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of nature in hot climates, and her milder ones in more 
temperate regions. He asserts that the effect of earthquakes, 
hurricanes, pestilences, tempests — theproducts ofhotclimates — 
exert a most disastrous influence on man's moral and spiritual 
being. One would be almost tempted to think, from his 
descriptions, that men in oriental countries saw nothing besides 
them. He even endeavours to trace the superstitious character 
of Spain and Italy, compared with that of other European 
countries, to these and similar causes. 
I do not dispute the influence of many of these phenomena 
when they are confined within moderate limits, on the moral 
and religious character of mankind; but Mr. Buckle, when 
he mounts a horse, is not satisfied till he has ridden him to 
death. With him the laws of the moral and spiritual worlds 
cannot be laid down too universally or too invariably. He 
attributes the whole of the peculiarities of Indian civilization, 
including its religion, the peculiar forms of its poetry, its 
want of all genuine science, and its superstitions, to such in- 
fluences as earthquakes, hurricanes, tempests, diseases — in a 
word, to all the terrific aspects of nature, forgetting all the 
while that there are other countries which are vastly more 
subject to these influences than India, where the character of 
the civilization has assumed a very different form. He then 
contrasts with all these terrors the more favourable position of 
Europe, and especially of Greece, and endeavours to account 
for the different aspects of their civilization in conformity with 
these conditions. 
To one passage I must draw your attention as a remarkable 
specimen of Mr. Buckle's mode of reasoning, and I therefore 
quote a portion of it : — 
“ In Greece (says he) the aspects of nature are so entirely different that the 
conditions of existence are changed. Greece, like India, forms a peninsula ; 
but while in the Indian country everything is grand and terrible, in the 
European country everything is small and feeble. The whole of Greece 
occupies a space somewhat less than the kingdom of Portugal, i.e. about a 
fortieth part of what we now call Hindustan, and dangers of all kinds are 
less numerous than in the tropical civilizations. The climate was more 
healthy, earthquakes were less frequent, hurricanes were less disastrous, 
wild beasts and noxious animals less abundant. The highest mountains of 
Greece are less than a third of the Himalayas, so that they nowhere reach 
the regions of perpetual snow.” 
Out of these and similar influences Mr. Buckle deduces the 
differences of the Indian and Greek religions ; the monstrosity 
of the one, and the human character of the other. 
This is a singular instance of exaggeration ; and of putting 
non causa jpro causa, I have no wish to deny that a powerful 
