Outlines of History: Illustrated by Numerous Geographical and Historical Notes and Maps

Excerpt from Outlines of History: Illustrated by Numerous Geographical and Historical Notes and Maps

The author has devoted less space to the History of the United States of America than is found in most similar works, for the reason that he has already published for the use of schools, "a History of the United States," and also a larger "American History;" and, furthermore, that the present work is designed as a text-hook for American students, who have, or who should have previously studied the separate history of their own country, it is unnecessary, and, indeed, impossible, to repeat the same matter here in detail; and something more than so meagre an abridgment of our country's annals as a General History must necessarily be confined to, is universally demanded.

The author is not ignorant that he will very probably be charged with presumption in heading Part III. of the present work with the ambitious title of "Philosophy of History," although he professes to give only its "Outlines;" nor is he ignorant that a great critic has expressed the sentiment, that as the vast Chaos of Being is unfathomable by Human Experience, so the Philosophy of all History, could it be written, would require Infinite wisdom to understand it. But although the whole meaning of what has been recorded lies far beyond us, the fact should not deter us from a plausible explanation of what is known, if, haply, we may thereby lead others to a more just appreciation of the true spirit - the Genius of History - and the great lessons, social, moral, and political, which it teaches. With the explanatory remark that our brief and very imperfect sketches of the Philosophy of History were not designed to enlighten the advanced historical scholar, but to lead the student beyond the narrow circle of facts, back to their causes, and onward to some of the important deductions which the greatest historians have drawn from them, we present these closing chapters as a brief compend of the history of Civilization, in which we have aimed to do justice to the cause of Religion, Intelligence, and Virtue, and the cause of Democracy, - the great agents of regeneration and Human Progress; - and we commend this portion of our work to the candor of those who have the charity to appreciate our object, and the liberality to connect with it our disclaimer of any other merit than that of having laboriously gathered and analyzed the results of the researches of others, and reconstructed them with some degree of unity of plan, and for a good purpose, into these forms of own.

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