effects, the minor constellations and planets gravitate each and all around the sun, so in the world of the subjective, or the system of causes, these innumerable cycles all gravitate between that which the finite intellect of the ordinary mortal regards as eternity, and the still finite, but more profound, intuition of the sage and philosopher views as but an eternity within the eternity.  “As above, so it is below,” runs the old Hermetic maxim.  As an experiment in this direction, Dr. Zasse selected the statistical investigations of all the wars recorded in history, as a subject which lends itself more easily to scientific verification than any other.  To illustrate his subject in the simplest and most easily comprehensible manner, Dr. Zasse represents the periods of war and the periods of peace in the shape of small and large wave-lines running over the area of the Old World.  The idea is not a new one, for the image was used for similar illustrations by more than one ancient and medieval mystic, whether in words or pictures—­by Henry Kunrath, for example.  But it serves well its purpose, and gives us the facts we now want.  Before he treats, however, of the cycles of wars, the author brings in the record of the rise and fall of the world’s great empires, and shows the degree of activity they have played in the Universal History.  He points out the fact that if we divide the map of the Old World into six parts—­into Eastern, Central, and Western Asia, Eastern and Western Europe, and Egypt—­then we shall easily perceive that every 250 years an enormous wave passes over these areas, bringing to each in its turn the events it has brought to the one next preceding.  This wave we may call “the historical wave” of the 250 years’ cycle.

The first of these waves began in China 2000 years B.C., in the “golden age” of this empire, the age of philosophy, of discoveries, of reforms.  “In 1750 B.C. the Mongolians of Central Asia establish a powerful empire.  In 1500, Egypt rises from its temporary degradation and extends its sway over many parts of Europe and Asia; and about 1250, the historical wave reaches and crosses over to Eastern Europe, filling it with the spirit of the Argonautic Expedition, and dies out in 1000 B.C. at the Siege of Troy.”

The second historical wave appears about that time in Central Asia.  “The Scythians leave her steppes, and inundate towards the year 750 B.C. the adjoining countries, directing themselves towards the south and west; about the year 500, in Western Asia begins an epoch of splendour for ancient Persia; and the wave moves on to the east of Europe, where, about 250 B.C., Greece reaches her highest state of culture and civilization—­and further on to the west, where, at the birth of Christ, the Roman Empire finds itself at its apogee of power and greatness.”