202 CLIMATAL ADAPTATION OF 



the most favourable to its development and subsist- 

 ence ; and the energies of life of all kinds, obeying 

 that grand stimulus of material life, the sun, is in the 

 very maximum of activity. Man is the only creature 

 that languishes, or appears to be out of his element, 

 not merely in his mental powers, but in his physical 

 structure. This by the way is a proof, among many 

 others, which the study of nature in all its varieties 

 affords, of the existence of a spirit in man an imma- 

 terial principle, and consequently one over which 

 material death and dissolution have no power. For 

 if he were wholly material, and obedient only to those 

 physical laws to which the whole of material nature 

 is subjected, he needs must be in the state of greatest 

 development in those places where natural action is 

 the most intense. It is no argument to allege that 

 these ardent climates are not so well suited to the 

 human constitution as those which are more tempe- 

 rate ; for though this may be true of a native of 

 Europe visiting those countries, it is not true of 

 their native population. Nor can it be said that, 

 physically, man is better adapted to the colder cli- 

 mates than to the warmer, but rather the reverse. 

 Man has naturally no furry coat like the polar mam- 

 malia, nor downy feathers like the polar birds ; and 

 his only natural clothing is a sort of thatch to the 

 head, as if more immediately to protect that portion 

 of his fabric from the action of the vertical sun. 

 Therefore, in as far as man can be said to be physi- 

 cally adapted to one climate more than another, the 

 adaptation is to the warm rather than to the cold. 

 But we find that the more energetic and valuable 

 part of his character is less developed in those places 

 where nature also is most energetic, and where he, 

 if he were merely the produce of material nature, 



