Excerpt from The Past, the Present, and the Future The volume now offered to the public is designed to demonstrate the existence of a simple and beautiful law of nature, governing man in all his efforts for the maintenance and improvement of his condition, a law so powerful and universal that escape from it is impossible, but which, nevertheless, has heretofore remained unnoticed. The further object of these pages is, by aid of this law, to examine and to solve various questions of great interest. In doing this, it has been necessary to refer to the history of various nations, in order to show that certain causes have invariably produced certain effects; and thus to account for the differences ob servable in their present condition, and in their modes of thought and action. If in so doing the author be found to have expressed himself strongly in regard to some of the nations of Europe, he begs the reader to believe that he has done so not because he is not of them, but because they are not of those who have maintained peace and permitted the laws of nature to take effect: and if, on the contrary, he has spoken highly of the course pursued by the United States, and has placed in a strong point of view the results here realised, he begs the reader also to believe that he has done so, not merely because he is of them, but because they have, to an extent hitherto unprecedented, followed the things that make for peace and because they, less than any other people, have. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.