In the modern times there are no white barbarians or heathens. In all modern history, wherever found, white men are much the same; why, then, should it not have been so always? The fanatic Jew called all others gentiles, savages; the supercilious Greek called even their Roman conquerors barbarians; even the manly and liberal Roman did not rise above this foolish bigotry, and not only called the Gauls, Britons, Germans, etc., barbarians, but reduced them to slavery, as if they were inferior beings. We witness the same ignorance and folly in our own enlightened times. The Englishman believes that the English are alone truly Christian and civilized; the Frenchman honestly believes that _La Belle_ France is at the head of modern civilization; even the advanced and liberal American Democrat thinks, and perhaps correctly, that the Americans alone are truly civilized; while some among us would exclude all from the privilege of citizenship who happen to be born elsewhere, as rigidly as the Jew did the uncircumcised Gentile or the Moslem the dog of a Christian. Is not this notion of “outside barbarians,” therefore, the result of ignorance, or foolish egotism, without sense or reason? Some nations or communities were doubtless advanced more than others in ancient times, as at present, but in the main the race must have approximated to the same common standard we witness now. If it is said that in early times the obstacles in the way of frequent intercourse prevented this general approximation to a common standard of enlightenment, it may be replied that the same obstacles would also prevent a wide departure, and when we know that they had the same wants, the same instincts, the same tendencies, etc., the conclusion seems unavoidable that no nation or community could at any time in history assume, with any justice, that others were barbarians, or that they alone were civilized. The traditions and imperfect knowledge which we have hitherto possessed in respect to these long-buried populations, may, perhaps, be replaced by that which is almost or quite as reliable as written history itself. Within a few years past a class of men have sprung up who, excavating the dead remains of long forgotten empires, promise revelations that will bring us face to face with the buried generations that we now only know through the dim perspective of uncertain tradition. Champolion, Belzoni, Rawlinson, Layard and their companions have already made discoveries in Egypt and Nineveh that open to our minds much of the social condition and daily life of those remote times, and future explorations, it is probable, will give us nearly as accurate a knowledge as we have of those embraced within the cycle of authentic history.