part ii. p. 35, part iii. p. 64; _Notes on the Ma-habharata_, in

_Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. vii. p. 141; _Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century_, p. 164; _Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law_, vol. i. p. 499, vol. ii. pp. 44, 48, 436, 569, vol. iii. pp. 11, 148, 205, 206, 207, 266, 364, 530; _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vii. pp. 299, 302; _Ward on the Hindoos_, vol. i. p. 209, vol. iii. p. 105.

[94] 'It contains a greater proportion of nutritious matter than any of the cerealia.' _Somerville's Physical Geography_, vol. ii. p. 220.

[95] It contains from 83.8 to 85.07 percent of starch. _Brande's Chemistry_, vol. ii. p. 1624; _Thomson's Chemistry of Organic Bodies_, p. 883.

[96] It is difficult to collect sufficient evidence to strike an average; but in Egypt, according to Savary, rice 'produces eighty bushels for one.' _Loudon's Encyclop. of Agriculture_, p. 173. In Tennasserim, the yield is from 80 to 100. _Low's History of Tennasserim_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. iii. p. 29. In South America, 250 fold, according to Spix and Martius (_Travels in Brazil_, vol. ii. p. 79); or from 200 to 300, according to Southey (_History of Brazil_, vol. iii. pp. 658, 806). The lowest estimate given by M. Meyen is forty fold; the highest, which is marsh rice in the Philippine Islands, 400 fold. _Meyen's Geography of Plants_, 1846, p. 301.

Thus possible is it, by the application of a few physical laws, to anticipate what the national food of a country will be, and therefore to anticipate a long train of ulterior consequences. What in this case is no less remarkable, is that though in the south of the peninsula, rice is not so much used as formerly, it has been replaced, not by animal food, but by another grain called ragi.[97] The original rice, however, is so suited to the circumstances I have described, that it is still the most general food of nearly all the hottest countries of Asia,[98] from which at different times it has been transplanted to other parts of the world.[99]

[97] _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 7. Ragi is the Cynosurus Corocanus of Linnæus; and, considering its importance, it has been strangely neglected by botanical writers. The best account I have seen of it is in _Buchanan's Journey through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and Malabar_, vol. i. pp. 100-104, 285, 286, 375, 376, 403, vol. ii. pp. 103, 104, vol. iii. pp. 239, 240, 296, 297. In the large cities, millet is generally used; of which 'a quantity sufficient for two meals may be purchased for about a halfpenny.' _Gibson on Indian Agriculture_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. viii. p. 100.

[98] _Marsden's History of Sumatra_, pp. 56, 59; _Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 39, 106, 119, 129, 240; _Percival's Ceylon_, pp. 337, 364; _Transac. of Society of Bombay_, vol. ii. p. 155; _Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 510; _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. pp. 228, 247, vol. ii. pp. 44, 64, 251, 257, 262, 336, 344, vol. iii. pp. 8, 25, 300, 340, vol. iv. pp. 82, 83, 104, vol. v. pp. 241, 246; _Asiatic Researches_, vol. v. pp. 124, 229, vol. xii. p. 148, vol. xvi. pp. 171, 172; _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. ii. p. 86, vol. iii. pp. 124, 295, 300, vol. v. p. 263, vol. viii. pp. 341, 359, vol. xix. pp. 132, 137.

[99] Rice, so far as I have been able to trace it, has travelled westward. Besides the historical evidence, there are philological probabilities in favour of its being indigenous to Asia, and the Sanscrit name for it has been very widely diffused. Compare _Humboldt's Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 472, with _Crawfurd's History of the Indian Archipelago_, vol. i. p. 358. In the fourteenth century, it was the common food on the Zanguebar Coast; and is now universal in Madagascar. _Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century_, p. 56; _Ellis's History of Madagascar_, vol. i. pp. 39, 297-304, vol. ii. p. 292; _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. iii. p. 212. From Madagascar its seeds were, according to _M'Culloch's Dictionary of Commerce_, p. 1105, carried to Carolina late in the seventeenth century. It is now cultivated in Nicaragua (_Squier's Central America_, vol. i. p. 38) and in South America (_Henderson's Hist. of Brazil_, pp. 292, 307, 395, 440, 488), where it is said to grow wild. Compare _Meyen's Geography of Plants_, pp. 291, 297, with _Azara_, _Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale_, vol. i. p. 100, vol. ii. p. 80. The ancient Greeks, though acquainted with rice, did not cultivate it; and its cultivation was first introduced into Europe by the Arabs. See _Humboldt_, _Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. ii. pp. 409, 410.

In consequence of these peculiarities of climate, and of food, there has arisen in India that unequal distribution of wealth which we must expect to find in countries where the labour-market is always redundant.[100] If we examine the earliest Indian records which have been preserved--records between two and three thousand years old--we find evidence of a state of things similar to that which now exists, and which, we may rely upon it, always has existed ever since the accumulation of capital once fairly began. We find the upper classes enormously rich, and the lower classes miserably poor. We find those by whose labour the wealth is created, receiving the smallest possible share of it; the remainder being absorbed by the higher ranks in the form either of rent or of profit. And as wealth is, after intellect, the most permanent source of power, it has naturally happened that a great inequality of wealth has been accompanied by a corresponding inequality of social and political power. It is not, therefore, surprising that from the earliest period to which our knowledge of India extends, an immense majority of the people, pinched by the most galling poverty, and just living from hand to mouth, should always have remained in a state of stupid debasement, broken by incessant misfortune, crouching before their superiors in abject submission, and only fit either to be slaves themselves or to be led to battle to make slaves of others.[101]

[100] So far as food is concerned, Diodorus Siculus notices the remarkable fertility of India, and the consequent accumulation of wealth. See two interesting passages in _Bibliothec. Hist._ lib. ii. vol. ii. pp. 49, 50, 108, 109. But of the economical laws of distribution he, like all the ancient writers, was perfectly ignorant.

[101] An able and very learned apologist for this miserable people says, 'The servility so generally ascribed to the Hindu is never more conspicuous than when he is examined as an evidence. But if it be admitted that he acts as a slave, why blame him for not possessing the virtues of a free man? _The oppression of ages has taught him implicit submission._' _Vans Kennedy_, in _Transactions of the Society of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 144. Compare the observations of Charles Hamilton in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. i. p. 305.

To ascertain the precise value of the average rate of wages in India for any long period, is impossible; because, although the amount might be expressed in money, still the value of money, that is, its purchasing power, is subject to incalculable fluctuations, arising from changes in the cost of production.[102] But, for our present purpose, there is a method of investigation which will lead to results far more accurate than any statement could be that depended merely on a collection of evidence respecting the wages themselves. The method is simply this: that inasmuch as the wealth of a country can only be divided into wages, rent, profits, and interest, and inasmuch as interest is on an average an exact measure of profits,[103] it follows that if among any people rent and interest are both high, wages must be low.[104] If, therefore, we can ascertain the current interest of money, and the proportion of the produce of the soil which is absorbed by rent, we shall get a perfectly accurate idea of the wages; because wages are the residue, that is, they are what is left to the labourers after rent, profits, and interest have been paid.

[102] The impossibility of having a standard of value, is clearly pointed out in _Turgot's Réflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses_, in _[OE]uvres_, vol. v. pp. 51, 52. Compare _Ricardo's Works_, pp. 11, 28-30, 46, 166, 253, 270, 401, with _M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy_, pp. 298, 299, 307.

[103] _Smith's Wealth of Nations_, book i. chap. ix. p. 37; where, however, the proposition is stated rather too absolutely, since the risks arising from an insecure state of society must be taken into consideration. But that there is an average ratio between interest and profits is obvious, and is distinctly laid down by the Sanscrit jurists. See _Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law_, vol. i. pp. 72, 81.

[104] Ricardo (_Principles of Political Economy_, chap. vi. in _Works_, p. 65) says, 'whatever increases wages, necessarily reduces profits.' And in chap. xv. p. 122, 'whatever raises the wages of labour, lowers the profits of stock.' In several other places he makes the same assertion, very much to the discomfort of the ordinary reader, who knows that in the United States, for instance, wages and profits are both high. But the ambiguity is in the language, not in the thought; and in these and similar passages Ricardo by wages meant cost of labour, in which sense the proposition is quite accurate. If by wages we mean the reward of labour, then there is no relation between wages and profits; for when rent is low, both of them may be high, as is the case in the United States. That this was the view of Ricardo is evident from the following passage: 'Profits, it cannot be too often repeated, depend on wages; not on nominal but real wages; not on the number of pounds that may be annually paid to the labourer, but on the number of days' work necessary to obtain those pounds.' _Political Economy_, chap. vii., _Ricardo's Works_, p. 82. Compare _Mill's Principles of Political Economy_, vol. i. p. 509, vol. ii. p. 225.

Now it is remarkable, that in India both interest and rent have always been very high. In the _Institutes of Menu_, which were drawn up about B.C. 900,[105] the lowest legal interest for money is fixed at fifteen per cent., the highest at sixty per cent.[106] Nor is this to be considered as a mere ancient law now fallen into disuse. So far from that, the _Institutes of Menu_ are still the basis of Indian jurisprudence;[107] and we know on very good authority, that in 1810 the interest paid for the use of money varied from thirty-six to sixty per cent.[108]

[105] I take the estimate of Mr. Elphinstone (_History of India_, pp. 225-228) as midway between Sir William Jones (_Works_, vol. iii. p. 56) and Mr. Wilson (_Rig Veda Sanhita_, vol. i. p. xlvii.).

[106] _Institutes of Menu_, chap. viii. sec. 140-142, in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iii. p. 295. The subsequent Sanscrit commentators recognize nearly the same rate of interest, the minimum being fifteen per cent. See _Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law_, vol. i. pp. 29, 36, 43, 98, 99, 237, vol. ii. p. 70.

[107] In _Colebrooke's Digest_, vol. i. p. 454, and vol. iii. p. 229, Menu is called 'the highest authority of memorial law,' and 'the founder of memorial law.' The most recent historian of India, Mr. Elphinstone, says (_Hist. of India_, p. 83) 'the code of Menu is still the basis of the Hindu jurisprudence; and the principal features remain unaltered to the present day.' This remarkable code is also the basis of the laws of the Burmese, and even of those of the Laos. _Journal of the Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. p. 271, vol. iii. pp. 28, 296, 332, vol. v. p. 252.

[108] See, in _Mill's History of India_, vol. i. p. 317, the report of a committee of the House of Commons in 1810, in which it is stated that the ryots paid 'the heavy interest of three, four, and five per cent. per month.' Ward, writing about the same time, mentions as much as seventy-five per cent. being given, and this apparently without the lender incurring any extraordinary risk. _Ward on the Hindoos_, vol. ii. p. 190.

Thus much as to one of the elements of our present calculation. As to the other element, namely, the rent, we have information equally precise and trustworthy. In England and Scotland, the rent paid by the cultivator for the use of land is estimated in round numbers, taking one farm with another, at a fourth of the gross produce.[109] In France, the average proportion is about a third;[110] while in the United States of North America it is well known to be much less, and, indeed, in some parts, to be merely nominal.[111] But in India the legal rent, that is, the lowest rate recognized by the law and usage of the country, is one-half of the produce; and even this cruel regulation is not strictly enforced, since in many cases rents are raised so high, that the cultivator not only receives less than half the produce, but receives so little as to have scarcely the means of providing seed to sow the ground for the next harvest.[112]

[109] Compare the table in _Loudon's Encyclopædia of Agriculture_, p. 778, with _Mavor's note in Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Husbandry_, p. 195, Lond. 1812, and _M'Culloch's Statistical Account of the British Empire_, 1847, vol. i. p. 560.

[110] This is the estimate I have received from persons well acquainted with French agriculture. The rent, of course, varies in each separate instance, according to the natural powers of the soil, according to the extent to which those powers have been improved, and according to the facilities for bringing the produce to market. But, notwithstanding these variations, there must be in every country an average rent, depending upon the operation of general causes.

[111] Owing to the immense supply of land preventing the necessity of cultivating those inferior soils which older countries are glad to use, and are therefore willing to pay a rent for the right of using. In the United States, profits and wages (i.e. the reward of the labourer, not the cost of labour) are both high, which would be impossible if rent were also high.

[112] See _Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Systems of India_, 1832, pp. 59-61, 63, 69, 92, 94. At p. 69, this high authority says of the agricultural peasantry of Bengal: 'In an abundant season, when the price of corn is low, the sale of their whole crops is required to meet the demands of the landholder, leaving little or nothing for seed or subsistence to the labourer or his family.' In Cashmere, the sovereign received half the produce of the rice-crop, leaving the other half to the cultivator. _Moorcroft's Notices of Cashmere_, in _Journal of Geog. Society_, vol. ii. p. 266.

The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is manifest. Rent and interest being always very high, and interest varying, as it must do, according to the rate of profits, it is evident that wages must have been very low; for since there was in India a specific amount of wealth to be divided into rent, interest, profits, and wages, it is clear that the first three could only have been increased at the expense of the fourth; which is saying, in other words, that the reward of the labourers was very small in proportion to the reward received by the upper classes. And though this, being an inevitable inference, does not require extraneous support, it may be mentioned that in modern times, for which alone we have direct evidence, wages have in India always been excessively low, and the people have been, and still are, obliged to work for a sum barely sufficient to meet the exigencies of life.[113]

[113] Heber (_Journey through India_, vol. i. pp. 209, 356, 357, 359) gives some curious instances of the extremely low rate at which the natives are glad to work. As to the ordinary wages in India in the present century, see _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 255, vol. v. p. 171; _Rammohun Roy on the Judicial and Revenue Systems_, pp. 105, 106; _Sykes's Statistics of the Deccan Reports of the British Association_, vol. vi. p. 321; _Ward's View of the Hindoos_, vol. iii. p. 207; _Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law_, vol. ii. p. 184. On wages in the south of India, the fullest information will be found in Buchanan's valuable work, _Journey through the Mysore, Canara, and Malabar_, vol. i. pp. 124, 125, 133, 171, 175, 216, 217, 298, 390, 415, vol. ii. pp. 12, 19, 22, 37, 90, 108, 132, 217, 218, 315, 481, 523, 525, 562, vol. iii. pp. 35, 181, 226, 298, 321, 349, 363, 398, 428, 555. I wish that all travellers were equally minute in recording the wages of labour; a subject of far greater importance than those with which they usually fill their books.

On the other hand, the riches possessed by the upper classes have, owing to this mal-distribution of wealth, been always enormous, and sometimes incredible. See _Forbes's Oriental Memoirs_, vol. ii. p. 297; _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. ii. p. 119; _Travels of Ibn Batuta_, p. 41; _Ward's Hindoos_, vol. iii. p. 178. The autobiography of the Emperor Jehangueir contains such extraordinary statements of his immense wealth, that the Editor, Major Price, thinks that some error must have been made by the copyist; but the reader will find in _Grote's History of Greece_ (vol. xii. pp. 229, 245) evidence of the treasures which it was possible for Asiatic rulers to collect in that state of society. The working of this unequal distribution is thus stated by Mr. Glyn (_Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 482): 'The nations of Europe have very little idea of the actual condition of the inhabitants of Hindustan; they are more wretchedly poor than we have any notion of. Europeans have hitherto been too apt to draw their opinions of the wealth of Hindustan from the gorgeous pomp of a few emperors, sultans, nawabs, and rajahs; whereas a more intimate and accurate view of the real state of society would have shown that these princes and nobles were engrossing all the wealth of the country, whilst the great body of the people were earning but a bare subsistence, groaning under intolerable burdens, and hardly able to supply themselves with the necessaries of life, much less with its luxuries.'

This was the first great consequence induced in India by the cheapness and abundance of the national food.[114] But the evil by no means stopped there. In India, as in every other country, poverty provokes contempt, and wealth produces power. When other things are equal, it must be with classes of men as with individuals, that the richer they are, the greater the influence they will possess. It was therefore to be expected, that the unequal distribution of wealth should cause an unequal distribution of power; and as there is no instance on record of any class possessing power without abusing it, we may easily understand how it was that the people of India, condemned to poverty by the physical laws of their climate, should have fallen into a degradation from which they have never been able to escape. A few instances may be given to illustrate, rather than to prove, a principle which the preceding arguments have, I trust, placed beyond the possibility of dispute.

[114] Turner, who travelled in 1783 through the north-east of Bengal, says: 'Indeed, the extreme poverty and wretchedness of these people will forcibly appear, when we recollect how little is necessary for the subsistence of a peasant in these regions. The value of this can seldom amount to more than one penny per day, even allowing him to make his meal of two pounds of boiled rice, with a due proportion of salt, oil, vegetables, fish, and chili.' _Turner's Embassy to Tibet_, p. 11. Ibn Batuta, who travelled in Hindostan in the fourteenth century, says: 'I never saw a country in which provisions were so cheap.' _Travels of Ibn Batuta_, p. 194.

To the great body of the Indian people the name of Sudras is given;[115] and the native laws respecting them contain some minute and curious provisions. If a member of this despised class presumed to occupy the same seat as his superiors, he was either to be exiled or to suffer a painful and ignominious punishment.[116] If he spoke of them with contempt, his mouth was to be burned;[117] if he actually insulted them, his tongue was to be slit;[118] if he molested a Brahmin, he was to be put to death;[119] if he sat on the same carpet with a Brahmin, he was to be maimed for life;[120] if, moved by the desire of instruction, he even listened to the reading of the sacred books, burning oil was to be poured into his ears;[121] if, however, he committed them to memory, he was to be killed;[122] if he were guilty of a crime, the punishment for it was greater than that inflicted on his superiors;[123] but if he himself were murdered, the penalty was the same as for killing a dog, a cat, or a crow.[124] Should he marry his daughter to a Brahmin, no retribution that could be exacted in this world was sufficient; it was therefore announced that the Brahmin must go to hell, for having suffered contamination from a woman immeasurably his inferior.[125] Indeed, it was ordered that the mere name of a labourer should be expressive of contempt, so that his proper standing might be immediately known.[126] And lest this should not be enough to maintain the subordination of society, a law was actually made forbidding any labourer to accumulate wealth;[127] while another clause declared, that even though his master should give him freedom, he would in reality still be a slave; 'for,' says the lawgiver--'for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?'[128]

[115] The Sudras are estimated by Ward (_View of the Hindoos_, vol. iii. p. 281) at 'three-fourths of the Hindoos.' At all events, they comprise the whole of the working classes; the Vaisyas not being husbandmen, as they are often called, but landlords, owners of cattle, and traders. Compare _Institutes of Menu_, chap. ix. sec. 326-333, in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iii. pp. 380, 381, with _Colebrooke's Digest_, vol. i. p. 15, from which it appears that the Vaisyas were always the masters, and that the Sudra was to 'rely on agriculture for his subsistence.' The division, therefore, between 'the industrious and the servile' (_Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 12) is too broadly stated, and we must, I think, take the definition of M. Rhode: 'Die Kaste der Sudras umfasst die ganze arbeitende, oder um Lohn dienende Classe des Volks.' _Relig. Bildung der Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 561.

[116] 'Either be banished with a mark on his hinder parts, or the king shall cause a gash to be made on his buttock.' _Institutes of Menu_, chap. viii. sec. 281, in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iii. p. 315. See also _Ward's View of the Hindoos_, vol. iii. p. 67.

[117] _Menu_, chap. viii. sec. 271, in _Jones's Works_, vol. iii. p. 314.

[118] _Menu_, chap. viii. sec. 270.

[119] 'If a Sudra gives much and frequent molestation to a Brahmin, the magistrate shall put him to death.' _Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws_, p. 262.

[120] _Halhed's Code of Gentoo Laws_, p. 207. As to the case of striking a Brahmin, see _Rammohun Roy on the Veds_, p. 227, 2nd edit. 1832.

[121] 'And if a Sooder listens to the Beids of the Shaster, then the oil, heated as before, shall be poured into his ears; and arzeez and wax shall be melted together, and the orifice of his ears shall be stopped up therewith.' _Halhed_, p. 262. Compare the prohibition in _Menu_, chap. iv. sec. 99, chap. x. sec. 109-111, in _Jones's Works_, vol. iii. pp. 174, 398.

[122] _Halhed_, p. 262: 'the magistrate shall put him to death.' In Mrichchakati, the judge says to a Sudra, 'If you expound the Vedas, will not your tongue be cut out?' _Wilson's Theatre of the Hindus_, vol. i. part ii. p. 170.

[123] _Ward's View of the Hindoos_, vol. iv. p. 308. To this the only exception was in the case of theft. _Mill's History of India_, vol. i. pp. 193, 260. A Brahmin could 'on no account be capitally punished.' _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xv. p. 44.

[124] _Menu_, chap. xi. sec. 132, in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iii. p. 422.

[125] 'A Brahmin, if he take a Sudra to his bed as his first wife, sinks to the regions of torment.' _Institutes of Menu_, chap. iii. sec. 17, in _Jones_, vol. iii. p. 121. Compare the denial of funeral rites, in _Colebrooke's Digest of Hindu Law_, vol. iii. p. 328. And on the different hells invented by the Hindu clergy, see _Vishnu Purana_, p. 207; _Ward's View of the Hindoos_, vol. ii. pp. 182, 183; _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 113. The curious details in _Rhode_, _die Religiöse Bildung der Hindus_, vol. i. pp. 392, 393, rather refer to Buddhism, and should be compared with _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. viii. pp. 80, 81, Paris, 1826.

[126] _Menu_, chap. ii. sec. 31, in _Jones_, vol. iii. p. 87; also noticed in _Rhode_, _Relig. Bildung_, vol. ii. p. 561: 'sein Name soll schon Verachtung ausdrücken.' So, too, Mr. Elphinstone (_History of India_, p. 17): 'the proper name of a Sudra is directed to be expressive of contempt.' Compare _Origines du Droit_, in _[OE]uvres de Michelet_, vol. ii. p. 387, Bruxelles, 1840.

[127] _Menu_, chap. x. sec. 129, in _Jones_, vol. iii. p. 401. This law is pointed out by Mill (_History of India_, vol. i. p. 195) as an evidence of the miserable state of the people, which, Mr. Wilson (note in p. 213) vainly attempts to evade.

[128] 'A Sudra, though emancipated by his master, is not released from a state of servitude; for of a state which is natural to him, by whom can he be divested?' _Institutes of Menu_, chap. viii. sec. 414, in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. iii. p. 333.

By whom, indeed, could he be divested? I ween not where that power was by which so vast a miracle could be worked. For in India, slavery, abject, eternal slavery, was the natural state of the great body of the people; it was the state to which they were doomed by physical laws utterly impossible to resist. The energy of those laws is, in truth, so invincible, that wherever they have come into play, they have kept the productive classes in perpetual subjection. There is no instance on record of any tropical country, in which wealth having been extensively accumulated, the people have escaped their fate; no instance in which the heat of the climate has not caused an abundance of food, and the abundance of food caused an unequal distribution, first of wealth, and then of political and social power. Among nations subjected to these conditions, the people have counted for nothing; they have had no voice in the management of the state, no control over the wealth their own industry created. Their only business has been to labour; their only duty to obey. Thus there has been generated among them, those habits of tame and servile submission, by which, as we know from history, they have always been characterized. For it is an undoubted fact, that their annals furnish no instance of their having turned upon their rulers, no war of classes, no popular insurrections, not even one great popular conspiracy. In those rich and fertile countries there have been many changes, but all of them have been from above, not from below. The democratic element has been altogether wanting. There have been in abundance, wars of kings, and wars of dynasties. There have been revolutions in the government, revolutions in the palace, revolutions on the throne; but no revolutions among the people;[129] no mitigation of that hard lot which nature, rather than man, assigned to them. Nor was it until civilization arose in Europe, that other physical laws came into operation, and therefore other results were produced. In Europe, for the first time, there was some approach to equality, some tendency to correct that enormous disproportion of wealth and power, which formed the essential weakness of the greatest of the more ancient countries. As a natural consequence, it is in Europe that everything worthy of the name of civilization has originated; because there alone have attempts been made to preserve the balance of its relative parts. There alone has society been organized according to a scheme, not indeed sufficiently large, but still wide enough to include all the different classes of which it is composed, and thus, by leaving room for the progress of each, to secure the permanence and advancement of the whole.

[129] An intelligent observer says, 'It is also remarkable how little the people of Asiatic countries have to do in the revolutions of their governments. They are never guided by any great and common impulse of feeling, and take no part in events the most interesting and important to their country and their own prosperity.' _M'Murdo on the Country of Sindh_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 250. Compare similar remarks in _Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. iii. p. 114; and even in _Alison's History of Europe_, vol. x. pp. 419, 420.

The way in which certain other physical peculiarities confined to Europe, have also accelerated the progress of Man by diminishing his superstition, will be indicated towards the end of this chapter; but as that will involve an examination of some laws which I have not yet noticed, it seems advisable, in the first place, to complete the inquiry now before us; and I therefore purpose proving that the line of argument which has been just applied to India, is likewise applicable to Egypt, to Mexico, and to Peru. For by thus including in a single survey, the most conspicuous civilizations of Asia, Africa, and America, we shall be able to see how the preceding principles hold good of different and distant countries; and we shall be possessed of evidence sufficiently comprehensive to test the accuracy of those great laws which, without such precaution, I might be supposed to have generalized from scanty and imperfect materials.

The reasons why, of all the African nations, the Egyptians alone were civilized, have been already stated, and have been shown to depend on those physical peculiarities which distinguish them from the surrounding countries, and which, by facilitating the acquisition of wealth, not only supplied them with material resources that otherwise they could never have obtained, but also secured to their intellectual classes the leisure and the opportunity of extending the boundaries of knowledge. It is, indeed, true that, notwithstanding these advantages, they effected nothing of much moment; but this was owing to circumstances which will be hereafter explained; and it must, at all events, be admitted that they raised themselves far above every other people by whom Africa was inhabited.

The civilization of Egypt being, like that of India, caused by the fertility of the soil, and the climate being also very hot,[130] there were in both countries brought into play the same laws; and there naturally followed the same results. In both countries we find the national food cheap and abundant: hence the labour-market over-supplied; hence a very unequal division of wealth and power; and hence all the consequences which such inequality will inevitably produce. How this system worked in India, I have just attempted to examine; and although the materials for studying the former condition of Egypt are much less ample, they are still sufficiently numerous to prove the striking analogy between the two civilizations, and the identity of those great principles which regulated the order of their social and political development.

[130] Volney (_Voyage en Egypte_, vol. i. pp. 58-63) has a good chapter on the climate of Egypt.

If we inquire into the most important circumstances which concerned the people of ancient Egypt, we shall see that they are exactly the counterpart of those that have been noticed in India. For, in the first place, as regards their ordinary food, what rice is to the most fertile parts of Asia, that are dates to Africa. The palm-tree is found in every country from the Tigris to the Atlantic;[131] and it supplies millions of human beings with their daily food in Arabia,[132] and in nearly the whole of Africa north of the equator.[133] In many parts of the great African desert it is indeed unable to bear fruit; but naturally it is a very hardy plant, and produces dates in such profusion, that towards the north of the Sahara they are eaten not only by man, but also by domestic animals.[134] And in Egypt, where the palm is said to be of spontaneous growth,[135] dates, besides being the chief sustenance of the people, are so plentiful, that from a very early period they have been given commonly to camels, the only beasts of burden generally used in that country.[136]

[131] It is, however, unknown in South Africa. See the account of the Palmaceæ in _Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom_, 1847, p. 136, and _Meyen's Geog. of Plants_, p. 337.

[132] 'Of all eatables used by the Arabs, dates are the most favourite.' _Burckhardt's Travels in Arabia_, vol. i. p. 56. See also, for proof of their abundance in the west of Arabia, vol. i. pp. 103, 157, 238, vol. ii. pp. 91, 100, 105, 118, 209, 210, 214, 253, 300, 331. And on the dates of Oman and the east of Arabia, see _Wellsted's Travels in Arabia_, vol. i. pp. 188, 189, 236, 276, 290, 349. Compare _Niebuhr_, _Description de l'Arabie_, pp. 142, 296. Indeed, they are so important, that the Arabs have different names for them according to the stages of their growth. Djewhari says, 'La dénomination _balah_ précède le nom _bosr_; car la datte se nomme d'abord _tala_, en suite _khalal_, puis _balah_, puis _bosr_, puis _rotab_, et enfin _tamr_.' _De Sacy's note to Abd-Allatif, Relation, de l'Egypte_, p. 74, and see p. 118. Other notices of the dates of Arabia will be found in _Travels of Ibn Batuta in Fourteenth Century_, p. 66; _Journal of Asiatic Soc._ vol. viii. p. 286; _Journal of Geograph. Soc._ vol. iv. p. 201, vol. vi. pp. 53, 55, 58, 66, 68, 74, vol. vii. p. 32, vol. ix. pp. 147, 151.

[133] Heeren (_Trade of the African Nations_, vol. i. p. 182) supposes that in Africa, dates are comparatively little known south of 26° north lat. But this learned writer is certainly mistaken; and a reference to the following passages will show that they are common as far down as the parallel of Lake Tchad, which is nearly the southern limit of our knowledge of Central Africa; _Denham's Central Africa_, p. 295; _Clapperton's Journal_, in _Appendix to Denham_, pp. 34, 59; _Clapperton's Second Expedition_, p. 159. Further east they are somewhat scarcer, but are found much more to the south than is supposed by Heeren: see _Pallme's Kordofan_, p. 220.

[134] 'Dates are not only the principal growth of the Fezzan oases, but the main subsistence of their inhabitants. All live on dates; men, women, and children, horses, asses, and camels, and sheep, fowls, and dogs.' _Richardson's Travels in the Sahara_, vol. ii. p. 323, and see vol. i. p. 343: as to those parts of the desert where the palm will not bear, see vol. i. pp. 387, 405, vol. ii. pp. 291, 363. Respecting the dates of western Africa, see _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. xii. p. 204.

[135] 'It flourished spontaneously in the valley of the Nile.' _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. p. 372. As further illustration of the importance to Africa of this beautiful plant, it may be mentioned, that from the high-palm there is prepared a peculiar beverage, which in some parts is in great request. On this, which is called palm-wine, see _M'William's Medical Expedition to the Niger_, pp. 71, 116; _Meredith's Gold Coast of Africa_, 1812, pp. 55, 56; _Laird and Oldfield's Expedition into the Interior of Africa_, 1837, vol. ii. pp. 170, 213; _Bowdich_, _Mission to Ashantee_, pp. 69, 100, 152, 293, 386, 392. But I doubt if this is the same as the palm-wine mentioned in _Balfour's Botany_, 1849, p. 532. Compare _Tuckey's Expedition to the Zaire_, pp. 155, 216, 224, 356.

[136] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. pp. 175-178. See also on the abundance of dates, the extracts from an Arabian geographer in _Quatremère_, _Recherches sur l'Egypte_, pp. 220, 221.

From these facts, it is evident that, taking Egypt as the highest type of African civilization, and India as the highest type of Asiatic civilization, it may be said that dates are to the first civilization what rice is to the second. Now it is observable, that all the most important physical peculiarities found in rice are also found in dates. In regard to their chemistry, it is well known that the chief principle of the nutriment they contain is the same in both; the starch of the Indian vegetable being merely turned into the sugar of the Egyptian. In regard to the laws of climate, their affinity is equally obvious; since dates, like rice, belong to hot countries, and flourish most in or near the tropics.[137] In regard to their increase, and the laws of their connexion with the soil, the analogy is also exact; for dates, just the same as rice, require little labour, and yield abundant returns, while they occupy so small a space of land in comparison with the nutriment they afford, that upwards of two hundred palm-trees are sometimes planted on a single acre.[138]

[137] On their relation to the laws of climate, see the remarks respecting the geographical limits of their power of ripening, in _Jussieu's Botany_, edit. Wilson, 1849, p. 734.

[138] 'In the valley of the Nile, a feddan (1-3/4 acre) is sometimes planted with 400 trees.' _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. p. 178. At Moorzuk an entire date-palm is only worth about a shilling. _Richardson's Central Africa_, vol. i. p. 111.

Thus striking are the similarities to which, in different countries, the same physical conditions naturally give rise. At the same time, in Egypt, as in India, the attainment of civilization was preceded by the possession of a highly fertile soil; so that, while the exuberance of the land regulated the speed with which wealth was created, the abundance of the food regulated the proportions into which the wealth was divided. The most fertile part of Egypt is the Said;[139] and it is precisely there that we find the greatest display of skill and knowledge, the splendid remains of Thebes, Carnac, Luxor, Dendera, and Edfou.[140] It is also in the Said, or as it is often called the Thebaid, that a food is used which multiplies itself even more rapidly than either dates or rice. This is the dhourra, which until recently was confined to Upper Egypt,[141] and of which the reproductive power is so remarkable, that it yields to the labourer a return of two hundred and forty for one.[142] In Lower Egypt the dhourra was formerly unknown; but, in addition to dates, the people made a sort of bread from the lotos, which sprang spontaneously out of the rich soil of the Nile.[143] This must have been a very cheap and accessible food; while to it there was joined a profusion of other plants and herbs, on which the Egyptians chiefly lived.[144] Indeed so inexhaustible was the supply, that at the time of the Mohammedan invasion there were, in the single city of Alexandria, no less than four thousand persons occupied in selling vegetables to the people.[145]

[139] On the remarkable fertility of the Said, see _Abd-Allatif_, _Relation de l'Egypte_, p. 3.

[140] The superiority of the ruins in Southern Egypt over those in the northern part is noticed by Heeren (_African Nations_, vol. ii. p. 69), and must, indeed, be obvious to whoever has studied the monuments. In the Said the Coptic was preserved longer than in Lower Egypt, and is known to philologists by the name of Misr. See _Quatremère_, _Recherches sur la Langue de l'Egypte_, pp. 20, 41, 42. See also on the Saidic, pp. 134-140, and some good remarks by Dr. Prichard (_Physical Hist._ vol. ii. p. 202); who, however, adopts the paradoxical opinion of Georgi respecting the origin of the language of the Thebaid.

[141] Abd-Allatif (_Relation de l'Egypte_, p. 32) says, that in his time it was only cultivated in the Said. This curious work by Abd-Allatif was written in A.D. 1203. _Relation_, p. 423. Meiners thinks that Herodotus and other ancient writers refer to the dhourra without mentioning it: 'diese Durra muss daher im Herodot wie in andern alten Schriftstellern vorzüglich verstanden werden, wenn von hundert, zwey hundert, und mehrfältigen Früchten, welche die Erde trage, die Rede ist.' _Meiners_, _Fruchtbarkeit der Länder_, vol. i. p. 139. According to Volney, it is the Holcus Arundinaceus of Linnæus, and appears to be similar to millet; and though that accurate traveller distinguishes between them, I observe that Captain Haines, in a recent memoir, speaks of them as being the same. Compare Haines in _Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol. xv. p. 118, with _Volney_, _Voyage en Egypte_, vol. i. p. 195.

[142] 'The return is in general not less than 240 for one; and the average price is about 3_s._ 9_d._ the ardeb, which is scarcely 3_d._ per bushel.' _Hamilton's Æqyptiaca_, p. 420. In Upper Egypt, 'the doura constitutes almost the whole subsistence of the peasantry,' p. 419. At p. 96, Hamilton says, 'I have frequently counted 3,000 grains in one ear of doura, and each stalk has in general four or five ears.' For an account, of the dhourra bread, see _Volney_, _Voyage en Egypte_, vol. i. p. 161.

[143] [Greek: Epean plêrês genêtai ho potamos, kai ta pedia pelagisê, phuetai en tô hudati krinea polla, ta Aiguptioi kaleousi lôton; tauta epean drepsôsi, auainousi pros hêlion; kai epeita to ek tou mesou tou lôtou tê mêkôni eon empheres, ptisantes poieuntai ex autou artous optous puri.] _Herodot._ ii. 92, vol. i. p. 688.

[144] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. pp. 370-372, 400, vol. iv. p. 59. Abd-Allatif gives a curious account of the different vegetables grown in Egypt early in the thirteenth century. _Relation_, pp. 16-36, and the notes of De Sacy, pp. 37-134. On the [Greek: kyamos] of Herodotus there are some botanical remarks worth reading in the _Correspondence of Sir J. E. Smith_, vol. ii. pp. 224-232; but I doubt the assertion, p. 227, that Herodotus 'knew nothing of any other kind of [Greek: kyamos] in Egypt than that of the ordinary bean.'

[145] 'When Alexandria was taken by Amer, the lieutenant of the Caliph Omer, no less than 4,000 persons were engaged in selling vegetables in that city.' _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. p. 372, and see vol. i. p. 277, vol. iv. p. 60. Niebuhr (_Description de l'Arabie_, p. 136) says that the neighbourhood of Alexandria is so fertile, that 'le froment y rend le centuple.' See also on its rich vegetation, _Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 52.

From this abundance of the national food, there resulted a train of events strictly analogous to those which took place in India. In Africa generally, the growth of population, though on the one hand stimulated by the heat of the climate, was on the other hand checked by the poverty of the soil. But on the banks of the Nile this restraint no longer existed,[146] and therefore the laws already noticed came into uncontrolled operation. By virtue of those laws, the Egyptians were not only satisfied with a cheap food, but they required that food in comparatively small quantities; thus by a double process, increasing the limit to which their numbers could extend. At the same time the lower orders were able to rear their offspring with the greater ease, because, owing to the high rate of temperature, another considerable source of expense was avoided; the heat being such that, even for adults, the necessary clothes were few and slight, while the children of the working classes were entirely naked; affording a striking contrast to those colder countries where, to preserve ordinary health, a supply of warmer and more costly covering is essential. Diodorus Siculus, who travelled in Egypt nineteen centuries ago, says, that to bring up a child to manhood did not cost more than twenty drachmas, scarcely thirteen shillings English money; a circumstance which he justly notices as a cause of the populousness of the country.[147]

[146] The encouragement given to the increase of population by the fertility arising from the inundation of the Nile, is observed by many writers, but by none so judiciously as Malthus; _Essay on Population_, vol. i. pp. 161-163. This great work, the principles of which have been grossly misrepresented, is still the best which has been written on the important subject of population, though the author, from a want of sufficient reading, often errs in his illustrations; while he, unfortunately, had no acquaintance with those branches of physical knowledge which are intimately connected with economical inquiries.

[147] [Greek: Trephousi de ta paidia meta tinos euchereias adapanou, kai pantelôs apistou ... anupodetôn de tôn pleistôn kai gymnôn trephomenon dia tên eukrasian tôn topôn, tên pasan dapanên oi goneis, achris an eis hêlikian elthê to teknon, ou pleiô poiousi drachmôn eikusi, di as aitias malista tên Aigupton sumbainei poluanthrôpia diapherein, kai dia touto pleistas echein megalôn ergôn kataskeuas.] _Bibliothec. Hist._ book i. chap. lxxx. vol. i. p. 238.

To compress into a single sentence the preceding remarks, it may be said that in Egypt the people multiplied rapidly, because while the soil increased their supplies, the climate lessened their wants. The result was, that Egypt was not only far more thickly peopled than any other country in Africa, but probably more so than any in the ancient world. Our information upon this point is indeed somewhat scanty, but it is derived from sources of unquestioned credibility. Herodotus, who the more he is understood the more accurate he is found to be,[148] states that in the reign of Amasis there were said to have been twenty thousand inhabited cities.[149] This may, perhaps, be considered an exaggeration; but what is very observable is, that Diodorus Siculus, who travelled in Egypt four centuries after Herodotus, and whose jealousy of the reputation of his great predecessor made him anxious to discredit his statements,[150] does nevertheless, on this important point, confirm them. For he not only remarks that Egypt was at that time as densely inhabited as any existing country, but he adds, on the authority of records which were then extant, that it was formerly the most populous in the world, having contained, he says, upwards of eighteen thousand cities.[151]

[148] Frederick Schlegel (_Philos. of Hist._ p. 247, London, 1846) truly says, 'The deeper and more comprehensive the researches of the moderns have been on ancient history, the more have their regard and esteem for Herodotus increased.' His minute information respecting Egypt and Asia Minor is now admitted by all competent geographers; and I may add, that a recent and very able traveller has given some curious proofs of his knowledge even of the western parts of Siberia. See Erman's valuable work, _Travels in Siberia_, vol. i. pp. 211, 297-301.

[149] [Greek: 'Ep' Amasios de basileos legetai Aigyptos malis-a dê tote eudaimonêsai, kai ta apo tou potamou tê chôrê ginomena, kai ta apo tês chôrês toisi anthrôpoisi kai polis en autê genesthai tas apasas tote dismurias tas oikeomenas.] _Herodot._ book ii. chap. clxxvii. vol. i. pp. 881, 882.

[150] Diodorus, who, though an honest and painstaking man, was in every respect inferior to Herodotus, says, impertinently enough, [Greek: osa men oun 'Êrodotos kai tines tôn tas Aiguptiôn prazeis sun-tazamenôn eschediakasin, ekousiôs prokrinantes tês alêtheias to paradoxologein, kai muthous plattein psuchagôgias eneka, parêsomen.] _Biblioth. Hist._ book i. chap. lxix. vol. i. p. 207. In other places he alludes to Herodotus in the same tone, without actually mentioning him.

[151] [Greek: Poluanthrôpia de to men palaion polu proesche pantôn tôn gnôrizomenon topôn kata, tên oikoumenên, kai kath' êmas de oudenos tôn allôn dokei leipesthai. epi men gar tôn archaion chronôn esche kômas axiologous, kai poleis pleious tôn murion kai oktakischiliôn, ôs en tais anagraphais dranx esti katakechôrismenon.] _Diod. Sic. Biblioth. Hist._ book i. chap. xxxi. vol. i. p. 89.

These were the only two ancient writers who, from personal knowledge, were well acquainted with the state of Egypt;[152] and their testimony is the more valuable because it was evidently drawn from different sources; the information of Herodotus being chiefly collected at Memphis, that of Diodorus at Thebes.[153] And whatever discrepancies there may be between these two accounts, they are both agreed respecting the rapid increase of the people, and the servile condition into which they had fallen. Indeed, the mere appearance of those huge and costly buildings, which are still standing, are a proof of the state of the nation that erected them. To raise structures so stupendous,[154] and yet so useless,[155] there must have been tyranny on the part of the rulers, and slavery on the part of the people. No wealth, however great, no expenditure, however lavish, could meet the expense which would have been incurred, if they had been the work of free men, who received for their labour a fair and honest reward.[156] But in Egypt, as in India, such considerations were disregarded, because everything tended to favour the upper ranks of society and depress the lower. Between the two there was an immense and impassable gap.[157] If a member of the industrious classes changed his usual employment, or was known to pay attention to political matters, he was severely punished;[158] and under no circumstances was the possession of land allowed to an agricultural labourer, to a mechanic, or indeed to any one except the king, the clergy, and the army.[159] The people at large were little better than beasts of burden; and all that was expected from them was an unremitting and unrequited labour. If they neglected their work, they were flogged; and the same punishment was frequently inflicted upon domestic servants, and even upon women.[160] These and similar regulations were well conceived; they were admirably suited to that vast social system, which, because it was based on despotism, could only be upheld by cruelty. Hence it was that, the industry of the whole nation being at the absolute command of a small part of it, there arose the possibility of rearing those vast edifices, which inconsiderate observers admire as a proof of civilization,[161] but which, in reality, are evidence of a state of things altogether depraved and unhealthy; a state in which the skill and the arts of an imperfect refinement injured those whom they ought to have benefited; so that the very resources which the people had created were turned against the people themselves.

[152] Notwithstanding the positive assertions of M. Matter (_Hist. de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. ii. p. 285; compare _Hist. du Gnosticisme_, vol. i. p. 48), there is no good evidence for the supposed travels in Egypt of the earlier Greeks, and it is even questionable if Plato ever visited that country. ('Whether he ever was in Egypt is doubtful.' _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. i. p. 60.) The Romans took little interest in the subject (_Bunsen_, vol. i. pp. 152-158); and, says M. Bunsen, p. 152, 'with Diodorus all systematic inquiry into the history of Egypt ceases, not only on the part of the Greeks, but of the ancients in general.' Mr. Leake, in an essay on the Quorra, arrives at the conclusion, that after the time of Ptolemy, the ancients made no additions to their knowledge of African geography. _Journal of Geographical Society_, vol. ii. p. 9.

[153] See on this some good remarks in _Heeren's African Nations_, vol. ii. pp. 202-207; and as to the difference between the traditions of Thebes and Memphis, see _Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 7. The power and importance of the two cities fluctuated, both being at different periods the capital. _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. 54, 55, 244, 445, 446; _Vyse on the Pyramids_, vol. iii. pp. 27, 100; _Sharpe's History of Egypt_, vol. i. pp. 9, 19, 24, 34, 167, 185.

[154] Sir John Herschel (_Disc. on Natural Philosophy_, p. 60) calculates that the great pyramid weighs twelve thousand seven hundred and sixty million pounds. Compare _Lyell's Principles of Geology_, p. 459, where the still larger estimate of six million tons is given. But according to Perring, the present quantity of masonry is 6,316,000 tons, or 82,110,000 cubic feet. See _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 155, London, 1854, and _Vyse on the Pyramids_, 1840, vol. ii. p. 113.

[155] Many fanciful hypotheses have been put forward as to the purpose for which the pyramids were built; but it is now admitted that they were neither more nor less than tombs for the Egyptian kings! See _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. pp. xvii. 88, 105, 372, 389; and _Sharpe's History of Egypt_, vol. i. p. 21.

[156] For an estimate of the expense at which, one of the pyramids could be built in our time by European workmen, see _Vyse on the Pyramids_, vol. ii. p. 268. On account, however, of the number of disturbing causes, such calculations have little value.

[157] Those who complain that in Europe this interval is still too great, may derive a species of satisfaction from studying the old extra-European civilizations.

[158] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. pp. 8, 9. 'Nor was any one permitted to meddle with political affairs, or to hold any civil office in the state.' ... 'If any artizan meddled with political affairs, or engaged in any other employment than the one to which he had been brought up, a severe punishment was instantly inflicted upon him.' Compare _Diod. Sic. Bibliothec. Hist._ book i. chap. lxxiv. vol. i. p. 223.

[159] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. i. p. 263, vol. ii. p. 2; _Sharpe's History of Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 24.

[160] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. pp. 41, 42, vol. iii. p. 69, vol. iv. p. 131. Compare Ammianus Marcellinus, in _Hamilton's Ægyptiaca_, p. 309.

[161] _Vyse on the Pyramids_, vol. i. p. 61, vol. ii. p. 92.

That in such a society as this, much regard should be paid to human suffering, it would indeed be idle to expect.[162] Still, we are startled by the reckless prodigality with which, in Egypt, the upper classes squandered away the labour and the lives of the people. In this respect, as the monuments yet remaining abundantly prove, they stand alone and without a rival. We may form some idea of the almost incredible waste, when we hear that two thousand men were occupied for three years in carrying a single stone from Elephantine to Sais;[163] that the Canal of the Red Sea alone, cost the lives of a hundred and twenty thousand Egyptians;[164] and that to build one of the pyramids required the labour of three hundred and sixty thousand men for twenty years.[165]

[162] 'Ein König ahmte den andern nach, oder suchte ihn zu übertreffen; indess das gutmüthige Volk seine Lebenstage am Baue dieser Monumente verzehren musste. So entstanden wahrscheinlich die Pyramiden und Obelisken Aegyptens. Nur in den ältesten Zeiten wurden sie gebauet: denn die spätere Zeit und jede Nation, die ein nützliches Gewerbe treiben lernte, bauete keine Pyramiden mehr. Weit gefehlt also, dass Pyramiden ein Kennzeichen von der Glückseligkeit und Aufklärung des alten Aegyptens seyn sollten, sind sie ein unwidersprechliches Denkmal von dem Aberglauben und der Gedankenlosigkeit sowohl der Armen, die da baueten, als der Ehrgeizigen, die den Bau befahlen.' _Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. iii. pp. 103, 104: see also p. 293, and some admirable remarks in _Volney's Voyage en Egypte_, vol. i. pp. 240, 241. Even M. Bunsen, notwithstanding his admiration, says of one of the pyramids, 'the misery of the people, already grievously oppressed, was aggravated by the construction of this gigantic building.... The bones of the oppressors of the people who for two whole generations harassed hundreds of thousands from day to day,' &c. _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 176, a learned and enthusiastic work.

[163] [Greek: Kai touto ekomizon men ep' etea tria dischilioi de oi prosetetachato andres agôgees.] _Herodot._ book ii. chap. clxxv. vol. i. p. 897. On the enormous weight of the stones which the Egyptians sometimes carried, see _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. i. p. 379; and as to the machines employed, and the use of inclined roads for the transit, see _Vyse on the Pyramids_, vol. i. p. 197, vol. iii. pp. 14, 38.

[164] _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. i. p. 70: but this learned writer is unwilling to believe a statement so adverse to his favourite Egyptians. It is likely enough that there is some exaggeration; still no one can dispute the fact of an enormous and unprincipled waste of human life.

[165] [Greek: Triakonta men yar kai ex muriades andrôn, ôs phasi, tais tôn ergôn leitourgais prosêdreusan, to de pan kataskeuasma telos esche mogis etôn eikosi dielthontôn.] _Diod. Sic. Bibliothec. Hist._ book i. ch. lxiii. vol. i. p. 188.

If, passing from the history of Asia and Africa, we now turn to the New World, we shall meet with fresh proof of the accuracy of the preceding views. The only parts of America which before the arrival of the Europeans were in some degree civilized, were Mexico and Peru;[166] to which may probably be added that long and narrow tract which stretches from the south of Mexico to the Isthmus of Panama. In this latter country, which is now known as Central America, the inhabitants, aided by the fertility of the soil,[167] seem to have worked out for themselves a certain amount of knowledge; since the ruins still extant, prove the possession of a mechanical and architectural skill too considerable to be acquired by any nation entirely barbarous.[168] Beyond this, nothing is known of their history; but the accounts we have of such buildings as Copan, Palenque, and Uxmal, make it highly probable that Central America was the ancient seat of a civilization, in all essential points similar to those of India and Egypt; that is to say, similar to them in respect to the unequal distribution of wealth and power, and the thraldom in which the great body of the people consequently remained.[169]

[166] 'When compared with other parts of the New World, Mexico and Peru may be considered as polished states.' _History of America_, book vii. in _Robertson's Works_, p. 904. See, to the same effect, _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. v. p. 355.

[167] Compare _Squier's Central America_, vol. i. pp. 34, 244, 358, 421, vol. ii. p. 307, with _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. iii. p. 59, vol. viii. pp. 319, 323.

[168] Mr. Squier (_Central America_, vol. ii. p. 68); who explored Nicaragua, says of the statues, 'the material, in every case, is a black basalt, of great hardness, which, with the best of modern tools, can only be cut with difficulty.' Mr. Stephens (_Central America_, vol. ii. p. 355) found at Palenque 'elegant specimens of art and models for study.' See also vol. iii. pp. 276, 389, 406, vol. iv. p. 293. Of the paintings at Chichen he says (vol. iv. p. 311), 'they exhibit a freedom of touch which could only be the result of discipline and training under masters.' At Copan (vol. i. p. 151), 'it would be impossible, with the best instruments of modern times, to cut stones more perfectly.' And at Uxmal (vol. ii. p. 431), 'throughout, the laying and polishing of the stones are as perfect as under the rules of the best modern masonry.' Our knowledge of Central America is almost entirely derived from these two writers; and although the work of Mr. Stephens is much the more minute, Mr. Squier says (vol. ii. p. 306), what I believe is quite true, that until the appearance of his own book in 1853, the monuments in Nicaragua were entirely unknown. Short descriptions of the remains in Guatemala and Yucatan will be found in _Larenaudière's Mexique et Guatemala_, pp. 308-327, and in _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. iii. pp. 60-63.

[169] See the remarks on Yucatan in _Prichard's Physical History of Mankind_, vol. v. p. 348: 'a great and industrious, though perhaps, as the writer above cited (Gallatin) observes, an enslaved population. Splendid temples and palaces attest the power of the priests and nobles, while as usual no trace remains of the huts in which dwelt the mass of the nation.'

But although the evidence from which we might estimate the former condition of Central America is almost entirely lost,[170] we are more fortunate in regard to the histories of Mexico and Peru. There are still existing considerable and authentic materials, from which we may form an opinion on the ancient state of those two countries, and on the nature and extent of their civilization. Before, however, entering upon this subject, it will be convenient to point out what those physical laws were which determined the localities of American civilization; or, in other words, why it was that in these countries alone, society should have been organized into a fixed and settled system, while the rest of the New World was peopled by wild and ignorant barbarians. Such an inquiry will be found highly interesting, as affording further proof of the extraordinary, and indeed irresistible, force with which the powers of nature have controlled the fortunes of man.

[170] Dr. M'Culloh (_Researches concerning the Aboriginal History of America_, pp. 272-340) has collected from the Spanish writers some meagre statements respecting the early condition of Central America; but of its social state and history, properly so called, nothing is known; nor is it even certain to what family of nations the inhabitants belonged, though a recent author can find 'la civilisation guatemalienne ou misteco-zapotèque et mayaquiche vivante pour nous encore dans les ruines de Mitla et de Palenque.' _Mexique et Guatemala, par Larenaudière_, p. 8, Paris, 1843. Dr. Prichard, too, refers the ruins in Central America to 'the Mayan race:' see _Prichard on Ethnology_, in _Report of British Association for 1847_, p. 252. But the evidence for these and similar statements is very unsatisfactory.

The first circumstance by which we must be struck, is that in America, as in Asia and Africa, all the original civilizations were seated in hot countries; the whole of Peru proper being within the southern tropic, the whole of Central America and Mexico within the northern tropic. How the heat of the climate operated on the social and political arrangements of India and Egypt, I have attempted to examine; and it has, I trust, been proved that the result was brought about by diminishing the wants and requirements of the people, and thus producing a very unequal distribution of wealth and power. But, besides this, there is another way in which the average temperature of a country affects its civilization, and the discussion of which I have reserved for the present moment, because it may be more clearly illustrated in America than elsewhere. Indeed, in the New World, the scale on which Nature works, being much larger than in the Old, and her forces being more overpowering, it is evident that her operations on mankind may be studied with greater advantage than in countries where she is weaker, and where, therefore, the consequences of her movements are less conspicuous.

If the reader will bear in mind the immense influence which an abundant national food has been shown to exercise, he will easily understand how, owing to the pressure of physical phenomena, the civilization of America was, of necessity, confined to those parts where alone it was found by the discoverers of the New World. For, setting aside the chemical and geognostic varieties of soil, it may be said that the two causes which regulate the fertility of every country are heat and moisture.[171] Where these are abundant, the land will be exuberant; where they are deficient, it will be sterile. This rule is, of course, in its application subject to exceptions, arising from physical conditions which are independent of it; but if other things are equal, the rule is invariable. And the vast additions which, since the construction of isothermal lines, have been made to our knowledge of geographical botany, enable us to lay this down as a law of nature, proved not only by arguments drawn from vegetable physiology, but also by a careful study of the proportions in which plants are actually distributed in different countries.[172]

[171] Respecting the connection between the vegetable productions of a country and its geognostic peculiarities, little is yet known; but the reader may compare _Meyen's Geography of Plants_, p. 64, with _Reports on Botany by the Ray Society_, 1846, pp. 70, 71. The chemical laws of soil are much better understood, and have a direct practical bearing on the use of manures. See _Turner's Chemistry_, vol. ii. pp. 1310-1314; _Brande's Chemistry_, vol. i. p. 691, vol. ii. pp. 1867-1869; _Balfour's Botany_, pp. 116-122; _Liebig and Kopp's Reports_, vol. ii. pp. 315, 328, vol. iii. p. 463, vol. iv. pp. 438, 442, 446.

[172] As to the influence of heat and moisture on the geographical distribution of plants, see _Henslow's Botany_, pp. 295-300, and _Balfour's Botany_, pp. 560-563. Meyen (_Geog. of Plants_, p. 263) says, 'I, therefore, after allowing for local circumstances, bring the vegetation of islands also under the law of nature, according to which the number of species constantly increases with increasing heat and corresponding humidity.' On the effect of temperature alone, compare a note in _Erman's Siberia_, vol. i. pp. 64, 65, with _Reports on Botany by the Ray Society_, pp. 339, 340. In the latter work, it is supposed that heat is the most important of all single agents; and though this is probably true, still the influence of humidity is immense. I may mention as an instance of this, that it has been recently ascertained that the oxygen used by seeds during germination, is not always taken from the air, but is obtained by decomposing water. See the curious experiments of Edwards and Colin in _Lindley's Botany_, vol. ii. pp. 261, 262, London, 1848; and on the direct nourishment which water supplies to vegetables, see Burdache's great work, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ix. pp. 254, 398.

A general survey of the continent of America will illustrate the connexion between this law and the subject now before us. In the first place, as regards moisture, all the great rivers in the New World are on the eastern coast, none of them on the western. The causes of this remarkable fact are unknown;[173] but it is certain that neither in North, nor in South America, does one considerable river empty itself into the Pacific; while on the opposite side there are numerous rivers, some of enormous magnitude, all of great importance, as the Negro, the La Plata, the San Francisco, the Amazon, the Orinoco, the Mississippi, the Alabama, the Saint John, the Potomac, the Susquehannah, the Delaware, the Hudson, and the Saint Lawrence. By this vast water-system the soil is towards the east constantly irrigated:[174] but towards the west there is in North America only one river of value, the Oregon;[175] while in South America, from the Isthmus of Panama to the Straits of Magellan, there is no great river at all.

[173] There is a difference between the watersheds of the eastern and western ranges, which explains this in part, but not entirely; and even if the explanation were more satisfactory than it is, it is too proximate to the phenomenon to have much scientific value, and must itself be referred to higher geological considerations.

[174] Of this irrigation some idea may be formed from an estimate that the Amazon drains an area of 2,500,000 square miles; that its mouth is 96 miles wide; and that it is navigable 2,200 miles from its mouth. _Somerville's Physical Geography_, vol. i. p. 423. Indeed, it is said in an essay on the Hydrography of South America (_Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. ii. p. 250), that 'with the exception of one short portage of three miles, water flows, and is for the most part navigable, between Buenos Ayres, in 35° south latitude, to the mouth of the Orinoco, in nearly 9° north.' See also on this river-system, vol. v. p. 93, vol. x. p. 267. In regard to North America, Mr. Rogers (_Geology of North America_, p. 8, _Brit. Assoc. for 1834_) says, 'the area drained by the Mississippi and all its tributaries is computed at 1,099,000 square miles.' Compare _Richardson's Arctic Expedition_, vol. ii. p. 164.

[175] The Oregon, or Columbia as it is sometimes called, forms a remarkable botanical line, which is the boundary of the Californian flora. See _Reports on Botany by the Ray Society_, p. 113.

But as to the other main cause of fertility, namely heat, we find in North America a state of things precisely the reverse. There we find that while the irrigation is on the east, the heat is on the west.[176] This difference of temperature between the two coasts is probably connected with some great meteorological law; for in the whole of the northern hemisphere, the eastern part of continents and of islands is colder than the western.[177] Whether, however, this is owing to some large and comprehensive cause, or whether each instance has a cause peculiar to itself, is an alternative, in the present state of knowledge, impossible to decide; but the fact is unquestionable, and its influence upon the early history of America is extremely curious. In consequence of it, the two great conditions of fertility have not been united in any part of the continent north of Mexico. The countries on the one side have wanted heat; those on the other side have wanted irrigation. The accumulation of wealth being thus impeded, the progress of society was stopped; and until, in the sixteenth century, the knowledge of Europe was brought to bear upon America, there is no instance of any people north of the twentieth parallel, reaching even that imperfect civilization to which the inhabitants of India and of Egypt easily attained.[178] On the other hand, south of the twentieth parallel, the continent suddenly changes its form, and, rapidly contracting, becomes a small strip of land, until it reaches the Isthmus of Panama. This narrow tract was the centre of Mexican civilization; and a comparison of the preceding arguments will easily show why such was the case; for the peculiar configuration of the land secured a very large amount of coast, and thus gave to the southern part of North America the character of an island. Hence there arose one of the characteristics of an insular climate, namely, an increase of moisture caused by the watery vapour which springs from the sea.[179] While, therefore, the position of Mexico near the equator gave it heat, the shape of the land gave it humidity; and this being the only part of North America in which these two conditions were united, it was likewise the only part which was at all civilized. There can be no doubt that if the sandy plains of California and southern Columbia, instead of being scorched into sterility, had been irrigated by the rivers of the east, or if the rivers of the east had been accompanied by the heat of the west, the result of either combination would have been that exuberance of soil by which, as the history of the world decisively proves, every early civilization was preceded. But inasmuch as, of the two elements of fertility, one was deficient in every part of America north of the twentieth parallel, it followed that, until that line was passed, civilization could gain no resting-place; and there never has been found, and we may confidently assert never will be found, any evidence that even a single ancient nation, in the whole of that enormous continent, was able to make much progress in the arts of life, or organize itself into a fixed and permanent society.

[176] For proof that the mean temperature of the western coast of North America is higher than that of the eastern coast, see _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. ix. p. 380, vol. xi. pp. 168, 216; _Humboldt_, _la Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. pp. 42, 336; _Richardson's Arctic Expedition_, vol. ii. pp. 214, 218, 219, 259, 260. This is well illustrated by the botanical fact, that on the west coast the Coniferæ grow as high as 68° or 70° north latitude; while on the east their northern limit is 60°. See an Essay on the Morphology of the Coniferæ, in _Reports on Botany by the Ray Society_, p. 8, which should be compared with _Forry on the Climate of the United States and its Endemic Influences_, New York, 1842, p. 89.

[177] 'Writers on climate have remarked that the eastern coasts of continents in the northern hemisphere have a lower mean temperature than the western coasts.' _Richardson on North American Zoology_, p. 129, _Brit. Assoc. for_ 1836: see also _Report for_ 1841, _Sections_, p. 28; _Davis's China_, vol. iii. pp. 140, 141; _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. xxii. p. 176.

[178] The little that is known of the early state of the North-American tribes has been brought together by Dr. M'Culloh in his learned work, _Researches concerning America_, pp. 119-146. He says, p. 121, that they 'lived together without laws and civil regulations.' In that part of the world, the population has probably never been fixed; and we now know that the inhabitants of the north-east of Asia have at different times passed over to the north-west of America, as in the case of the Tschuktschi, who are found in both continents. Indeed, Dobell was so struck by the similarity between the North-American tribes and some he met with nearly as far west as Tomsk, that he believed their origin to be the same. See _Dobell's Travels in Kamtschatka and Siberia_, 1830, vol. ii. p. 112. And on this question of intercourse between the two continents, compare _Crantz's History of Greenland_, vol. i. pp. 259, 260, with _Richardson's Arctic Expedition_, vol. i. pp. 362, 363, and _Prichard's Physical History of Mankind_, vol. iv. pp. 458, 463, vol. v. pp. 371, 378.

[179] From general physical considerations, we should suppose a relation between amount of rain and extent of coast; and in Europe, where alone we have extensive meteorological records, the connexion has been proved statistically. 'If the quantity of rain that falls in different parts of Europe is measured, it is found to be less, other things being equal, as we recede from the sea-shore.' _Kaemtz's Meteorology_, 1845, p. 139. Compare pp. 91, 94. Hence, no doubt, the greater rarity of rain as we advance north from Mexico. 'Au nord du 20°, surtout depuis les 22° au 30° de latitude, les pluies, que ne durent que pendant les mois de juin, de juillet, d'août et de septembre, sont peu fréquentes dans l'intérieur du pays.' _Humboldt_, _la Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. p. 46.

Thus far as to the physical agents which controlled the early destinies of North America. But in reference to South America, a different train of circumstances came into play; for the law by virtue of which the eastern coasts are colder than the western, is not only inapplicable to the southern hemisphere, but is replaced by another law precisely the reverse. North of the equator, the east is colder than the west; south of the equator, the east is hotter than the west.[180] If now, we connect this fact with what has been noticed respecting the vast river-system which distinguishes the east of America from the west, it becomes evident that in South America there exists that coöperation of heat and humidity in which North America is deficient. The result is, that the soil in the eastern part of South America is remarkable for its exuberance, not only within the tropic, but considerably beyond it; the south of Brazil, and even part of Uruguay, possessing a fertility not to be found in any country of North America situated under a corresponding latitude.

[180] 'The difference between the climates of the east and west coasts of continents and islands, has also been observed in the southern hemisphere but here the west coasts are colder than the east, while in the northern hemisphere the east coasts are the colder.' _Meyen's Geography of Plants_, 1846, p. 24.

On a hasty view of the preceding generalizations, it might be expected that the eastern side of South America, being thus richly endowed by nature,[181] would have been the seat of one of those civilizations, which, in other parts of the world, similar causes produced. But if we look a little further, we shall find that what has just been pointed out, by no means exhausts even the physical bearings of this subject, and that we must take into consideration a third great agent, which has sufficed to neutralize the natural results of the other two, and to retain in barbarism the inhabitants of what otherwise would have been the most flourishing of all the countries of the New World.

[181] Mr. Darwin, who has written one of the most valuable works ever published on South America, was struck by this superiority of the eastern coast; and he mentions that 'fruits which ripen well and are very abundant, such as the grape and fig, in latitude 41° on the east coast, succeed very poorly in a lower latitude on the opposite side of the continent.' _Darwin's Journal of Researches_, Lond. 1840, p. 268. Compare _Meyen's Geog. of Plants_, pp. 25, 188. So that the proposition of Daniell (_Meteorological Essays_, p. 104, sec. xiv.) is expressed too generally, and should be confined to continents north of the equator.

The agent to which I allude is the trade-wind; a striking phenomenon, by which, as we shall hereafter see, all the civilizations anterior to those of Europe were greatly and injuriously influenced. This wind covers no less than 56° of latitude; 28° north of the equator, and 28° south of it.[182] In this large tract, which comprises some of the most fertile countries in the world, the trade-wind blows, during the whole year, either from the north-east or from the south-east.[183] The causes of this regularity are now well understood, and are known to depend partly on the displacement of air at the equator, and partly on the motion of the earth; for the cold air from the poles is constantly flowing towards the equator, and thus producing northerly winds in the northern hemisphere, and southerly winds in the southern. These winds are, however, deflected from their natural course by the movement of the earth, as it revolves on its axis from west to east. And as the rotation of the earth is, of course, more rapid at the equator than elsewhere, it happens that in the neighbourhood of the equator the speed is so great as to outstrip the movements of the atmosphere from the poles, and forcing them into another direction, gives rise to those easterly currents which are called trade-winds.[184] What, however, we are now rather concerned with, is not so much an explanation of the trade-winds, as an account of the way in which this great physical phenomenon is connected with the history of South America.

[182] The trade-winds sometimes reach the thirtieth parallel. See _Daniell's Meteorological Essays_, p. 469. Dr. Traill (_Physical Geography_, Edin. 1838, p. 200), says, 'they extend to about 30° on each side of the equator:' but I believe they are rarely found so high; though Robertson is certainly wrong in supposing that they are peculiar to the tropics; _History of America_, book iv. in _Robertson's Works_, p. 781.

[183] 'In the northern hemisphere the trade-wind blows from the north-east, and in the southern from the south-east.' _Meyen's Geog. of Plants_, p. 42. Compare _Walsh's Brazil_, vol. i. p. 112, vol. ii. p. 494; and on the 'tropical east-wind' of the Gulf of Mexico, see _Forry's Climate of the United States_, p. 206. Dr. Forry says that it has given to the growth of the trees 'an inclination from the sea.'

[184] Respecting the causes of the trade-winds, see _Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences_, pp. 136, 137; _Leslie's Natural Philosophy_, p. 518; _Daniell's Meteorological Essays_, pp. 44, 102, 476-481; _Kaemtz's Meteorology_, pp. 37-39; _Prout's Bridgewater Treatise_, pp. 254-256. The discovery of the true theory is often ascribed to Mr. Daniell; but Hadley was the real discoverer. _Note in Prout_, p. 257. The monsoons, which popular writers frequently confuse with the trade-winds, are said to be caused by the predominance of land, and by the difference between its temperature and that of the sea: see _Kaemtz_, pp. 42-45. On what may be called the conversion of the trades into monsoons, according to the laws very recently promulgated by M. Dove, see _Report of British Association for_ 1847 (_Transac. of Sections_, p. 30) and _Report for_ 1848, p. 94. The monsoons are noticed in _Humboldt's Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 485; _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xviii. part i. p. 261; _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. vii. pp. 13, 55; _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. ii. p. 90, vol. iv. pp. 8, 9, 148, 149, 169, vol. xi. p. 162, vol. xv. pp. 146-149, vol. xvi. p. 185, vol. xviii. pp. 67, 68, vol. xxiii. p. 112; _Low's Sarawak_, p. 30.

The trade-wind, blowing on the eastern coast of South America, and proceeding from the east, crosses the Atlantic Ocean, and therefore reaches the land surcharged with the vapours accumulated in its passage. These vapours, on touching the shore, are, at periodical intervals, condensed into rain; and as their progress westward is checked by that gigantic chain of the Andes, which they are unable to pass,[185] they pour the whole of their moisture on Brazil, which, in consequence, is often deluged by the most destructive torrents.[186] This abundant supply, being aided by that vast river-system peculiar to the eastern part of America, and being also accompanied by heat, has stimulated the soil into an activity unequalled in any other part of the world.[187] Brazil, which is nearly as large as the whole of Europe, is covered with a vegetation of incredible profusion. Indeed, so rank and luxuriant is the growth, that Nature seems to riot in the very wantonness of power. A great part of this immense country is filled with dense and tangled forests, whose noble trees, blossoming in unrivalled beauty, and exquisite with a thousand hues, throw out their produce in endless prodigality. On their summit are perched birds of gorgeous plumage, which nestle in their dark and lofty recesses. Below, their base and trunks are crowded with brushwood, creeping plants, innumerable parasites, all swarming with life. There, too, are myriads of insects of every variety; reptiles of strange and singular form; serpents and lizards, spotted with deadly beauty: all of which find means of existence in this vast workshop and repository of Nature. And that nothing may be wanting to this land of marvels, the forests are skirted by enormous meadows, which, reeking with heat and moisture, supply nourishment to countless herds of wild cattle, that browse and fatten on their herbage; while the adjoining plains, rich in another form of life, are the chosen abode of the subtlest and most ferocious animals, which prey on each other, but which it might almost seem no human power can hope to extirpate.[188]

[185] _Lyell's Principles of Geology_, pp. 201, 714, 715; see also _Somerville's Physical Geography_, vol. ii. p. 71. And on this confining power of the Cordillera of the Andes, see _Azara_, _Voyages dans l'Amérique Méridionale_, vol. i. p. 33. According to Dr. Tschudi, the eastern chain is properly the Andes, and the western the Cordillera; but this distinction is rarely made. _Tschudi's Travels in Peru_, p. 290.

[186] On the rain of Brazil, see _Daniell's Meteorological Essays_, p. 335; _Darwin's Journal_, pp. 11, 33; _Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil_, vol. ii. p. 113; _Gardner's Travels in Brazil_, pp. 53, 99, 114, 175, 233, 394.

[187] Dr. Gardner, who looked at these things with the eye of a botanist, says that near Rio de Janeiro the heat and moisture are sufficient to compensate even the poorest soil; so that 'rocks, on which scarcely a trace of earth is to be observed, are covered with vellozias, tillandsias, melastomaceæ, cacti, orchideæ, and ferns, and all in the vigour of life.' _Gardner's Travels in Brazil_, p. 9. See also on this combination, _Walsh's Brazil_, vol. ii. pp. 297, 298, a curious description of the rainy season: 'For eight or nine hours a day, during some weeks, I never had a dry shirt on me; and the clothes I divested myself of at night, I put on quite wet in the morning. When it did not rain, which was very rare, there shone out in some places a burning sun; and we went smoking along, the wet exhaling by the heat, as if we were dissolving into vapour.'

[188] On the natural history of Brazil, I have compared a few notices in _Swainson's Geography of Animals_, pp. 75-87, with _Cuvier_, _Règne Animal_, vol. i. p. 460, vol. ii. pp. 28, 65, 66, 89, vol. iv. pp. 51, 75, 258, 320, 394, 485, 561, vol. v. pp. 40, 195, 272, 334, 553; _Azara_, _Amérique Méridionale_, vol. i. pp. 244-388, and the greater part of vols. iii. and iv.; _Winckler_, _Geschichte der Botanik_, pp. 378, 576-578; _Southey's History of Brazil_, vol. i. p. 27, vol. iii. pp. 315, 823; _Gardner's Brazil_, pp. 18, 32-34, 41-44, 131, 330; _Spix and Martius's Brazil_, vol. i. pp. 207-209, 238-248, vol. ii. pp. 131, 160-163. And as to the forests, which are among the wonders of the world, _Somerville's Physical Geog._ vol. ii. pp. 204-206; _Prichard's Physical History_, vol. v. p. 497; _Darwin's Journal_, pp. 11, 24; _Walsh's Brazil_, vol. i. p. 145, vol. ii. pp. 29, 30, 253.

Such is the flow and abundance of life by which Brazil is marked above all the other countries of the earth.[189] But, amid this pomp and splendour of Nature, no place is left for Man. He is reduced to insignificance by the majesty with which he is surrounded. The forces that oppose him are so formidable that he has never been able to make head against them, never able to rally against their accumulated pressure. The whole of Brazil, notwithstanding its immense apparent advantages, has always remained entirely uncivilized; its inhabitants wandering savages, incompetent to resist those obstacles which the very bounty of Nature had put in their way. For the natives, like every people in the infancy of society, are averse to enterprise; and being unacquainted with the arts by which physical impediments are removed, they have never attempted to grapple with the difficulties that stopped their social progress. Indeed, those difficulties are so serious, that during more than three hundred years the resources of European knowledge have been vainly employed in endeavouring to get rid of them. Along the coast of Brazil, there has been introduced from Europe a certain amount of that civilization, which the natives by their own efforts could never have reached. But such civilization, in itself very imperfect, has never penetrated the recesses of the country; and in the interior there is still found a state of things similar to that which has always existed. The people, ignorant, and therefore brutal, practising no restraint, and recognizing no law, continue to live on in their old and inveterate barbarism.[190] In their country, the physical causes are so active, and do their work on a scale of such unrivalled magnitude, that it has hitherto been found impossible to escape from the effects of their united action. The progress of agriculture is stopped by impassable forests, and the harvests are destroyed by innumerable insects.[191] The mountains are too high to scale, the rivers are too wide to bridge; every thing is contrived to keep back the human mind, and repress its rising ambition. It is thus that the energies of Nature have hampered the spirit of Man. Nowhere else is there so painful a contrast between the grandeur of the external world and the littleness of the internal. And the mind, cowed by this unequal struggle, has not only been unable to advance, but without foreign aid it would undoubtedly have receded. For even at present, with all the improvements constantly introduced from Europe, there are no signs of real progress; while, notwithstanding the frequency of colonial settlements, less than one-fiftieth of the land is cultivated.[192] The habits of the people are as barbarous as ever; and as to their numbers, it is well worthy of remark, that Brazil, the country where, of all others, physical resources are most powerful, where both vegetables and animals are most abundant, where the soil is watered by the noblest rivers, and the coast studded by the finest harbours--this immense territory, which is more than twelve times the size of France, contains a population not exceeding six millions of people.[193]

[189] This extraordinary richness has excited the astonishment of all who have seen it. Mr. Walsh, who had travelled in some very fertile countries, mentions 'the exceeding fecundity of nature which characterizes Brazil.' _Walsh's Brazil_, vol. ii. p. 19. And a very eminent naturalist, Mr. Darwin, says (_Journal_, p. 29), 'In England, any person fond of natural history enjoys in his walks a great advantage, by always having something to attract his attention; but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous that he is scarcely able to walk at all.'

[190] Azara (_Amérique Méridionale_, vol. ii. pp. 1-168) gives a curious, but occasionally a disgusting account of the savage natives in that part of Brazil south of 16°, to which his observations were limited. And as to the inhabitants of other parts, see _Henderson's History of Brazil_, pp. 28, 29, 107, 173, 248, 315, 473; _M'Culloh's Researches concerning America_, p. 77; and the more recent account of Dr. Martius, in _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. ii. pp. 191-199. Even in 1817, it was rare to see a native in Rio de Janeiro (_Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil_, vol. i. p. 142); and Dr. Gardner (_Travels in Brazil_, pp. 61, 62) says, that 'more than one nation of Indians in Brazil' have returned to that savage life from which they had apparently been reclaimed.

[191] Sir C. Lyell (_Principles of Geology_, p. 682) notices 'the incredible number of insects which lay waste the crops in Brazil;' and Mr. Swainson, who had travelled in that country, says 'The red ants of Brazil are so destructive, and at the same time so prolific, that they frequently dispute possession of the ground with the husbandman, defy all his skill to extirpate their colonies, and fairly compel him to leave his fields uncultivated.' _Swainson on the Geography and Classification of Animals_, p. 87. See more about these insects in _Darwin's Journal_, pp. 37-43; _Southey's History of Brazil_, vol. i. pp. 144, 256, 333-335, 343, vol. ii. pp. 365, 642, vol. iii. p. 876; _Spix and Martius's Travels in Brazil_, vol. i. p. 259, vol. ii. p. 117; _Cuvier_, _Règne Animal_, vol. iv. p. 320.

[192] The cultivated land is estimated at from 1-1/2 to 2 per cent. See _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ 1849, vol. i. p. 430.

[193] During the present century, the population of Brazil has been differently stated at different times; the highest computation being 7,000,000, and the lowest 4,000,000. Comp. _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 855; _Gardner's Brazil_, p. 12; _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ 1849, vol. i. pp. 430, 434. Mr. Walsh describes Brazil as 'abounding in lands of the most exuberant fertility, but nearly destitute of inhabitants.' _Walsh's Brazil_, vol. i. p. 248. This was in 1828 and 1829, since which the European population has increased; but, on the whole, 6,000,000 seems to be a fair estimate of what can only be known approximatively. In _Alison's History_, vol. x. p. 229, the number given is 5,000,000; but the area also is rather understated.

These considerations sufficiently explain why it is, that in the whole of Brazil there are no monuments even of the most imperfect civilization; no evidence that the people had, at any period, raised themselves above the state in which they were found when their country was first discovered. But immediately opposite to Brazil there is another country, which, though situated in the same continent, and lying under the same latitude, is subjected to different physical conditions, and therefore was the scene of different social results. This is the celebrated kingdom of Peru, which included the whole of the southern tropic, and which, from the circumstances just stated, was naturally the only part of South America where any thing approaching to civilization could be attained. In Brazil, the heat of the climate was accompanied by a twofold irrigation, arising first from the immense river-system incidental to the eastern coast; and secondly, from the abundant moisture deposited by the trade-winds. From this combination there resulted that unequalled fertility, which, so far as Man was concerned, defeated its own ends, stopping his progress by an exuberance, which, had it been less excessive, it would have aided. For, as we have clearly seen, when the productive powers of Nature are carried beyond a certain point, the imperfect knowledge of uncivilized men is unable to cope with them, or in any way turn them to their own advantage. If, however, those powers, being very active, are nevertheless confined within manageable limits, there arises a state of things similar to that noticed in Asia and Africa; where the profusion of Nature, instead of hindering social progress, favoured it, by encouraging that accumulation of wealth, without some share of which progress is impossible.

In estimating, therefore, the physical conditions by which civilization was originally determined, we have to look, not merely at the exuberance, but also at what may be called the manageability of Nature; that is, we have to consider the ease with which the resources may be used, as well as the number of the resources themselves. Applying this to Mexico and Peru, we find that they were the countries of America where this combination most happily occurred. For though their resources were much less numerous than those of Brazil, they were far more easy to control; while at the same time the heat of the climate brought into play those other laws by which, as I have attempted to show, all the early civilizations were greatly influenced. It is a very remarkable fact, which, I believe, has never been observed, that even in reference to latitude, the present limit of Peru to the south corresponds with the ancient limit of Mexico to the north; while, by a striking, but to me perfectly natural coincidence, both these boundaries are reached before the tropical line is passed; the boundary of Mexico being 21° N. lat., that of Peru 21-1/2° S. lat.[194]

[194] Vidaca being the most southerly point of the present Peruvian coast; though the conquests of Peru, incorporated with the empire, extended far into Chili, and within a few degrees of Patagonia. In regard to Mexico, the northern limit of the empire was 21°, on the Atlantic coast, and 19° on the Pacific. _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 2.

Such is the wonderful regularity which history, when comprehensively studied, presents to our view. And if we compare Mexico and Peru with those countries of the Old World which have been already noticed, we shall find, as in all the civilizations anterior to those of Europe, that their social phenomena were subordinate to their physical laws. In the first place, the characteristics of their national food were precisely those met with in the most flourishing parts of Asia and Africa. For although few of the nutritious vegetables belonging to the Old World were found in the New, their place was supplied by others exactly analogous to rice and dates; that is to say, marked by the same abundance, by the same facility of growth, and by the same exuberant returns; therefore, followed by the same social results. In Mexico and Peru, one of the most important articles of food has always been maize, which, we have every reason to believe, was peculiar to the American continent.[195] This, like rice and dates, is eminently the product of a hot climate; and although it is said to grow at an elevation of upwards of 7,000 feet,[196] it is rarely seen beyond the fortieth parallel,[197] and its exuberance rapidly diminishes with the diminution of temperature. Thus, for example, in New California, its average yield is seventy or eighty fold;[198] but in Mexico Proper the same grain yields three or four hundred fold, and, under very favourable circumstances, even eight hundred fold.[199]

[195] A question has been raised as to the Asiatic origin of maize: _Reynier_, _Economie des Arabes_, pp. 94, 95. But later and more careful researches seem to have ascertained beyond much doubt that it was unknown before America was discovered. Compare _Meyen's Geography of Plants_, pp. 44, 303, 304; _Walckenaer's note in Azara, Amérique Méridionale_, vol. i. p. 149; _Cuvier_, _Progrès des Sciences Naturelles_, vol. ii. p. 354; _Cuvier_, _Eloges Historiques_, vol. ii. p. 178; _Loudon's Encyclopædia of Agriculture_, p. 829; _M'Culloch's Dict. of Commerce_, 1849, p. 831. The casual notices of maize by Ixtlilxochitl, the native Mexican historian, show its general use as an article of food before the arrival of the Spaniards: see _Ixtlilxochitl_, _Histoire des Chichimèques_, vol. i. pp. 53, 64, 240, vol. ii. p. 19.

[196] 'Maize, indeed, grows to the height of 7,200 feet above the level of the sea, but only predominates between 3,000 and 6,000 of elevation.' _Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom_, 1847, p. 112. This refers to the tropical parts of South America; but the Zea Mais is said to have been raised on the slopes of the Pyrenees 'at an elevation of 3,000 to 4,000 feet.' See _Austen on the Forty Days' Maize_, in _Report of Brit. Assoc. for_ 1849, _Trans. of Sec._ p. 68.

[197] M. Meyen (_Geog. of Plants_, p. 302) and Mr. Balfour (_Botany_, p. 567) suppose that in America 40° is about its limit; and this is the case in regard to its extensive cultivation; but it is grown certainly as high as 52°, perhaps as high as 54°, north latitude: see _Richardson's Arctic Expedition_, 1851, vol. ii. pp. 49, 234.

[198] 'Sous la zone tempérée, entre les 33 et 38 degrés de latitude, par exemple dans la Nouvelle Californie, le maïs ne produit, en général, année commune, que 70 à 80 grains pour un.' _Humboldt_, _la Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 375.

[199] 'La fécondité du Tlaolli, ou maïs mexicain, est au-delà de tout ce que l'on peut imaginer en Europe. La plante, favorisée par de fortes chaleurs et par beaucoup d'humidité, acquiert une hauteur de deux à trois mètres. Dans les belles plaines qui s'étendent depuis San Juan del Rio à Queretaro, par exemple dans les terres de la grande métairie de l'Esperanza, une fanègue de maïs en produit quelquefois huit cents. Des terrains fertiles en donnent, année commune, trois à quatre cents.' _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 374. Nearly the same estimate is given by Mr. Ward: see _Ward's Mexico_, vol. i. p. 32, vol. ii. p. 230. In Central America (Guatemala), maize returns three hundred for one. _Mexique et Guatemala, par Larenaudière_, p. 257.

A people who derived their sustenance from a plant of such extraordinary fecundity, had little need to exercise their industrious energies; while at the same time they had every opportunity of increasing their numbers, and thus producing a train of social and political consequences similar to those which I have noticed in India and in Egypt. Besides this, there were, in addition to maize, other kinds of food to which the same remarks are applicable. The potato, which, in Ireland, has brought about such injurious effects by stimulating the growth of population, is said to be indigenous to Peru; and although this is denied by a very high authority,[200] there is, at all events, no doubt that it was found there in great abundance when the country was first discovered by the Europeans.[201] In Mexico, potatoes were unknown till the arrival of the Spaniards; but both Mexicans and Peruvians lived to a great extent on the produce of the banana; a vegetable whose reproductive powers are so extraordinary, that nothing but the precise and unimpeachable testimony of which we are possessed could make them at all credible. This remarkable plant is, in America, intimately connected with the physical laws of climate; since it is an article of primary importance for the subsistence of man whenever the temperature passes a certain point.[202] Of its nutritive powers, it is enough to say, that an acre sown with it will support more than fifty persons; whereas the same amount of land sown with wheat in Europe will only support two persons.[203] As to the exuberance of its growth, it is calculated that, other circumstances remaining the same, its produce is forty-four times greater than that of potatoes, and a hundred and thirty-three times greater than that of wheat.[204]

[200] 'La pomme de terre n'est pas indigène au Pérou.' _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 400. On the other hand, Cuvier (_Histoire des Sciences Naturelles_, part ii. p. 185) peremptorily says, 'il est impossible de douter qu'elle ne soit originaire du Pérou:' see also his _Eloges Historiques_, vol. ii. p. 171. Compare _Winckler_, _Gesch. der Botanik_, p. 92: 'Von einem gewissen Carate unter den Gewächsen Peru's mit dem Namen papas aufgeführt.'

[201] And has been used ever since for food. On the Peruvian potato compare _Tschudi's Travels in Peru_, pp. 178, 368, 386; _Ulloa's Voyage to South America_, vol. i. pp. 287, 288. In Southern Peru, at the height of 13,000 or 14,000 feet, a curious process takes place, the starch of the potato being frozen into saccharine. See a valuable paper by Mr. Bollaert in _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. xxi. p. 119.

[202] Humboldt (_Nouv. Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 359) says, 'partout où la chaleur moyenne de l'année excède vingt-quatre degrés centigrades, le fruit du bananier est un objet de culture du plus grand intérêt pour la subsistance de l'homme.' Compare _Bullock's Mexico_, p. 281.

[203] _M'Culloch's Geograph. Dict._, 1849, vol. ii. p. 315.

[204] 'Je doute qu'il existe une autre plante sur le globe, qui, sur un petit espace de terrain, puisse produire une masse de substance nourrissante aussi considérable.' ... 'Le produit des bananes est par conséquent à celui du froment comme 133: 1--à celui des pommes de terre comme 44: l'_Humboldt_, _Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. ii. pp. 362, 363. See also _Prout's Bridgewater Treatise_, p. 333, edit. 1845; _Prescott's Peru_, vol. i. pp. 131, 132; _Prescott's Mexico_, vol. i. p. 114. Earlier notices, but very imperfect ones, of this remarkable vegetable may be found in _Ulloa's South America_, vol. i. p. 74; and in _Boyle's Works_, vol. iii. p. 590.

It will now be easily understood why it was that, in all important respects, the civilizations of Mexico and Peru were strictly analogous to those of India and Egypt. In these four countries, as well as in a few others in Southern Asia and Central America, there existed an amount of knowledge, despicable indeed if tried by an European standard, but most remarkable if contrasted with the gross ignorance which prevailed among the adjoining and cotemporary nations. But in all of them there was the same inability to diffuse even that scanty civilization which they really possessed; there was the same utter absence of any thing approaching to the democratic spirit; there was the same despotic power on the part of the upper classes, and the same contemptible subservience on the part of the lower. For, as we have clearly seen, all these civilizations were affected by certain physical causes, which, though favourable to the accumulation of wealth, were unfavourable to a just subdivision of it. And as the knowledge of men was still in its infancy,[205] it was found impossible to struggle against these physical agents, or prevent them from producing those effects on the social organization which I have attempted to trace. Both in Mexico and in Peru, the arts, and particularly those branches of them which minister to the luxury of the wealthy classes, were cultivated with great success. The houses of the higher ranks were filled with ornaments and utensils of admirable workmanship; their chambers were hung with splendid tapestries; their dresses and their personal decorations betrayed an almost incredible expense; their jewels of exquisite and varied form; their rich and flowing robes embroidered with the rarest feathers, collected from the most distant parts of the empire: all supplying evidence of the possession of unlimited wealth, and of the ostentatious prodigality with which that wealth was wasted.[206] Immediately below this class came the people; and what their condition was, may be easily imagined. In Peru the whole of the taxes were paid by them; the nobles and the clergy being altogether exempt.[207] But as, in such a state of society, it was impossible for the people to accumulate property, they were obliged to defray the expenses of government by their personal labour, which was placed under the entire command of the state.[208] At the same time, the rulers of the country were well aware that, with a system like this, feelings of personal independence were incompatible; they therefore contrived laws by which, even in the most minute matters, freedom of action was controlled. The people were so shackled, that they could neither change their residence, nor alter their clothes, without permission from the governing powers To each man the law prescribed the trade he was to follow, the dress he was to wear, the wife he was to marry, and the amusements he was to enjoy.[209] Among the Mexicans the course of affairs was similar; the same physical conditions being followed by the same social results. In the most essential particular for which history can be studied, namely, the state of the people, Mexico and Peru are the counterpart of each other. For though there were many minor points of difference,[210] both were agreed in this, that there were only two classes--the upper class being tyrants, and the lower class being slaves. This was the state in which Mexico was found when it was discovered by the Europeans,[211] and towards which it must have been tending from the earliest period. And so insupportable had all this become, that we know, from the most decisive evidence, that the general disaffection it produced among the people was one of the causes which, by facilitating the progress of the Spanish invaders, hastened the downfall of the Mexican empire.[212]

[205] The only science with which they had much acquaintance was astronomy, which the Mexicans appear to have cultivated with considerable success. Compare the remark of La Place, in _Humboldt_, _Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. p. 92, with _Prichard's Physical History_, vol. v. pp. 323, 329; _M'Culloch's Researches_, pp. 201-225; _Larenaudière's Mexique_, pp. 51, 52; _Humboldt's Cosmos_, vol. iv. p. 456; _Journal of Geog. Society_, vol. vii. p. 3. However, their astronomy, as might be expected, was accompanied by astrology: see _Ixtlilxochitl_, _Histoire des Chichimèques_, vol. i. p. 168, vol. ii. pp. 94, 111.

[206] The works of art produced by the Mexicans and Peruvians are under-rated by Robertson: who, however, admits that he had never seen them. _History of America_, book vii., in _Robertson's Works_, pp. 909, 920. But during the present century considerable attention has been paid to this subject: and in addition to the evidence of skill and costly extravagance collected by Mr. Prescott, _History of Peru_, vol. i. pp. 28, 142; _History of Mexico_, vol. i. pp. 27, 28, 122, 256, 270, 307, vol. ii. pp. 115, 116, I may refer to the testimony of M. Humboldt, the only traveller in the New World who has possessed a competent amount of physical as well as historical knowledge. _Humboldt, Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. ii. p. 483, and elsewhere. Compare Mr. Pentland's observations on the tombs in the neighbourhood of Titicaca (_Jour. of Geog. Soc._ vol. x. p. 554) with _M'Culloh's Researches_, pp. 364-366; _Mexique par Larenaudière_, pp. 41, 42, 66; _Ulloa's South America_, vol. i. pp. 465, 466.

[207] 'The members of the royal house, the great nobles, even the public functionaries, and the numerous body of the priesthood, were all exempt from taxation. The whole duty of defraying the expenses of the government belonged to the people.' _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. p. 56.

[208] Ondegardo emphatically says, 'Solo el trabajo de las personas era el tributo que se dava, porque ellos no poseian otra cosa.' _Prescott's Peru_, vol. i. p. 57. Compare _M'Culloh's Researches_, p. 359. In Mexico the state of things was just the same: 'Le petit peuple, qui ne possédait point de biens-fonds, et qui ne faisait point de commerce, payait sa part des taxes en travaux de différents genres; c'était par lui que les terres de la couronne étaient cultivées, les ouvrages publics exécutés, et les diverses maisons appartenantes à l'empereur construites ou entretenues.' _Larenaudière's Mexique_, p. 39.

[209] Mr. Prescott notices this with surprise, though, under the circumstances, it was in truth perfectly natural. He says (_Hist. of Peru_, vol. i. p. 159), 'Under this extraordinary polity, a people, advanced in many of the social refinements, well skilled in manufactures and agriculture, were unacquainted, as we have seen, with money. They had nothing that deserved to be called property. They could follow no craft, could engage in no labour, no amusement, but such as was specially provided by law. They could not change their residence or their dress without a licence from the government. They could not even exercise the freedom which is conceded to the most abject in other countries--that of selecting their own wives.'

[210] The Mexicans being, as Prichard says (_Physical History_, vol. v. p. 467), of a more cruel disposition than the Peruvians; but our information is too limited to enable us to determine whether this was mainly owing to physical causes or to social ones. Herder preferred the Peruvian civilization: 'der gebildetste Staat dieses Welttheils, Peru.' _Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit_, vol. i. p. 33.

[211] See in _Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. p. 101, a striking summary of the state of the Mexican people at the time of the Spanish Conquest: see also _History of America_, book vii., in _Robertson's Works_, p. 907.

[212] _Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 34. Compare a similar remark on the invasion of Egypt in _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 414.

The further this examination is carried, the more striking becomes the similarity between those civilizations which flourished anterior to what may be called the European epoch of the human mind. The division of a nation into castes would be impossible in the great European countries; but it existed from a remote antiquity in Egypt, in India, and apparently in Persia.[213] The very same institution was rigidly enforced in Peru;[214] and what proves how consonant it was to that stage of society, is, that in Mexico, where castes were not established by law, it was nevertheless a recognised custom that the son should follow the occupation of his father.[215] This was the political symptom of that stationary and conservative spirit, which, as we shall hereafter see, has marked every country in which the upper classes have monopolized power. The religious symptom of the same spirit was displayed in that inordinate reverence for antiquity, and in that hatred of change, which the greatest of all the writers on America has well pointed out as an analogy between the natives of Mexico and those of Hindostan.[216] To this may be added, that those who have studied the history of the ancient Egyptians, have observed among that people a similar tendency. Wilkinson, who is well known to have paid great attention to their monuments, says that they were more unwilling than any other nation to alter their religious worship;[217] and Herodotus, who travelled in their country two thousand three hundred years ago, assures us that, while they preserved old customs, they never acquired new ones.[218] In another point of view, the similarity between these distant countries is equally interesting, since it evidently arises from the causes already noticed as common to both. In Mexico and Peru, the lower classes being at the disposal of the upper, there followed that frivolous waste of labour which we have observed in Egypt, and evidence of which may also be seen in the remains of those temples and palaces which are still found in several parts of Asia. Both Mexicans and Peruvians erected immense buildings, which were as useless as those of Egypt, and which no country could produce, unless the labour of the people were ill-paid and ill directed.[219] The cost of these monuments of vanity is unknown; but it must have been enormous; since the Americans, being ignorant of the use of iron,[220] were unable to employ a resource by which, in the construction of large works, labour is greatly abridged. Some particulars, however, have been preserved, from which an idea may be formed on this subject. To take, for instance, the palaces of their kings: we find that in Peru, the erection of the royal residence occupied, during fifty years, 20,000 men;[221] while that of Mexico cost the labour of no less than 200,000: striking facts, which, if all other testimonies had perished, would enable us to appreciate the condition of countries in which, for such insignificant purposes, such vast power was expended.[222]

[213] That there were castes in Persia is stated by Firdousi; and his assertion, putting aside its general probability, ought to outweigh the silence of the Greek historians, who, for the most part, knew little of any country except their own. According to Malcolm, the existence of caste in the time of Jemsheed, is confirmed by some 'Mahomedan authors;' but he does not say who they were. _Malcolm's History of Persia_, vol. i. pp. 505, 506. Several attempts have been made, but very unsuccessfully, to ascertain the period in which castes were first instituted. Compare _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vi. p. 251; Heeren's _African Nations_, vol. ii. p. 121; _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 410; _Rammohun Roy on the Veds_, p. 269.

[214] _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. pp. 143, 156.

[215] _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 124.

[216] 'Les Américains, comme les habitans de l'Indoustan, et comme tous les peuples qui ont gémi long-temps sous le despotisme civil et religieux, tiennent avec une opiniâtreté extraordinaire à leurs habitudes, à leurs m[oe]urs, à leurs opinions.... Au Mexique, comme dans l'Indoustan, il n'étoit pas permis aux fidèles de changer la moindre chose aux figures des idoles. Tout ce qui appartenoit au rite des Aztèques et des Hindous étoit assujéti à des lois immuables.' _Humboldt_, _Nouv. Espagne_, vol. i. pp. 95, 97. Turgot (_[OE]uvres_, vol. ii. pp. 226, 313, 314) has some admirable remarks on this fixity of opinion natural to certain states of society. See also _Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte_, vol. iii. pp. 34, 35; and for other illustrations of this unpliancy of thought, and adherence to old customs, which many writers suppose to be an eastern peculiarity but which is far more widely spread, and is, as Humboldt clearly saw, the result of an unequal distribution of power, compare _Turner's Embassy to Tibet_, p. 41; _Forbes's Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i. pp. 15, 164, vol. ii. p. 236; _Mill's History of India_, vol. ii. p. 214; _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 48; _Otter's Life of Clarke_, vol. ii. p. 109; _Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. p. 64; _Journal of Asiat. Society_, vol. viii. p. 116.

[217] 'How scrupulous the Egyptians were, above all people, in permitting the introduction of new customs in matters relating to the gods.' _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. p. 262. Compare p. 275. Thus, too, M. Bunsen notices the 'tenacity with which the Egyptians adhered to old manners and customs.' _Bunsen's Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 64. See also some remarks on the difference between this spirit and the love of novelty among the Greeks, in _Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iv. pp. 625, 626.

[218] _Herodot._ book ii. chap. 79: [Greek: patriosi de chreômenoi nomoisi allon oudena epikteôntai]: and see the note in _Baehr_, vol. i. p. 660: '[Greek: nomous] priores interpretes explicarunt _cantilenas_, _hymnos_; Schweighæuserus rectius intellexit _instituta ac mores_.' In the same way, in Timæus, Plato represents an Egyptian priest saying to Solon, [Greek: Hellênes aei paides este, gerôn de Hellên ouk estin]. And when Solon asked what he meant, [Greek: Neoi este], was the reply, [Greek: tas psychas pantes; oudemian gar en autais echete di archaian akoên palaian doxan oude mathêma chronps polion ouden]. Chap. v. in _Platonis Opera_, vol. vii. p. 242, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826.

[219] The Mexicans appear to have been even more wantonly prodigal than the Peruvians. See, respecting their immense pyramids, one of which, Cholula had a base 'twice as broad as the largest Egyptian pyramid,' _M'Culloh's Researches_, pp. 252-256; _Bullock's Mexico_, pp. 111-115, 414; _Humboldt's Nouvelle Espagne_, vol. i. pp. 240, 241.

[220] _Prescott's History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 117, vol. iii. p. 341; and _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. p. 145. See also _Haüy_, _Traité de Minéralogie_, Paris, 1801, vol. iv. p. 372.

[221] _Prescott's History of Peru_, vol. i. p. 18.

[222] Mr. Prescott (_History of Mexico_, vol. i. p. 153) says, 'We are not informed of the time occupied in building this palace; but 200,000 workmen, it is said, were employed on it. However this may be, it is certain that the Tezcucan monarchs, like those of Asia and ancient Egypt, had the control of immense masses of men, and would sometimes turn the whole population of a conquered city, including the women, into the public works. The most gigantic monuments of architecture which the world has witnessed would never have been reared by the hands of freemen.' The Mexican historian, Ixtlilxochitl, gives a curious account of one of the royal palaces. See his _Histoire de Chichiméques_, translated by Ternaux-Compans, Paris, 1840, vol. i. pp. 257-262, chap. xxxvii.

The preceding evidence, collected from sources of unquestioned credibility, proves the force of those great physical laws, which, in the most flourishing countries out of Europe, encouraged the accumulation of wealth, but prevented its dispersion; and thus secured to the upper classes a monopoly of one of the most important elements of social and political power. The result was, that in all those civilizations the great body of the people derived no benefit from the national improvements; hence, the basis of the progress being very narrow, the progress itself was very insecure.[223] When, therefore, unfavourable circumstances arose from without, it was but natural that the whole system should fall to the ground. In such countries, society, being divided against itself, was unable to stand. And there can be no doubt that long before the crisis of their actual destruction, these one-sided and irregular civilizations had begun to decay; so that their own degeneracy aided the progress of foreign invaders, and secured the overthrow of those ancient kingdoms, which, under a sounder system, might have been easily saved.

[223] This may be illustrated by a good remark of M. Matter, to the effect that when the Egyptians had once lost their race of kings, it was found impossible for the nation to reconstruct itself. _Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 68; a striking passage. In Persia, again, when the feeling of loyalty decayed, so also did the feeling of national power. _Malcolm's History of Persia_, vol. ii. p. 130. The history of the most civilized parts of Europe presents a picture exactly the reverse of this.

Thus far as to the way in which the great civilizations exterior to Europe have been affected by the peculiarities of their food, climate, and soil. It now remains for me to examine the effect of those other physical agents to which I have given the collective name of Aspects of Nature, and which will be found suggestive of some very wide and comprehensive inquiries into the influence exercised by the external world in predisposing men to certain habits of thought, and thus giving a particular tone to religion, arts, literature, and, in a word, to all the principal manifestations of the human mind. To ascertain how this is brought about, forms a necessary supplement to the investigations just concluded. For, as we have seen that climate, food, and soil mainly concern the accumulation and distribution of wealth, so also shall we see that the Aspects of Nature concern the accumulation and distribution of thought. In the first case, we have to do with the material interests of Man; in the other case with his intellectual interests. The former I have analyzed as far as I am able, and perhaps as far as the existing state of knowledge will allow.[224] But the other, namely, the relation between the Aspects of Nature and the mind of Man, involves speculations of such magnitude, and requires such a mass of materials drawn from every quarter, that I feel very apprehensive as to the result; and I need hardly say, that I make no pretensions to anything approaching an exhaustive analysis, nor can I hope to do more than generalize a few of the laws of that complicated, but as yet unexplored, process by which the external world has affected the human mind, has warped its natural movements, and too often checked its natural progress.

[224] I mean in regard to the physical and economical generalizations. As to the literature of the subject, I am conscious of many deficiencies, particularly in respect to the Mexican and Peruvian histories.

The Aspects of Nature, when considered from this point of view, are divisible into two classes: the first class being those which are most likely to excite the imagination; and the other class being those which address themselves to the understanding commonly so called, that is, to the mere logical operations of the intellect. For although it is true that, in a complete and well-balanced mind, the imagination and the understanding each play their respective parts, and are auxiliary to each other, it is also true that, in a majority of instances, the understanding is too weak to curb the imagination and restrain its dangerous licence. The tendency of advancing civilization is to remedy this disproportion, and invest the reasoning powers with that authority, which, in an early stage of Society, the imagination exclusively possesses. Whether or not there is ground for fearing that the reaction will eventually proceed too far, and that the reasoning faculties will in their turn tyrannize over the imaginative ones, is a question of the deepest interest; but, in the present condition of our knowledge, it is probably an insoluble one. At all events, it is certain that nothing like such a state has yet been seen; since, even in this age, when the imagination is more under control than in any preceding one, it has far too much power; as might be easily proved, not only from the superstitions which in every country still prevail among the vulgar, but also from that poetic reverence for antiquity, which, though it has been long diminishing, still hampers the independence, blinds the judgment, and circumscribes the originality of the educated classes.

Now, so far as natural phenomena are concerned, it is evident, that whatever inspires feelings of terror, or of great wonder, and whatever excites in the mind an idea of the vague and uncontrollable, has a special tendency to inflame the imagination, and bring under its dominion the slower and more deliberate operations of the understanding. In such cases, Man, contrasting himself with the force and majesty of Nature, becomes painfully conscious of his own insignificance. A sense of inferiority steals over him. From every quarter innumerable obstacles hem him in, and limit his individual will. His mind, appalled by the indefined and indefinable, hardly cares to scrutinize the details of which such imposing grandeur consists.[225] On the other hand, where the works of Nature are small and feeble, Man regains confidence; he seems more able to rely on his own power; he can, as it were, pass through and exercise authority in every direction. And as the phenomena are more accessible, it becomes easier for him to experiment on them, or to observe them with minuteness; an inquisitive and analytic spirit is encouraged, and he is tempted to generalize the appearances of Nature, and refer them to the laws by which they are governed.

[225] The sensation of fear, even when there is no danger, becomes strong enough to destroy the pleasure that would otherwise be felt. See, for instance, a description of the great mountain boundary of Hindostan, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xi. p. 469: 'It is necessary for a person to place himself in our situation before he can form a just conception of the scene. The depth of the valley below, the progressive elevation of the intermediate hills, and the majestic splendour of the cloud-capped Himalaya, formed so grand a picture, that the mind was impressed with a sensation of dread rather than of pleasure.' Compare vol. xiv. p. 116, Calcutta, 1822. In the Tyrol, it has been observed, that the grandeur of the mountain scenery imbues the minds of the natives with fear, and has caused the invention of many superstitious legends. _Alison's Europe_, vol. ix. pp. 79, 80.

Looking in this way at the human mind as affected by the Aspects of Nature, it is surely a remarkable fact, that all the great early civilizations were situated within and immediately adjoining the tropics, where those aspects are most sublime, most terrible, and where Nature is, in every respect, most dangerous to Man. Indeed, generally, in Asia, Africa, and America, the external world is more formidable than in Europe. This holds good not only of the fixed and permanent phenomena, such as mountains, and other great natural barriers, but also of occasional phenomena, such as earthquakes, tempests, hurricanes, pestilences; all of which are in those regions very frequent and very disastrous. These constant and serious dangers produce effects analogous to those caused by the sublimity of Nature, in so far, that in both cases there is a tendency to increase the activity of the imagination. For the peculiar province of the imagination being to deal with the unknown, every event which is unexplained, as well as important, is a direct stimulus to our imaginative faculties. In the tropics, events of this kind are more numerous than elsewhere; it therefore follows that in the tropics the imagination is most likely to triumph. A few illustrations of the working of this principle will place it in a clearer light, and will prepare the reader for the arguments based upon it.

Of those physical events which increase the insecurity of Man, earthquakes are certainly among the most striking, in regard to the loss of life which they cause, as also in regard to their sudden and unexpected occurrence. There is reason to believe that they are always preceded by atmospheric changes which strike immediately at the nervous system, and thus have a direct physical tendency to impair the intellectual powers.[226] However this may be, there can be no doubt as to the effect they produce in encouraging particular associations and habits of thought. The terror which they inspire excites the imagination even to a painful extent, and, overbalancing the judgment, predisposes men to superstitious fancies. And what is highly curious, is, that repetition, so far from blunting such feelings, strengthens them. In Peru, where earthquakes appear to be more common than in any other country,[227] every succeeding visitation increases the general dismay; so that, in some cases, the fear becomes almost insupportable.[228] The mind is thus constantly thrown into a timid and anxious state: and men witnessing the most serious dangers, which they can neither avoid nor understand, become impressed with a conviction of their own inability, and of the poverty of their own resources.[229] In exactly the same proportion, the imagination is aroused, and a belief in supernatural interference actively encouraged. Human power failing, superhuman power is called in; the mysterious and the invisible are believed to be present; and there grow up among the people those feelings of awe and of helplessness, on which all superstition is based, and without which no superstition can exist.[230]

[226] 'Une augmentation d'électricité s'y manifeste aussi presque toujours, et ils sont généralement annoncés par le mugissement des bestiaux, par l'inquiétude des animaux domestiques, et dans les hommes par cette sorte de malaise qui, en Europe, précède les orages dans les personnes nerveuses.' _Cuvier_, _Prog. des Sciences_, vol. i. p. 265. See also, on this 'Vorgefühl,' the observation of Von Hoff, in Mr. Mallet's valuable essay on earthquakes (_Brit. Assoc. for_ 1850, p. 68); and the 'foreboding' in _Tschudi's Peru_, p. 165; and a letter in _Nichols's Illustrations of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. iv. p. 504. The probable connexion between earthquakes and electricity is noticed in _Bakewell's Geology_, p. 434.

[227] 'Peru is more subject perhaps than any other country to the tremendous visitation of earthquakes.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ 1849. vol. ii. p. 499. Dr. Tschudi (_Travels in Peru_, p. 162) says of Lima, 'at an average forty-five shocks may be counted on in the year.' See also on the Peruvian earthquakes, pp. 43, 75, 87, 90.

[228] A curious instance of association of ideas conquering the deadening effect of habit. Dr. Tschudi (_Peru_, p. 170), describing the panic, says, 'no familiarity with the phenomenon can blunt this feeling.' Beale (_South-Sea Whaling Voyage_, Lond. 1839, p. 205) writes, 'it is said at Peru, that the oftener the natives of the place feel those vibrations of the earth, instead of becoming habituated to them, as persons do who are constantly exposed to other dangers, they become more filled with dismay every time the shock is repeated, so that aged people often find the terror a slight shock will produce almost insupportable.' Compare _Darwin's Journal_, pp. 422, 423. So, too, in regard to Mexican earthquakes, Mr. Ward observes, that 'the natives are both more sensible than strangers of the smaller shocks, and more alarmed by them.' _Ward's Mexico_, vol. ii. p. 55. On the physiological effects of the fear caused by earthquakes, see the remarkable statement by Osiander in _Burdach's Physiologie comme Science d'Observation_, vol. ii. pp. 223, 224. That the fear should be not deadened by familiarity, but increased by it, would hardly be expected by speculative reasoners unacquainted with the evidence; and we find, in fact, that the Pyrrhonists asserted that [Greek: hoi goun seisma par' hois synechôs apotelountai, ou thaumazontai; oud' ho hêlios, hoti kath' hêmeran horatai.] _Diog. Laert. de Vitis Philos._ lib. ix. segm. 87, vol. i. p. 591.

[229] Mr. Stephens, who gives a striking description of ancearthquake in Central America, emphatically says, 'I never felt myself so feeble a thing before.' _Stephens's Central America_, vol. i. p. 383. See also the account of the effects produced on the mind by an earthquake, in _Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 98, and the note at p. 105.

[230] The effect of earthquakes in encouraging superstition, is noticed in Lyell's admirable work, _Principles of Geology_, p. 492. Compare a myth on the origin of earthquakes in _Beausobre_, _Histoire Critique de Manichée_, vol. i. p. 243.

Further illustration of this may be found even in Europe, where such phenomena are, comparatively speaking, extremely rare. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are more frequent and more destructive in Italy, and in the Spanish and Portuguese peninsula, than in any other of the great countries; and it is precisely there that superstition is most rife, and the superstitious classes most powerful. Those were the countries where the clergy first established their authority, where the worst corruptions of Christianity took place, and where superstition has during the longest period retained the firmest hold. To this may be added another circumstance, indicative of the connexion between these physical phenomena and the predominance of the imagination. Speaking generally, the fine arts are addressed more to the imagination; the sciences to the intellect.[231] Now it is remarkable, that all the greatest painters, and nearly all the greatest sculptors, modern Europe has possessed, have been produced by the Italian and Spanish peninsulas. In regard to science, Italy has no doubt had several men of conspicuous ability; but their numbers are out of all proportion small when compared with her artists and poets. As to Spain and Portugal, the literature of those two countries is eminently poetic, and from their schools have proceeded some of the greatest painters the world has ever seen. On the other hand, the purely reasoning faculties have been neglected, and the whole Peninsula, from the earliest period to the present time, does not supply to the history of the natural sciences a single name of the highest merit; not one man whose works form an epoch in the progress of European knowledge.[232]

[231] The greatest men in science, and in fact all very great men, have no doubt been remarkable for the powers of their imagination. But in art the imagination plays a far more conspicuous part than in science; and this is what I mean to express by the proposition in the text. Sir David Brewster, indeed, thinks that Newton was deficient in imagination: 'the weakness of his imaginative powers.' _Brewster's Life of Newton_, 1855, vol. ii. p. 133. It is impossible to discuss so large a question in a note; but to my apprehension, no poet, except Dante and Shakespeare, ever had an imagination more soaring and more audacious than that possessed by Sir Isaac Newton.

[232] The remarks made by Mr. Ticknor on the absence of science in Spain, might be extended even further than he has done. See _Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature_, vol. iii. pp. 222, 223. He says, p. 237, that in 1771, the University of Salamanca being urged to teach the physical sciences, replied, 'Newton teaches nothing that would make a good logician or metaphysician, and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as Aristotle does.'

The manner in which the Aspects of Nature, when they are very threatening, stimulate the imagination,[233] and by encouraging superstition discourage knowledge, may be made still more apparent by one or two additional facts. Among an ignorant people, there is a direct tendency to ascribe all serious dangers to supernatural intervention; and a strong religious sentiment being thus aroused,[234] it constantly happens, not only that the danger is submitted to, but that it is actually worshipped. This is the case with some of the Hindus in the forest of Malabar;[235] and many similar instances will occur to whoever has studied the condition of barbarous tribes.[236] Indeed, so far is this carried, that in some countries the inhabitants, from feelings of reverential fear, refuse to destroy wild-beasts and noxious reptiles; the mischief these animals inflict being the cause of the impunity they enjoy.[237]

[233] In _Asiatic Researches_, vol. vi. pp. 35, 36, there is a good instance of an earthquake giving rise to a theological fiction. See also vol. i. pp. 154-157; and compare _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 17.

[234] See for example, _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iv. pp. 56, 57, vol. vii. p. 94; and the effect produced by a volcano, in _Journal of Geograph. Society_, vol. v. p. 388. See also vol. xx. p. 8, and a practical recognition of the principle by Sextus Empiricus, in _Tennemann's Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 292. Compare the use the clergy made of a volcanic eruption in Iceland (_Wheaton's History of the Northmen_, p. 42); and see further _Raffles' History of Java_, vol. i. pp. 29, 274, and _Tschudi's Peru_, pp. 64, 167, 171.

[235] The Hindus in the Iruari forests, says Mr. Edye, 'worship and respect everything from which they apprehend danger.' _Edye on the Coast of Malabar_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. p. 337.

[236] Dr. Prichard (_Physical History_, vol. iv. p. 501) says 'The tiger is worshipped by the Hajin tribe in the vicinity of the Garrows or Garrudus.' Compare _Transactions of Asiatic Society_, vol. iii. p. 66. Among the Garrows themselves, this feeling is so strong, that 'the tiger's nose strung round a woman's neck is considered as a great preservative in childbirth.' _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, p. 321. The Seiks have a curious superstition respecting wounds inflicted by tigers (_Burne's Bokhara_, 1834, vol. iii. p. 140); and the Malasir believe that these animals are sent as a punishment for irreligion. _Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore_, vol. ii. p. 385.

[237] The inhabitants of Sumatra are, for superstitious reasons, most unwilling to destroy tigers, though they commit frightful ravages. _Marsden's History of Sumatra_, pp. 149, 254. The Russian account of the Kamtschatkans says, 'besides the above-mentioned gods, they pay a religious regard to several animals from which they apprehend danger.' _Grieve's History of Kamtschatka_, p. 205. Bruce mentions that in Abyssinia, hyænas are considered 'enchanters' and the inhabitants 'will not touch the skin of a hyæna till it has been prayed over and exorcised by a priest.' _Murray's Life of Bruce_, p. 472. Allied to this, is the respect paid to bears (_Erman's Siberia_, vol. i. p. 492, vol. ii. pp. 42, 43); also the extensively-diffused worship of the serpent, whose wily movements are well calculated to inspire fear, and therefore rouse the religious feelings. The danger apprehended from noxious reptiles is connected with the Dews of the Zendavesta. See _Matter's Histoire du Gnosticisme_, vol. i. p. 380, Paris, 1828.

It is in this way, that the old tropical civilizations had to struggle with innumerable difficulties unknown to the temperate zone, where European civilization has long flourished. The devastations of animals hostile to man, the ravages of hurricanes, tempests, earthquakes,[238] and similar perils, constantly pressed upon them, and affected the tone of their national character. For the mere loss of life was the smallest part of the inconvenience. The real mischief was, that there were engendered in the mind, associations which made the imagination predominate over the understanding; which infused into the people a spirit of reverence instead of a spirit of inquiry; and which encouraged a disposition to neglect the investigation of natural causes, and ascribe events to the operation of supernatural ones.

[238] To give one instance of the extent to which these operate, it may be mentioned, that in 1815 an earthquake and volcanic eruption broke forth in Sumbawa, which shook the ground 'through an area of 1,000 miles in circumference,' and the detonations of which were heard at a distance of 970 geographical miles. _Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences_, p. 283; _Hitchcock's Religion of Geology_, p. 190; _Low's Sarawak_, p. 10; _Bakewell's Geology_, p. 438.

Everything we know of those countries proves how active this tendency must have been. With extremely few exceptions, health is more precarious, and disease more common, in tropical climates than in temperate ones. Now, it has been often observed, and indeed is very obvious, that the fear of death makes men more prone to seek supernatural aid than they would otherwise be. So complete is our ignorance respecting another life, that it is no wonder if even the stoutest heart should quail at the sudden approach of that dark and untried future. On this subject the reason is perfectly silent; the imagination, therefore, is uncontrolled. The operation of natural causes being brought to an end, supernatural causes are supposed to begin. Hence it is, that whatever increases in any country the amount of dangerous disease, has an immediate tendency to strengthen superstition, and aggrandize the imagination at the expense of the understanding. This principle is so universal, that, in every part of the world, the vulgar ascribe to the intervention of the Deity those diseases which are peculiarly fatal, and especially those which have a sudden and mysterious appearance. In Europe it used to be believed that every pestilence was a manifestation of the divine anger;[239] and this opinion, though it has long been dying away, is by no means extinct, even in the most civilized countries.[240] Superstition of this kind will of course be strongest, either where medical knowledge is most backward, or where disease is most abundant. In countries where both these conditions are fulfilled, the superstition is supreme; and even where only one of the conditions exists, the tendency is so irresistible, that, I believe, there are no barbarous people who do not ascribe to their good or evil deities, not only extraordinary diseases, but even many of the ordinary ones to which they are liable.[241]

[239] In the sixteenth century, 'Les différentes sectes s'accordèrent néanmoins à regarder les maladies graves et dangereuses comme un effet immédiat de la puissance divine; idée que Fernel contribua encore à répandre davantage. On trouve dans Paré plusieurs passages de la Bible, cités pour prouver que la colère de Dieu est la seule cause de la peste, qu'elle suffit pour provoquer ce fléau, et que sans elle les causes éloignées ne sauraient agir.' _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. iii. p. 112. The same learned writer says of the Middle Ages (vol. ii. p. 372), 'D'après l'esprit généralement répandu dans ces siècles de barbarie, on croyait la lèpre envoyée d'une manière immédiate par Dieu.' See also pp. 145, 346, 431. Bishop Heber says that the Hindus deprive lepers of caste and of the right of possessing property, because they are objects of 'Heaven's wrath.' _Heber's Journey through India_, vol. ii. p. 330. On the Jewish opinion, see _Le Clerc_, _Bibliothèque Universelle_, vol. iv. p. 402, Amsterdam, 1702. And as to the early Christians, see _Maury_, _Légendes Pieuses_, p. 68, Paris, 1843: though M. Maury ascribes to 'les idées orientales reçues par le christianisme,' what is due to the operation of a much wider principle.

[240] Under the influence of the inductive philosophy, the theological theory of disease was seriously weakened before the middle of the seventeenth century; and by the middle, or at all events the latter half, of the eighteenth century, it had lost all its partisans among scientific men. At present it still lingers on among the vulgar; and traces of it may be found in the writings of the clergy, and in the works of other persons little acquainted with physical knowledge. When the cholera broke out in England, attempts were made to revive the old notion; but the spirit of the age was too strong for such efforts to succeed; and it may be safely predicted that men will never return to their former opinions, unless they first return to their former ignorance. As a specimen of the ideas which the cholera tended to excite, and of their antagonism to all scientific investigation, I may refer to a letter written in 1832 by Mrs. Grant, a woman of some accomplishments, and not devoid of influence (_Correspondence of Mrs. Grant_, London, 1844, vol. iii. pp. 216, 217), where she states that 'it appears to me great presumption to indulge so much as people do in speculation and conjecture about a disease so evidently a peculiar infliction, and different from all other modes of suffering hitherto known.' This desire to limit human speculation is precisely the feeling which long retained Europe in darkness; since it effectually prevented those free inquiries to which we are indebted for all the real knowledge we possess. The doubts of Boyle upon this subject supply a curious instance of the transitory state through which the mind was passing in the seventeenth century, and by which the way was prepared for the great liberating movement of the next age. Boyle, after stating both sides of the question, namely, the theological and the scientific, adds, 'and it is the less likely that these sweeping and contagious maladies should be always sent for the punishment of impious men, because I remember to have read in good authors, that as some plagues destroyed both men and beasts, so some other did peculiarly destroy brute animals of very little consideration or use to men, as cats,' &c.

'Upon these and the like reasons, I have sometimes suspected that in the controversy about the origin of the plague, namely, whether it be natural or supernatural, neither of the contending parties is altogether in the right; since it is very possible that some pestilences may not break forth without an extraordinary, though perhaps not immediate, interposition of Almighty God, provoked by the sins of men; and yet other plagues may be produced by a tragical concourse of merely natural causes.' _Discourse on the Air_, in _Boyle's Works_, vol. iv. pp. 288, 289. '_Neither of the contending parties is altogether in the right!_'--an instructive passage towards understanding the compromising spirit of the seventeenth century; standing midway, as it did, between the credulity of the sixteenth, and the scepticism of the eighteenth.

[241] To the historian of the human mind, the whole question is so full of interest, that I shall refer in this note to all the evidence I have been able to collect: and whoever will compare the following passages may satisfy himself that there is in every part of the world an intimate relation between ignorance respecting the nature and proper treatment of a disease, and the belief that such disease is caused by supernatural power, and is to be cured by it. _Burton's Sindh_, p. 146, London, 1851; _Ellis's Polynesian Researches_, vol. i. p. 395, vol. iii. pp. 36, 41, vol. iv. pp. 293, 334, 375; _Cullen's Works_, Edinb. 1827, vol. ii. pp. 414, 434; _Esquirol_, _Maladies Mentales_, vol. i. pp. 274, 482; _Cabanis_, _Rapports du Physique et du Moral_, p. 277; _Volney_, _Voyage en Syrie_, vol. i. p. 426; _Turner's Embassy to Tibet_, p. 104; _Syme's Embassy to Ava_, vol. ii. p. 211; _Ellis's Tour through Hawaii_, pp. 282, 283, 332, 333; _Renouard_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. i. p. 398; _Broussais_, _Examen des Doctrines Médicales_, vol. i. pp. 261, 262; _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 485 (compare p. 251, and vol. vi. p. 213); _Grieve's History of Kamtschatka_, p. 217; _Journal of Statist. Soc._ vol. x. p. 10; _Buchanan's North American Indians_, pp. 256, 257; _Halkett's North American Indians_, pp. 36, 37, 388, 393, 394; _Catlin's North American Indians_, vol. i. pp. 35-41; _Briggs on the Aboriginal Tribes of India_, in _Report of Brit. Assoc. for 1850_, p. 172; _Transactions of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. ii. p. 30; _Percival's Ceylon_, p. 201; _Buchanan's Journey through the Mysore_, vol. ii. pp. 27, 152, 286, 528, vol. iii. pp. 23, 188, 253 (so, too, M. Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, _Anomalies de l'Organization_, vol. iii. p. 380, says that when we were quite ignorant of the cause of monstrous births, the phenomenon was ascribed to the Deity,--'de là aussi l'intervention supposée de la divinité;' and for an exact verification of this, compare _Burdach_, _Traité de Physiologie_, vol. ii. p. 247, with _Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol. xvi. p. 113); _Ellis's History of Madagascar_, vol. i. pp. 224, 225; _Prichard's Physical History_, vol. i. p. 207, vol. v. p. 492; _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p. 158; _Asiatic Researches_, vol. iii. pp. 29, 156, vol. iv. pp. 56, 58, 74, vol. xvi. pp. 215, 280; _Neander's History of the Church_, vol. iii. p. 119; _Crawfurd's History of the Indian Archipelago_, vol. i. p. 328; _Low's Sarawak_, pp. 174, 261; _Cook's Voyages_, vol. i. p. 229; _Mariner's Tonga Islands_, vol. i. pp. 194, 350-360, 374, 438, vol. ii. pp. 172, 230; _Huc's Travels in Tartary and Thibet_, vol. i. pp. 74-77; _Richardson's Travels in the Sahara_, vol. i. p. 27; _M'Culloh's Researches_, p. 105; _Journal of Geog. Soc._ vol. i. p. 41, vol. iv. p. 260, vol. xiv. p. 37. And in regard to Europe, compare _Spence_, _Origin of the Laws of Europe_, p. 322; _Turner's Hist. of England_, vol. iii. p. 443; _Phillips on Scrofula_, p. 255; _Otter's Life of Clarke_, vol. i. pp. 265, 266, which may be illustrated by the 'sacred' disease of Cambyses, no doubt epilepsy; see _Herodot._ lib. iii. chap. xxxiv. vol. ii. p. 63.

Here, then, we have another specimen of the unfavourable influence, which, in the old civilizations, external phenomena exercised over the human mind. For those parts of Asia where the highest refinement was reached, are, from various physical causes, much more unhealthy than the most civilized parts of Europe.[242] This fact alone must have produced a considerable effect on the national character,[243] and the more so, as it was aided by those other circumstances which I have pointed out, all tending in the same direction. To this may be added, that the great plagues by which Europe has at different periods been scourged, have, for the most part, proceeded from the East, which is their natural birthplace, and where they are most fatal. Indeed, of those cruel diseases now existing in Europe, scarcely one is indigenous; and the worst of them were imported from tropical countries in and after the first century of the Christian era.[244]

[242] Heat, moisture, and consequent rapid decomposition of vegetable matter, are certainly among the causes of this; and to them may perhaps be added the electrical state of the atmosphere in the tropics. Compare _Holland's Medical Notes_, p. 477; _M'William's Medical Expedition to the Niger_, pp. 157, 185; _Simon's Pathology_, p. 269; _Forry's Climate and its Endemic Influences_, p. 158. M. Lepelletier says, rather vaguely (_Physiologie Médicale_, vol. iv. p. 527), that the temperate zones are 'favorables à l'exercice complet et régulier des phénomènes vitaux.'

[243] And must have strengthened the power of the clergy; for, as Charlevoix says with great frankness, 'pestilences are the harvests of the ministers of God.' _Southey's History of Brazil_, vol. ii. p. 254.

[244] For evidence of the extra-European origin of European diseases, some of which, such as the small-pox, have passed from epidemics into endemics, compare _Encyclop. of the Medical Sciences_, 4to, 1847, p. 728; _Transactions of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. pp. 54, 55; _Michaelis on the Laws of Moses_, vol. iii. p. 313; _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. ii. pp. 33, 195; _Wallace's Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind_, pp. 81, 82; _Huetiana_, Amst. 1723, pp. 132-135; _Sanders on the Small Pox_, Edinb. 1813, pp. 3-4; _Wilks's Hist. of the South of India_, vol. iii. pp. 16-21; _Clot-Bey de la Peste_, Paris, 1840, p. 227.

Summing up these facts, it may be stated, that in the civilizations exterior to Europe, all nature conspired to increase the authority of the imaginative faculties, and weaken the authority of the reasoning ones. With the materials now existing, it would be possible to follow this vast law to its remotest consequences, and show how in Europe it is opposed by another law diametrically opposite, and by virtue of which the tendency of natural phenomena is, on the whole, to limit the imagination, and embolden the understanding: thus inspiring Man with confidence in his own resources, and facilitating the increase of his knowledge, by encouraging that bold, inquisitive, and scientific spirit, which is constantly advancing, and on which all future progress must depend.

It is not to be supposed that I can trace in detail the way in which, owing to these peculiarities, the civilization of Europe has diverged from all others that preceded it. To do this, would require a learning and a reach of thought to which hardly any single man ought to pretend; since it is one thing to have a perception of a large and general truth, and it is another thing to follow out that truth in all its ramifications, and prove it by such evidence as will satisfy ordinary readers. Those, indeed, who are accustomed to speculations of this character, and are able to discern in the history of man something more than a mere relation of events, will at once understand that in these complicated subjects, the wider any generalization is, the greater will be the chance of apparent exceptions; and that when the theory covers a very large space, the exceptions may be innumerable, and yet the theory remain perfectly accurate. The two fundamental propositions which I hope to have demonstrated, are, 1st, That there are certain natural phenomena which act on the human mind by exciting the imagination; and 2dly, That those phenomena are much more numerous out of Europe than in it. If these two propositions are admitted, it inevitably follows, that in those countries where the imagination has received the stimulus, some specific effects must have been produced; unless, indeed, the effects have been neutralized by other causes. Whether or not there have been antagonistic causes, is immaterial to the truth of the theory, which is based on the two propositions just stated. In a scientific point of view, therefore, the generalization is complete; and it would perhaps be prudent to leave it as it now stands, rather than attempt to confirm it by further illustrations, since all particular facts are liable to be erroneously stated, and are sure to be contradicted by those who dislike the conclusions they corroborate. But in order to familiarize the reader with the principles I have put forward, it does seem advisable that a few instances should be given of their actual working: and I will, therefore, briefly notice the effects they have produced in the three great divisions of Literature, Religion, and Art. In each of these departments, I will endeavour to indicate how the leading features have been affected by the Aspects of Nature; and with a view of simplifying the inquiry, I will take the two most conspicuous instances on each side, and compare the manifestations of the intellect of Greece with those of the intellect of India: these being the two countries respecting which the materials are most ample, and in which the physical contrasts are most striking.

If, then, we look at the ancient literature of India, even during its best period, we shall find the most remarkable evidence of the uncontrolled ascendency of the imagination. In the first place, we have the striking fact that scarcely any attention has been paid to prose composition; all the best writers having devoted themselves to poetry, as being most congenial to the national habits of thought. Their works on grammar, on law, on history, on medicine, on mathematics, on geography, and on metaphysics, are nearly all poems, and are put together according to a regular system of versification.[245] The consequence is, that while prose writing is utterly despised, the art of poetry has been cultivated so assiduously, that the Sanscrit can boast of metres more numerous and more complicated than have ever been possessed by any of the European languages.[246]

[245] 'So verwandelt das geistige Leben des Hindu sich in wahre Poesie, und das bezeichnende Merkmal seiner ganzen Bildung ist: Herrschaft der Einbildungskraft über den Verstand; im geraden Gegensatz mit der Bildung des Europäers, deren allgemeiner Charakter in der Herrschaft des Verstandes über die Einbildungskraft besteht. Es wird dadurch begreiflich, dass die Literatur der Hindus nur eine poetische ist; dass sie überreich an Dichterwerken, aber arm am wissenschaftlichen Schriften sind; dass ihre heiligen Schriften, ihre Gesetze und Sagen poetisch, und grösstentheils in Versen geschrieben sind; ja dass Lehrbücher der Grammatik, der Heilkunde, der Mathematik und Erdbeschreibung in Versen verfasst sind.' _Rhode_, _Religiöse Bildung der Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 626. Thus, too, we are told respecting one of their most celebrated metaphysical systems, that 'the best text of the Sanchya is a short treatise in verse.' _Colebrooke on the Philosophy of the Hindus_, in _Transactions of Asiatic Society_, vol. i. p. 23. And in another place the same high authority says (_Asiatic Researches_, vol. x. p. 439), 'the metrical treatises on law and other sciences are almost entirely composed in this easy verse.' M. Klaproth, in an analysis of a Sanscrit history of Cashmere, says, 'comme presque toutes les compositions hindoues, il est écrit en vers.' _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. vii. p. 8, Paris, 1825. See also, in vol. vi. pp. 175, 176, the remarks of M. Burnouf: 'Les philosophes indiens, comme s'ils ne pouvaient échapper aux influences poétiques de leur climat, traitent les questions de la métaphysique le plus abstraite par similitudes et métaphores.' Compare vol. vi. p. 4, 'le génie indien si poétique et si religieux;' and see _Cousin_, _Hist. de la Philosophie_, II. série, vol. i. p. 27.

[246] Mr. Yates says of the Hindus, that no other people have ever 'presented an equal variety of poetic compositions. The various metres of Greece and Rome have filled Europe with astonishment; but what are these, compared with the extensive range of Sanscrit metres under its three classes of poetical writing?' _Yates on Sanscrit Alliteration_, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xx. p. 159, Calcutta, 1836. See also on the Sanscrit metres, p. 321, and an Essay by Colebrooke, vol. x. pp. 389-474. On the metrical system of the Vedas, see Mr. Wilson's note in the _Rig Veda Sanhita_, vol. ii. p. 135.

This peculiarity in the form of Indian literature is accompanied by a corresponding peculiarity in its spirit. For it is no exaggeration to say, that in that literature every thing is calculated to set the reason of man at open defiance. An imagination, luxuriant even to disease, runs riot on every occasion. This is particularly seen in those productions which are most eminently national, such as the Ramayana, the Mahabharat, and the Puranas in general. But we also find it even in their geographical and chronological systems, which of all others might be supposed least liable to imaginative flights. A few examples of the statements put forward in the most authoritative books, will supply the means of instituting a comparison with the totally opposite condition of the European intellect, and will give the reader some idea of the extent to which credulity can proceed, even among a civilized people.[247]

[247] In Europe, as we shall see in the sixth chapter of this volume; the credulity was at one time extraordinary; but the age was then barbarous, and barbarism is always credulous. On the other hand, the examples gathered from Indian literature will be taken from the works of a lettered people, written in a language extremely rich, and so highly polished, that some competent judges have declared it equal, if not superior, to the Greek.

Of all the various ways in which the imagination has distorted truth, there is none that has worked so much harm as an exaggerated respect for past ages. This reverence for antiquity is repugnant to every maxim of reason, and is merely the indulgence of a poetic sentiment in favour of the remote and unknown. It is, therefore, natural that, in periods when the intellect was comparatively speaking inert, this sentiment should have been far stronger than it now is; and there can be little doubt that it will continue to grow weaker, and that in the same proportion the feeling of progress will gain ground; so that veneration for the past will be succeeded by hope for the future. But formerly the veneration was supreme, and innumerable traces of it may be found in the literature and popular creed of every country. It is this, for instance, which inspired the poets with their notion of a golden age, in which the world was filled with peace, in which evil passions were stilled, and crimes were unknown. It is this, again, which gave to theologians their idea of the primitive virtue and simplicity of man, and of his subsequent fall from that high estate. And it is this same principle which diffused a belief that in the olden times, men were not only more virtuous and happy, but also physically superior in the structure of their bodies; and that by this means they attained to a larger stature, and lived to a greater age, than is possible for us, their feeble and degenerate descendants.

Opinions of this kind, being adopted by the imagination in spite of the understanding, it follows that the strength of such opinions becomes, in any country, one of the standards by which we may estimate the predominance of the imaginative faculties. Applying this test to the literature of India, we shall find a striking confirmation of the conclusions already drawn. The marvellous feats of antiquity with which the Sanscrit books abound, are so long and so complicated, that it would occupy too much space to give even an outline of them; but there is one class of these singular fictions which is well worth attention, and admits of being briefly stated. I allude to the extraordinary age which man was supposed to have attained in former times. A belief in the longevity of the human race, at an early period of the world, was the natural product of those feelings which ascribed to the ancients an universal superiority over the moderns; and this we see exemplified in some of the Christian, and in many of the Hebrew writings. But the statements in these works are tame and insignificant when compared with what is preserved in the literature of India. On this, as on every subject, the imagination of the Hindus distanced all competition. Thus, among an immense number of similar facts, we find it recorded that in ancient times the duration of the life of common men was 80,000 years,[248] and that holy men lived to be upwards of 100,000.[249] Some died a little sooner, others a little later; but in the most flourishing period of antiquity, if we take all classes together, 100,000 years was the average.[250] Of one king, whose name was Yudhishthir, it is casually mentioned that he reigned 27,000 years;[251] while another, called Alarka, reigned 66,000.[252] They were cut off in their prime, since there are several instances of the early poets living to be about half-a-million.[253] But the most remarkable case is that of a very shining character in Indian history, who united in his single person the functions of a king and a saint. This eminent man lived in a pure and virtuous age, and his days were, indeed, long in the land; since, when he was made king, he was two million years old: he then reigned 6,300,000 years; having done which, he resigned his empire, and lingered on for 100,000 years more.[254]

[248] 'The limit of life was vol. xvi. p. 456, Calcutta, 1828. 80,000 years.' _Asiatic Researches_. This was likewise the estimate of the Tibetan divines, according to whom men formerly 'parvenaient à l'âge de 80,000 ans.' _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. iii. p. 199, Paris, 1823.

[249] 'Den Hindu macht dieser Widerspruch nicht verlegen, da er seine Heiligen 100,000 Jahre und länger leben lässt.' _Rhode_, _Relig. Bildung der Hindus_, vol. i. p. 175.

[250] In the _Dabistan_, vol. ii. p. 47, it is stated of the earliest inhabitants of the world, that 'the duration of human life in this age extended to one hundred thousand common years.'

[251] Wilford (_Asiatic Researches_, vol. v. p. 242) says, 'When the Puranics speak of the kings of ancient times, they are equally extravagant. According to them, King Yudhishthir reigned seven-and-twenty thousand years.'

[252] 'For sixty thousand and sixty hundred years no other youthful monarch except Alarka reigned over the earth.' _Vishnu Purana_, p. 408.

[253] And sometimes more. In the Essay on Indian Chronology in _Works of Sir W. Jones_, vol. i. p. 325, we hear of 'a conversation between Valmic and Vyasa, ... two bards whose ages were separated by a period of 864,000 years.' This passage is also in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. ii. p. 399.

[254] 'He was the first king, first anchoret, and first saint; and is therefore entitled Prathama-Raja, Prathama Bhicshacara, Prathama Jina, and Prathama Tirthancara. At the time of his inauguration as king, his age was 2,000,000 years. He reigned 6,300,000 years, and then resigned his empire to his sons: and having employed 100,000 years in passing through the several stages of austerity and sanctity, departed from this world on the summit of a mountain named Ashtapada.' _Asiatic Researches_, vol. ix. p. 305.

The same boundless reverence for antiquity made the Hindus refer every thing important to the most distant periods; and they frequently assign a date which is absolutely bewildering.[255] Their great collection of laws, called the _Institutes of Menu_, is certainly less than 3,000 years old; but the Indian chronologists, so far from being satisfied with this, ascribe to them an age that the sober European mind finds a difficulty even in conceiving. According to the best native authorities, these Institutes were revealed to man about two thousand million years before the present era.[256]

[255] 'Speculationen über Zahlen sind dem Inder so geläufig, dass selbst die Sprache einen Ausdruck hat für eine Unität mit 63 Nullen, nämlich Asanke, eben weil die Berechnung der Weltperioden diese enorme Grössen nothwendig machte, denn jene einfachen 12,000 Jahre schienen einem Volke, welches so gerne die höchstmögliche Potenz auf seine Gottheit übertragen mögte, viel zu geringe zu seyn.' _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. ii. p. 298.

[256] _Elphinstone's History of India_, p. 136, 'a period exceeding 4,320,000 multiplied by six times seventy-one.'

All this is but a part of that love of the remote, that straining after the infinite, and that indifference to the present, which characterizes every branch of the Indian intellect. Not only in literature, but also in religion and in art, this tendency is supreme. To subjugate the understanding, and exalt the imagination, is the universal principle. In the dogmas of their theology, in the character of their gods, and even in the forms of their temples, we see how the sublime and threatening aspects of the external world have filled the mind of the people with those images of the grand and the terrible, which they strive to reproduce in a visible form, and to which they owe the leading peculiarities of their national culture.

Our view of this vast process may be made clearer by comparing it with the opposite condition of Greece. In Greece, we see a country altogether the reverse of India. The works of nature, which in India are of startling magnitude, are in Greece far smaller, feebler, and in every way less threatening to man. In the great centre of Asiatic civilization, the energies of the human race are confined, and as it were intimidated, by the surrounding phenomena. Besides the dangers incidental to tropical climates, there are those noble mountains, which seem to touch the sky, and from whose sides are discharged mighty rivers, which no art can divert from their course, and which no bridge has ever been able to span. There, too, are impassable forests, whole countries lined with interminable jungle, and beyond them, again, dreary and boundless deserts; all teaching Man his own feebleness, and his inability to cope with natural forces. Without, and on either side, there are great seas, ravaged by tempests far more destructive than any known in Europe, and of such sudden violence, that it is impossible to guard against their effects. And, as if in those regions every thing combined to cramp the activity of Man, the whole line of coast, from the mouth of the Ganges to the extreme south of the peninsula, does not contain a single safe and capacious harbour, not one port that affords a refuge, which is perhaps more necessary there than in any other part of the world.[257]

[257] Symes (_Embassy to Ava_, vol. iii. p. 278) says: 'From the mouth of the Ganges to Cape Comorin, the whole range of our continental territory, there is not a single harbour capable of affording shelter to a vessel of 500 tons burden.' Indeed, according to Percival, there is with the exception of Bombay, no harbour, 'either on the Coromandel or Malabar coasts, in which ships can moor in safety at all seasons of the year.' _Percival's Account of Ceylon_, pp. 2, 15, 66.

But in Greece, the aspects of nature are so entirely different, that the very conditions of existence are changed. Greece, like India, forms a peninsula; but while in the Asiatic country every thing is great and terrible, in the European country every thing is small and feeble. The whole of Greece occupies a space somewhat less than the kingdom of Portugal,[258] that is about a fortieth part of what is now called Hindustan.[259] Situated in the most accessible part of a narrow sea, it had easy contact on the east with Asia Minor, on the west with Italy, on the south with Egypt. Dangers of all kinds were far less numerous than in the tropical civilizations. The climate was more healthy;[260] earthquakes were less frequent; hurricanes were less disastrous; wild-beasts and noxious animals less abundant. In regard to the other great features, the same law prevails. The highest mountains in Greece are less than one-third of the Himalaya, so that nowhere do they reach the limit of perpetual snow.[261] As to rivers, not only is there nothing approaching those imposing volumes which are poured down from the mountains of Asia, but nature is so singularly sluggish, that neither in Northern nor in Southern Greece do we find any thing beyond a few streams, which are easily forded, and which, indeed, in the summer season, are frequently dried up.[262]

[258] 'Altogether its area is somewhat less than that of Portugal.' _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 302; and the same remark in _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 2, and in _Heeren's Ancient Greece_, 1845, p. 16. M. Heeren says, 'But even if we add all the islands, its square contents are a third less than those of Portugal.'

[259] The area of Hindostan being, according to Mr. M'Culloch (_Geog. Dict._ 1849, vol. i. p. 993), 'between 1,200,000 and 1,300,000 square miles.'

[260] In the best days of Greece, those alarming epidemics, by which the country was subsequently ravaged, were comparatively little known: see _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. iii. p. 134, vol. viii. p. 471. This may be owing to large cosmical causes, or to the simple fact, that the different forms of pestilence had not yet been imported from the East by actual contact. On the vague accounts we possess of the earlier plagues, see _Clot-Bey de la Peste_, Paris, 1840. pp. 21, 46, 184. The relation even of Thucydides is more satisfactory to scholars than to pathologists.

[261] 'Mount Guino, the highest point in Greece, and near its northern boundary, is 8,239 feet high.... No mountain in Greece reaches the limit of perpetual snow.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ 1849, vol. i. p. 924. Compare the table of mountains in Baker's Memoir on North Greece, in _Journal of Geographical Society_, vol. vii. p. 94, with _Bakewell's Geology_, pp. 621, 622.

[262] 'Greece has no navigable river.' _M'Culloch's Geog. Dict._ vol. i. p. 924. 'Most of the rivers of Greece are torrents in early spring, and dry before the end of the summer.' _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. ii. p. 286.

These striking differences in the material phenomena of the two countries gave rise to corresponding differences in their mental associations. For as all ideas must arise partly from what are called spontaneous operations in the mind, and partly from what is suggested to the mind by the external world, it was natural that so great an alteration in one of the causes should produce an alteration in the effects. The tendency of the surrounding phenomena was in India to inspire fear; in Greece to give confidence. In India Man was intimidated; in Greece he was encouraged. In India obstacles of every sort were so numerous, so alarming, and apparently so inexplicable, that the difficulties of life could only be solved by constantly appealing to the direct agency of supernatural causes. Those causes being beyond the province of the understanding, the resources of the imagination were incessantly occupied in studying them; the imagination itself was overworked, its activity became dangerous, it encroached on the understanding, and the equilibrium of the whole was destroyed. In Greece opposite circumstances were followed by opposite results. In Greece Nature was less dangerous, less intrusive, and less mysterious than in India. In Greece, therefore, the human mind was less appalled, and less superstitious; natural causes began to be studied; physical science first became possible; and Man, gradually waking to a sense of his own power, sought to investigate events with a boldness not to be expected in those other countries, where the pressure of Nature troubled his independence, and suggested ideas with which knowledge is incompatible.

The effect of these habits of thought on the national religion must be very obvious to whoever has compared the popular creed of India with that of Greece. The mythology of India, like that of every tropical country, is based upon terror, and upon terror, too, of the most extravagant kind. Evidence of the universality of this feeling abounds in the sacred books of the Hindus, in their traditions, and even in the very form and appearance of their gods. And so deeply is all this impressed on the mind, that the most popular deities are invariably those with whom images of fear are most intimately associated. Thus, for example, the worship of Siva is more general than any other; and as to its antiquity, there is reason to believe that it was borrowed by the Brahmins from the original Indians.[263] At all events, it is very ancient, and very popular; and Siva himself forms, with Brahma and Vishnu, the celebrated Hindu Triad. We need not, therefore, be surprised that with this god are connected images of terror, such as nothing but a tropical imagination could conceive. Siva is represented to the Indian mind as a hideous being, encircled by a girdle of snakes, with a human skull in his hand, and wearing a necklace composed of human bones. He has three eyes; the ferocity of his temper is marked by his being clothed in a tiger's skin; he is represented as wandering about like a madman, and over his left shoulder the deadly cobra di capella rears its head. This monstrous creation of an awe-struck fancy has a wife Doorga, called sometimes Kali, and sometimes by other names.[264] She has a body of dark blue; while the palms of her hands are red, to indicate her insatiate appetite for blood. She has four arms, with one of which she carries the skull of a giant; her tongue protrudes, and hangs lollingly from her mouth; round her waist are the hands of her victims; and her neck is adorned with human heads strung together in a ghastly row.[265]

[263] See Stevenson on _The Anti-Brahmanical Religion of the Hindus_, in _Journal of Asiatic Society_, vol. viii. pp. 331, 332, 336, 338. Mr. Wilson (_Journal_, vol. iii. p. 204) says, 'The prevailing form of the Hindu religion in the south of the peninsula was, at the commencement of the Christian era, and some time before it most probably, that of Siva.' See also vol. v. p. 85, where it is stated that Siva 'is the only Hindu god to whom honour is done at Ellora.' Compare _Transac. of Soc. of Bombay_, vol. iii. p. 521; _Heeren's Asiatic Nations_, 1846, vol. ii. pp. 62, 66. On the philosophical relations between the followers of Siva and those of Vishnu, see _Ritter's Hist. of Ancient Philosophy_, vol. iv. pp. 334, 335; and the noticeable fact (_Buchanan's Mysore_, vol. ii. p. 410), that even the Naimar caste, whose 'proper deity' is Vishnu, 'wear on their foreheads the mark of Siva.' As to the worship of Siva in the time of Alexander the Great, see _Thirlwall's History of Greece_, vol. vii. p. 36; and for further evidence of its extent, _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. i. pp. 29, 147, 206, and _Transac. of Asiatic Society_, vol. ii. pp. 50, 294.

[264] So it is generally stated by the Hindu theologians; but, according to Rammohun Roy, Siva had two wives. See _Rammohun Roy on the Veds_, p. 90.

[265] On these attributes and representations of Siva and Doorga, see _Rhode_, _Religiöse Bildung der Hindus_, vol. ii. p. 241; _Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus_, pp. 63, 92; _Bohlen_, _das alte Indien_, vol. i. p. 207; _Ward's Religion of the Hindoos_, vol. i. pp. xxxvii. 27, 145; _Transac. of Society of Bombay_, vol. i. pp. 215, 221. Compare the curious account of an image supposed to represent Mahadeo, in _Journal Asiatique_, I. série, vol. i. p. 354, Paris, 1822.

If we now turn to Greece, we find, even in the infancy of its religion, not the faintest trace of any thing approaching to this. For, in Greece, the causes of fear being less abundant, the expression of terror was less common. The Greeks, therefore, were by no means disposed to incorporate into their religion those feelings of dread natural to the Hindus. The tendency of Asiatic civilization was to widen the distance between men and their deities; the tendency of Greek civilization was to diminish it. Thus it is, that in Hindostan all the gods had something monstrous about them; as Vishnu with four hands, Brahma with five heads, and the like.[266] But the gods of Greece were always represented in forms entirely human.[267] In that country, no artist would have gained attention, if he had presumed to portray them in any other shape. He might make them stronger than men, he might make them more beautiful; but still they must be men. The analogy between God and Man, which excited the religious feelings of the Greeks, would have been fatal to those of the Hindus.

[266] _Ward on the Religion of the Hindoos_, vol. i. p. 35; _Transac. of Society of Bombay_, vol. i. p. 223. Compare the gloss in the _Dabistan_, vol. ii. p. 202.

[267] 'The Greek gods were formed like men, with greatly increased powers and faculties, and acted as men would do if so circumstanced, but with a dignity and energy suited to their nearer approach to perfection. The Hindu gods, on the other hand, though endued with human passions, have always something monstrous in their appearance, and wild and capricious in their conduct. They are of various colours, red, yellow, and blue; some have twelve heads, and most have four hands. They are often enraged without a cause, and reconciled without a motive.' _Elphinstone's History of India_, pp. 96, 97. See also _Erskine on the Temple of Elephanta_, in _Transac. of Society of Bombay_, vol. i. p. 246; and the _Dabistan_, vol. i. p. cxi.

This difference between the artistic expressions of the two religions was accompanied by an exactly similar difference between their theological traditions. In the Indian books, the imagination is exhausted in relating the feats of the gods; and the more obviously impossible any achievement is, the greater the pleasure with which it was ascribed to them. But the Greek gods had not only human forms, but also human attributes, human pursuits, and human tastes.[268] The men of Asia, to whom every object of nature was a source of awe, acquired such habits of reverence, that they never dared to assimilate their own actions with the actions of their deities. The men of Europe, encouraged by the safety and inertness of the material world, did not fear to strike a parallel, from which they would have shrunk had they lived amid the dangers of a tropical country. It is thus that the Greek divinities are so different from those of the Hindus, that in comparing them we seem to pass from one creation into another. The Greeks generalized their observations upon the human mind, and then applied them to the gods.[269] The coldness of women was figured in Diana; their beauty and sensuality in Venus; their pride in Juno; their accomplishments in Minerva. To the ordinary avocations of the gods the same principle was applied. Neptune was a sailor; Vulcan was a smith; Apollo was sometimes a fiddler, sometimes a poet, sometimes a keeper of oxen. As to Cupid, he was a wanton boy, who played with his bow and arrows; Jupiter was an amorous and good-natured king; while Mercury was indifferently represented either as a trustworthy messenger, or else as a common and notorious thief.

[268] 'In the material polytheism of other leading ancient nations, the Egyptians, for example, the incarnation of the Deity was chiefly, or exclusively, confined to animals, monsters, or other fanciful emblems.... In Greece, on the other hand, it was an almost necessary result of the spirit and grace with which the deities were embodied in human forms, that they should also be burdened with human interests and passions. Heaven, like earth, had its courts and palaces, its trades and professions, its marriages, intrigues, divorces.' _Mure's History of the Literature of Ancient Greece_, vol. i. pp. 471, 472. So, too, Tennemann (_Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. iii. p. 419): 'Diese Götter haben Menschengestalt.... Haben die Götter aber nicht nur menschliche Gestalt, sondern auch einen menschlichen Körper, so sind sie als Menschen auch denselben Unvollkommenheiten, Krankheiten und dem Tode unterworfen; dieses streitet mit dem Begriffe,' _i.e._ of Epicurus. Compare _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 596: 'The mythical age was peopled with a mingled aggregate of gods, heroes, and men, so confounded together, that it was often impossible to distinguish to which class any individual name belonged.' See also the complaint of Xenophanes, in _Müller's Hist. of Lit. of Greece_, London, 1856, p. 251.

[269] The same remark applies to beauty of form, which they first aimed at in the statues of men, and then brought to bear upon the statues of the gods. This is well put in Mr. Grote's important work, _History of Greece_, vol. iv. pp. 133, 134, edit. 1847.

Precisely the same tendency to approximate human forces towards superhuman ones, is displayed in another peculiarity of the Greek religion. I mean, that in Greece we for the first time meet with hero-worship, that is, the deification of mortals. According to the principles already laid down, this could not be expected in a tropical civilization, where the Aspects of Nature filled Man with a constant sense of his own incapacity. It is, therefore, natural that it should form no part of the ancient Indian religion;[270] neither was it known to the Egyptians,[271] nor to the Persians,[272] nor, so far as I am aware, to the Arabians.[273] But in Greece, Man being less humbled, and, as it were, less eclipsed, by the external world, thought more of his own powers, and human nature did not fall into that discredit in which it elsewhere sank. The consequence was, that the deification of mortals was a recognized part of the national religion at a very early period in the history of Greece;[274] and this has been found so natural to Europeans, that the same custom was afterwards renewed with eminent success by the Romish Church. Other circumstances, of a very different character, are gradually eradicating this form of idolatry; but its existence is worth observing, as one of the innumerable illustrations of the way in which European civilization has diverged from all those that preceded it.[275]

[270] 'But the worship of deified heroes is no part of that system.' _Colebrooke on the Vedas_, in _Asiatic Researches_, vol. viii. p. 495.

[271] _Mackay's Religious Development_, vol. ii. p. 53, Lond. 1850. Compare _Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iv. pp. 148, 318; and _Matter_, _Histoire de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie_, vol. i. p. 2; the 'culte des grands hommes,' which afterwards arose in Alexandria (_Matter_, vol. i. p. 54), must have been owing to Greek influence.

[272] There are no indications of it in the Zendavesta; and Herodotus says, that the Persians were unlike the Greeks, in so far as they disbelieved in a god having a human form; book i. chap. cxxxi. vol. i. p. 308: [Greek: ouk anthrôpophyeas enomisan tous theous, kataper hoi Hellênes einai].

[273] I am not acquainted with any evidence connecting this worship with the old Arabian religion; and it was certainly most alien to the spirit of Mohammedanism.

[274] _Mure's History of the Literature of Greece_, vol. i. pp. 28, 500, vol. ii. p. 402: very good remarks on a subject handled unsatisfactorily by Coleridge; _Literary Remains_, vol. i. p. 185. Thirlwall (_History of Greece_, vol. i. p. 207) admits that 'the views and feelings out of which it (the worship of heroes) arose, seem to be clearly discernible in the Homeric poems.' Compare _Cudworth's Intellectual System_, vol. ii. pp. 226, 372. In the Cratylus, chap. xxxiii., Socrates is represented as asking, [Greek: Ouk oistha hoti hêmitheoi oi hêrôes]; _Platonis Opera_, vol. iv. p. 227, edit. Bekker, Lond. 1826. And in the next century, Alexander obtained for his friend, Hephæstion, the right of being 'worshipped as a hero' _Grote's History of Greece_, vol. xii. p. 339.

[275] The adoration of the dead, and particularly the adoration of martyrs, was one great point of opposition between the orthodox church and the Manichæans (_Beausobre_, _Histoire Critique de Manichée_, vol. i. p. 316, vol. ii. pp. 651, 669); and it is easy to understand how abhorrent such a practice must have been to the Persian heretics.

It is thus, that in Greece every thing tended to exalt the dignity of man, while in India every thing tended to depress it.[276] To sum up the whole, it may be said that the Greeks had more respect for human powers; the Hindus for superhuman. The first dealt more with the known and available; the other with the unknown and mysterious.[277] And by a parity of reasoning, the imagination, which the Hindus, being oppressed by the pomp and majesty of nature, never sought to control, lost its supremacy in the little peninsula of ancient Greece. In Greece, for the first time in the history of the world, the imagination was, in some degree, tempered and confined by the understanding. Not that its strength was impaired, or its vitality diminished. It was broken-in and tamed; its exuberance was checked, its follies were chastised. But that its energy remained, we have ample proof in those productions of the Greek mind which have survived to our own time. The gain, therefore, was complete; since the inquiring and sceptical faculties of the human understanding were cultivated, without destroying the reverential and poetic instincts of the imagination. Whether or not the balance was accurately adjusted, is another question; but it is certain that the adjustment was more nearly arrived at in Greece than in any previous civilization.[278] There can, I think, be little doubt that, notwithstanding what was effected, too much authority was left to the imaginative faculties, and that the purely reasoning ones did not receive, and never have received, sufficient attention. Still, this does not affect the great fact, that the Greek literature is the first in which this deficiency was somewhat remedied, and in which there was a deliberate and systematic attempt to test all opinions by their consonance with human reason, and thus vindicate the right of Man to judge for himself on matters which are of supreme and incalculable importance.

[276] M. Cousin, in his eloquent and ingenious work (_Histoire de la Philosophie_, 3e série, vol. i. pp. 183, 187), has some judicious observations on what he calls 'l'époque de l'infini' of the East, contrasted with that 'du fini,' which began in Europe. But as to the physical causes of this, he only admits the grandeur of nature, overlooking those natural elements of mystery and of danger by which religious sentiments were constantly excited.

[277] A learned orientalist says, that no people have made such efforts as the Hindus 'to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvable, inexhaustible, incomprehensible.' _Troyer's Preliminary Discourse on the Dabistan_, vol. i. p. cviii.

[278] This is noticed by Tennemann, who, however, has not attempted to ascertain the cause: 'Die Einbildungskraft des Griechen war schöpferisch, sie schuf in seinem Innern neue Ideenwelten; aber er wurde doch nie verleitet, die idealische Welt mit der wirklichen zu verwechseln, weil sie immer mit einem richtigen Verstande und gesunder Beurtheilungskraft verbunden war.' _Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 8; and vol. vi. p. 490, he says, 'Bei allen diesen Mängeln und Fehlern sind doch die Griechen die einzige Nation der alten Welt, welche Sinn für Wissenschaft hatte, und zu diesem Behufe forschte. Sie haben doch die Bahn gebrochen, und den Weg zur Wissenschaft geebnet.' To the same effect, _Sprengel_, _Histoire de la Médecine_, vol. i. p. 215. And on this difference between the Eastern and the European mind, see _Matter_, _Histoire du Gnosticisme_, vol. i. pp. 18, 233, 234. So, too, Kant (_Logik_, in _Kant's Werke_, vol. i. p. 350), 'Unter allen Völkern haben also die Griechen erst angefangen zu philosophiren. Denn sie haben zuerst versucht, nicht an dem Leitfaden der Bilder die Vernunfterkenntnisse zu cultiviren, sondern _in abstracto_; statt dass die anderen Völker sich die Begriffe immer nur durch Bilder _in concreto_ verständlich zu machen suchten.'

I have selected India and Greece as the two terms of the preceding comparison, because our information respecting those countries is most extensive, and has been most carefully arranged. But every thing we know of the other tropical civilizations confirms the views I have advocated respecting the effects produced by the Aspects of Nature. In Central America extensive excavations have been made; and what has been brought to light proves that the national religion was, like that of India, a system of complete and unmitigated terror.[279] Neither there nor in Mexico, nor in Peru, nor in Egypt, did the people desire to represent their deities in human forms, or ascribe to them human attributes. Even their temples are huge buildings, often constructed with great skill, but showing an evident wish to impress the mind with fear, and offering a striking contrast to the lighter and smaller structures which the Greeks employed for religious purposes. Thus, even in the style of architecture do we see the same principle at work; the dangers of the tropical civilization being more suggestive of the infinite, while the safety of the European civilization was more suggestive of the finite. To follow out the consequences of this great antagonism, it would be necessary to indicate how the infinite, the imaginative, the synthetic, and the deductive, are all connected; and are opposed, on the other hand, by the finite, the sceptical, the analytic, and the inductive. A complete illustration of this would carry me beyond the plan of this Introduction and would perhaps exceed the resources of my own knowledge; and I must now leave to the candour of the reader what I am conscious is but an imperfect sketch, but what may, nevertheless, suggest to him materials for future thought, and, if I might indulge the hope, may open to historians a new field, by reminding them that every where the hand of Nature is upon us, and that the history of the human mind can only be understood by connecting with it the history and the aspects of the material universe.

[279] Thus, of one of the idols at Copan, 'The intention of the sculptor seems to have been to excite terror.' _Stephens's Central America_, vol. i. p. 152; at p. 159, 'The form of sculpture most generally used was a death's head.' At Mayapan (vol. iii. p. 133), 'representations of human figures or animals with hideous features and expressions, in producing which the skill of the artist seems to have been expended;' and again, p. 412, 'unnatural and grotesque faces.'

* * * * *

NOTE 36 to p. 61.

As these views have a social and economical importance quite independent of their physiological value, I will endeavour, in this note, to fortify them still further, by showing that the connexion between carbonized food and the respiratory functions may be illustrated by a wider survey of the animal kingdom.

The gland most universal among the different classes of animals is the liver;(a) and its principal business is to relieve the system of its superfluous carbon, which it accomplishes by secreting bile, a highly carbonized fluid.(b) Now, the connexion between this process and the respiratory functions is highly curious. For, if we take a general view of animal life, we shall find that the liver and lungs are nearly always compensatory; that is to say, when one organ is small and inert, the other is large and active. Thus, reptiles have feeble lungs, but a considerable liver;(c) and thus, too, in fishes, which have no lungs, in the ordinary sense of the word, the size of the liver is often enormous.(d) On the other hand, insects have a very large and complicated system of air tubes; but their liver is minute, and its functions are habitually sluggish.(e) If, instead of comparing the different classes of animals, we compare the different stages through which the same animal passes, we shall find further confirmation of this wide and striking principle. For the law holds good even before birth; since in the unborn infant the lungs have scarcely any activity, but there is an immense liver, which is full of energy and pours out bile in profusion.(f) And so invariable is this relation, that in man the liver is the first organ which is formed: it is preponderant during the whole period of f[oe]tal life; but it rapidly diminishes when, after birth, the lungs come into play, and a new scheme of compensation is established in the system.(g)

[a] 'The most constant gland in the animal kingdom is the liver.' _Grant's Comp. Anat._ p. 576. See also _Béclard_, _Anat. Gén._ p. 18, and _Burdach_, _Traité de Physiol._ vol. ix. p. 580. Burdach says, 'Il existe dans presque tout le règne animal;' and the latest researches have detected the rudiments of a liver even in the Entozoa and Rotifera. _Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom_, 1855, p. 183, and _Owen's Invertebrata_, 1855, p. 104.

[b] Until the analysis made by Demarçay in 1837, hardly any thing was known of the composition of bile; but this accomplished chemist ascertained that its essential constituent is choleate of soda, and that the choleic acid contains nearly sixty-three per cent. of carbon. Compare _Thomson's Animal Chemistry_, pp. 59, 60, 412, 602, with _Simon's Chemistry_, vol. ii. pp. 17-21.

[c] 'The size of the liver and the quantity of the bile are not proportionate to the quantity of the food and frequency of eating; but inversely to the size and perfection of the lungs.... The liver is proportionately larger in reptiles, which have lungs with large cells incapable of rapidly decarbonizing the blood.' _Good's Study of Medicine_, 1829, vol. i. pp. 32, 33. See _Cuvier_, _Règne Animal_, vol. ii. p. 2, on 'la petitesse des vaisseaux pulmonaires' of reptiles.

[d] _Carus's Comparative Anatomy_, vol. ii. p. 230; _Grant's Comp. Anat._ pp. 385, 596; _Rymer Jones's Animal Kingdom_, p. 646.

[e] Indeed it has been supposed by M. Gaëde that the 'vaisseaux biliares' of some insects were not 'sécréteurs;' but this opinion appears to be erroneous. See Latreille, in _Cuvier_, _Règne Animal_, vol. iv. pp. 297, 298.

[f] 'La prédominance du foie avant la naissance' is noticed by Bichat (_Anatomie Générale_, vol. ii. p. 272), and by many other physiologists; but Dr. Elliotson appears to have been one of the first to understand a fact, the explanation of which we might vainly seek for in the earlier writers. 'The hypothesis, that one great use of the liver was, like that of the lungs, to remove carbon from the system, with this difference, that the alteration of the capacity of the air caused a reception of caloric into the blood, in the case of the lungs, while the hepatic excretion takes place without introduction of caloric, was, I recollect, a great favourite with me when a student.... The Heidelberg professors have adduced many arguments to the same effect. In the f[oe]tus, for whose temperature the mother's heat must be sufficient, the lungs perform no function; but the liver is of great size, and bile is secreted abundantly, so that the meconium accumulates considerably during the latter months of pregnancy.' _Elliotson's Human Physiology_, 1840, p. 102. In _Lepelletier's Physiologie Médicale_, vol. i. p. 466, vol. ii. pp. 14, 546, 550, all this is sadly confused.

[g] 'The liver is the first-formed organ in the embryo. It is developed from the alimentary canal, and at about the third week fills the whole abdomen, and is one-half the weight of the entire embryo.... At birth it is of very large size, and occupies the whole upper part of the abdomen.... The liver diminishes rapidly after birth, probably from obliteration of the umbilical vein.' _Wilson's Human Anatomy_, 1851, p. 638. Compare _Burdach's Physiologie_, vol. iv. p. 447, where it is said of the liver in childhood, 'Cet organe croît avec lenteur, surtout comparativement aux poumons; le rapport de ceux-ci au foie étant à peu près de 1:3 avant la respiration, il était de 1:1.86 après l'établissement de cette dernière fonction.' See also p. 91, and vol. iii. p. 483; and on the predominance of the liver in f[oe]tal life, see the remarks of Serres (_Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_, _Anomalies de l'Organisation_, vol. ii. p. 11), whose generalization is perhaps a little premature.

These facts, interesting to the philosophic physiologist, are of great moment in reference to the doctrines advocated in this chapter. Inasmuch as the liver and lungs are compensatory in the history of their organization, it is highly probable that they are also compensatory in the functions they perform; and that what is left undone by one will have to be accomplished by the other. The liver, therefore, fulfilling the duty, as chemistry teaches us, of decarbonizing the system by secreting a carbonized fluid, we should expect, even in the absence of any further evidence, that the lungs would be likewise decarbonizing; in other words, we should expect that if, from any cause, we are surcharged with carbon, our lungs must assist in remedying the evil. This brings us, by another road, to the conclusion that highly carbonized food has a tendency to tax the lungs; so that the connexion between a carbonized diet and the respiratory functions, instead of being, as some assert, a crude hypothesis, is an eminently scientific theory, and is corroborated not only by chemistry, but by the general scheme of the animal kingdom, and even by the observation of embryological phenomena. The views of Liebig, and of his followers, are indeed supported by so many analogies, and harmonize so well with other parts of our knowledge, that nothing but a perverse hatred of generalization, or an incapacity for dealing with large speculative truths, can explain the hostility directed against conclusions which have been gradually forcing themselves upon us since Lavoisier, seventy years ago, attempted to explain the respiratory functions by subjecting them to the laws of chemical combination.

In this, and previous notes (see in particular notes 30, 31, 35), I have considered the connexion between food respiration, and animal heat, at a length which will appear tedious to readers uninterested in physiological pursuits; but the investigation has become necessary, on account of the difficulties raised by experimenters, who, not having studied the subject comprehensively, object to certain parts of it. To mention what, from the ability and reputation of the author, is a conspicuous instance of this, Sir Benjamin Brodie has recently published a volume (_Physiological Researches_, 1851) containing some ingeniously contrived experiments on dogs and rabbits, to prove that heat is generated rather by the nervous system than by the respiratory organs. Without following this eminent surgeon into all its details, I may be permitted to observe, 1st, That, as a mere matter of history, no great physiological truth has ever yet been discovered, nor has any great physiological fallacy been destroyed, by such limited experiments on a single class of animals; and this is partly because in physiology a crucial instance is impracticable, owing to the fact that we deal with resisting and living bodies, and partly because every experiment produces an abnormal condition, and thus lets in fresh causes, the operation of which is incalculable; unless, as often happens in the inorganic world, we can control the whole phenomenon. 2nd, That the other department of the organic world, namely, the vegetable kingdom, has, so far as we are aware, no nervous system, but nevertheless possesses heat; and we moreover know that the heat is a product of oxygen and carbon (see note 32 to chapter ii.). 3d, That the evidence of travellers respecting the different sorts of food, and the different quantities of food, used in hot countries and in cold ones, is explicable by the respiratory and chemical theories of the origin of animal heat, but is inexplicable by the theory of the nervous origin of heat.