Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1919 — CIVILIZATIONS OF THE PAST [ARTICLE]

CIVILIZATIONS OF THE PAST

Nations With High Degree of Cultivation That Are Now Only Memory in History's Pages. Thousands of years dgo—long before the great western nations of today, long before even Greek and Roman were heard of —there were more or less advanced civilizations on both sides of the Pacific. China, for example, had grown into a stable Mongolian kingdom perhaps 4,000 years before the beginning of our era. A Chinese author writes: “There Is no existing nation ia the world that has a larger past than China. She has seen the rise and full of the ancient Egyptian dynasties; the extension of the Persian empire; the conquests of Alexander; the irresistible advance of the Roman legions; the deluge of the Teutonic hordes from the north, and the birth of all the nations of modern Europe.” i The Japanese also, a people compounded of various elements, but chiefly Mongolian and Malayan, stood stood at the beginning of our era on a high plane of civilization, and even then exhibited the tendencies and the adaptiveness which distinguish them today. Then away to the east in Central and South America, civilizations waxed and waned, reaching their highest development in the Aztec and Incan empires, the latter of which was an extremely Interesting example of despotic socialism.