But of subsequent times he did not speak, except to rehearse
the well-known facts of modern history, whose secret is not yet
revealed, because their development is still being worked out,
and no conclusion has been reached which might furnish the key
to the whole.

There remains, therefore, but one thing to do: to consider
each nation apart, and read its character in its history. Should
this be done for all, the only practical philosophy of modern
history would be written. For then we should have accomplished
morally for men what, in the physical order, zoologists accomplish
for the immense number of living beings which God has spread
over the surface of the earth. They might be classified according
to a certain order of the ascending or descending moral scale.
We could judge them rightly, conformably with the standard of
right or wrong, which is in the absolute possession of the Christian
conscience. Brilliant but baneful qualities would no longer
impose on the credulity of mankind, and men would not be led
astray in their judgments by the rule of expediency or success
which generally dictates to historians the estimate they form and
inculcate on their readers of the worth of some nations, and the
insignificance or even odiousness of others.

In the impossibility under which we labor of penetrating, at
the present time, the real designs of Providence with respect to
the various races of men, so great an undertaking, embracing the
principal, if not all, modern races, would be one of the most
useful efforts of human genius for the spread of truth and virtue
among men.