discover that its pretended progress and development are
all imaginary, at least on earth. I have been unable to the present
day to trace it. I really see no difference between the civilized
man of today and the civilized man of five thousand years ago. I do
not perceive that the human mind is endowed in our times with
powers superior to those it possessed in ages gone by, but clearly
discern that these powers are directed in different channels. Will
Professor Mommsen pretend that this is also _useless_ after being
found? Man today is the same as man was when these monuments, which
cause the wonder of the modern traveller, were reared. Is he not
influenced by the same instincts, the same wants, the same
aspirations, the same mental and physical diseases?

I consider mankind alike to the waters of the ocean; their surface
is ever changing, while in their depths is the same eternal,
unchangeable stillness and calm. So man superficially. He reflects
the images of times and circumstances. His intellect develops and
expands only according to the necessities of the moment and place.
As the waves, he cannot pass the boundaries assigned to him by the
unseen, impenetrable Power to which all things are subservient. He
is irresistibly impulsed toward his inevitable goal--the grave.
There, as far as he positively knows, all his powers are silenced.
But from there also he sees springing new forms of life that have
to fulfil, in their turn, their destiny in the great laboratory of
creation. The exploration of the monuments of past generations, all
bearing the peculiarities, the idiosyncracies of the builders, has
convinced me that the energies of human mind and intellect are the
same in all times. They come forth in proportion to the
requirements of the part they are to represent in the great drama
of life, the means in the stupendous mechanism of the universe
being always perfectly and wisely adapted to the ends. It is
therefore absurd to judge of mental attainments of man in different
epochs and circumstances by comparison with our actual
civilization. For me the teachings of archaeology are these:
"Tempora mutantur, mores etiam in illis; sicut ante homini etiam
manent anima et mens."

Alchemists have gone out of fashion, thank God! Would that the old
so