Upon this point I fully coincide with the great philosopher whose theory I am unfolding. It is perfectly correct, that our state of development--what we call the European civilization--produces neither the profoundest nor the sublimest thinkers, nor the greatest poets, nor the most skilful artists. Yet I venture to differ from the illustrious philologist in believing that to give a practical meaning to the word civilization, it is necessary to divest one's self, if but for a moment, from the prejudices or prepossessions resulting from the examination of mere details in any particular civilization. We must take the aggregate result of the whole, and not make the requisites too few, as in the case of the man of the first degree, whom I persist in not acknowledging as civilized merely because his manners are gentle; nor too many, as in the case of the sage of the third, for then the development of human faculties would be limited to a few individuals, and would produce results purely isolated and typical. The Baron Von Humboldt's system, however, does honor to that exquisite and generous sensibility, that grand sublimity which was the dominant characteristic of this great mind; and in its purely abstract nature may be compared to the fragile worlds of Brahmin philosophy. Born from the brain of a slumbering god, they rise in the air like the irised bubbles that the child blows from the suds, bursting and succeeding one another as the dreams that amuse the celestial sleeper. But the character of my researches permits me not to indulge in mere abstractions, however brilliant and attractive; I must arrive at results tangible to practical sense and common experience. I do not wish, like Mr. Guizot, to investigate the conditions more or less favorable to the prosperity of societies, nor, like Mr. William Von Humboldt, to speculate upon the isolated elevation of individual intelligences; my purpose is to encompass, if possible, the aggregate power, moral as well as material, which is developed in great masses of men. It is not without trepidation that I engage in a path in which two of the most admired men of our century have lost themselves; and to avoid the errors into which they have fallen, I shall descend to first principles, and define civilization by first investigating from what causes it results. If the reader, then, will follow me patiently and attentively through the mazes into which I am forced to enter, I shall endeavor to throw as much light as I am capable of, upon this inherently obscure and abstruse subject.