Now, at last, through an agency all unknown to Antiquity, knowledge of every kind has become general and permanent. It can no longer be confined to a select circle. It cannot be crushed by tyranny, or lost by neglect. It is immortal as the soul from which it proceeds. This alone renders all relapse into barbarism impossible, while it affords an unquestionable distinction between ancient and modern times. The Press, watchful with more than the hundred eyes of Argus, strong with more than the hundred arms of Briareus, not only guards all the conquests of civilization, but leads the way to future triumphs. Through its untiring energies, the meditation of the closet, or the utterance of the human voice, which else would die away within the precincts of a narrow room, is prolonged to the most distant nations and times, with winged words circling the globe. We admire the genius of Demosthenes, Sophocles, Plato, and Phidias; but the printing-press is a higher gift to man than the eloquence, the drama, the philosophy, and the art of Greece. There is yet another country which presents a problem for the student of Progress. In vivid phrase Sir James Mackintosh pictures the "ancient and _immovable_ civilization of China."[262] But in these words he spoke rather from impressions than from actual knowledge. By the side of the impulsive movement of modern Europe, the people of this ancient empire may appear stationary; but it can hardly be doubted that they have advanced, though according to a scale unlike our own. It is difficult to assign satisfactory reasons for the seeming inertness of their national life. Perhaps I shall not err, if I refer it to peculiar constitutional characteristics,--to inherent difficulties of their language as an instrument of knowledge,--to national vanity on an exaggerated scale, making them look down upon others,--to an insulation excluding all others,--and also to the habit of unhesitating deference to Antiquity, and of "backward-looking thoughts," cultivated by the Chinese from the distant days of Confucius. They do not know the Law of Human Progress. [262] Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, p. 34. In receiving this law, two conditions of Humanity are recognized: first, its unity or solidarity; and, secondly, its indefinite duration upon earth. And now of these in their order.