142 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



" new institutions introduced say into Japan often go awry 

 and misfit" (pp. 275, 276). This he thinks he has sufficiently 

 explained by the statement that the women are uneducated, 

 forgetting that the position of women is one of the most 

 fixed elements in the social doctrines of every people. I 

 pointed out that the food supply at hand in each region may 

 be an important element in the variations of race, while 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 region 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 rigours 

 of the northern climate, whilst the same holds true in the case 

 of drink. All across Northern Europe and Asia there is a 

 universal love of strong drink, which is not the mere outcome 

 of vicious desire but of climatic law." 



Mr. Houghton urges that *' such temperate races as the 

 American Indians and the Esquimaux (before the advent of 

 Europeans) and the Japanese, constitute awkward facts against 

 climatic alcoholism ; whilst the supposed need for flesh-food 

 has not hindered the Russian and the Japanese peasantry and 

 the Highlanders and Irish (until recent years) from enjoying 

 on a vegetarian diet remarkably robust health." Yet it was 

 not want of inclination, but lack of the means of providing 

 alcohol that made the Eskimo sober. The climatic law acted 

 as soon as they got the opportunity. So too is it with flesh- 

 diet in the case of the Russians and Japanese, Highlanders 

 and Irish. The Japanese, since they have become better off", 

 have taken ardently to a diet of flesh. The Japanese Govern- 

 ment in the late war, under the belief that the soldiers would 

 fight better on meat than on rice and fish, purchased vast 

 supplies of tinned meat for their troops. Because the peoples 

 enumerated were healthy on a vegetarian diet, it does not 

 follow that they would not have been far better and more 

 vigorous if they could have added meat. The readiness with 



