[116] This is no exaggeration, as every one acquainted with French history knows. In the great revolution of the last century, the peasantry of France took no interest and no part. In the Vendée, indeed, they fought, and fought bravely, for the ancient forms, their king, and their feudatory lords. Everywhere else, the rural districts remained in perfect apathy. The revolutions since then have been decided in Paris. The _émeutes_ seldom extended beyond the walls of the great cities. It is a well-known fact, that in many of the rural districts, the peasants did not hear of the expulsion of the Bourbon dynasty, until years afterwards, and even then had no conception of the nature of the change. Bourbon, Orleans, Republic, are words, to them, of no definite meaning. The only name that can rouse them from their apathy, is "Napoleon." At that sound, the Gallic heart thrills with enthusiasm and thirst for glory. Hence the unparalleled success with which the present emperor has appealed to universal suffrage.--H. [117] It is not generally appreciated how much we are indebted to Oriental civilizations for our lighter and more graceful literature. Our first works of fiction were translations or paraphrases of Eastern tales introduced into Western Europe by the returning crusaders. The songs of the troubadour, the many-tomed romances of the Middle Ages--those ponderous sires of modern novels--all emanated from that source. The works of Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, Boccacio, and nearer home, of Chaucer and Spenser, are incontestable proofs of this fact. Even Milton himself drew from the inexhaustible stores of Eastern legends and romances. Our fairy tales, and almost all of our most graceful lyric poesy, that is not borrowed from Greece, is of Persian origin. Almost every popular poet of England and the continent has invoked the Oriental muse, none more successfully than Southey and Moore. It would be useless to allude to the immense popularity of acknowledged versions of Oriental literature, such as the _Thousand and One Nights_, the Apologues, Allegories, &c. What we do not owe to the East, we have taken from the Greeks. Even to this day, Grecian mythology is the never-failing resource of the lyric poet, and so familiar has that graceful imagery become to us, that we introduce it, often _mal-à-propos_, even in our colloquial language. In metaphysics, also, we have confessedly done little more than revive the labors of the Greeks.--H. CHAPTER X. QUESTION OF UNITY OR PLURALITY OF SPECIES. Systems of Camper, Blumenbach, Morton, Carus--Investigations of Owen, Vrolik, Weber--Prolificness of hybrids, the great scientific stronghold of the advocates of unity of species. It will be necessary to determine first the physiological bearing of the word _race_.