The curiosity of that man must be very feeble and sluggish, andhis appetite for information very weak or depraved, who, when hecompares the map of the world, as it was known to the ancients, withthe map of the world as it is at present known, does not feel himselfpowerfully excited to inquire into the causes which haveprogressively brought almost every speck of its surface completelywithin our knowledge and access. To develop and explain these causesis one of the objects of the present work; but this object cannot beattained, without pointing out in what manner Geography was at firstfixed on the basis of science, and has subsequently, at variousperiods, been extended and improved, in proportion as those branchesof physical knowledge which could lend it any assistance, haveadvanced towards perfection. We shall thus, we trust, be enabled toplace before our readers a clear, but rapid view of the surface ofthe globe, gradually exhibiting a larger portion of known regions,and explored seas, till at last we introduce them to the fullknowledge of the nineteenth century. In the course of this part ofour work, decisive and instructive illustrations will frequentlyoccur of the truth of these most important facts,--that one branch ofscience can scarcely advance, without advancing some other branches,which in their turn, repay the assistance they have received; andthat, generally speaking, the progress of intellect and morals ispowerfully impelled by every impulse given to physical science, andcan go on steadily and with full and permanent effect, only by theintercourse of civilised nations with those that are ignorant andbarbarous.
But our work embraces another topic; the progress of commercialenterprise from the earliest period to the present time. That anextensive and interesting field is thus opened to us will be evident,when we contrast the state of the wants and habits of the people ofBritain, as they are depicted by Cæsar, with the wants andhabits even of our lowest and poorest classes. In Cæsar's time,a very few of the comforts of life,--scarcely one of its meanestluxuries,--derived from the neighbouring shore of Gaul, wereoccasionally enjoyed by British Princes: in our time, the daily mealof the pauper who obtains his precarious and scanty pittance bybegging, is supplied by a navigation of some thousand miles, fromcountries in opposite parts of the globe; of whose existenceCæsar had not even the remotest idea. In the time ofCæsar, there was perhaps no country, the commerce of which wasso confined:--in our time, the commerce of Britain lays the wholeworld under contribution, and surpasses in extent and magnitude thecommerce of any other nation.
The progress of discovery and of commercial intercourse areintimately and almost necessarily connec