HIS GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS. 63 



believe. Indeed, so far as mere geographical con- 

 ditions are concerned, he may have been an inhabitant 

 of this earth for untold ages, and the lower the variety, 

 the greater apparently his chances of subsistence. 



Following the influence of geographical conditions, 

 we find it affecting not only man's form and features, 

 but determining his habits and industry, and even 

 more intimately pervading his whole intellectual and 

 moral nature. The inhabitants of the plains become 

 tillers of the ground and builders of cities, while those 

 of the mountains remain herdsmen and shepherds. 

 The dwellers on the sea-board are naturally drawn to 

 adventure and trading and commerce ; while those of 

 the interior as naturally abide by their homesteads 

 and husbandry. A country of uniform soil, climate, 

 and production, must tend in the long run to uni- 

 formity of industry as well as to a limited and 

 stationary civilisation. No matter what the race, if 

 the natural means of progress — ^vegetable, animal, and 

 mineral — ^lie not within a country, its inhabitants can 

 never rise, without extraneous aid, beyond the lowest 

 stages of advancement. The civilisations, for example, 

 capable of being evolved in Europe and in Australia 

 could never have been the same, even had the abori- 

 gines of both continents been naturally equal. The 

 fruits and grains, the horse, ox, sheep, pig, dog, and 

 the like, which characterise the one country, and have 



