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HISTORY

OF THE

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPEMENT

OF

EUROPE.

BY

JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D., LL.D.,

PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSIOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK;
AUTHOR OF A TREATISE ON HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY,' ETC. ETC.

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PRINTED BY

JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET,

LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.

PREFACE.

Ar the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Oxford in 1860, I read an abstract of the physiological argument contained in this Work respecting the mental progress of Europe, reserving the historical evidence for subsequent publication.

This volume contains that evidence. It is intended as the completion of my work on 'Human Physiology,' in which man was treated of as an individual. In this he is considered in his social relation.

But the reader will also find, I think, that it is a history of the progress of ideas and opinions from a point of view heretofore almost entirely neglected. There are two methods of dealing with philosophical questions-the literary and the scientific. Many things which in a purely literary treatment of the subject remain in the background, spontaneously assume a more striking position when their scientific relations are considered. It is the latter method that I have used.

Social advancement is as completely under the control of natural law as is bodily growth. The life of an individual is a miniature of the life of a nation. These propositions it is the special object of this book to demonstrate.

No one, I believe, has hitherto undertaken the labour of arranging the evidence offered by the intellectual history of

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Europe in accordance with physiological principles, so as to illustrate the orderly progress of civilization, or collected the facts furnished by other branches of science with a view of enabling us to recognize clearly the conditions under which that progress takes place. This philosophical deficiency I have endeavoured in the following pages to supply.

Seen thus through the medium of physiology, history presents a new aspect to us. We gain a more just and thorough appreciation of the thoughts and motives of men in successive ages of the world.

In the Preface to the second edition of my 'Physiology,' published in 1858, it was mentioned that this Work was at that time written. The changes that have been since made in it have been chiefly with a view of condensing it. The discussion of several scientific questions, such as that of the origin of species, which have recently attracted public attention so strongly, has, however, remained untouched, the principles offered being the same as presented in the former work in 1856.

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAWS.

The Subject of this Work proposed.-Its Difficulty.
Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by Law.-It is
eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological, and Physiological
Discoveries.-Illustrations from Kepler's Laws, the Trade-winds, Migra-
tions of Birds, Balancing of Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of
Species and their Permanence.

Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and Universa
Humanity.—They exhibit Epochs of Life like his, and like him are
under the Control of Physical Conditions, and therefore of Law.
Plan of this Work.-The Intellectual History of Greece.-Its Five Charac-
teristic Ages.-European Intellectual History.

Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law

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