is Christianity now? We find it following the directions, and spreading over regions the geographial positions of which are most favorable for the development of the human mind. Shut up in the confines of Armenia, or in the heights of Abyssinia—geographically isolated from the currents of variously-endowed races of varieties of men—it has dwindled down to the rankest superstition, and utterly failed as an element promoting the development of civilization. Towards the West, however, the star of Christianity took its way, and flourished, because, in that direction it fell in with geographical positions affording frequent intercourse between variously endowed men.
The last object we shall mention, relates to the assumed superiority of certain so-called 'races' of mankind—the term races meaning, not merely a distinct breed, but even a seperate and distinct creation of the genus homo. In that part of the habitable globe in which these presents are written, it is a prevalent opinion that the All-Wise Creator
not 'a woman,' as Burns gallantly said, but an Anglo-Saxon; and in the 'triumph of the hour,' it is no uncommon thing to hear Irishmen and Scotchmen echo the praises of their Anglo-Saxon energy and Anglo-Saxon blood.
How far are these Anglo-Saxons a race? Let us see. Originally Low Dutch, they thereby claim kin with the great Germanic race; they are a cross between the latter and the Celtic race, with which they were mingled in their continental, as well as insular abode. As part of the Germanic race, or Bersekers (query, purse seekers?) they had already undergone the thousand and one admixtures which the race underwent from its exodus from Asia until its final settlement in Europe. So far from being a distinct race of mankind, endowed, as a race, with superior genius, this Anglo-Saxon race is an admixture of all the Indo-European races, and owes its great energy to this very admixture in connexion with the fortunate accidents of a fine climate and otherwise favorable geographical position.
We have now finished our imperfect say on the influences of climate and geographical position upon civilization. There are physical causes, such as food, which exert a powerful influence, but most of them are immediately or remotely dependent on the grand causes we have endeauored to discuss. From the facts adduced, it is evident that whatever prevents the full and harmonious development of the human frame, or whatever arrests the intercourse of mind with mind, will retard the advancement or the civilization of the human race.
Tracing these physical causes to their physical results, the conclusion is inevitable that two elements occupy opposite positions in regard to civilization; admixture, the positive, isolation the negative.
This is true of moral as well as physical influences. If we look into the institutions of mankind, we find that wherever these institutions favor a free admixture of human thought, there, civilization advances; but, wherever human institutions isolate human thought, keep soul from communion with its fellow soul, there progress ceases—and the stage of advancement, however great, or however small, at which this isolation occurs, such advancement ceases, and leaves frozen into rock, the monuments of the æra at which the breath of life ceased and the step onward was forcibly arrested. The chrysalis of a higher life may have been there, the germs of a new the vast era of improvement may have sent forth their shoots—but there they remain hushed, passionless, still, the seal of a moral death upon them.
Caste is the general term for that feature in human institutions which isolates man from his fellow man. Wherever caste is established civiliza-
