PT. n. Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 109 



most luxuriant vegetation. The banks of the Missis- 

 sippi are quite as favourable to human life, and 

 quite as capable of supporting an enormous popu- 

 lation, as the lofty table-lands of Mexico ; and other 

 causes must be found than those alleged by Mr. 

 Buckle why they did not become the seat of a 

 population as numerous and as civilised as either 

 the Mexicans or Peruvians. 



Mr. Buckle's theories respecting the Aspects of 

 Nature are still more unsound and visionary. He 

 supposes that the terror inspired by the repulsive 

 aspect of tropical countries, and by the alarming 

 convulsions by which nature is visited, press upon 

 the mind and imagination of Man, and induce him 

 to be weakly, superstitious, and selfish, while more 

 engaging and cheerful aspects brighten his faculties 

 and elevate his moral nature. He compares Greece 

 with India, but Greece is by no means so deficient 

 in the terrible : her mountains are high, often 

 rugged, and in earlier times her forests must have 

 frowned over the blue seas of the Mediterranean. 

 India is indeed a tropical country, but it by no 

 means presents those terrible features with which 

 Mr. Buckle invests it ; there is no part of the world 

 in which there are fewer earthquakes, its soil is not 



