224 EARLY HISTORY OF MANKIND. 



violent external and internal disturbance ; that a considerable 

 number of them should be exempt from the necessity of drudg- 

 ing for immediate subsistence. Feeling themselves at ease 

 about the first necessities of their nature, including self-pre- 

 servation, and daily subjected to that intellectual excitement 

 which society produces, men begin to manifest what is called 

 civilization ; but never in rude and shelterless circumstances, 

 or when widely scattered. Even civilized men, when trans- 

 ferred to a wide wilderness, where each has to work hard and 

 isolatedly for the first requisites of life, soon show a retro- 

 gression to barbarism : witness the plains of Australia, as 

 well as the back woods of Canada and the prairies of Texas. 

 Fixity of residence and thickening of population are perhaps 

 the prime requisites for civilization, and hence it will be found 

 that all civilizations as yet known have taken place in regions 

 physically limited. That of Egypt arose in a narrow valley 

 hemmed in by deserts on both sides. That of Greece took 

 its rise in a small peninsula bounded on the only land side by 

 mountains. Etruria and Rome were naturally limited regions. 

 Civilizations have taken place at both the eastern and western 

 extremities of the elder continent China and Japan, on the 

 one hand ; Germany, Holland, Britain, France, on the other, 

 while the great unmarked tract between contains nations 

 decidedly less advanced. Why is this, but because the sea 

 in both cases has imposed limits to further migration, and 

 caused the population to settle and condense ? the conditions 

 most necessary for social improvement.( 91 ) Even the simple 

 case of the Mandans affords an illustration of this principle ; 

 for Mr. Catlin expressly, though without the least regard to 

 theory, attributes their improvement to the fact of their being 

 a small tribe, obliged, by fear of their more numerous ene- 

 mies, to settle in a permanent village, so fortified as to ensure 

 their preservation. "By this means," says he, " they have 

 advanced furthej" in the arts of manufacture, and have sup- 

 plied their lodges more abundantly with the comforts and 

 even luxuries of life than any Indian nation I know of. The 

 consequence of this," he adds, " is, that the tribe have taken 

 many steps ahead of other tribes in manners and refinements" 



