Page:Epochs of Civilization.djvu/9

vi PREFACE. There are, of course, reasons for this backward state of the science of civilized society. The difficulties which attend its pursuit are very serious, The complex and multitudinous data of civilization are distributed over an immense area and ectend through a long vista of ages down to - the misty dawn oF haman history, seven or eight thousand years ago. They have to be laboriously gleaned from records which are? generally, as remarkable for paucity of information in regard to the cultural development of the people, as they are for exuberance of details concerning the marauding expeditions and sanguinary exploits of semi-savage warriors and the nefkrious intrigues of scheming politicians. But, perhaps the most formidable obstacle in the way of a science of civilization is the difficulty of focussing the mind right for the visualisation of its phenomena. So strong and so subtle, indeed, is the influence of ideas, sentiments, beliefs, prejudices and institutions to. which one is born, and among which one is bred that they produce an. unconscious bias ftum which it is not easy to escape. The mental horizon of European thinkers does not as a nile, eatend much beyond Europe, just as the mental horizon of Asiatic observers does not extend much beyond Asia; tud wben it does, the objects beyond generally appear to them as giotesque, insgnillcarit, distorted, incomprehensible, or absurd. Such a

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