Excerpt from Four Lectures on the Contrasts of Ancient and Modern History: Delivered at the Manchester Athenaeum, Michaelmas 1846 I am to Speak of the contrasts of Ancient and Mo dern History; and the very expressions need prelimi nary remark. Some nations may seem to be in nearly the same state in ancient and in modern times; as the roving Arabs and Tartars: perhaps even the in habitants of China and its neighbouring Archipelago. All such peoples are tacitly excluded from this dis cussion: roving tribes, because they have no history, or none worth the name; the Chinese nations, be cause their culture has for ages become stationary, and as we have no record'of their earlier times, we cannot detect such contrasts as may really exist be tween their present and former state. By Modern, therefore, I chiefly mean Christian History; yet not so exclusively as to omit all mention of the Mohammedans. They too have their strong points of contrast to the ancient military monarchies, and will be remarked upon in their place. But the history of the Moslem or Mussulman nations is ex: tremely monotonous. One form of government only, - military despotism, - has arisen among them; and owing to this meagreness, there is less to say about them. The Mohammedan empires, as in chronology they more properly belong to the Middle Age, so in their actual development appear to be midway between their prototypes in the ancient and their representa tives in the modern Christian world. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.