APPENDIX. 273 



The theory usually advanced to account for these differences of national 

 character is, that they are produced by diversities of soil and climate. But, 

 although these may reasonably be supposed to exert a certain influence, they are 

 altogether inadequate to explain the w^hole phenomena. We ought ever to bear 

 in mind, that Nature is constant in her operations, and that the same causes 

 invariably produce the same effects. Hence, when w^e find exceptions in result 

 w^ithout being able to assign differences in causes, vv^e may rest assured that we 

 have not found the true or the only cause; and our diligence ought to be quickened 

 to obtain new light, and not employed in maintaining the sufficiency of that which 

 we possess. 



If we survey a map of the world, we shall find nations whose soil is fertile 

 and climate temperate, in a lower degree of improvement than others who are 

 less favored. In Van Diemen's Land and New South Wales, a few natives have 

 existed in the most wretched poverty, ignorance and degradation, in a country 

 that enriches Europeans as fast as they possess it. In America, too, Europeans 

 and native Indians have lived for centuries under the influence of the same 

 physical causes ; the former have kept pace in their advances with their brethren 

 on the old continent, while the latter, as we have seen, remain stationary in savage 

 ignorance and indolence. 



Such differences are not confined to the great continents alone ; but different 

 tribes in the same hemisphere seem to possess different degrees of native minds, 

 and these remain unchanged through numerous ages. Tacitus describes the Gauls 

 as gay, volatile, and precipitate, prone to rush to action, but without the power of 

 sustaining adversity and the tug of strife ; and this is the character of the Celtic 

 portion of the French nation down to the present day. He represents the Britons 

 as cool, considerate, and sedate, possessed of intellectual talent, and says that he 

 prefers their native aptitude to the livelier manners of the Gauls. The same 

 mental qualities characterise the English of the nineteenth century, and they and 

 the French may still be contrasted in similar terms. 



Tacitus describes the Germans, allowing for their state of civilisation, as a 

 bold, prudent, self-denying, and virtuous people, possessed of great force of character; 

 and the same features distinguish them still. The native Irishman, in manners, 

 dispositions and capacities, is a being widely different from the lowland Scotchman; 

 and if we trace the two nations to the remotest antiquity, the same characteristic 

 differences are found. 



These differences between nations living under similar climates, are com- 

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