melioration produced in society. Political reformation,
resulting from the mere exercise of reason,
indeed, belongs only to the intelligence
and refinement of an exalted state of social existence,—
only perhaps to the European race and to
modern Europe. In the extent and importance of
the change and improvement effected in the mode
of conducting the oriental commerce by each race,
we have a test by which their comparative genius
and character may be fairly estimated. The Indian
islanders never ventured out of the Archipelago
with their productions. The Hindus discovered
the Indian Archipelago, and brought spices
and the silk of China to their own markets. The
Arabs did a great deal more. Dispensing with
the three voyages necessary, in a ruder state of navigation,
to obtain the commodities of the more
distant Indian islands, and the four necessary to
obtain those of China, they brought both by one
simple effort to their own ports. What the superior
genius of Europeans effected it is almost superfluous
to insist upon. The six voyages of the
rudest period of the Indian commerce they reduced
to one, in duration and expence hardly exceeding
any individual voyage of the barbarians. Of the
nations thus alluded to, as we recede from the
East, each has a greater difficulty to conquer, but
genius and energy of character increase in a still
greater proportion. From this, and many other
examples, we may learn that nothing can be more
true than the converse of the proposition so frequently
maintained, that civilization emanated from
the East. Excluding the nations of the Chinese
stamp of civilization, who have little in common
with the rest of mankind, civilization and genius
decrease as we go eastward. Whatever is ennobling,
or bears the marks of genius and enterprise
in the civilization of the Asiatic nations, may fairly
be traced to the European race.*
The trade of Arabia with the East has generally
been conducted from the ports on the Red Sea,
and those on the ocean near it, Mocha, Jeddah,
and Aden. During the reign of the Arsacid®
in Persia, it would appear that the Persians for a
moment took some share in the commerce of the
east from the Persian Gulf. The Arabians, im*
“ In what way, therefore,’'says Smith, “ has the policy
of Europe contributed either to the first establishment or to
the present grandeur of the colonies of America ? In one
way, and in one way only, it has contributed a good deal.
Mama virum Mater! It bred and o formed the men who
were capable of achieving such great actions, and of laying
the foundation of so great an empire; and there is no other
quarter of the world of which the policy is capable of forming,
or has ever actually and in fact formed, such men. The
colonies owe to the policy of Europe the education and
great views of their active and enterprising founders; and
some of the greatest and most important of them, so far as
concerns their internal government, owe to it scarce any
tiling else."— Wealth of Nations, Vol. II. p. 436.