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PRELIMINARY HEMA11KS.first culture of our continent ;tradition has not forgotten to tell,how the founder of the oldest colony among the savage inhabitantsof Attica was also the founder of regular marriages ;and who hasnot learned of Tacitus the holy usage of our German ancestors ?Is it merely the character of the climate which causes both sexesto ripen more gradually, and at the same timc^more nearly simultaneously, and a cooler blood to flow in the veins of man ;or is amore delicate sentiment impressed upon the European, a highermoral nobility, which determines the relation of the two sexes ?Be this as itmay, who does not perceive the Decisive importanceof the fact ? Does not the wall of division which separatesthe inhabitants of the East from those of the West, repose chiefly on thisbasis ? And can it be doubted, that this better domestic institutionwas essential to the progressof our politicalinstitutions ? For wesay confidently, no nation, where polygamy was established, hasever obtained a free and well-ordered constitution.Whether these causes alone, or whether others beside them, (forwho will deny that there may have been others ?) procuredfor theEuropeans their superiority, thus much is certain, that all Europemay now boast of this superiority.If the nations of the Southpreceded those of the North, if these were still wandering in theirforests when those had alreatly obtained their ripeness, theyfinally made up for their dilatoriness. Their time also came ;thetime when they could look down on their southern brethren witha justconsciousness of their own worth. This leads us to the important differences, which are peculiarto the North and the Southof this continent,A chain of mountains, which, though many arms extend to thenorth and south, runs in its chief direction from west to east,the chain of the Alps, connected in the west with the Pyreneesby the mountains of Sevennes, extending to the Carpathian andthe Balkan towards the east as far as the shores of the Black Sea,divides this continent into two very unequal parts,the Southernand the Northern. It separatesthe three peninsulaswhich runto the south, those of the Pyrenees, Italy, and Greece, togetherwith the southern coast of France and Germany, from the greatcontinent of Europe, which stretches to the north beyond the polarcircle. This last, which isby far the larger half, contains almostall the chief streams of this continent ;the Ebro, the Rhone, andthe Po, of all that flow into the Mediterranean, are alone importantfor* navigation.No other chain of mountains of our earth hadhas^such an influence on the history of our race, as the chain of theAlps. During a long succession of ages, it parted, as it were, twoworlds from each other ;the fairest buds of civilization had alreadyopened under the Grecian and Hesperian skies, whilst scatteredtribes of barbarians were yet wandering in the forests of the North.How different would have been the whole history of Europe, hadthe wall of the Alps, instead of being near the Mediterranean,