es
fall, accident has only the appearance of doing what, in reality, was
already nearly accomplished.

There is no physical cause for the decline of nations, nature remains
the same; and if the physical man has degenerated, it was before the
authentic records of history. The men who built the most stupendous
pyramid in Egypt, did not exceed in stature those who now live in
mean hovels at its immense base. If there is any country in the world
that proves the uniformity of nature, it is this very Egypt. Unlike to
other countries, that owe their fertility to the ordinary succession of
seasons, of which regular registers do not exist, and are never
accurate, it depends on the overflowing of the waters of a single river.
The marks that indicated the rising of the Nile, in the days of the
Pharaos, and of the Ptolemies, do the same [end of page #xii] at the
present day, and are a guarantee for the future regularity of nature, by
the undeniable certainty of it for the past.

By a singular propensity for preserving the bodies of the dead, the
Egyptians have left records equally authentic, with regard to the
structure of the human frame. {2} Here nothing is fabulous; and even
the unintentional errors of language are impossible. We have neither
to depend on the veracity nor the correctness of man. The proofs
exhibited are visible and tangible; they are the object of the senses,
and admit of no mistake.

But while that country exhibits the most authentic proofs of the
uniform course of nature, it affords also the most evident examples of
the degradation of the human mind. It is there we find the cause of
those ruins that astonish, and the desolation that afflicts. Had men
continued their exertions, the labour of their hands would not have
fallen to decay.

It is in the exertion and conduct of man, and in the information of his
mind, that we find the causes of the mutability of human affairs. We
are about to trace

---
{2} Most part of the mummies found in Egypt, instead of being of a
larger size, are considerably under the middle stature of the people of
England. Those dead monuments of the human frame give the direct
lie to Homer and all the traditions about men's degenerating in size
and strength.
-=-

[end of page #xiii]

them through an intricate labyrinth; but, in this, we are not without a
guide.

The history of three thousand years, and of nations that have risen to
wealth and power, in a great variety of situa