The history of Greek civilisation forms the centre of the history of antiquity. In the East, advanced civilisations with settled states had existed for thousands of years; and as the populations of Western Asia and of Egypt gradually came into closer political relations, these civilisations, in spite of all local differences in customs, religion, and habits of thought, gradually grew together into a uniform sphere of culture. This development reached its culmination in the rise of the great Persian universal monarchy, the “kingdom of the lands,” _i.e._ “of the world.” But from the very beginning these oriental civilisations are so completely dominated by the effort to maintain what has been won that all progress beyond this point is prevented. And although we can distinguish an individual, active, and progressive intellectual movement among many nations,--as in Egypt, among the Iranians and Indians, while among the Babylonians and Phœnicians nothing of the sort is thus far known,--nevertheless the forces that represent tradition are in the end everywhere victorious over it and force it to bow to their yoke. Hence, all oriental civilisations culminate in the creation of a theological system which governs all the relations and the whole field of thought of man, and is everywhere recognised as having existed from all eternity and as being inviolable to all future time. With the cessation of political life and the establishment of the universal monarchy, the nationality and the distinctive civilisation of the separate districts are restricted to religion, which has become theology. The development of oriental civilisation then subsides in the competition of these religions and the unavoidable coalescence consequent thereupon. This is true even of that nation which experienced the richest intellectual development, and did the most important work of all oriental peoples--the Israelites. When the great political storms from which the universal monarchy arose have spent their rage, Israel, the nation, has developed into Judaism; and under the Persian rule and with the help of the kingdom it organises itself as a church which seeks to put an end to all free individual movement, upon which the greatness of ancient Israel rests.