The Ruins | Page 6

irresistible advice to the man who knows how to consult you. A while ago the whole world bowed the neck in silence before the tyrants that oppressed it; and yet in that hopeless moment you already proclaimed the truths that tyrants hold in abhorrence: mixing the dust of the proudest kings with that of the meanest slaves, you called upon us to contemplate this example of Equality. From your caverns, whither the musing and anxious love of Liberty led me, I saw escape its venerable shade, and with unexpected felicity, direct its flight and marshal my steps the way to renovated France.
Tombs! what virtues and potency do you exhibit! Tyrants tremble at your aspect--you poison with secret alarm their impious pleasures-- they turn from you with impatience, and, coward like, endeavor to forget you amid the sumptuousness of their palaces.

PHILADELPHIA TRANSLATION.
INVOCATION.
Hail, ye solitary ruins, ye sacred tombs, and silent walls! 'Tis your auspicious aid that I invoke; 'tis to you my soul, wrapt in meditation, pours forth its prayers! What though the profane and vulgar mind shrinks with dismay from your august and awe-inspiring aspect; to me you unfold the sublimest charms of contemplation and sentiment, and offer to my senses the luxury of a thousand delicious and enchanting thoughts! How sumptuous the feast to a being that has a taste to relish, and an understanding to consult you! What rich and noble admonitions; what exquisite and pathetic lessons do you read to a heart that is susceptible of exalted feelings! When oppressed humanity bent in timid silence throughout the globe beneath the galling yoke of slavery, it was you that proclaimed aloud the birthright of those truths which tyrants tremble at while they detect, and which, by sinking the loftiest head of the proudest potentate, with all his boasted pageantry, to the level of mortality with his meanest slave, confirmed and ratified by your unerring testimony the sacred and immortal doctrine of Equality.
Musing within the precincts of your inviting scenes of philosophic solitude, whither the insatiate love of true-born Liberty had led me, I beheld her Genius ascending, not in the spurious character and habit of a blood-thirsty Fury, armed with daggers and instruments of murder, and followed by a frantic and intoxicated multitude, but under the placid and chaste aspect of Justice, holding with a pure and unsullied hand the sacred scales in which the actions of mortals are weighed on the brink of eternity.
The first translation was made and published in London soon after the appearance of the work in French, and, by a late edition, is still adopted without alteration. Mr. Volney, when in this country in 1797, expressed his disapprobation of this translation, alleging that the translator must have been overawed by the government or clergy from rendering his ideas faithfully; and, accordingly, an English gentleman, then in Philadelphia, volunteered to correct this edition. But by his endeavors to give the true and full meaning of the author with great precision, he has so overloaded his composition with an exuberance of words, as in a great measure to dissipate the simple elegance and sublimity of the original. Mr. Volney, when he became better acquainted with the English language, perceived this defect; and with the aid of our countryman, Joel Barlow, made and published in Paris a new, correct, and elegant translation, of which the present edition is a faithful and correct copy.

CONTENTS
Publisher's Preface Translator's Preface Preface of London Edition Preface of the American Edition Advertisement of the American Edition The Life of Volney A List of Volney's Works Invocation Chap. I. The Journey II. The Reverie III. The Apparition IV. The Exposition V. Condition of Man in the Universe VI. The Primitive State of Man VII. Principles of Society VIII. Sources of the Evils of Societies IX. Origin of Governments and Laws X. General Causes of the Prosperity of Ancient States XI. General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of Ancient States XII. Lessons of Times Past repeated on the Present XIII. Will the Human Race Improve XIV. The Great Obstacle to Improvement XV. The New Age XVI. A Free and Legislative People XVII. Universal Basis of all Right and all Law XVIII. Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants XIX. General Assembly of the Nations XX. The Search of Truth XXI. Problem of Religious Contradictions XXII. Origin and Filiation of Religious Ideas I. Origin of the Idea of God: Worship of the Elements and of the Physical Powers of Nature II. Second System. Worship of the Stars, or Sabeism III. Third System. Worship of Symbols, or Idolatry IV. Fourth System. Worship of two Principles, or Dualism V. Moral and Mystical Worship, or System of a Future State VI. Sixth System. The Animated World, or Worship of the Universe under diverse Emblems VII. Seventh System. Worship of