38 THE POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



of climate. Modern French, scientists are nothing if not me- 

 thodical, and have repeatedly called attention to the curious 

 regularity in the geographical distribution of certain vices and 

 virtues: intemperance, for instance, north of the forty-eighth 

 ]3arallel; sexual aberrations south of the forty-fifth; financial 

 extravagance in large seaport towns ; thrift in pastoral highland 

 regions. It is, indeed, a remarkable circumstance that in the 

 home of the best wine-grapes, in Greece and southern Spain, 

 drunkenness is far less prevalent than in Scotland, or in Russian 

 Poland, where Bacchus can tempt his votaries only with nause- 

 ous vodka. The idea that a low temperature begets an instinct- 

 ive craving for alcoholic tonics seems disproved by the teeto- 

 talism of the Patagonian savages, who horsewhip every Spanish 

 stimulant-monger without benefit of clergy. The Lesghian 

 mountaineers, too, observe the interdict of the Koran in the icy 

 summit-regions of the Caucasus ; but there is no doubt that the 

 bracing influence of a cold climate affords a certain degree of 

 immunity from the debilitating efi'ect of the alcohol-vice, and 

 that a Scandinavian peasant can for years survive the effects of 

 a daily dose of alcohol that would kill an Egyptian fellah in a 

 single month. But it is equally certain that the temperance of 

 south-land nations is considerably facilitated by the abundance 

 of non-alcoholic pastimes. The Spaniards have their fandangos 

 and bull-fights; the Greeks their border-raids, cocking-mains, 

 and horse-races; while the Scotchman, after six days of hard 

 work, is confronted with the choice between the delirium of an 

 alcohol-fever and the appalling tedium of Sabbatarian asceti- 

 cism, and naturally chooses the less dismal alternative. 



The question, though, remains, if religious gloom itself is 

 not an outcome of climatic influences. Cardinal de Retz, indeed, 

 held that orthodox loyalty is a flower that can not flourish north 

 of the Alps ; but it is more than probable that the survival of 

 that plant has been greatly assisted by the conniving honliomie 

 of south European ecclesiastics, who, centuries ago, began to ap- 

 preciate the wisdom of extending the practice of renunciation 

 to the claim of consistency. The " climate of superstition " can 

 not be defined by geographical specifications ; but, as the gilded 

 clouds of the South float grizzly over the moping firmament of 

 the North, dogmas which the inhabitants of the lower latitudes 

 manage to reconcile with a good deal of secular beatitude are 

 apt to assume a gloomy character in the land of the hyper- 

 boreans, whose rational rigorism, however, may recalcitrate 

 against self-contradictory tenets, and accept a thoroughly un- 

 comfortable more readily than an illogical doctrine. Thus we 

 find the Nahagathas, the Protestants of Buddhism, confined to 

 Japan and northern China, and the schismatic Shiites to the 



