Times have changed, are changing. Proofs of the old civilizations and
the archaic wisdom are accumulating. Though soldier-bigots and priestly
schemers have burnt books and converted old libraries to base uses;
though the dry rot and the insect have destroyed inestimably precious
records; though within the historic period the Spanish brigands made
bonfires of the works of the refined archaic American races, which, if
spared, would have solved many a riddle of history; though Omar lit the
fires of the Alexandrian baths for months with the literary treasures of
the Serapeum; though the Sybilline and other mystical books of Rome and
Greece were destroyed in war; though the South Indian invaders of Ceylon
"heaped into piles as high as the tops of the cocoanut trees" the ollas
of the Buddhists, and set them ablaze to light their victory--thus
obliterating from the world's knowledge early Buddhist annals and
treatises of great importance: though this hateful and senseless
Vandalism has disgraced the career of most fighting nations--still,
despite everything, there are extant abundant proofs of the history of
mankind, and bits and scraps come to light from time to time by what
science has often called "most curious coincidences.
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