navigated;
the East Indian geography was thoroughly understood by the Buddhist
priesthood, who had, on an extensive scale, carried forward their
propagandism for twenty-five hundred years in those regions. But
doubtless the most perfect geographical knowledge existed among the
Jews, those cosmopolite traders who conducted mercantile transactions
from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast
of Mozambique. It was actually through them that the existence of the
Cape of Good Hope was first made known in Europe. Five hundred years
before Columbus, the Scandinavian adventurers had discovered America,
but so low was the state of intelligence in Europe that the very memory
of these voyages had been altogether lost. The circumnavigation of the
earth is, however, strictly the achievement of the West. I have been led
to make the remarks in this paragraph, since they apply again on another
occasion--the introduction of what is called the Baconian philosophy,
the principles of which were not only understood, but carried into
practice in the East eighteen hundred years before Bacon was born.

* * * * *

It is scarcely necessary that I should offer any excuse for devoting a
few pages to a digression on the state of affairs in Mexico and Peru.
Nothing illustrates more strikingly the doctrine which it is the object
of this book to teach.

[Sidenote: Progress of man in the New World the same as in the Old.] The
social condition of America at its discovery demonstrates that similar
ideas and similar usages make their appearance spontaneously in the
progress of civilization of different countries, showing how little they
depend on accident, how closely they are connected with the
organization, and, therefore, with the necessities of man. From
important ideas and great institutions down to the most trifling
incidents of domestic life, so striking is the parallel between the
American aborigines and Europeans that with difficulty do we divest
ourselves of the impression that there must have been some
intercommunication. Each was, however, pursuing an isolated and
spontaneous progress; and yet how closely does the picture of life in
the New World answer to that in the Old. [Sidenote: Mexico, its
political system.] The monarch of Mexico lived in barbaric pomp, wore a
golden crown resplendent with gems; was aided in his duties by a privy
council; the great lords held their lands of him