BY W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.B.A., &c.   Fools only learn by their own experience, Wise men learn by the experience of others.   LONDON: ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 10 ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE W.C. 1907. "There are two roads to reformation for mankind—one through misfortunes of their own, the other through those of others; the former is the more unmistakable, the latter the less painful.... For it is history, and history alone, which, without involv

These papers essay an understanding of some of the various principles which underlie the course of political movements in the present age. There is no attempt at introducing any considerations which are not familiar to every intelligent person, nor any comparisons with other instances which are not already well known in history. Why considerations which seem so obvious when stated, should yet not be familiar, may perhaps be due to the estrangement between science and corporate life, which is an

In considering or designing any kind of work the first and most essential condition is the quality of material that has to be used. "You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." And what is true materially is true also mentally; the character of a people is the essential basis of all their institutions and government. If we intend to consider what improvements are possible, or what degradations may occur, we must treat the matter entirely as a question of character. "For forms of Government

Having now seen how the fluctuations of amendment or deterioration of character, are subject to the same common laws as those of the variation of physical structure, we are in a position to see more clearly the effect of gradual changes around us in England. Emigration has been very active in the past three generations, and immigration has recently become important. The loss of the earliest emigrants who moved for religious and political reasons affected the national character very little; there

When we are continually assured that there is a new and better way of doing anything, it is only reasonable to ask if anyone has tried it before. "The proof of the pudding is in the eating," and if some one has eaten such a pudding before us, we may be saved from using up good materials in a bad concoction. Until now the attention of historians has been so fixed upon the great military autocracy of Rome, that the growth of trade unionism and socialism under that government has been overlooked. H

Those persons who are unaccustomed to consider the great effects which flow from a continuous action of small causes, are too liable to suppose that a large result can only be obtained by a violent and immediate action. They suppose that only some mighty impulse can change the face of affairs; they pray that the mountains be rent, and look to the earthquake and the tempest, not thinking that it is the still small voice that really directs. They forget that it is the humble earthworms that plough

A large part of the aims of government in all ages has been the securing of uniformity, and much of the misery of mankind has been caused by the enforcing of it. But when we look at nature we see that a highly uniform species is the least likely to advance; and a seedsman or a breeder will try to break up too uniform a strain by exciting conditions which may lead to beneficial new varieties. It is only in a fluctuating species in which new "sports" easily arise, or are quickly developed by condi

Before we can imagine what may be lines of possible advance, for the individual or the community, we should base our ideas on observing what have been the means of advance in the past. Many of the Utopian visions which have been sketched by different writers are in flagrant contradiction of all history and human nature. It is at least far more likely that gain in the future will be on similar lines to those which have been successful in the past, rather than on lines opposed to all previous grow