The Macedonian Expeditions under Alexander the Great, the downfal of the Persian Empire, the beginning of intercourse with Western India, and the influence of the 116 years' duration of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, mark one of the most important epochs of General History; or of that part of the progressive development of the History of the Human Race, which treats of the more intimate communication and union of the European countries of the West with South-Western Asia, the Valley of the Nile and Lybia. The sphere of the development of community of life, or of the common action and mutual influence of different nations, was not only immensely enlarged in material space, but it was also powerfully strengthened, and its moral grandeur increased, by the constant tendency of the unceasing efforts of the conqueror towards a blending of all the different races, and the formation of a general unity, under the animating influences of the Grecian spirit. The foundation of so many new cities at points the selection of which indicates higher and more general aims, the formation and arrangement of an independent community for the government of those cities, the tenderness of treatment towards national usages and native worship, all testify that the plan for a great organic whole was laid. At a later period, as is always the case, much which may not have been originally comprehended in the plan, developed itself from the nature of the relations established.