the morasses will be drained, the number of fruit-trees increased.  You shall be shown other visions of the passages of time, but as you are carried along the stream which flows from the period of creation to the present moment, I shall only arrest your transit to make you observe some circumstances which will demonstrate the truths I wish you to know, and which will explain to you the little it is permitted me to understand of the scheme of the universe.”  I again found myself in darkness and in motion, and I was again arrested by the opening of a new scene upon my eyes.  I shall describe this scene and the others in the succession in which they appeared before me, and the observations by which they were accompanied in the voice of the wonderful being who appeared as my intellectual guide.  In the scene which followed that of the agricultural or pastoral people, I saw a great extent of cultivated plains, large cities on the sea-shore, palaces—­forums and temples ornamenting them; men associated in groups, mounted on horses, and performing military exercises; galleys moved by oars on the ocean; roads intersecting the country covered with travellers and containing carriages moved by men or horses.  The Genius now said, “You see the early state of civilisation of man; the cottages of the last race you beheld have become improved into stately dwellings, palaces, and temples, in which use is combined with ornament.  The few men to whom, as I said before, the foundations of these improvements were owing, have had divine honours paid to their memory.  But look at the instruments belonging to this generation, and you will find that they are only of brass.  You see men who are talking to crowds around them, and others who are apparently amusing listening groups by a kind of song or recitation; these are the earliest bards and orators; but all their signs of thought are oral, for written language does not yet exist.”  The next scene which appeared was one of varied business and imagery.  I saw a man, who bore in his hands the same instruments as our modern smiths, presenting a vase, which appeared to be made of iron, amidst the acclamations of an assembled multitude engaged in triumphal procession before the altars dignified by the name of Apollo at Delphi; and I saw in the same place men who carried rolls of papyrus in their hands and wrote upon them with reeds containing ink made from the soot of wood mixed with a solution of glue.  “See,” the Genius said, “an immense change produced in the condition of society by the two arts of which you here see the origin; the one, that of rendering iron malleable, which is owing to a single individual, an obscure Greek; the other, that of making thought permanent in written characters, an art which has gradually arisen from the hieroglyphics which you may observe on yonder pyramids.  You will now see human life more replete with power and activity.”  Again, another scene broke upon my vision.  I saw the bronze instruments, which had belonged to