our treasures we increase our store. W are promoting the welfare of others, securing for ourselves a harvest of rich tions in the time to come. And, be a that among all the pleasures of the

life, there is none more pure-none mo manent none more gratifying, to regulated mind, than that which arise the consciousness of having promoted th piness of those around us.

LECTURE II.

THE COMMERCE OF ANCIENT GREECE.

Origin of Civilization. Early History of Greece. Security of Private Property-Attica-Sparta. Administration of Justice-Laws referring to Trade-Courts of Law. Establishment of Cities Advantages of Cities.-Proper Situations for Commercial Cities-Athens-Corinth -Syracuse. Markets and Fairs-FestivalsAncient Legislation with regard to Fairs. Monetary and Banking Institutions-Coin and Banks of Athens. Commercial Character of the Greeks.

THE early history of Greece, like that of all other countries, is involved in fable and obscurity. The aborigines were found in a state of savage life, and the civilization which had spread in Egypt and Babylon was to them totally unknown. We should not, however, infer from

D

this and other similar cases, that the savage state is the natural state of man. If men had been created savages, they would have remained savages for ever. It is the property of ignorance to be contented with itself. It is impossible for men to desire those acquisitions of the existence of which they have no knowledge. The history of the world does not present us with a single instance of a nation of savages having become civilized by their own spontaneous exertions. Wherever barbarous nations have become civilized, civilization has been imported, and has been acquired by an intercourse with civilized nations. There is abundant evidence that previous to the Deluge mankind were in a state of civilization. The individuals who were preserved from that Deluge were in a state of civilization. The first exertion of Noah was, to plant a vineyard, a circumstance which shows an acquaintance with an advanced state of civilized life. The arts and sciences with which he was acquainted, he would, of course, communicate to his descendants, and thus civilization would be perpetuated.

ORIGIN OF CIVILIZATION.

51

Those families who settled in the plains of Babylon and in Egypt never appear to have lost their acquaintance with the arts of civilized life. Several reasons may be assigned for this. In the first place, their lands were so fertile that it did not require the labour of the whole community to raise food, and hence those whose labour was not applied to the cultivation of the earth, devoted themselves to the practice of the mechanical arts, and to the study of the sciences. Secondly, as food was so abundant the population of these countries increased very rapidly; hence there was a greater subdivision of labour, and a consequently greater production of the comforts and conveniences of life. Thirdly. These countries were extensive plains, and, consequently, as the inhabitants multiplied they did not take their journey to distant lands in search of new settlements, but cultivated the neighbouring districts. Hence, the intercourse of the different tribes, or families, was maintained. Any new discovery in the social arts was quickly known to the whole community, and thus civilization was advanced.

On the other hand, those families of men who had travelled to countries intersected by mountains, soon lost their intercourse with each other. When a nation became too populous, a part of them, under the guidance of some chosen leader, crossed the mountains, or the rivers, in search of a new habitation. Their intercourse with the country they had left was for ever renounced; and as their numbers were few, and the exertions of the whole tribe necessary for the raising of food, they had no leisure to cultivate the arts of luxury; nor even any of those mechanical arts which were not essential to existence. Hence, in the course of a few generations, many of those arts became forgotten, and those tribes who again branched from them became increasingly ignorant, and ultimately fell into a state of savage barbarity. Such, we think, was the process by which some families of mankind, originally civilized, fell into barbarism.

In this barbarous state was ancient Greece. After the lapse of some centuries, various colonies of Egyptians and Phoenicians, who were