Even during the existence of the Saracenic empire, a very close intercourse subsisted for many centuries between this coast and Spain. Such, according to a general geographical survey of the globe, would be the historical land-chart of civilization, if I may so express myself, which forms the grand outline I must steadily keep in view, in the following sketch of nations, in which I will endeavour to explain with the utmost clearness and precision, and point out closely in all its particular bearings, the principle laid down in this work respecting the internal Word, as the essential characteristic of man. END OF LECTURE II. LECTURE III. Of the constitution of the Chinese Empire--the moral and political condition of China--the character of Chinese intellect and Chinese science. "Man and the earth,"--this has been the subject of our previous disquisitions, and might serve as the superscription to this first portion of the work. In the second part, comprised in the four or five following lectures, the subject discussed is sacred Tradition, according to the peculiar form which it assumed among each of the great and most remarkable nations in primitive antiquity, and as it is known from the visible and universally scattered traces of a divine Revelation. It will be our duty to trace, with a discriminating eye, the various course which, in the lapse of ages, this sacred tradition followed among each of those nations; and at the same time to point out, as far as the subject will admit of historical proof, the one common source whence, as from a centre, issued those different streams of tradition to diffuse throughout all the regions of the earth fertility and life, or to be lost and dried up in the sterile sands of human error. It will be also our task more accurately to define the share allotted to each of those leading nations in divine truth, or the heritage of higher knowledge which had been imparted to them. Closely connected with this subject, is the designation of the internal Word, constituting as it does the distinguishing mark and intellectual being of man and mankind; and which, as it has been variously manifested and developed in the language, writings, Sagas, history, art and science--in the faith, the life and modes of thinking of each of those nations, will be described in its most essential traits.