Price.] 304 [January. 



After adverting to the physical causes of climate, soil, and geogra- 

 phical configuration, and the disadvantages of being yet in the shep- 

 herd state of the Tartars and IMongolians, among unsubdued forests, 

 Heeren proceeds to ask, " But, can we derive from this physical diifer- 

 ence, those moral advantages which were produced by the better 

 regulation of domestic society ? With this begins, in some measure, 

 the history of the first culture of our continent. Tradition has not 

 forgotten to inform us that Cecrops, when he founded his colonies 

 among the savage inhabitants of Attica, instituted at the same time 

 regular marriages ; and who has not learned of Tacitus, the holy 

 custom of our German ancestors ? Is it merely the character of the 

 climate which causes both sexes to ripen more gradually, and, at the 

 same time more nearly simultaneously, and a cooler blood to flow in 

 the veins of man; or, has a more delicate sentiment impressed upon 

 the European a higher moral nobility, which determines the relations 

 of the two sexes ? Be this as it may, who does not perceive the 

 decisive importance of the fact? Does not the wall of division 

 which separates the inhabitants of the P]ast from those of the West 

 repose chiefly on this basis ? And can it be doubted that this bet- 

 ter domestic institution was essential to the progress of our political 

 institutions? For, we make with confidence the remark, no nation 

 where polygamy was established has ever obtained a free and well- 

 ordered constitution. Whether these causes alone, or whether others 

 beside them (for, who will deny that there may have been others ?) 

 procured for the Europeans their superiority, thus much is certain, 

 that all Europe may now boast of this superiority. If the nations 

 of the South preceded those of the North ; if these were still wan- 

 dering in their forests when those already had obtained their ripe- 

 ness, they finally made up for their dilatoriness. 'J'heir time also 

 came; the time when they could look down upon their Southern breth- 

 ren with a just consciousness of superiority." (Heeren's Greece, 8.) 



It is believed that such philosophers as Buckle are quite too 

 limited in their conceptions, when they ascribe to material causes all 

 the differences of national character. These have truly modifying 

 influences ; but human sentiments, thoughts, traditions, law, song, 

 religion, may have yet greater eff"ect to form the character of na- 

 tions; that is, moral, mental, and religious causes may be more poten- 

 tial than the differences of the physical causes pervading the world. 



The first inhabitants of Northern Germany, while in their pastoral 

 state, could not have been influenced by physical causes essentially 

 difi"erent from those which influenced their Mongolian relatives in 



