ABOUT THE WEATHER. 1 1 1 



highest questions of humanity, and mostly fortunate in their 

 solution, and among these reigns the mental life, almost 

 forgetting the bodily and carelessly leaving the manage- 

 ment of their affairs to a few ; while under other latitudes 

 the same race, degenerated through luxury, sunk in 

 almost animal enjoyment of sensual delights, over which, 

 as despotic lord it reigns, troubles itself not as to whether 

 there is such a thing as a soul, to give it a higher claim to 

 development and education. 



Let us review, in one glance, the gay Tahitans, the 

 dull Fuegians, the formal Chinese, the roving Bedouins, 

 the child-like Hindoos, the manly English, the abstracted 

 Germans, the material Yankees, and we find that all 

 these, and the thousand other varieties of human nature 

 are fundamentally dependant on, or promoted by the 

 weather. 



Is it possible then, that Man can longer forget this 

 dependance ? And this enormous power which prevails 

 over body and mind, the life of the individual and the 

 history of humanity, should it not be a worthy object 

 of reflection of conversation ? But can we actually 

 penetrate into this workshop of Nature, or is the object 

 unworthy of much interest because we are condemned to 

 remain always upon the surface ? Holy Writ says : " The 

 wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 

 thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither 

 it goeth !" 



I cannot, alas ! wholly turn aside the reproof, that we 

 naturalists do not receive very much from the Bible. 

 But it is also quite possible, that for the very reason 

 that we do not receive much, we comprehend that little 

 which we do receive more clearly, more purely, and 

 therefore more correctly than others ; but this has 



