Excerpt from The Transit of Civilization From England to America in the Seventeenth Century Eclipses, parhelia, comets, were danger signals hung out in the heavens as warnings. Logic was the only implement for the discovery of truth. Observation was in its birth throes. Medicines were recognized by sig naturism; on this slender basis what a towering strue ture was built! Right and wrong were thought of only as the result of direct revelation; they had not yet found standing room in the great theater of natural knowledge. Until we understand these things we write the history of the seventeenth century in vain. It is the last age which sought knowledge of physical things by deduc tion. The next century brought philosophy and phi iosophy dawned into science. We must apply to the seventeenth century the severe canons of history; people with ancestors will be disap pointed. We can not make out in the seventeenth cen tury the great destiny of Virginia in the eighteenth. We must not be sure that the future greatness of later New England is wrapped up in the peculiarly narrow and forbidding husk of the later seventeenth century. Nor can commercial greatness be predicted of New York; nor did Pennsylvania show signs of the great industries developed from her coal fields. The causes of greatness are not always traceable. Where least looked for may develop the next group of statesmen and authors, of inventors and great merchants. We may write history, but we may not prophesy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.