OF GENERAL HISTORY, Ancient and Modern. TO WHICH ARE ADDED, A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY WITH TWO MAPS. BY ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, Late Lord Commissioner of Justiciary in Scotland, and formerly Professo the University of Edinburgh. A NEW EDITION, WITH THE HISTORY BROUGHT DOWN FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND PRIVATE STUDENTS. EDINBURGH: OLIVER & BOYD, TWEEDDALE COURT. 1866. Price Three Shillings and Sixpence. 2.23. k. 11. PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. THE following Work contains the outlines of a course of Lectures on General History, delivered for many years in the university of Edinburgh, and received with a portion of the public approbation amply sufficient to compensate the labours of the author. He began to compose these Elements principally with the view of furnishing an aid to the students attending those lectures; but soon conceived, that by giving a little more amplitude to their composition, he might render the work of more general utility. As now given to the public, he would willingly flatter himself, it may be not only serviceable to youth, in furnishing a regular plan for the prosecution of this most important study, but useful even to those who have acquired a competent knowledge of general history from the perusal of the works of detached historians, and who wish to methodize that knowledge, or even to refresh their memory on material facts and the order of events. In the composition of these Elements, the author has endeavoured to unite with the detail of facts so much of reflection, as to aid the mind in the formation of rational views of the causes and consequences of events, as well as of the policy of the actors; but he has anxiously guarded against that speculative refinement which has sometimes entered into works of this nature, which, professing to exhibit the philosophy or the spirit of history, are more fitted to display the writer's ingenuity as a theorist, or his talents as a rhetorician, than to instruct the reader in the more useful knowledge of historical facts. As the progress of the human mind forms a capital object in the study of history, the state of the arts and sciences, the religion, laws, government, and manners of nations, are material parts, even in an elementary work of this nature. The history of literature is a most important article in this study. The author has therefore endeavoured to give to each of these topics its due share of attention; and in that view they are separately treated, in distinct sections, at particular periods. Of the defects of this work the author is more sensible than perhaps any other person can be. Of any merits it may possess beyond those of simplicity and perspicuity, those are the best judges who have an extensive knowledge of the subject, and who know the difficulty of giving general views, and of analysing a science so comprehensive and complicated as UNIVERSAL HISTORY. With the hope of rendering this volume less unworthy of the public indulgence it has already received, it has been carefully revised and brought down to the eve of the war which Italy and Prussia are waging against Austria and the Germanic Confederation. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Advantages arising from the Study of History, and more particularly from prosecuting it according to a regular plan Plan of the Course PART FIRST. ANCIENT HISTORY. SECT. I. page 1 Earliest, authentic Accounts of the History of the World SECT. II. Considerations on the Nature of the first Go vernments, and on the Laws, Customs, Arts, and Sciences, of the early Ages SECT. III. Of the Egyptians Of the Phoenicians |
