47 
27. No more than a passing allusion can be made to a few 
of the more striking points that bear upon the natural history 
of man. Examples occur in the physical characters of races, 
and the geographical limits within which the majority at least 
are confined; the tint of iris; colour and texture of skin and 
hair ; relative proportions of parts of the body ; relative 
height and chest measurement, and so on. As with physical, 
so with mental and intellectual characteristics the differences 
which exist among peoples and races are absolute; their 
occupations, their poetry, their habits, their character — each 
and all owe their distinctiveness to, as they are adapted to, the 
circumstances of locality and climate. “ That certain races 
are constitutionally fit, and others unfit, for certain climates, is 
a fact which the English have but too good reason to know, 
when on the scorching plains of India they themselves become 
languid and sickly, while their children have soon to be re- 
moved to some cooler climate, that they may not pine and 
die.”* Here I guard myself against the assumption that 
climatic conditions are by themselves the determining causes 
of race and all the peculiarities by which it is distinguished. 
The general question is beyond our present scope. All I 
desire to express is that the characters alluded to coincide for 
the most part with defined conditions of climate and place. 
28. As expressed by a recent writer,! “ Man, like the pro- 
ductions of the earth, is in relation to the soil upon which he 
lives. From times the most remote it has been observed, 
with regard to inhabitants of hot countries, that their habits 
are those of indolence and apathy, combined with liability to 
sudden and temporary e exaltation J of the nervous system, 
an absence of energy and self-reliance, which render them 
docile in bondage, and disposed, more than the natives of 
colder countries, to bear the inequalities and privileges of 
birth and chance. Let the natives of such countries be 
removed to colder regions ; there they become incapable of 
entering into competition with the inhabitants of such regions, 
even as regards unskilled occupations. And not only this, 
but, when transported to reside in other parts of the tropics 
than those to which they belong, they suffer to a greater extent 
from disease in their new locality than do natives of colder 
climates who leave their country to reside in the same 
locality.” Thus it seems to be that, as under tropical influ- 
ences development, growth, and decay in plants and lower 
orders of the animal kingdom are fostered, without corre- 
* Anthropology. E. B. Tylor, D.C.L. ; LL.T\ ; F.R.S. ; p. 73. 
t Ch. J. Masse. Apropos du Railway Trans- Saharien, 1881, p. 17. 
