great impulse. Though we may be compelled to leave out of view many tribes, portions and periods in human history, there is, none the less, on the very face of the facts, within the narrow scope of historic nations, manifest development. Though the stream winds its way through extended marshes, and drops off from time to time into sluggish lakes, it none the less has an unceasing onward current. In the egg, the nucleus of life, though a small part of the whole, draws the attention. This progress has been referred to simply physical causes, and an effort made to construct a philosophy of history on this basis. Its failure is complete. If we were to take periods separated by a thousand years, and compare the different occupants of the same portions of the globe, we should find that the uniformity of physical conditions had not prevented the greatest changes in social life. Indeed, the modification of external conditions of soil and climate, by the altered handling of different races, is quite as obvious as the effect of any one set of physical circumstances on national character. So true is this, that civilization has been constantly on the move, and has already passed over a great variety of physical conditions. No locality, by any preeminence of advantage, has, then, any permanent command over civilization; and hardly any locality, by virtue of simply physical features, has excluded it altogether.

To this first element of growth, then, there must be added one more efficacious than it --- primitive traits of character in nations and races. This element has two forms of expression, national character