[Pamphlets. American history]

23
spiritual vitality,-the ancient civilization perished at
length by the agency through which it had grown.
Force was subdued by force. From the unexplored deserts of northern Europe and Asia, a succession of barbarous tribes was poured down for fifteen hundred years
on the degenerate south, till the last remnant of the
ancient world fell before the last irruption of Asiatic
barbarity, at the capture of Constantinople by the Turks,
in the middle of the 15th century.
Here we may place a distinct epoch in the continuous
history of our race; the end of the old world and the
beginning of the new;-not sharply defined but gradually commingling, the former fading away as the latter
brightens into being. Henceforward, mere physical force
ceases so much to control the world; and physical power
itself parts with its character of brute violence, and allies
itself with arts, with science, with letters, with opinions;
and morals. While darkness still brooded over mediaeval Europe, a discovery was made by the rude chemistry
of the day, (I allude of course to the invention of gunpowder) which entirely changed the nature of military
operations, greatly reduced the sphere of physical force,
and essentially contributed to put an end to private war,
one of the chief scourges of the middle ages. Another
great secret disclosed by experimental science,-the polarity of the magnet,-eventually effected a revolution
in the commerce of the world. The Turkish conquest,
though it trampled down the last remnants of learning
in its native seats, sent out hundreds of learned men to
the west of Europe, and with them the knowledge of