Miscellaneous Intelligence. 337 



European, the Asiatic, and the aboriginal Indian of North America . the 

 natives of Greenland and Lapland possess a darker skin than their European 

 brethren, and the inhabitant of Van Diemen's Laiid,*.thnugh living beneath 

 a temperate sky, is of a complexion not far removed from black. We shall 

 find ourselves at a similar loss in the attempt to deduce other variations 

 from the customary premises to which I have alluded: the woolly locks of 

 the negro, the lofty stature of the Patngonian, the slender frame of the 

 Papn, or the little twinkling eye of the Chinese, can in nowise be charged 

 to the account of the climate, or referred to the nature of the soil. If we 

 follow up the influence of physical causes on isolated individuals, we shall 

 find ourselves equally sinning against every rational assumption, sboald we 

 venture to deduce the mental attributes of any one human race from such 

 causes. In the same country, in the same spot, nay, under the same roof, 

 we meet with individuals entirely differing from each other in their intellec- 

 tual features; but it would be ridiculous to ascribe the dissimilitude to the 

 effects of climate, food, or beverage. Intellect does not resemble the auana ; 

 it can neither be nurtured nor called into existence by artificial heat. 



In looking at the characteristics of nations, it is impossible not to observe 

 the marked shades of diversity which sever one people from another, even 

 where the climate is precisely similar, or not essentially different. The Eu- 

 ropeans cultivate the soil, dwell in town*, live under regular forms of go- 

 vernment, and, in general, are devoted to the arts and sciences; whereas 

 most of the Asiatic regions, where the circumstances of climate are similar, 

 are tenanted by nomadic tribes, who derive their livelihood from rearing 

 cattle, are entire strangers to social polity, and have no conception of a 

 more advanced state of civilization; whilst the aborigines of North America 

 arc untutored savages, wandering from spot to spot, from wood to plain. 

 The feeble, peaceable, thrifty Hindoo lives beneath a climate scarcely dif- 

 fering from that which is breathed by the athletic, fierce, and lazy negro, or 

 the miserable indigines of South America, whose wild exterior and uncouth 

 gestures excite both pity and aversion. The Chinese are, in every respect, 

 strikingly dissimilar from any other nation surrounded by the same natural 

 circumstances ;. and the proud and ingenious Briton possesses few character- 

 istics in common with the poor, timid inhabitant of Van Diemen's Land. 

 We find the most discordant masses intermixed and living together under 

 the same sky ; in the innermost parts of Africa the Arabian dwelling with 

 the negro, and far surpassing the latter in every mental endowment; in its 

 southern districts, the Caffre hording with the Hottentot, with whom he has 

 no earthly similitude ; and towards the northernmost confines of Scandina- 

 via, the Laplander hutting with the Swede and Norwegian. 



If we weigh the effect of physieal circumstances, to which is usually 

 attributed the formation of national character, it will be found to depend 

 neither necessarily nor demonstrably upon the influences ascribed to them; 

 on the contrary, we shall frequently find the closest affinity of character 

 existing where those circumstances wear the most widely diverse of aspects. 

 A clear atmosphere is held to foster gentleness of manners, and give vitality 

 to art and science; and Greece and Italy are cited in proof of the justness 

 of this inference. The surface of the globe, however, will shew us many a 

 country where the atmosphere is more rarefied than in those regions; and 

 such are the islands of the South Seas, or the elevated plains of Peru, 

 Quito, or Mexico : yet in these, where shall we discover the manners and 

 intellectual energy of the olden Greeks? Whilst under the dense and 

 humid sky of England, man has reached a state of intellectual advancement 

 to which few other nations have attained. Again ; large rivers are esteemed 

 conducive to the interchange of social relations, and, consequently, to hu- 

 man civilization ; and the proofs of this argument are drawn from the Kile 

 and the Indus. Now, the largest streams which exist are those of South 

 America, along wliosc banks the uncivilized Indian toils for a bare and 

 miserable existence ; whilst the Dane, who is scarcely inferior to the most 

 intelligent of Ins contemporaries, treads a soil unfertilised by a single stream. 

 The Mediterranean is brought forward to exhibit the propitious influence 

 attending large masses of water < nconi passed by land; yet where shall we 

 discover the minutest traces of civilization along the capacious lakes of 

 North America, around the Caspian, or among the numberless thickly- 

 studded isles of the Indian seas? The coasts of the Cattegat, where social 



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