Peru

Another ancient civilization that fascinates us, much like Peru, is the one that rose in the region later known as Babylonia or Chaldaea.

Just as Pizarro found a faded version of ancient Peru, the Babylonia known to archaeologists is a degenerate reflection of a once greater empire.

Peru vs.

Peru: The standout feature was its remarkable system of government, with religion playing a smaller role.

The study of ancient civilizations like Chaldaea and Peru widens our understanding of human progress.

ANOTHER ancient civilisation which has interested us, in its way, almost as much as that of Peru, was one that arose in the part of Asia which was afterwards called Babylonia or Chaldaea.

Just as the Peru discovered by Pizarro was in almost every respect a pale copy of the older Peru which we have tried to describe, so the Babylonia known to the student of archaeology is in many ways a kind of degenerate reflection of an earlier and greater Empire.

Perhaps there could hardly be a greater contrast between any two countries than we find between Peru and Babylonia.

The educational arrangements of the country were not, as in Peru, directly in the hands of the priests, although it was they who decided by their calculations — evidently aided in some cases by clairvoyant insight — to which planet a child belonged.

We who love humanity — we who are trying, however feebly, to help it on its arduous way — can we read of conditions such as those of ancient Chaldsea, and perhaps still more of ancient Peru, conditions under which whole nations lived a happy and religious life, free from the curse of intemperance, free from the horror of grinding poverty — can we read of such conditions without a lurking doubt, without putting to ourselves the question: "Can it be that mankind is really evolving f Can it be for the good of humanity that when such civilisations have been attained, they should be allowed to crumble and fall, and leave no sign ; and that after them we should come to this?"