From very low forms up to the highest--in the animal no less than in the
vegetable kingdom--the process of life presents the same appearance of
cyclical evolution. Nay, we have but to cast our eyes over the rest of
the world and cyclical change presents itself on all sides. It meets us
in the water that flows to the sea and returns to the springs; in the
heavenly bodies that wax and wane, go and return to their places; in the
inexorable sequence of the ages of man's life; in that successive rise,
apogee, and fall of dynasties and of states which is the most prominent
topic of civil history.