text:  Treading in the steps of Vico he more than realized his master's project and in his immortal work (which with all its faults is a magnificent and as yet unrivalled trophy of his genius and will serve as a landmark to future enquirers when its puny critics are not known enough to be despised) he has extracted from a chaos of casual observations detached hints--from the principles concealed in the intricate system of Roman jurisprudence or exposed in the rules which barely held together the barbarous tribes of Gaul and Germany--from the manners of the polished Athenian and from the usages of the wandering Tartar--from the rudeness of savage life and the corruptions of refined society--a digest of luminous and coherent evidence by which the condition of man in the different stages of his social progress is exemplified and ascertained