Also read Back Massagers Human Frame When those countries were peopled with men, who were wise, prudent, industrious, and brave, their fields were fertile, and their cities magnificent; and wherever mankind have carried the same vigour, the same virtues, and the same character, nature has been found bountiful and obedient. Throughout the whole of the earth, we see the same causes producing nearly the same effects; why then do we remain in doubt respecting their connection? Or, if under no doubt, wherefore do we not endeavour to trace their operation, that we may know how to preserve those advantages we are so eager to obtain? If an Inquiry into the causes of the revolutions of nations is more imperfect and less satisfactory than when directed to those of individuals, and of single families, if, ever it should be rendered complete, its application will, at least, be more certain. Nations are exempt from those accidental vicissitudes which derange the wisest of human plans upon a smaller scale. Number and magnitude reduce chances to certainty. The single and unforeseen cause that overwhelms a man in the midst of prosperity, never ruins a nation: unless it be ripe for ruin, a nation never falls; and when it does fall, accident has only the appearance of doing what, in reality, was already nearly accomplished. There is no physical cause for the decline of nations, nature remains the same; and if the physical man has degenerated, it was before the authentic records of history. The men who built the most stupendous pyramid in Egypt, did not exceed in stature those who now live in mean hovels at its immense base. If there is any country in the world that proves the uniformity of nature, it is this very Egypt. Unlike to other countries, that owe their fertility to the ordinary succession of seasons, of which regular registers do not exist, and are never accurate, it depends on the overflowing of the waters of a single river. The marks that indicated the rising of the Nile, in the days of the Pharaos, and of the Ptolemies, do the same at the present day, and are a guarantee for the future regularity of nature, by the undeniable certainty of it for the past. By a singular propensity for preserving the bodies of the dead, the Egyptians have left records equally authentic, with regard to the structure of the human frame. Here nothing is fabulous; and even the unintentional errors of language are impossible. We have neither to depend on the veracity nor the correctness of man. The proofs exhibited are visible and tangible; they are the object of the senses, and admit of no mistake. But while that country exhibits the most authentic proofs of the uniform course of nature, it affords also the most evident examples of the degradation of the human mind. It is there we find the cause of those ruins that astonish, and the desolation that afflicts. Had men continued their exertions, the labour of their hands would not have fallen to decay. It is in the exertion and conduct of man, and in the information of his mind, that we find the causes of the mutability of human affairs. We are about to trace Most part of the mummies found in Egypt, instead of being of a larger size, are considerably under the middle stature of the people of England. Those dead monuments of the human frame give the direct lie to Homer and all the traditions about men's degenerating in size and strength.