Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
To the careful student of history, there is a very great deal moreto be considered than the mere political facts that stand as landmarksalong the path of progress which the nations have traversedsince the plains of Iran poured forth their hosts westward. These factsare the mere externals that adorn the pages of historic lore, andembellish the memories of the great men who have lived in and movedthe world at various times in various nations, or which clothe thelives of tyrants and usurpers with their just reward.
The superficial student of history cares only for the results of theevolution of nations—for the fact that Sesostris was the greatest ofEgyptian kings; or that Semiramis rose by her military sagacity fromthe rank of a mean official’s wife to be, first, the Queen of Ninas,and afterward, to be the Assyrian Queen, who should march an army ofthree millions men across the Indus to conquer the Indian King.Running down the course of events, he traces the rise and fall ofnations—after Assyria then Egypt, next Persia, Greece, Rome and thenthe Dark Ages, out of whose womb was evolved modern Europe;and, lastly, the birth, development, struggle and recovery of the mostremarkable nation which has yet arisen in the world.
Behind these facts, which are but results, lie the real motor powers4of history; and they are deeper, broader and more important than is thatwhich they evolve. There is an external and an internal phase toeverything existent in the world. Up to this generation the externalhas apparently borne the more prominent part in determining whatshould be next. But now the analytic age has begun, wherein facts donot suffice; wherein new systems, new theories, new philosophies andeven new religions are constructed, not by an examination of the errorsof what has been, but by the discovery and application of the principles,the powers, which underlie those errors.
Heretofore there has been no inquiry made by the rulers of thepeople into the general principles of government. It was sufficient thatthere was a government maintained, the governors caring for little butthe power to compel the people to do their bidding. But it is beginningto dawn upon the minds of those who have something more thana selfish interest in humanity that there is a science of government;aye, even that there is a science of society: and such minds are endeavoringby the deepest researches to discover the principles of thesesciences.
In our government, the principle of individual rights is theoreticallyheld, t