Peruvian Antiquities

Rivero y Ustariz, Mariano Eduardo de & Johann Jakob von Tschudi, Peruvian Antiquities, New York: George P. Putnam & Co.1853.

From the Preface:

The history of nations, or of the times in which they flourished, does not interest, simply by showing the degree of power and culture to which they attained, and the means by which they were able to subjugate or aggrandize those who were ruled; but also, by instructing us in the progressive steps of commerce, arts, and sciences; those mighty agents which enlarge the understanding, develop the riches of nature, remove obstacles, and prepare a people for the enjoyment of rational liberty. The code which governed the ancient Peruvian nation, dictated by its founder, Manco-Capac, and amplified by his successors, laid the foundations of that public happiness, of which for some centuries his descendants have been deprived: but it was not the basis of that political liberty which moves men, inspires great thoughts, diffuses light, and enlarges the limits of human knowledge. Its theocratical government took care that the worship of the divinity which they adored, throughout the entire kingdom, should not languish; it was a means which, as in all the most enlightened monarchies of the old world, was called in, to give security to political power:-that public morality should not be relaxed by the toleration of disorder:-that agriculture and industry should be advanced:-that public works should be constructed and preserved:-and finally, that no one should be without occupation, and useless alike to the State and his fellow-men. Kings and priests at the same time, the sovereigns ruled, in the name of the Sun, with an absolute independence; but were not, on this account, placed above the laws of justice and humanity. To study, therefore, institutions so beneficent, on the very spot where they existed; to examine their archaeological monuments; to obtain an exact knowledge of their idiom, religion, laws, sciences and customs, as well as all that relates to the empire of the Andes, was the plan which we proposed to pursue, by traversing the land of the Incas.

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