selves of putting; out their eyes, to render them more sensible to the 

 sweet impressions of harmony. 



Fifthly. Duringsound sleep, the exercise of the percipient faculty, and 

 that of voluntary contractility, are entirely suspended. During that state, 

 it seems as if some covering were thrown over the sentient extremities. 

 We know how hard the hearing becomes, how dull the senses of smell and 

 of taste become, how dim the sight, a cloud spreading before the eyes, 

 the moment we are fallen asleep. Fir quidam. exquisitissima sensibilitate 

 prsedituS) semi consopitus coibat ; huic^ ut si velamento levi glans obductus 

 fuisse, sensus volufitatis referebatur. 



Sixthly. Sensibility is more lively, and more easily excited in the in- 

 habitants of warm climates than in those of northern regions. What a 

 prodigious difference there is, in that respect, between the native of Ger- 

 many and of the southern provinces of France. Travellers tell us, that 

 there are in the neighbourhood of the poles, natives, so little endowed 

 with sensibility, that they feel no pain from the deepest wounds. The in- 

 habitants of the coast of North America, if we may believe the testimony 

 of Dixofi and Vancouver, thrust into the soles of their feet, sharp nails 

 and pieces of glass, without feeling the slightest uneasiness. On the con- 

 trary, the slightest prick from a thorn, for instance, in the foot, is in the 

 strongest African, frequently followed by convulsions and locked jaw. 

 The impression of the air is alone sufficient to produce the same accident 

 in the negro children in the colonies, the greater number of whom die of 

 locked jaw, a few days after birth. 



Montesquieu* very justly observed this difjpence which exists in the 

 sensibility of the southern and northern nations, and he says of the latter, 

 that " if you would tickle you must flay them." 



Now, as the imagination is always proportioned to the sensibility, all 

 the arts that are cultivated and brought to perfection, only by the exer- 

 cise of that faculty, will flourish with difficulty near the icy polar regions, 

 unless the powerful influence 'of climate be counteracted by well directed 

 moral and physical causes. f 



Man is of all beings, the one that most powerfully resists the influence 

 of external causes : and although the influence of climate is sufficient to 

 modify his external appearance, so as to lead to a division of the species 

 into several distinct varieties or kinds, this superficial impression is very 



* This philosopher has borrowed from the father of physic, one of his most brilliant 

 and paradoxical opinions. In his conception, warm climates are the seat of despotism, 

 and the cold, the seat of liberty. This error is completely refuted in the profound and 

 philosophical work of Volney on Egypt and Syria. He shows, that what Montesquieu 

 has said of cold climates applies to mountainous regions, while a champaign is more 

 favourable to the establishment of tyranny. Hippocrates had said of the Asiatics, that 

 their being less warlike than the Europeans, depended on the differences of climate, 

 and likewise on the despotic form of their government. And he observes, that men, 

 who do not enjoy their natural rights, but whose affections are controuled by masters, 

 cannot feel the bold passion of war. See Chap. XI. on the Varieties of the Hnman 

 Species Author's JVote. 



fices 

 modo in 



rante, hebes et langmdus factus, membra sua zegre trahit, ac ille, qui ut frigido aqui- 

 lone, cursu glaciali, se exercet, universum corpus firmus, mobilis, expeditus ! GREG- 

 ORY Consp.Med. Theorei [Got/man.] 



