of history. Before attempting to trace the hand of Divine providence in the original location and subsequent migrations of the historic races, let us briefly reproduce the sentences which express the _conditions_ most favorable to the development and perfection of humanity. 1. While the tropical climate of Southern Asia, of Africa, and of South America is unfavorable to the highest intellectual and moral development, the temperate climate of Western Asia, of Europe, and of North America is peculiarly adapted to minister to the advancement and perfection of the human race. 2. The massive, unbroken continents of the South, shut in by immense oceans and impassable mountain ranges, are the seats of immobility and the home of despotic power; but the deeply indented and elaborately articulated continents of the North, with their inland seas and large navigable rivers, are the theatre of activity, of progress, and of liberty. 3. The sunny skies and glowing landscapes and inspiring scenery of the south of Europe are most congenial to poetry and music, and painting and sculpture, and all that is graceful in expression and action; the deeper tone and sterner features of the northern portion of Europe, "whose skies are sombre, and whose mountains are rugged and gray," determine it to be the home of practical industry and useful arts, of benevolent enterprises and philanthropic deeds. Bearing in mind these principles, we turn to history in the belief that we shall find that Divine providence has at successive periods placed the historic races in such geographical relations and amid such physical conditions as have been most favorable to their intellectual and moral development. 1. The first historic fact to which we would now direct attention is _that the human race really commenced its history in the midst of the continents of the Temperate Zone_. Western Asia was unquestionably the cradle of the human race, the grand centre whence the different families or races commenced their migrations.