in them, by the establishment of a
satrap or pashaw system of governing the provinces, by an invariable and
speedy degeneracy in the princes of the royal house, the effeminate
nurslings of the seraglio succeeding to the warrior sovereigns reared in
the camp, and by the internal anarchy and insurrections which indicate
and accelerate the decline and fall of these unwieldy and ill-organized
fabrics of power.

It is also a striking fact that the governments of all the great Asiatic
empires have in all ages been absolute despotisms. And Heeren is right
in connecting this with another great fact, which is important from its
influence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics. "Among
all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the paternal government of
every household was corrupted by polygamy: where that custom exists, a
good political constitution is impossible. Fathers, being converted into
domestic despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their
sovereign which they exact from their family and dependents in their
domestic economy."

We should bear in mind, also, the inseparable connection between the
state religion and all legislation which has always prevailed in the
East, and the constant existence of a powerful sacerdotal body,
exercising some check, though precarious and irregular, over the throne
itself, grasping at all civil administration, claiming the supreme
control of education, stereotyping the lines in which literature and
science must move, and limiting the extent to which it shall be lawful
for the human mind to prosecute its inquiries.

With these general characteristics rightly felt and understood it
becomes a comparatively easy task to investigate and appreciate the
origin, progress and principles of Oriental empires in general, as well
as of the Persian monarchy in particular. And we are thus better enabled
to appreciate the repulse which Greece gave to the arms of the East, and
to judge of the probable consequences to human civilization, if the
Persians had succeeded in bringing Europe under their yoke, as they had
already subjugated the fairest portions of the rest of the then known
world.

The Greeks, from their geographical position, formed the natural
van-guard of European liberty against Persian ambition; and they
preeminently displayed the salient points of distinctive national
character which have rendered European civilization so far superior to
Asiatic. The nation