20 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Climate has an influence on morality, but by no 

 means determines it ; and though this fuppofed 

 determination may be confidered, in many mo- 

 dern Books, as the fundamental bafis of the Le- 

 giflation of the Nations, there is no one philofo- 

 phical opinion more com.pletely refuted byhiftoric 

 teftimony. " Liberty," fay they, " has found 

 "her afylum in the lofty mountains; from the 

 *' North it was that the haughty conquerors of the 

 " World ifTued forth. In the fouthern plains of 

 " Afia, on the contrary, reign defpotifm, flavery, 

 " and all the political and moral vices which may 

 *' be traced up to the lofs of liberty." 



So then, we muft go and regulate, by our baro- 

 meters, and thermometers, the virtues and the 

 laappinefs of Nations ! There is no neceflity to 

 leave Europe, in order to find a multitude of mo- 

 narchical mountains, fuch as thofe of Savoy, a part 

 of the Alps, of the Apennines, and the whole of 

 the Pyreneans. We fliall fee, on the contrary, 

 many republics in plains, fuch as thofe of Holland, 

 of Venice, of Poland, and even of England, Be- 

 fides, each of thofe territories has, by turns, made 

 trial of different forts of government. Neither 

 cold^ nor ruggcdnefs of foil, infpire men with the 

 energy of liberty, and ftill lefs with the unjuft am- 

 bition of encroaching on that of others. The pea- 

 fants of Ruffia, of Poland, and of the cold moun- 

 tains 



