Physical Geography

The Distribution, Condition, and future Prospects of the Human Race.

More than 800,000,000 of human beings are scattered over the face of the earth, of all nations and kindreds and tongues, and in all stages of civilization, from a high state of moral and intellectual culture, to savages but little above the animals that contend with them for the dominion of the deserts and forests through which they roam. This vast multitude is divided into nations and tribes, differing in external appearance, character, language, and religion. The manner in which they are distributed, the affinities of structure and language by which they are connected, and the effect that climate, food, and customs may have had in modifying their external forms, or their moral and mental powers, are subjects of much more difficulty than the geographical dispersion of the lower classes of animals, inasmuch as the immortal spirit is the chief agent in all that concerns the human race. The progress of the universal mind in past ages, its present condition, and the future prospects of humanity, rouse the deep sympathies of our nature, for the high but mysterious destiny of the myriads of beings yet to come, who, like ourselves, will be subject for a few brief years to the joys and sorrows of this transient state, and fellow-heirs of eternal life hereafter.

Notwithstanding the extreme diversity, personal and mental, in mankind, anatomists have found that there are no specific differences—that the hideous Esquimaux, the refined and intellectual Caucasian, the thick-lipped Negro, and the fair blue-eyed Scannavian, are mere varieties of the same species. The human race forms five great varieties marked by strong distinctive characters. Many nations are included in each; distinguished from one another by different languages, manners, and mental qualities, yet bearing such a resemblance in general physiognomy and appearance as to justify a classification apparently anomalous.

The Caucasian group of nations, which includes the handsomest and most intellectual portion of mankind, inhabit all Europe, except Lapland, Finland, and Hungary; they occupy North Africa, as far as the 20th parallel of north latitude, Arabia, Asia Minor, Persia, the Himalaya to the Brahmapootra, all India between these mountains and the ocean, and the United States of North America. These nations are remarkable for a beautifully-shaped small head, regular features, fine hair, and symmetrical form. The Greeks, Georgians, and Circassians are models of perfection in form, especially the last, which is assumed as the type of this class of mankind; of which it is evident that colour is not a characteristic, since they are of all shades, from the fair and florid, to the clear dark brown and almost black. This family of nations has always been, and still is, the most civilized portion of the human race. The inhabitants of Hindostan, the Egyptians, Arabians, Greeks, and Romans, were in ancient times what the European nations are now. The cause of this remarkable development of mental power is, no doubt, natural disposition, for the difference in the capabilities of nations seems to be as great as that of individuals. The origin of spontaneous civilization and superiority may generally be traced to the talent of some master-spirit gaining an ascendancy over his countrymen. Natural causes have also combined with mental—mildness of climate, fertility of soil; rivers and inland seas, by affording facility of intercourse, favoured enterprise and commerce; and the double-river systems in Asia brought distant nations together, and softened those hostile antipathies which separate people, multiply languages, and reduce all to barbarism. The genius of this family of nations has led them to profit by these natural advantages; whereas the American Indians are at this day wandering as barbarous hordes in one of the finest countries in the world. An original similarity or even identity of many spoken languages may be adverted to as facilitating communication and mental improvement among the Caucasian variety in very ancient times.

The Mongol-Tartar family forms the second group of nations. They occupy all Asia north of the Persian table-land and of the Himalaya; the whole of Eastern Asia from the Brahmapootra to Behring’s Straits, together with the Arctic regions of America north of Labrador. This family includes the Tourkomans, Mongol and Tartar tribes, the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, the Esquimaux, and the Hungarians, now located in the very heart of Europe. These nations are distinguished by broad skulls and high cheek-bones, small black eyes obliquely set, long black hair, and a yellow or sallow olive complexion; some are good-looking, and many are well-made. A portion of this family is capable of high culture, especially the Chinese, the most civilized nation of eastern Asia, although they never have attained the excellence of the Caucasian group, probably from their exclusive social system, which has separated them from the rest of mankind, and kept them stationary for ages; the peculiarity and difficulty of their language have also tended to insulate them. The Kalmuks, who lead a pastoral wandering life on the steppes of central Asia, and the Esquimaux, have wider domains than any other of this set of nations. The Kalmuks are rather a handsome people, and, like all who lead a savage life, have acute senses of seeing and hearing. The inhabitants of Finland and Lapland are nearly allied to the Esquimaux, who are spread over all the high latitudes of both continents—a diminutive race, equally ugly in face and form.

Malayan nations occupy the Indian Archipelago, New Zealand, Chatham Island, the Society group, and several other of the Polynesian islands, together with the Phillipines and Formosa. They are very dark, with lank coarse black hair, flat faces, and obliquely set eyes. Endowed with great activity and ingenuity, they are mild and gentle, and far advanced in the arts of social life, in some places; in others, ferocious and vindictive, daring and predatory; and from their maritime position and skill, they are a migratory race. Several branches of this class of nations had a very early indigenous civilization, with an original literature in peculiar characters of their own.

The Ethiopian nations are widely dispersed; they occupy all Africa south of the Great Desert, half of Madagascar, the continent of Australia, Mindanao, Gilolo, the high lands of Borneo, Sumbawa, Timor, and New Ireland. The distinguishing characters of this group are, a black complexion, black woolly or frizzled hair, thick lips, projecting jaws, high cheek-bones, and large prominent eyes. A great variety, however, exists in this jetty race: some are handsome both in face and figure, especially in Ethiopia; and even in Western Africa, where the Negro tribes live, there are groups in which the distinctive characters are less exaggerated. This great family has not yet attained a high place among nations, though by no means incapable of cultivation; part of Ethiopia appears to have made considerable progress in civilization in very ancient times. But the formidable deserts, so extensive in some parts of the continent, and the unwholesome climate in others, have cut off intercourse with civilized nations; and, unfortunately, the infamous traffic in slaves, to the disgrace of Christianity, has made the nations of tropical Africa more barbarous than they were before: while, on the contrary, the Foulahs and other tribes who were converts to Mahommedanism 400 years ago, have now large commercial towns, cultivated grounds, and schools. The Australians and Papuans, who inhabit the eastern islands mentioned, are the most degraded of this dark race, and indeed of all mankind.

The American race, who occupy the whole of that continent from 62° N. lat. to the Straits of Magellan, are almost all of a reddish brown or copper colour, with long black hair, deep-set black eyes, aquiline nose, and often of handsome slender forms. In North America they live by hunting, are averse to agriculture, slow in acquiring knowledge, but extremely acute, brave, and fond of war, and, though revengeful, are capable of generosity and gratitude. In South America many are half-civilized, but a greater number are still in a state of utter barbarism. In a family so widely scattered great diversity of character prevails, yet throughout the whole there is a similarity of manners and habits which has resisted all the effects of time and climate.

Each of these five groups of nations, spread over vast regions, is accounted one family; and if they are so by physical structure, they are still more so by language, which expresses the universal mind of a people, modified by external circumstances, of which none have a greater influence than the geographical features of the country they inhabit—an influence that is deepest in the early stages of society. The remnants of ancient poetry in the south of Scotland partake of the gentle and pastoral character of the country; while Celtic verse, and even the spoken language of the Highlander, are full of poetical images of war and stern mountain scenery. This is particularly to be observed in the noble strains of Homer, and in the heroic poems of the early Hindus, which reflect the lofty and sublime character of eastern scenery.^[188] As civilization advances, and man becomes more intellectual, language keeps pace in the progress. New words and new expressions are added, as new ideas occur and new things are invented, till at last language itself becomes a study, is refined and perfected by the introduction of general terms. The improvement in language and the development of the mind have been the same in all nations which have arrived at any degree of refinement, and shows the identity of human nature in every country and climate. The art of printing perpetuates a tongue, and great authors immortalize it; yet language is ever changing to a certain degree, though it never loses traces of its origin. Chaucer and Spenser have become obscure; Shakespeare requires a glossary for the modern reader; and in the few years that the United States of America have existed as an independent nation, the colloquial language has deviated from the mother-tongue. When a nation degenerates, it is split by jealousy and war into tribes, each of which, in process of time, acquires a peculiar idiom, and thus the number of dialects is increased, though they still retain a similarity; whereas when masses of mankind are united into great political bodies, their languages by degrees assimilate to one common tongue, which retains traces of all to the latest ages. The form of the dialects now spoken by some savage tribes, as the North American Indians, bears the marks of a once higher state of civilization.

More than 2000 languages are spoken, but few are independent; some are connected by words having the same meaning, some by grammatical structure, others by both; indeed the permanency of language is so great, that neither ages of conquest, nor mixing with other nations, have obliterated the native idiom of a people. The French, Spanish, and German retain traces of the common language spoken before the Roman conquest, and the Celtic tongue still exists in the British Islands.

By a comparison of their dialects, nations far apart, and differing in every other respect, are discovered to have sprung from a common, though remote origin. Thus, all the numerous languages spoken by the American Indians, or red men, are similar in grammatical structure: an intimate analogy exists in the languages of the Esquimaux nations who inhabit the arctic regions of both continents. Dialects of one tongue are spoken throughout North Africa, as far south as the oasis of Siwah on the east, and the Canary Islands on the west. Another group of cognate idioms is common to the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa, while all the southern part of the continent is inhabited by people whose languages are connected. The monosyllabic speech of the Chinese and Indo-Chinese shows that they are the same people; and all the insular nations of the Pacific derived their dialects from some tribes on the continent of India and the Indian Archipelago. Cognate tongues are spoken by the Tartars, Mandtchoux, Fins, Laplanders, many of the Siberian nations, and by the Hungarians.

The Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, and Celtic tongues are connected by grammatical structure, and words expressive of the same objects and feelings, with the Sanscrit, or sacred language of India; consequently, the nations inhabiting that vast extent of country from the mouths of the Ganges to the British Isles, the coast of Scandinavia and Iceland, must have had the same origin. “The words that fall thoughtlessly from our lips in the daily vocations of life are no idle sounds, but magic symbols which preserve for ever the first migrations of the race, and whose antiquity makes Greece and Rome appear but of yesterday.”

The number of languages spoken from the Ganges to Scandinavia, differing so widely from one another, is a proof of the strength of individual character in nations, which can so powerfully impress its peculiarities on the same mother tongue. In fact every nation, as well as every individual, has its own physical, moral, and intellectual organization, which influences its language and its whole existence.

In the Indo-Germanic nations, which have been dominant for ages, civilization has been progressive, though not without interruptions. Providence has endowed these nations with the richest and most ornamental gifts. Imagination has been liberally granted, and embodied in all that is sublime and beautiful in architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry. In strength of intellect and speculation, in philosophy, science, laws, and the political principles of society, they have been pre-eminent.

The prevailing races of mankind now inhabiting Europe are the Teutonic, Celtic, and Sclavonian. In the greater part of the continent these races are mixed, but the blood is purely Teutonic throughout Iceland, Scandinavia, round the Gulf of Bothnia, in Denmark, Germany, and the east of England from Portsmouth to the Tyne. Pure Celtic blood is confined to the Basque Provinces in Spain, the south and south-west of France, a part of the Grisons and Switzerland, and some part of Great Britain. The Sclavonian blood is widely dispersed in middle Russia, from the Ural Mountains to the west of the Valdai table-land, and from Novogorod to the lower course of the Don. The three races have been much improved by mixture, in appearance, energy, and versatility of mind.

It is extraordinary that nations should lose their vitality without any apparent cause; throughout the Indian Archipelago there is no longer any one great Malayan nation, in Europe pure Celtic blood has been on the decline for twenty centuries, and even the mixed Celtic variety has not increased in proportion to the Teutonic, although for 2000 years they have been exposed to the same external circumstances.

At present the Teutonic race, including the inhabitants of North America and the British colonies, considerably outnumber the Celtic, though its numbers were far inferior in ancient times. The Teutonic variety has subdued and even exterminated the other varieties in its progress towards the west; it is undoubtedly the most vigorous, both in body and mind, of all mankind, and seems destined to conquer and civilize the whole world. It is a singular fact, whatever the cause may be, that the Celts are invariably Catholic, while the Teutonic population is inclined to Protestantism.

Various other races inhabit Europe, much inferior in numbers to those above mentioned, though occasionally mixed with them, as the Turks, Fins, the Samojedes, who live on the shores of the White Sea and in the north-east of Russia, and the Hungarians, the higher class of which are a fine race of men, and on a par with the most civilized of the European nations. There are many mixed Tartar tribes, chiefly in the south and east of the Russian territories; also Jews and Gipsies, who live among all nations, yet mix with none.^[189]

The inhabitants of Great Britain are of Celtic and Teutonic origin. The Celtic blood is purest in Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, in Wales, and the Isle of Man: in the highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides it is more mixed than is generally supposed, as plainly appears from the frequency of red hair and blue eyes. In some parts of Ireland there is pure Celtic blood, but throughout the greater part of that country it is mixed, although the Celtic character predominates; but in Ulster, where the earliest colony settled, the blood is purely Teutonic. In Ireland the difference in the organization of the two races is strongly marked: placed under the same circumstances, the Teutonic part of the population has prospered, which, unfortunately, has not been the case with the Celtic.^[190]

The dialects spoken in the Celtic districts are closely allied to the Semitic languages of Asia, and to one another. The Cornish is worn out, the Manx is nearly so, and the Gaelic is declining fast in the highlands of Scotland.

The Roman invasion had no effect on the Anglo-Saxon or old English, a language of Teutonic origin, but the Normans in ancient times had altered it considerably, and in modern times the English tongue has unfortunately been corrupted by the introduction of French, Latin, and Latinized words. Scotch spoken throughout the Lowlands of Scotland is a language independent of the English, though of the same stock; it is derived from the low German, the Frisian, Dutch, and Flemish, and differs widely from the Anglo-Saxon.

No circumstance in the natural world is more inexplicable than the diversity of form and colour in the human race. It had already begun in the antediluvian world, for “there were giants in the land in those days.” No direct mention is made of colour at that time, unless the mark set upon Cain, “lest any one finding him should kill him,” may allude to it. Perhaps, also, it may be inferred that black people dwelt in Ethiopia, or the land of Cush, which means black in the Hebrew language. At all events, the difference now existing must have arisen after the flood, consequently all must have originated with Noah, whose wife, or the wives of his sons, may have been of different colours, for aught we know.

Many instances have occurred in modern times, of albinos and red-haired children having been born of black parents, and these have transmitted their peculiarities to their descendants for several generations, but it may be doubted whether pure-blooded white people have had perfectly black offspring. The varieties are much more likely to have arisen from the effects of climate, food, customs, and civilization upon migratory groups of mankind; and of such, a few instances have occurred in historical times, limited, however, to small numbers and particular spots; but the great mass of nations had received their distinctive characters at a very early period. The permanency of type is one of the most striking circumstances, and proves the length of time necessary to produce a change in national structure and colour. A nation of Ethiopians existed 3450 years ago, which emigrated from a remote country and settled near Egypt, and there must have been black people before the age of Solomon, otherwise he would not have alluded to colour, even poetically. The national appearance of the Ethiopians, Persians, and Jews, has not varied for more than 3000 years, as appears from the ancient Egyptian paintings in the tomb of Rhameses the Great, discovered at Thebes by Belzoni, in which the countenance of the modern Ethiopian and Persian can be readily recognized, and the Jewish features and colour are identical with those of the Israelites daily met with in London. Civilization is supposed to have great influence on colour, having a tendency to make the dark shade more general, and it appears that, in the crossing of two shades, the offspring takes the complexion of the darker and the form of the fairer. But as there is no instance of a new variety of mankind having been established as a nation since the Christian era, there must either have been a greater energy in the causes of change before that time, or, brief as the span of man on earth has been, a wrong estimate of time antecedent to the Christian period must have made it shorter.^[191]

Darkness of complexion has been attributed to the sun’s power from the age of Solomon to this day—“Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me;” and there can be no doubt that, to a certain degree, the opinion is well founded. The invisible rays in the solar beams, which change vegetable colours, and have been employed with such remarkable effect in the Daguerreotype, act upon every substance on which they fall, producing mysterious and wonderful changes in their molecular state—man not excepted.^[192]

Other causes must have been combined to occasion all the varieties we now see, otherwise every nation between the tropics would be of the same hue, whereas the sooty Negro inhabits equatorial Africa, the Red man equinoctial America, and both are mixed with fairer tribes. In Asia, the Rohillas, a fair race of Affghan extraction, inhabit the plains north of the Ganges: the Bengalee and the mountaineers of Nepaul are dark, and the Mahrattas are yellow. The complexion of man varies with height and latitude; some of the inhabitants of the Himalaya and Hindoo Koosh are fair, and even a red-haired race is found on the latter. There are fair-haired people with blue eyes in the Ruddhua mountains in Africa. The Kabyles, that inhabit the country behind Tunis and Algiers, are similar in complexion to the nations in high northern latitudes. This correspondence, however, only maintains with regard to the northern hemisphere, for it is a well-known fact that the varieties of the numerous species in the great southern continents are much more similar in physical characters to the native races of the torrid zone, than any of the aboriginal people of the northern regions. Even supposing that diversity of colour is owing to the sun’s rays only, it is scarcely possible to attribute the thick lips, the woolly hair, and the entire difference of form, extending even to the very bones and skull, to anything but a concurrence of circumstances, not omitting the invisible influence of electricity, which pervades every part of the earth and air—and possibly terrestrial magnetism.

The flexibility of man’s constitution enables him to live in every climate, from the equator to the ever-frozen coasts of Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, and that chiefly by his capability of bearing the most extreme changes of temperature and diet, which are probably the principal causes of the variety in his form. It has already been mentioned that oxygen is inhaled with the atmospheric air, and also taken in by the pores on the skin; part of it combines chemically with the carbon of the food, and is expired in the form of carbonic acid gas and water; that chemical action is the cause of vital force and heat in man and animals. The quantity of food must be in exact proportion to the quantity of oxygen inhaled, otherwise disease and loss of strength would be the consequence. Since cold air is incessantly carrying off warmth from the skin, more exercise is requisite in winter than in summer, in cold climates than in warm; consequently, more carbon is necessary in the former than in the latter, in order to maintain the chemical action that generates heat, and to ward off the destructive effects of the oxygen, which incessantly strives to consume the body. Animal food, wine, and spirits, contain many times more carbon than fruit and vegetables, therefore animal food is much more necessary in a cold than in a hot climate. The esquimaux, who lives by the chace, and eats 10 or 12 pounds weight of meat and fat in 24 hours, finds it not more than enough to keep up his strength and animal heat, while the indolent inhabitant of Bengal is sufficiently supplied with both by his rice diet. Clothing and warmth make the necessity for exercise and food much less, by diminishing the waste of animal heat. Hunger and cold united soon consume the body, because it loses its power of resisting the action of the oxygen, which consumes part of our substance, when food is wanting. Hence, nations inhabiting warm climates have no great merit in being abstemious, nor are those guilty of committing an excess who live more freely in colder countries. The arrangement of Divine Wisdom is to be admired in this as in all other things, for, if man had only been capable of living on vegetable food, he never could have had a permanent residence beyond the latitude where corn ripens. The Esquimaux, and all the inhabitants of the very high latitudes of both continents, live entirely on fish and animal food. What effects the difference of food may have upon the intellect is not known.

A nation or tribe driven by war, or any other cause, from a warm to a cold country, or the contrary, would be forced to change their food both in quality and quantity, which in the lapse of ages might produce an alteration in the external form and internal structure. The probability is still greater, if the entire change that a few years produces in the matter of which the human frame is composed be considered. At every instant during life, with every motion, voluntary and involuntary, with every thought and every exercise of the brain, a portion of our substance becomes dead, separates from the living part, combines with some of the inhaled oxygen, and is removed. By this process it is supposed that the whole body is renewed every 7 years; individuality, therefore, depends on the spirit, which retains its identity during all the changes of its earthly house, and sometimes even acts independently of it. When sleep is restoring exhausted nature, the spirit is often awake and active, crowding the events of years into a few seconds, and, by its unconsciousness of time, anticipates eternity. Every change of food, climate, and mental excitement, must have their influence on the reproduction of the mortal frame; and thus a thousand causes may co-operate to alter whole races of mankind placed under new circumstances, time being granted.

The difference between the effects of manual labour and the efforts of the brain appears in the intellectual countenance of the educated man, compared with that of the peasant, though even he is occasionally stamped with nature’s own nobility. The most savage people are also the ugliest. Their countenance is deformed by violent unsubdued passions, anxiety, and suffering. Deep sensibility gives a beautiful and varied expression, but every strong emotion is unfavourable to perfect regularity of feature; and of that the Greeks were well aware when they gave that calmness of expression and repose to their unrivalled statues. The refining effects of high culture, and, above all, the Christian religion, by subduing the evil passions, and encouraging the good, are more than anything calculated to improve even the external appearance. The countenance, though perhaps of less regular form, becomes expressive of the amiable and benevolent feelings of the heart, the most captivating and lasting of all beauty.^[193]

Thus, an infinite assemblage of causes may be assigned as having produced the endless varieties in the human race; but the fact remains an inscrutable mystery. But amidst all the physical vicissitudes man has undergone, the species remains permanent; and let those who think that the difference in the species of animals and vegetables arises from diversity of conditions, consider, that no circumstances whatever can degrade the form of man to that of the monkey—or elevate the monkey to the form of man.

Animals and vegetables, being the sources of man’s sustenance, have had the chief influence on his destiny and location, and have induced him to settle in those parts of the world where he could procure them in greatest abundance. Wherever the chace or the spontaneous productions of the earth supply him with food, he is completely savage, and only a degree further advanced where he plants the palm and the banana; where grain is the principal food, industry and intelligence are most perfectly developed, as in the temperate zone. On that account the centres of civilization have generally been determined, not by a hot, but by a genial climate, fertile soil, by the vicinity of the sea-coast or great rivers, affording the means of fishing and transport, which last has been one of the chief causes of the superiority of Europe and Southern Asia. The mineral treasures of the earth have been the means of assembling great masses of men in Siberia and the table-land of the Andes, and have given rise to many great cities, both in the Old and the New World. Nations inhabiting elevated table-lands and high ungenial latitudes have been driven there by war, or obliged to wander from countries where the population exceeded the means of living—a cause of migration to which both language and tradition bear testimony. The belief in a future state, so universal, shown by respect for the dead, has no doubt been transmitted from nation to nation. The American Indians, driven from their hunting-grounds, still make pilgrimages to the tombs of their fathers; and these tribes alone, of all uncivilized mankind, worship the Great Spirit as the invisible God and Father of all—a degree of abstract refinement which could hardly have sprung up spontaneously among a rude people, and which must have been transmitted from races who held the Jewish faith.

It is probable that America had been peopled from Asia before the separation of the continents by Behring’s Straits, and there is reason to believe that the location of various races of mankind, now insulated, may have taken place before the separation of the lands by mediterranean seas; whilst others, previously insulated, may be now united by the drying up of inland seas, as those which covered the Sahara desert, and the great hollow round the Caspian Sea, of which it and the Black Sea are probably the remnants.

M. Boué has observed that mountain chains running nearly east and west establish much more striking differences among nations than those which extend from north to south—a circumstance confirmed by observation through the history of mankind. The Scandinavian Alps have not prevented the countries on both sides from being occupied by people of a common descent; while the feeble barrier of the Cheviot Hills, between England and Scotland, and the moderate elevation of the Highland mountains, have prevented the amalgamation of the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts, even in a period of high civilization. The Franks and Belgians are distinct, though separated by hills of still less elevation. For the same reason the Spaniards and Italians differ far more from their neighbours on the other side of the eastern and western chains, than the Spaniards do from the Portuguese, or the Piedmontese from the Provençals. A similar distinction prevails throughout Asia; and in America, where all the principal chains run north and south, there is but one copper-coloured race throughout the continent, which stretches over more climates than Europe and Africa, or even than Asia and Australia, united. It is along chains running north and south that the fusion of languages takes place, and not along those of an easterly and westerly direction. From Poland, for instance, there are intermediate insensible gradations through Germany into France; while in crossing from a German district of the Alps to the valleys of Italy, different tribes and different languages are separated by a single mountain. Even wars and conquest have ever been more easy in one direction than in the other. The difference in the fauna and flora on the two sides of the great table-land and mountains of Asia is a striking illustration of the influence which high lands running east and west have on natural productions, and thus, both directly and indirectly, they affect the distribution of mankind.

The circumstances which thus determine the location of nations, and the fusion or separation of their languages, must, conjointly with moral causes, operate powerfully on their character. The minds of mankind, as well as their fate, are influenced by the soil on which they are born and bred. The natives of elevated countries are attached to their mountains; the Dutch are as much attached to their meadows and canals; and the savage, acquainted only with the discomforts of life, is unhappy when brought among civilized man. Early associations never entirely leave us, however much our position in life may alter, and strong attachments are formed to places which generate in us habits differing from those of other countries.

The Baltic and Mediterranean Seas have had no inconsiderable share in civilizing Europe; one combined with a cold and gloomy climate, the other with a warm and glowing sky, have developed dissimilar characters in the temperament and habits of the surrounding nations, originally dissimilar in race. The charms of climate, and the ease with which the necessaries of life are procured, were favourable to the development of imagination in the more southern nations, and to an indolent enjoyment of their advantages. In the north, on the contrary, the task imposed upon man was harder, and perhaps more favourable to strength of character. The Dutch owe their industry and perseverance to their unceasing struggle against the encroachments of the ocean; the British are indebted to their insular position for their maritime disposition, and to the smallness of their country and the richness of their mines, for their manufacturing and colonizing habits; the military propensities of the French, to the necessity of maintaining their independence among the surrounding nations, as well as to ambition and the love of fame.

Thus, external circumstances materially modify the character of nations, but the original propensities of race are never eradicated, and they are nowhere more prominent than in the progress of the social state in France and England. The vivacity and speculative disposition of the Celt appear in the rapid and violent changes of government and in the succession of theoretical experiments in France; while in Britain the deliberate slowness, prudence, and accurate perceptions of the Teuton are manifest in the gradual improvement and steadiness of their political arrangements. “The prevalent political sentiment of Great Britain is undoubtedly conservative, in the best sense of the word, with a powerful under-current of democratic tendencies. This gives great power and strength to the political and social body of this country, and makes revolutions by physical force almost impossible. It can be said, without assumption or pretension, that the body politic of Britain is in a sounder state of health than any other in Europe; and that those know very little of this country, who, led away by what they see in France, always dream of violent and revolutionary changes in the constitution. Great Britain is the only country in Europe which has had the good fortune to have all her institutions worked out and framed by her in a strictly organic manner—that is, in accordance with organic wants, which require different conditions at different and successive stages of national development—and not by theoretical experiments, as in many other countries which are still in a state of excitement consequent upon these experiments. The social character of the people of this country, besides the features which they have in common with other nations of Teutonic origin, is, on the whole, domestic, reserved, aristocratic, and exclusive.”^[194]

In speculating upon the effects of external circumstances, and on the original dispositions of the different races of mankind, the stationary and unchanged condition is a curious phenomenon in the history of nations. The inhabitants of Hindostan have not advanced within the historical period; neither have the Chinese. The Peruvians and Mexicans had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization, at which they became stationary, never having availed themselves of their fine country and noble rivers; and their conquerors, the Spaniards, degenerated into the same apathy with the conquered. The unaccountable gipsies have for ages maintained their peculiarities in all countries; so have the Jews and Armenians, who by the perseverance with which they have adhered to their language and institutions, have resisted the influence of physical impressions.

The influence of external circumstances on man is not greater than his influence on the material world. He cannot create power, it is true, but he dexterously avails himself of the powers of nature to subdue nature. Air, fire, water, steam, gravitation, his own muscular strength, and that of animals rendered obedient to his will, are the instruments by which he has converted the desert into a garden, drained marshes, cut canals, made roads, turns the course of rivers, cleared away forests in one country, and planted them in another. By these operations he has altered the climate, changed the course of local winds, increased or diminished the quantity of rain, and softened the rigour of the seasons. In the time of Strabo, the cold in France was so intense, that it was thought impossible to ripen grapes north of the Cevennes: the Rhine and the Danube were every winter covered with ice thick enough to bear any weight. Man’s influence on vegetation has been immense, but the most important changes had been effected in the antediluvian ages of the world. Cain was a tiller of the ground. The olive, the vine, and the fig-tree have been cultivated time immemorial: wheat, rice, and barley, have been so long in an artificial state, that their origin is unknown; even maize, which is a Mexican plant, was in use among the American tribes before the Spanish conquest; and tobacco was already used by them to allay the pangs of hunger, to which those who depend upon the chace for food must be exposed. Most of the ordinary culinary vegetables have been known for ages, and it is remarkable that in these days, when our gardens are adorned with innumerable native plants in a cultivated state, few new grains, vegetables, or fruits have been reclaimed; the old have been produced in infinite variety, and many brought from foreign countries: yet there must exist many plants capable of cultivation, as unpromising in their wild state as the turnip or carrot.

Some families of plants are more susceptible of improvement than others, and, like man himself, can bear almost any climate. One kind of wheat grows to 62° N. latitude; rye and barley are hardier, and succeed still farther north; and few countries are absolutely without grass. The cruciform tribe abounds in useful plants, indeed that family, together with the solanum, the papilionaceous and umbelliferous tribes, furnish most of our vegetables. Many plants, like animals, are of one colour only in their wild state, and their blossoms are single. Art has introduced the variety we now see in the same species, and, by changing the anthers of the wild flowers into petals, has produced double blossoms: by art, too, many plants, natives of warm countries, have been naturalized in colder climates. Few useful plants have beautiful blossoms—but if utility were the only object, of what pleasure should we be deprived! Refinement is not wanting in the inmates of a cottage covered with roses and honeysuckle; and the little garden cultivated amidst a life of toil, tells of a peaceful home.