760 INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON THE 



imperfect state of our knowledge, it must there- 

 fore remain a problem, whether the higher orders 

 have arisen by imperceptible degrees from a very 

 simple state during the long course of innumer- 

 able ages. 



It would doubtless be interesting to know whe- 

 ther, if all the plants and animals that now in- 

 habit the earth were destroyed, similar orders, 

 tribes, and families would gradually arise, in 

 obedience to existing laws, whether the higher 

 orders began their existence in a very simple 

 state, and gradually advanced from one stage of 

 developement to another, as the recent discove- 

 ries in geology would seem to indicate, why 

 it is that among all the higher animals, nearly 

 an equal number of the two sexes were produced, 

 whether the organizing principle is both male 

 and female, as supposed by the ancient Hindoos 

 and Egyptians, among whom it was represented 

 by the phallus and a triangle, or generative organs 

 of the two sexes. In all these things there is a 

 profundity of wisdom before which we must bow 

 with humility and pious adoration. 



But I must now examine briefly the influence 

 of climate on the duration of human life. From 

 the researches of M. Moreau de Jonnes, published 

 in the Revue Encyclopedique for 1833, we are 

 enabled to compare the annual mortality of dif- 

 ferent countries in Europe, as in the following 

 table, constructed from various statistical reports. 



