518 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



man, alike in physique, institutions and religion. It is probable that 

 the food-supply at hand in each region may be an important element 

 in these variations, whilst the nature of the food and drink preferred 

 there may itself be due in no small degree to climatic conditions. Each 

 zone has its own peculiar products, and beyond doubt the natives of 

 each region differ in their tastes for food and drink. The aboriginal 

 of the tropics is distinctly a vegetarian, whilst the Eskimo within the 

 arctic circle is practically wholly carnivorous. In each case the taste 

 is almost certainly due to the necessities of their environment, for the 

 man in the arctic regions could not survive without an abundance of 

 animal fat. It is probable that the more northward man advanced the 

 more carnivorous he became in order to support the rigors of the 

 northern climate. The same holds equally true in the case of drink. 

 Temperance reforms would enforce by legislation complete abstinence 

 from all alcoholic liquors, and they point to the sobriety of the 

 Spaniards, Italians and other South Europeans, and urge, if these 

 nations are so temperate, why should Britons and Irish continue to 

 drink beer and spirits in such large quantities? This appeal depends, 

 unfortunately, on the false assumption that the natives of these islands 

 enjoy the same climate as the people of the sunny south. All across 

 northern Europe and Asia there is a universal love of strong drink, 

 which is not the mere outcome of vicious desires, but of climatic law. 

 In Shakespeare's time " your Englishman was most potent in potting," 

 and this was no new outbreak of depravity, for the earliest reference 

 in history to the natives of these islands tells the same tale. When 

 Pytheas of Marseilles traveled in these regions, about 350 B.C.,, he found 

 the people making " wine from barley," and, though he does not ex- 

 plicitly say so, we need not doubt that it was meant for home con- 

 sumption. In view of these facts we must regard this tendency as 

 essentially climatic. This view derives additional support from the 

 well-authenticated fact that one of the chief characteristics of tbe 

 descendants of British settlers in Australia is their strong teetotalism. 

 This can not be set down to their having a higher moral standard than 

 their ancestors, but rather, as in the case of Spaniards and Italians, to 

 the circumstance that they live in a country much warmer and drier 

 than the British Isles. We must, therefore, no matter how reluctantly, 

 come to the conclusion that no attempt to eradicate this tendency to 

 alcobol in these latitudes can be successful, for the most that can be 

 done by the philanthropist and the legislator is to modify and control 

 it, but especially by moral means. 



I have spoken of the principles at work in the differentiation of one 

 race from another. It may be that the same principles or others 

 closely allied may be at work within each community, for each com- 

 munity is but the whole world writ small. Within the United King- 



