Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Columbus" to "Condottiere"

chapter in the _Positive Philosophy_ (vol. v. ch. 55) which would fill

forty pages of this Encyclopaedia. When we reflect that the chapter is not narrative, but an abstract exposition of the guiding principles of the movements of several centuries, with many threads of complex thought running along side by side all through the speculation, then the circumstances under which it was r...