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INTRODUCTION.
I. IT generally affords some degree of amusement, to those
who possess an extensive acquaintance with general history,
to observe the minute causes from whence important events
have so often derived their origin. For if trifles often
affect the minds of the greatest men, and of the greatest
multitudes; the first by their situation, and the latter by
their bulk, occasion those affairs in the world which we
characterize by the name of Important; whilst, in the
greatness of their effects, their insignificant original
causes are generally forgotten. Yet every investigating
faculty of the human mind is interested, when an opportunity
offers of deducing, by a direct channel, large and extensive
consequents, from a combination of circumstances, either
overlooked because they are common, or slighted because they
are trivial; but such as, when united and urged in a
particular direction, thrust themselves abroad into the
world, and become of consequence to mankind: even when no
such direct channel of inquiry offers itself, we are apt
enough to be pleased, if, by comparison and analogy, we can
draw such inferences as Curiosity at least may warrant, and
Reason not disavow.
II. When we wish for the leading parts of a distinguished
character, we recur to private anecdotes of the life to
which it belongs; are fond of tracing the connection between
these and its more noted exploits, and fancy we see some
uniform motive still exerting itself, though in different
quarters, and on a diversity of objects; proportioning its
powers to the nature or magnitude of its toil, and only
varying as employments vary. The same wish operates with
respect to nations at large: we aim at their leading
motives, and find it easy to call such or such an action the
natural result of such an humour, or such a prejudice.
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III. To say positively for what particular reason the people
of different countries have adopted this or that custom,
will always be beyond the reach of the keenest speculation.
Some, it is likely, nature hath originally given to all;
others, climate and circumstances may have engrafted: but
the greatest part must be referred to that complex and
obscure variety of intervening causes, to which, because we
cannot develope their particular relation, nor trace them
through their intricate mazes, we have affixed the general
epithet of Chance. These again, in a sort of permutation,
have produced an infinite number of distinctions, of which
local history can only take in a part at a time: however, in
every country some particular things may be found, which on
comparison appear similar to those of another; yet are of
such a kind, that they cannot easily be attributed to nature
or climate alone, but bear the marks of a commerce and
interchange, that has at some time subsisted, either
directly, or by the mediation of others. If "I will throw a
stone upon your cairn," was an expression of friendship
amongst our forefathers, we, of course, refer it to their
Scythian ancestors; yet these tumuli, which we call Cairns
and Barrows, are found to have been in old times amongst the
Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans; and indeed what else are the
Egyptian pyramids? But who would have thought that these
same cairns or barrows, and this same custom, should have
existed beyond the utmost eastern limits of Asia, in the
barren island of Oonalashka? Again: The crisping, perfuming,
and powdering of hair, are things which have been in former
ages as well as this; yet one rather startles at hearing
that they are common to unknown savages on the opposite side
of the world, and beyond the southern tropic. Painting
seems, by all wild nations, to have been first applied to
their own bodies; and it is hard to determine, that the
custom has not crept down, through all the different stages
of civilization, from those times to our own. That the
component parts of dead bodies should be united at a certain
period, and become immortal, was a tenet amongst the Greeks,
as well as amongst Jews and Christians. The belief of a
chaos, of a rebellion in Heaven, of a general deluge, and of
several other things, have been common to religions vastly
remote from each other. There is a strong resemblance
between
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