Since Asiatic records go back much farther than those of Europe, it is natural that Asia should be thought the birthplace of civilization. But this originality cannot be absolute, for, whatever may have been the relations of Babylonia and the Aryans, the latter brought civilization to India from the west, and it is not always clear whether similarity of government and institutions is the result of borrowing or of parallel development. Both in Europe and in Asia small feudal or aristocratic states tended to consolidate themselves into monarchies, but whereas in Europe from the early days of Rome onwards royalty has often been driven out and replaced temporarily or permanently by popular government, this change seems not to occur in Asia, where revolution means only a change of dynasty. The few cases where the government is not monarchical, as Arabia, seem to represent the persistence of very ancient conditions.
The contemplation of Asia suggests that progress is most rapid when accompanied by the migration of races or the transplantation of ideas and institutions. Thus Greece excelled the Eastern countries from whom she may have derived her civilization, and Buddhism had a far more brilliant career outside India than in it.
4. In many parts of southern Asia are found semi-barbarous races representing the earliest known stratum of population, such as the Veddahs of Ceylon, and various tribes in China and the Malay Archipelago. Some of them offer analogies to the Australians. This connexion, if true, must be very ancient, since it apparently goes back to a time when the distribution of land and water was other than at present. In northern Asia are found other aborigines, such as the Ainus of Japan and the so-called hyperborean races (Chukchis, &c.), but no materials are at present forthcoming for their history. There is some record of the migrations of the later races superimposed on these aborigines. The Chinese came from the west, though how far west is unknown: the Hindus and Persians from the north-west: the Burmese and Siamese from the north. We do not know if the Mongols, Turks, &c., had any earlier home than central Asia, but their extensive movements from that region are historical.