Were it possible we could have known the world when in a state of
barbarism, we might have concluded, that it never could be brought
into the order we now see it. The untamed mind was then as hard, if
not harder to work upon in its individual state, than the national
mind is in its present one. Yet we have seen the accomplishment of the
one, why then should we doubt that of the other?

There is a greater fitness in mankind to extend and complete the
civilization of nations with each other at this day, than there was to
begin it with the unconnected individuals at first; in the same manner
that it is somewhat easier to put together the materials of a machine
after they are formed, than it was to form them from original matter.
The present condition of the world, differing so exceedingly from what
it formerly was, has given a new cast to the mind of man, more than
what he appears to be sensible of. The wants of the individual, which
first produced the idea of society, are now augmented into the wants
of the nation, and he is obliged to seek from another country what
before he sought from the next person.

Letters, the tongue of the world, have in some measure brought all
mankind acquainted, and, by an extension of their uses, are every day
promoting some new friendship. Through them distant nations became
capable of conversation, and losing by degrees the awkwardness of
strangers, and the moroseness of suspicion, they learn to know and
understand each other. Science, the partizan of no country, but the
beneficent patroness of all, has liberally opened a temple where all
may meet. Her influence on the mind, like the sun on the chilled
earth, has long been preparing it for higher cultivation and further
improvement. The philosopher of one country sees not an enemy in the
philosopher of another: he takes his seat in the temple of science,