All the legends of the preservation of a record prove that the united
voice of antiquity taught that the antediluvians had advanced so far in
civilization as to possess an alphabet and a system of writing; a
conclusion which, as we will see hereafter, finds confirmation in the
original identity of the alphabetical signs used in the old world and
the new.
PART III
THE CIVILIZATION OF THE OLD WORLD AND NEW COMPARED.
CHAPTER I.
CIVILIZATION AN INHERITANCE.
Material civilization might be defined to be the result of a series of
inventions and discoveries, whereby man improves his condition, and
controls the forces of nature for his own advantage.
The savage man is a pitiable creature; as Menabosbu says, in the
Chippeway legends, he is pursued by a "perpetual hunger;" he is exposed
unprotected to the blasts of winter and the heats of summer. A great
terror sits upon his soul; for every manifestation of nature--the storm,
the wind, the thunder, the lightning, the cold, the heat--all are
threatening and dangerous demons. The seasons bring him neither
seed-time nor harvest; pinched with hunger, appeasing in part the
everlasting craving of his stomach with seeds, berries, and creeping
things, he sees the animals of the forest dash by him, and he has no
means to arrest their flight.
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