sidon. The cities nician companions founded the city of Thebes of Babylon and Nineveh soon arose, both in Baotia, and made known there the means celebrated for the magnificence of their of transmitting thought by writing. Pelops, palaces, and the former for the tower of Be-a Phrygian, reigned in the Peloponnesus lus, built on the ruins of that of Babel. and gave his name to that famous country. Tyre, Sidon, Troy, and many other cities The first money was coined at Athens, and were, from their foundation, so many small Philo of Argos coined the first silver money, kingdoms, which, soon united by the right in the island of Ægina. Dedalus constructof conquest, formed large empires. The Per-ed the famous labyrinth of Crete. Calus or sians and the Chinese partook of the industry of other nations. The invention of the sphere was of great antiquity among the Chinese, and chronology mentions that the sun-dial was known in China towards the end of the second epoch.

It was also towards the end of this epoch, that the Tyrians built Carthage, and the city of Herculaneum was founded, and afterwards unfortunately buried in the earth.

Talus his rival invented the saw and the compass. The siege and taking of Troy, so well described by Homer, indicate to us what was, at that period, the military art, the art of forming camps, the kind of offensive and defensive armor, which was then fabricated, the use of chariots, the skill in training and managing horses. Homer immortalized his age and country. Lycurgus gave laws to Lacedæmon. The institution of gymnastic exercises, and the restoration of the Olympic games promoted address, strength and courage among the Greeks.

Among the fables, which cover with a thick veil the early ages of the world, are seen the principal truths, which may be deduced from the most remarkable events.

The third epoch, from the foundation of Rome to the vulgar era.

Previous to this third epoch, important

Greece began to be ranked among civilized nations. The rest of Europe, almost uninhabited, was without art and without industry. The colossal powers of Egypt and Asia soon destroyed each other. The conquests of Cambyses, Cyrus and Alexander arrested the progress of civilization, and by a necessary consequence, the people were the slaves of the first usurping despot powerful enough to subjugate them. Asiatic luxury and effeminacy completed the annihilation of what the destructive wars of the people had spared.

The Hebrews, going out of Egypt, under the command of Moses, also present to us a picture of human industry. Ancient history teaches us that soon after the deluge, men had made many discoveries well worthy of admiration, and that they had discovered the secret, first of spinning gold, and weaving it into cloth; secondly, of goldbeating and gilding wood and other materials; thirdly, of casting gold and silver figures expressive of various objects, and of mak-events had occurred in Egypt and in Asia. ing all kinds of ornaments and vases; fourthly, of painting and carving wood, stone and marble; and fifthly, of dying stuffs with the most beautiful colors. We also see the Hebrews at the foot of Mount Sinai making a god under the form of a golden calf; the decalogue, or the ten commandments of God, engraved upon stone; the vestments of the high priest, adorned with precious stones and woven of fine linen, mixed with gold and dyed with different colors; the ark of the covenant, of precious wood, overlaid with plates of gold, fastened with golden nails, and furnished with rings of gold, into which were inserted large gilded staves, intended to bear it. David calms the fury of Saul, by the harmonious sounds of his harp. Finally, the temple of Solomon, erected in Jerusalem, one of the most celebrated monuments of the Jewish people, by its architecture and the almost infinite number of works of gold and casting, announces a magnificence worthy of the Master of the universe, who was its object, and gives us an idea of the progress, which the industry of man had made during a period of 3,000 years.enl

A colony from Egypt introduced arts and

It was reserved for Greece to preserve and rekindle the sacred fire of the arts and sciences. The first Greek medals, or coins with inscriptions, without the concave die, date from the commencement of this epoch. Thales carried from Egypt into Greece the knowledge of the circles of the sphere. Anaximander invented geographical maps. Solon gave laws to Athens. The Pythian games, adapted to give flexibility and agility to the body, were instituted at Delphi. The theory of music was invented by Pythagoras, who first called attention to the five regular solids of geometry. Philolaus of Crotona, a disciple ofhagoras, and Ar

ed its projects of conquest, and the ambition of becoming the first city of the universe; and while gold and riches prepared the de. cay of the republics of Greece, the Roman republic, after the expulsion of the Tarquins, strengthened upon its foundation, rose with majesty upon the ruins of the thrones by which it was surrounded, and

chytas, first made known the motion of the earth round the sun. Hipparchus was the first, after Thales and Sulpicius Gallus, who discovered the method of calculating eclipses. He invented the astrolabe, and calculated the number of the fixed stars, which he made amount to 1022. Greece gave birth to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Theophrastus is the first botanical author known. Graft- which overshadowed its rising greatness. ing was invented by the Greeks. Hippo- Six hundred years of the republic were crates, regarded with reason as the father six hundred years of war. This haughty of medicine, gave the first lessons in the art people, who at first regarded with disdain of curing. Towards the golden age of the mechanic arts, and abandoned the exGreece, the fine arts were there carried to ercise of them to slaves, knowing no art the highest degree of perfection. Dancing, but that of conquest, learned from conquermusic, wrestling, and chariot-racing were ed nations to value the arts and sciences, held in high estimation. Attalus, king of as well as the master-pieces of industry. Pergamus, invented tapestry. Painting, Papirius constructed the first sun-dial. Soon sculpture, engraving, and architecture made enriched by the industry of its neighbors, such rapid progress among the Greeks, that Rome could not, like Egypt and Greece, they have not yet been surpassed by any boast of its discoveries. History paints to nation upon the earth, but have served as a us the genius of this people, as directed model for all. We shall always remember rather to imitation than to invention. Its manthe great talents of the painters Apelles, ners, laws, festivals, pageants, customs, all, Zeuxis and Parrhasius; of the sculptors, even its religion, were borrowed from other Phidias, Polycletus, Praxiteles, Agesander, nations, but principally from the Greeks. Polydorus and Athenodorus;* of the engra- The Roman people, who thought only of vers, Stratonicus, Mentor and Pytheas; of subduing and governing the world, did not the architects, Ictinus, Callicrates and Philo. cultivate the sciences, such as geometry From Greece have come the most beautiful and mathematics. To judge from their master-pieces of the chisel and the pencil. own historians, they despised and ridiculed The art of making arches was known there. them. Cicero speaks very slightly of ArCallimachus invented the capital of the Co-chimedes, whose immortal name will go rinthian order. The tomb of Mausolus has down to posterity with that of the Roman been considered one of the seven wonders orator. Tacitus confounds mathematics of the world. The marbles of Paros, afterwards called the marbles of Arundel or Oxford, have preserved the most interesting epochs of this industrious people.

with judicial astrology, and does not give us a very high idea of his knowledge of physical geography. It was only towards the end of the republic, that eloquence was The arts of luxury did not diminish their honored at Rome. The taste for the fine energy. It was especially in the military arts was confined to a sterile admiration. art, that they were distinguished, by the The Romans loved them only for pomp and invention and construction of the battering- ostentation. They neglected nothing inram, tortoise, auger, rolling towers, and other deed to procure the works of art, which they machines for the attack and defence of envied their neighbors; but we do not see places; by the disposition of armies in battle and the precision of their movements, and by skill in the navy, which always rendered their fleets victorious, procured for them the empire of the sea, and obliged the Persians to renounce it forever, by a solemn treaty.

But the greatest empires have a limit to their increase and duration, appointed by the sovereign Ruler of destiny.

Beside Greece arose a rival power. Rome, which, according to history, derived its origin from the Trojans, early announc

*These last three sculptors of Rhodes together executed the celebrated group of Laocoon.

among them that emulation of the Greeks, nor those sublime talents, which, long af ter the fall of the empire, rendered Italy il lustrious, and still afford us models.

The Romans did not neglect agriculture. The works of Cato, Varro, Columella and Pliny prove to us how great a value they attached to it. Ctesibius was the inventor of pumps, and the hydraulic machine, the water-clock, otherwise called clepsydra. The invention of gauze was known from the time of Petronius. Architecture appears to have been more particularly cultivated under the emperors; and Rome owed to this art a part of its splendor. Its highways, its palaces, temples, mosaics, aqueducts, circi,

amphitheatres, baths, bridges, triumphal | Rome, but the inventive genius of the inarches, the invention of the composite order, dustrious people of Greece could not be its theatres, and many other public edifices, won by conquest. This genius, so fruitful the remembrance of which has descended in the happy times of liberty, was enfeebled, to posterity, will perpetuate the memory prostrated, annihilated under the emperors of Cæsar, Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Adrian, of the East and West. Those famous citAntoninus, and Marcus Aurelius. Cæsar, ies, Athens, Corinth, Lacedæmon, Thebes, who traversed Gaul, and nearly all Europe Delphi, their temples, theatres, circi, counas a conqueror, erected, on his way, monu- cil-houses, porches, porticoes, and many ments, which attest the grandeur, pomp and other monuments, were destroyed by war magnificence of the golden age of the Ro- and by time. In the midst of ruins, we man empire. scarcely dissover any trace of them, and upon the uncultivated soil of the country, once the most celebrated and the most flour. ishing, we find only the emblems of destruction, indigence and gross stupidity.

But it must be confessed that Rome, inferior to Greece in science, does not yield to it in literature. If Greece had its Homer, its Demosthenes, its Eschylus, its Xenophon, its Thucydides, its Herodotus, its Dioscorides, its Sophocles, its Euripides, its Aristophanes, Rome had its Virgil, its Cicero, its Horace, its Tacitus, its Livy, its Pliny, its Seneca, its Plautus, its Terence, and many other celebrated writers. The history of Greece interests by the detail of its arts; the history of Rome astonishes and amazes by its colossal grandeur and magnificence. There was more industry in Greece, more pomp and majesty in

Rome.

Until the Christian era, the splendid brilliancy of the Roman power so dazzles our eyes, that we do not perceive the other nations of the earth. Nevertheless we must believe that the resources of industry spread with the population. But if the historical monuments of the Roman people give us but little information, concerning their means and their progress in the arts, what can we expect from nations, which were just beginning to arise, or whose antiquity, obscure and almost unknown, leaves us no trace of their ingenious inventions and discoveries.

The fourth epoch, from the Christian era to the sixteenth century.

Such are the fatal effects of war, that, by reducing to ashes cities and empires, by exterminating the human race, by effacing even the traces of nations which have existed, it brings in its train, terror and desolation, covers the earth with mourning, envelopes it in the thick darkness of ignorance, and substitutes the horrors of barbarism, for the laws of civilization. We can only deplore the disastrous times, in which the dismemberment of the Roman empire threw all Europe into confusion, disorder and anarchy. Discord and ambition on one side, ignorance, superstition and barbarism on the other, caused for a long time the misery of nations. The annals of the middle ages present to us only sieges, battles, civil wars, crusades, factions, murders and poisonings. Amid the storms by which Europe was agitated, we see some traits of magnanimity and courage mingled with treason and ferocity, but men occupied with defence or conquest had neither time nor inclination to be instructed and enlightened.

Pagan philosophy had lost its empire. It was reserved for a religious philosophy, to regenerate the human race. Christianity came forth from the ruins of Judea and Under the shade of the olive, the arts sought an asylum at Rome, where it long and sciences spring up and flourish. found only persecution. Ah! what moraliWars are their pest and scourge, they cut ty was better adapted to soften men, than off whole generations. The youth educa- that which commands the practice of all the ted in camps and amid the tumult of arms virtues, which attaches shame and remorse have not calm leisure to surrender them- to the crimes and vices so fatal to the reselves to the alluring charms of useful and pose of society, a morality which calls man, agreeable talents. The laurels of victory each moment, before the tribunal of his flourish only while they are watered by conscience, which consoles him in adversity human blood. The famous library of Al- and affliction, teaches him to support the exandria was burned during the wars of evils, inseparable from human frailty, and Cæsar in Egypt. The wars which de- makes of all nations one and the same stroyed the empires of the Babylonians, Per- family? Is there upon the earth a religion, sians and Assyrians stifled the industry of which elevates man more above himself, those Asiatic nations. It is true that some than that which teaches him the immortali. master-pieces of the Greek artists embellish-ty of the soul, which ranks charity among ed the temples and public monuments of his first duties, which enjoins the forgive

THE TENTH CENTURY.

ness of injuries, which renders the nuptial | multitude of churches of Gothic architecture, bond sacred and inviolable, and which, even some of which still excite the admiration of at the gates of death, sustains his courage architects, by their sublimity. by the hope of returning to the bosom of the Eternal? This philosophy, religious, mild, beneficent, consolatory, the friend of peace and harmony, always ready to defend the innocent, to relieve the weak, indigent and oppressed, is by no means opposed to the arts and sciences. We owe to it the preservation of the precious remnants of ancient learning.

Europe, ravaged and laid waste, remained, until the sixteenth century, in a state of barbarism, given up by turns to despotism and anarchy. There also exists a blank of nearly ten centuries in the history of industry. During this long period, the people, plunged in a kind of brutality, alternately conquering and conquered, knew only the empire of force, or the yoke of servitude. The human race, degraded from its ancient splendor, vegetated miserably without arts, industry or emulation.

THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA.

Even amid the darkness of ignorance, there shone at intervals some rays of light. The mosk of St. Sophia at Constantinople proves that there existed even then a certain

taste for architecture.

THE SECOND CENTURY.

Next to Hippocrates, Galen was the most celebrated author among physicians. The system of Ptolemy, although now abandoned, was, for the time in which he lived, a great effort of the human mind, and forms an epoch in the history of astronomy.

THE THIRD CENTURY.

The monk Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester Second, introduced into France, Arabic or Indian arithmetical figures, which the Saracens had made known to him, and constructed the first clock with wheels.

THE TENTH, ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES.

Among the Saracens are found some names celebrated in medicine, such as Isaac, (of the seventh century) Rhazes, Avicenna and Messue. Alhazen, an Arabian, composed seven books upon optics, remarkable for the time in which he lived.

THE ELEVENTH CENTURY.

Guido Aretinus, a Benedictine monk, invented the several parts of music, the lines, The art of painting on glass began to decogamut, and notes, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si. rate the windows of churches, and the invention of organs made their arches resound.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

The invention of the mariner's compass appears to be several years anterior to Flavio Gioia. The use of wind-mills came to us from the East, after the crusades. The names of Geber, Roger Bacon, Arnaud, de Villeneuve, are still held in veneration by chemists.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

We owe the invention of spectacles to Alexander Spina, a Dominican of Pisa, and Salvinus Armatus, a Florentine.-Horology had already had its birth, under Charles the Fifth.-Under Charles the Sixth, engraving

Plotinus, a native of Egypt, went to Rome to give lessons in philosophy, and was dis-on wood was invented, Dante, Petrarch, tinguished for his erudition.

THE FOURTH CENTURY.

Diophantus invented algebra.

THE SIXTH CENTURY.

Proclus, the mathematician, like another Archimedes, destroyed, by means of burning-glasses, the vessels of Vitalian, who was laying siege to Constantinople.

THE SEVENTH CENTURY.

Boccaccio, Ambrosius Calepin, and John Picus Mirandula, are names dear to the republic of letters.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

Erasmus rendered himself so illustrious, by his learning and his writings, that the city of Rotterdam erected a bronze statue to his honor. During the pontificate of Leo Tenth, talents of every kind flourished in Italy, and were soon communicated to France, whither Francis the First attracted them, and where he caused them to expand by the favor and protection which he bestowed upon them. History informs us that by the counsel and persuasion of William Budaeus, this monarch founded literary Amid civil and foreign wars, there arose, professorships in Paris. To the University in France and other Christian countries, al is due the invention of the post in France.

Callinicus, an engineer of Heliopolis in Syria, was the inventor of Greek-fire, an invention since lost, but, unfortunately for mankind, replaced by the use of gunpowder.

THE EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES.