volutions of
empires.

The book opens with melancholy reflections amid the ruins of Palmyra.
"Thus perish the works of men, and thus do nations and empires vanish
away... Who can assure us that desolation like this will not one day be
the lot of our own country?" Some traveller like himself will sit by the
banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuyder Zee, amid silent ruins,
and weep for a people inurned and their greatness changed into an empty
name. Has a mysterious Deity pronounced a secret malediction against the
earth?

In this disconsolate mood he is visited by an apparition, who unveils
the causes of men's misfortunes and shows that they are due to
themselves. Man is governed by natural invariable laws, and he has only
to study them to know the springs of his destiny, the causes of his
evils and their remedies. The laws of his nature are self-love, desire
of happiness, and aversion to pain; these are the simple and prolific
principles of everything that happens in the moral world. Man is the
artificer of his own fate. He may lament his weakness and folly; but "he
has perhaps still more reason to be confident in his energies when he
recollects from what point he has set out and to what heights he has
been capable of elevating himself."

The supernatural visitant paints a rather rosy picture of the ancient
Egyptian and Assyrian kingdoms. But it would be a mistake to infer from
their superficial splendour that the inhabitants generally were wise
or happy. The tendency of man to ascribe perfection to past epochs is
merely "the discoloration of his chagrin." The race is not degenerating;
its misfortunes are due to ignorance and the mis-direction of self-love.
Two principal obstacles to improvement have been the difficulty of
transmitting ideas from age to age, and that of communicating them
rapidly from man to man. These have been removed by the invention of
printing. The press is "a memorable gift of celestial genius." In time
all men will come to understand the principles of individual happiness
and public felicity. Then there will be established among the peoples of
the earth an equilibrium of forces; there will be no more wars, disputes
will be decided by arbitration, and "the whole species will become one
great society, a single family governed by the same spirit and by common
laws, enjoying all the felicity of which human nature is capable." The
accomplishment of this will be a slow process, since the same le