EXCURSION TO THE REALMS BELOW. 165 



have been the cafe. But, when I before gave this na- 

 tural origin to the rrioft unnatural of all civil forms of 

 government, I never intended to exclude the cooperat- 

 ing caufes of climate, the turn of mind and the way of 

 life that arife from it, with other accidental circumftan- 

 ces. Thefe outward circumftances alone have occasion- 

 ed the great difference difcernible between the northern 

 and fouthern inhabitants of the earth. A hot climate, 

 fruitful even to luxuriance, and rewarding the moil 

 moderate culture a hundredfold, induced the people to 

 quit a wandering palloral life, and to fettle themfelves 

 in fixed habitations ; a variety of the peaceful arts, the 

 daughters of agriculture and a gentler life, weaned 

 them from the martial manners of their anceftors. The 

 influence of climate wrought, unobfervedly, and there- 

 fore the more irrefiflibly, on the bodily frame and 

 temper of mind. Voluptuous repofe and fenfual indul- 

 gence is the fovereign good with the inhabitants of the 

 torrid zones, and to this character of the nation, the 

 defpotic form of government is fo adapted, that except- 

 ing the rude inhabitants of the mountainous provinces, 

 hardly is there one people in fouthern Alia, from Eu- 

 phrates to the Indus, and from thence to the iliores of 

 the ealtern ocean, that is barely fufceptible of the thought 

 of changing the defpotical form of government (efpecially 

 as they have now been accuilomed to it for fo many thou- 

 fand years) , for a free, popular, or ariftocratic conftitution. 

 It is naturally quite otherwiie with the tribes or hordes 

 of the nomadic people, who roam about the monftrous 

 fteppes and wilds of the northern parts cf Alia and Eu- 

 rope, with their numerous herds ; and, as if this im- 

 menfe diftridi was too contracted for them, they prefled 



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