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LECTURE I THE ORIGINS: NATURE AND THE STATE IN THEIR IMPRESSION ON RELIGION-EARLIEST SYSTEMS THE recovery of the history of the nearer Orient in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic and Babylonian cuneiform brought with it many unexpected revelations, but none more impressive than the length of the development disclosed. In Babylonia, however, the constant influx of foreign population resulted in frequent and violent interruption of the development of civilization. In Egypt, on the other hand, the isolation of the lower Nile valley permitted a development never seriously arrested by permanent immigrations for over three thousand years. We find here an opportunity like that which the zoologist is constantly seeking in what he calls "unbroken series," such as that of the horse developing in several millions of years from a creature little larger than a rabbit to our modern domestic horse. In all the categories of human life: language, arts, government, society, Table of Contents CHAPTER I; COMPARISON BETWEEN THE FREE AND THE SLAVE STTES; IT is not our intention in this chapter to enter into an; elaborate ethnographical essay, to establish peculiarities; of difference, mental, moral, and physical, in the great; family of man Neither is it our design to launch into n; philosophical disquisition on the laws and principles of; light and darkness, with a view of educing any additional; evidence of the fact, that as a general rule, the rays of; the sun are more fructifying and congenial than the shades; of night Nor yet is it our purpose, by writing a formal; treati~e on ethics, to draw a broad line of distinction between; right and wrong, to point out the propriety of morality; and its advantages over immorality, nor to waste; time in pressing a universally admitted truism-that virtue; is preferable to vice Self