EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 245 



which society produces, men begin to manifest what is 

 called civilization ; but never in rude and shelterless circum- 

 stances, or when widely scattered. Even civilized men, when 

 transferred to a wide wilderness, where each has to work hard 

 and isolatedly for the first requisites of life, soon show a re- 

 trogression to barbarism : witness the plains of Australia, as 

 well as the backwoods of Canada and the prairies of Texas. 

 Fixity of residence and thickening of population are perhaps 

 the prime requisites for civilization, and hence it will be found 

 that all civilizations as yet known have taken place in regions 

 physically limited. That of Egypt arose in a narrow valley 

 hemmed in by deserts on both sides. That of Greece took its 

 rise in a small peninsula, bounded on the only land side by 

 mountains. Etruria and Rome were naturally limited regions. 

 Civilizations have taken place at both the eastern and western 

 extremities of the elder continent China and Japan on the 

 one Land j Germany, Holland, Britain, France, on the other, 

 while the great unmarked tract between contains nations de- 

 cidedly less advanced. Why is this, but because the sea in 

 both cases has imposed limits to further migration, and caused 

 the population to settle and condense ? the conditions most 

 necessary for social improvement. Even the simple case of 

 the Mandans affords an illustration of this principle ; for Mr. 

 Catlin expressly, though without the least regard to theory, 

 attributes their improvement to the fact of their being a small 

 tribe, obliged, by fear of their more numerous enemies, to settle 

 in a permanent village, so fortified as to insure their preserva- 

 tion. " By this means," says he, " they have advanced further 

 in the arts of manufacture, and have supplied their lodges 

 more abundantly with the comforts and even luxuries of life 

 than any Indian nation I know of. The consequence of this," 

 he adds, " is, that the tribe have taken many steps ahead of 

 other tribes in manners and refinements." These conditions 

 can only be regarded as natural laws affecting civilization. 1 It 

 is also necessary for a civilization that at least a portion of the 

 community should be placed above mean and engrossing toils. 

 Man's mind is subdued, like the dyer's hand, to that it works 

 in. In rude and difficult circumstances, we unavoidably be- 

 come rude, because then only the inferior and harsher faculties 



1 The problem of Chinese civilization, such as it is so puzzling when 

 we consider that they are only, as will be presently seen, the child race 

 of mankind is solved when we look to geographical position producing 

 fixity of residence and density of population. 



