mental and bodily qualities. Not only the Mandingos and Fulahs, but all the other races yet described, who are aborigines of mountainous regions are more intelligent than the maritime tribes, as well as physically superior to them.'[1] In the same volume, (pp. 168, 142, 309, et passim), this distinguished writer shows by clear and conclusive proof. 1st. That change of climate has converted the physical characteristics of Jews into those of negroes. 2dly. That the same cause has changed the physical characteristics of the latter to the complexion and physiognomy of Neapolitans and Sicilians. And 3dly. That the Greeks of the present day have the same physical, and some of the intellectual characteristics of the Greeks of old. (p. 505.)
These and kindred facts establish the following propositions: That any certain geographical position produces certain peculiarities in the physical and mental characteristics of men residing thereon[2]: that a change of geographical position changes the characteristics, physical and mental, of any portion of the human race, who may undergo this change: that any given locality will maintain the same characteristics in a people continuously residing thereon, and will also, in course of time, produce the same characteristics in the descendants of whatever emigrants may come to that locality, and continue thereon for a period of at least two hundred years.
Now, the bearing of these facts and propositions upon our argument. Since civilization depends upon the frequent intercourse of men differing in physical and mental endowments, it follows that whatever geographical positions throw together men thus differently endowed, such positions, or localities, or assemblage of localities, of themselves essentially conduce to civilization. A country, frequently interspersed with mountains, plains, rivers and sea coasts, will produce greater physical and mental variety in the inhabitants thereof, than a land seldom if at all diversified by these geographical varieties. The opposite banks of the same river, owing to some peculiarity in geological or climatic feature, will produce a greater diversity in the same variety of the human family, than can be afforded by one thousand times the distance in a plain and level country.
In Great Britain and Ireland for example, (all which may be contained in a parallelogram one thousand miles long by six hundred broad), there is greater and more frequent diversity in the physical and mental endowments of the inhabitants than can be found in any area ten times greater, cut out of the solid trapezium of Asia or of Africa. Not only do what may be termed island continents, afford facilities for frequent intercourse among men, they also furnish intercourse between men of various physical and mental endowments; and constantly reproduce this intercourse, by constantly reproducing differently endowed varieties of mankind.
These views gain force from the circumstance that the varieties of mankind who have advanced European civilization to its present height, are offsprings from the same stock that now wanders ever the steppes of Asia, or are petrified into the barbaric castes of India. The identity of the Greek and Latin languages with the Sans-
- ↑ Physical History Mankind, vol. 2. p. 87. The latter remark confirms our view of the influence of temperature on physical development; for the mountainous regions, within the tropics, frequently enjoy the mild temperature of the middle zone of the earth.
- ↑ 'The earliest names given by the ancients to the inhabitants of countries to the northwards of the Euxine are descriptive of their physical characters or external aspect; and these names, though they belonged to races who have long since disappeared from the Pontic countries, yet indicate physical characters similar to those of the present inhabitants. 'Nature,' says M. Kruse, 'is always like herself, and produces similar offspring under similar external conditions. It would appear that certain climates are favorable to the development of such physical characters, which take place wherever these are found, and disappear in races which are removed from under their influence.' Id., vol. 3, p. 446.
