Guizot, writing
a book on the subject, does not. It implies the evolution of a highly
organized man, brought to supreme delicacy of sentiment, as in practical
power, religion, liberty, sense of honor, and taste. In the hesitation
to define what it is, we usually suggest it by negations. A nation that
has no clothing, no alphabet, no iron, no marriage, no arts of peace, no
abstract thought, we call barbarous. And after many arts are invented or
imported, as among the Turks and Moorish nations, it is often a little
complaisant to call them civilized.

Each nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its
own. The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is
different from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term
imports a mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind,
the savage tribes do not advance. The Indians of this country have not
learned the white man's work; and in Africa, the negro of to-day is the
negro of Herodotus. But in other races the growth is not arrested; but
the like progress that is made by a boy, "when he cuts his eye-teeth,"
as we say,--childish illusions pricing daily away, and he seeing things
really and comprehensively,--is made by tribes. It is the learning the
secret of cumulative power, of advancing on one's self. It implies a
facility of association, power to compare, the ceasing from fixed ideas.
The Indian is gloomy and distressed, when urged to depart from his
habits and traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the white, and
his eye sinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is always
some novelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to change.
Thus there is a Manco Capac at the beginning of each improvement, some
superior foreigner importing new and wonderful arts, and teaching them.
Of course, he must not know too much, but must have the sympathy,
language, and gods of those he would inform. But chiefly the sea-shore
has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to commerce. The most
advanced nations are always those who navigate the most. The power which
the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the
change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his
wigwam.

Where shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and wit,
each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect of
a framed or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and
r