THE UNITY OF HISTORY. 243 Deeply as the story of the progress of history must al- ways interest us, let us not forget that the result was not due to one man or to one people, but that each race has given its share to the whole Greece, her intellect and grace; Rome, her social instinct and her genius for dis- cipline ; Judea, her intensity of belief and personal mo- rality; Egypt and the African coast, their combination of Hellenic, Judaic, and Roman traditions; the Saracenic empire, its contribution of an intense purpose in religion and war, and of development in science and art. The dormant energies of Christian nations were awakened to utmost effort for defense against the Saracenic invasion ; Greeks flying from Constantinople before the Turks, spread over Europe, extending the culture of the ancient world long stored up on the shores of the Bosphorus ; Columbus discovered America ; the Portuguese sailed around Africa to India ; Magellan circumnavigated the globe ; a host of daring adventurers penetrated untraversed seas and lands. Man at last entered upon full dominion of the earth. Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo unveiled the mystery of the world and made a revolution in all thought. The ele- ments of the material earth were explored, and physical science began to have an actual meaning. The continuity of this great movement marks the connection and estab- lishes the unity of history, through examples written in all the literature of the world. The unity of history is suggested, perhaps, by nothing so much as by study of language. Philological research astonishes, by showing the kinship of races separated cen- turies ago. Language, the earliest product of the intelli- gence of man and the origin of all other intellectual ener- gies, is, at the same time, the clearest evidence of the descent of a nation and of its affinity with other races. Hence, the comparison of languages enables us to judge of the history of nations at periods to which no other kind
