Since now this general sketch of the various and contrary directions which the human mind followed in the first ages of history has been rendered more clear and definite by a comparative view of the five principal nations of the primitive world, it only remains for us to subjoin some important traits in the history of each, to complete this picture of the earliest nations; in order to pass over, along with the Persians, to the second period of the ancient world--a period which is so much nearer to us, and appears so much more clear and open to our apprehension.
The origin of ancient heathenism we must seek among the Indians, and not among the Chinese, for the reason we have before alleged: namely, that, in the primitive ages, the Chinese observed a pure, simple, and Patriarchal worship of the Deity; and it was only when under the first general and powerful Emperor of China, the rationalism introduced by the sect of Taosse had brought about a complete revolution in the whole system of Chinese faith, manners, and customs, that a real form of Paganism--the Indian superstition of Buddha--was subsequently introduced into that country. This subversion of the whole system of ancient government--of ancient doctrines--and of what among the Chinese was inseparably allied with the latter, the early system of writing, was a real revolution in the public mind. As the general burning of the sacred books, and the persecution and execution of many of the learned were measures directed solely against the school of Confucius, that adhered to the old system of morals and government; it is by no means an arbitrary and baseless hypothesis to ascribe to the antagonist party, the rationalist sect of Taosse, a great share in this violent moral and political revolution; inasmuch as the powerful Emperor Chi-ho-angti must have been quite in the interest of this party. Although the erection of the great wall of China, and the settlement of a Chinese colony in Japan, gave external splendour to his reign; yet at home its despotic violence rendered it thoroughly revolutionary. And so this mighty catastrophe, which occurred two thousand years ago in the Chinese empire, widely removed as it is from us by the distance of space and time, and different as is the form under which it occurred, bears nevertheless no slight resemblance or analogy to much we have seen and experienced in our own times. To explain the contradiction which seems involved in the fact, that on one hand we have commended that pure, simple, and Patriarchal worship of the Deity by the Chinese in the primitive period; and much that denoted the comparatively high state of civilization among this people, together with a science perverted and degenerate indeed, yet carried to a high degree of refinement; and that, on the other hand, we have pointed out many things in their primitive writing-system, which displayed a great rudeness and poverty of ideas, and a very confined circle of symbols, we may observe that it is with China, as with many other ancient civilized countries, where in the back-ground of a ruling and highly polished people, a close investigation will discover a race of primitive inhabitants more barbarous, or at least less advanced in intellectual refinement. Such a race is mentioned by historians as existing in different provinces of China under the name of Miao--they are precisely characterized as an earlier, less polished race of inhabitants, and they have indeed been preserved down to later times. The historical enquirer meets almost always in the first ages of the world with two strata of nations, consisting of an elder and a younger race;--in the same way as the geologist in his investigation of the earth's surface can clearly distinguish a two-fold formation of mountains and separate periods in the formation of that surface. Thus in China the more polished new-comers and founders of the subsequent nation and state, accommodated themselves in many respects to the manners and customs, the language and even perhaps symbolical writing of these half savages, as the Europeans have partly done, when they have wished to civilize and instruct the Mexicans and other barbarous nations; and as men must always act in similar cases, if they would wish success to crown their benevolent endeavours. All researches into the origin of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization ever conduct the enquirer to the north-west, where the province of Shensee is situated, and to the countries lying beyond. Thus this only serves to confirm the opinion, highly probable in itself, and supported by such manifold testimony, of the general derivation of all Asiatic civilization from the great central region of Western Asia.