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44 entirely that the relics of the population retained not even a memory of it all. Of the giant city Tenochtitlan not a stone remains above ground. The cluster of great Mayan cities in the virgin forests of Yucatan succumbed swiftly to the attack of vegetation, and we do not know the old name of any one of them. Of the literature three books survive, but no one can read them.

The most appalling feature of the tragedy was that it was not in the least a necessity of the Western Culture that it should happen. It was a private affair of adventurers, and at the time no one in Germany, France, or England had any idea of what was taking place. This instance shows, as no other shows, that the history of humanity has no meaning whatever and that deep significances reside only in the life-courses of the separate Cultures. Their inter-relations are unimportant and accidental. In this case the accident was so cruelly banal, so supremely absurd, that it would not be tolerated in the wildest farce. A few cannon and handguns began and ended the drama.

A sure knowledge of even the most general history of this world is now for ever impossible. Events as important as our Crusades and Reformation have vanished without leaving a trace. Only in recent years has research managed to settle the outline, at any rate, of the later course of development, and with the help of these data comparative morphology may attempt to widen and deepen the picture by means of those of other Cultures. On this basis the epochal points of this Culture lie about two hundred years later than those of the Arabian and seven hundred years before those of our own. There was a pre-Cultural period which, as in China and Egypt, developed script and calendar, but of this we now know nothing. The time-reckoning began with an initial date which lies far behind the birth of Christ, but it is impossible now to fix it with certainty relative to that event. In any case, it shows an extraordinarily strongly developed history-sense in Mexican mankind.

The springtime of the "Hellenic" Maya states is evidenced by the dated relief-pillars of the old cities of Copan (in the south), Tikal, and somewhat later Chichen Itza (in the north), Naranjo, and Seibal — about 160-450.