temperate climate, while it lures to exertion, rewards the laborer.
Next, let us consider the agency of food in human
development. The effect of food is to supply the body
with caloric, which is essential to its life, and to repair
the muscular fibres which are constantly undergoing
waste in our daily activities. These two effects are
produced by two different kinds of diet; carbonized
food, such as animal flesh, fish, oils and fats, and oxidized
food, which consists chiefly of vegetables. In hot
climates, obviously, less carbonized food is required to
keep up the necessary temperature of the body than
in cold climates. Hence it is, that hyperborean nations
subsist on whale's blubber, oil, and flesh, while the
tropical man confines himself almost exclusively to a
vegetable diet.
It is not my purpose here to enter into the relative effects of the different kinds of food on physiological and mental development; I desire, however, to call attention to the comparative facility with which carbonized and oxidized food is procured by man, and to note the effect of this ease or difficulty in obtaining a food supply, upon his progress. In warm, humid climates vegetation is spontaneous and abundant; a plentiful supply of food may, therefore, be obtained with the smallest expenditure of labor. The inhabitants of cold climates, however, are obliged to pursue, by land and water, wild and powerful animals, to put forth all their strength and skill in order to secure a precarious supply of the necessary food. Then, again, besides being more difficult to obtain, and more uncertain as to a steady supply, the quantity of food consumed in a cold climate is much greater than that consumed in a hot climate. Now as leisure is essential to cultivation, and as without a surplus of food and clothing there can be no leisure, it would seem to follow naturally that in those countries where food and clothing are most easily obtained culture should
