and western Africa, the rough Iberi, the passionate Gauls, the painted
Britons, the coarse Sards, the fierce Thracians, the filthy Scyths, the
savage races of the Caucasus. Tribes so timid and distrustful as those
of Tropical Africa were lured into peaceful and friendly relations by
the artifice of a "dumb commerce,"[326] and on every side untamed
man was softened and drawn towards civilisation by a spirit of
accommodation, conciliation, and concession to prejudices.

If the Phoenicians are to be credited with acuteness of intellect,
it must be limited to the field of practical enquiry and discovery.
Whatever may be said with regard to the extent and variety of their
literature--a subject which will be treated in another chapter--it
cannot be pretended that humanity owes to them any important conquests
of a scientific or philosophic character. Herodotus, who admires the
learning of the Persians,[327] the science of the Babylonians,[328]
and the combined learning and science of the Egyptians,[329] limits
his commendation of the Phoenicians to their skill in navigation, in
mechanics, and in works of art.[330] Had they made advances in the
abstract, or even in the mixed, sciences, in mathematics, or astronomy,
or geometry, in logic or metaphysics, either their writings would have
been preserved, or at least the Greeks would have made acknowledgments
of being indebted to them.[331] But it is only in the field of practical
matters that any such acknowledgments are made. The Greeks allow
themselves to have been indebted to the Phoenicians for alphabetic
writing, for advances in metallurgy, for improvements in shipbuilding,
and navigation, for much geographic knowledge, for exquisite dyes, and
for the manufacture of glass. There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians
were a people of great practical ability, with an intellect quick to
devise means to ends, to scheme, contrive, and execute, and with a happy
knack of perceiving what was practically valuable in the inventions of