up the whole, it may be said that the Greeks had more respect for human powers, the Hindus for superhuman. The first dealt more with the known and available; the other with the unknown and mysterious. And by a parity of reasoning, the imagination, which the Hindus, being oppressed by the pomp and majesty of nature, never sought to control, lost its supremacy in the little peninsula of ancient Greece. In Greece, for the first time in the history of the world, the imagination was in some degree tempered and confined by the understanding. Not that its strength was impaired, or its vitality diminished. It was broken in and tamed; its exuberance was checked, its follies were chastised. But that its energy remained, we have ample proof in those productions of the Greek mind which have survived to our own time. The gain, therefore, was complete, since the inquiring and skeptical faculties of the human understanding were cultivated, without destroying the reverential and poetic instincts of the imagination. Whether or not the balance was accurately adjusted is another question; but it is certain that the adjustment was more nearly arrived at in Greece than in any previous civilization.2 There can, I think, be little doubt that, notwithstanding what nature, overlooking those natural elements of mystery and of danger by which religious sentiments were constantly excited.

1 A learned Orientalist says that no people have made such efforts as the Hindus "to solve, exhaust, comprehend, what is insolvable, inexhaustible, incomprehensible" (Troyer's Preliminary Discourse on the Dabistan, Vol. I, p. cviii).

2 This is noticed by Tennemann, who, however, has not attempted to ascertain the cause: "Die Einbildungskraft des Griechen war schöpferisch, sie schuf in seinen Innern neue Ideenwelten; aber er wurde doch nie verleitet, die idealische Welt mit der wirklichen zu verwechseln, weil sie immer mit einem richtigen Verstande und gesunder Beurtheilungskraft verbunden war (Geschichte der Philosophie, Vol. I, p. 8); and in Vol. VI, p. 490, he says: “Bei allen diesen Mängeln und Fehlern sind doch die Griechen die einzige Nation der alten Welt, welche Sinn für Wissenschaft hatte, und zu diesem Behufe forschte. Sie haben doch die Bahn gebrochen, und den Weg zur Wissenschaft geebnet." To the same effect, see Sprengel, Histoire de la Médecine, Vol. I, p. 215. And on this distance between the Eastern and the European mind, see Matter, Histoire du Gnosticisme, Vol. I, pp. 18, 233, 234. So, too, Kant (Logik, in Kant's Werke, Vol. I, p. 350): "Unter allen Völkern haben also die Griechen erst angefangen zu philosophiren. Denn sie haben zuerst versucht, nicht an dem Leitfaden der Bilder die Vernunfterkenntnisse zu cultiviren, sondern in abstracto; statt dass die anderen Völker sich die Begriffe immer nur durch Bilder in concreto verständlich zu machen suchten."

was effected, too much authority was left to the imaginative faculties, and that the purely reasoning ones did not receive, and never have received, sufficient attention. Still, this does not affect the great fact that the Greek literature is the first in which this deficiency was somewhat remedied, and in which there was a deliberate and systematic attempt to test all opinions by their consonance with human reason, and thus vindicate the right of man to judge for himself on matters which are of supreme and incalculable importance.

I have selected India and Greece as the two terms of the preceding comparison, because our information respecting those countries is most extensive, and has been most carefully arranged. But everything we know of the other tropical civilizations confirms the views I have advocated respecting the effects produced by the Aspects of Nature. In Central America extensive excavations have been made, and what has been brought to light proves that the national religion was, like that of India, a system of complete and unmitigated terror. Neither there nor in Mexico, nor in Peru, nor in Egypt, did the people desire to represent their deities in human forms, or ascribe to them human attributes. Even their temples are huge buildings, often constructed with great skill, but showing an evident wish to impress the mind with fear, and offering a striking contrast to the lighter and smaller structures which the Greeks employed for religious purposes. Thus, even in the style of architecture do we see the same principle at work; the dangers of the tropical civilization being more suggestive of the infinite, while the safety of the European civilization was more suggestive of the finite. To follow out the consequences of this great antagonism, it would be necessary to indicate how the infinite, the imaginative, the synthetic, and the deductive are all connected; and are opposed, on the other hand, by the finite, the skeptical, the analytic, and the

1 Thus, of one of the idols at Copan, "The intention of the sculptor seems to have been to excite terror" (Stephens' Central America, Vol. I, p. 152); at p. 159, "The form of sculpture most generally used was a death's head." At Mayapan (Vol. III, p. 133), "representations of human figures, or animals with hideous features and expressions, in producing which the skill of the artist seems to have been expended"; and again, p. 412, "unnatural and grotesque faces."

inductive. A complete illustration of this would carry me beyond the plan of this Introduction, and would perhaps exceed the resources of my own knowledge; and I must now leave to the candor of the reader what I am conscious is but an imperfect sketch, but what may, nevertheless, suggest to him materials for future thought, and, if I might indulge the hope, may open to historians a new field, by reminding them that everywhere the hand of nature is upon us, and that the history of the human mind can only be understood by connecting with it the history and the aspects of the material universe.

[This remarkable chapter from Buckle is presented, as nearly as possible, as it was originally published. It is by far the strongest presentation ever made of the materialistic conception of history. The difference between Buckle's method and that of Karl Marx, e.g., is essentially the difference between the positive and the metaphysical methods so admirably set forth by Auguste Comte (see pages 15 to 64 of this book). Buckle's vast learning and irresistible logic make this work, and especially this chapter, a monument to his genius which time is not likely to mar. Certainly, in this age, ignorance of Buckle argues an incomplete education as truly as does an ignorance of Adam Smith or of Darwin. — ED.]

XI

THE ZONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF RELIGION 1

It would appear from this that there is no apparent connection between the greater precariousness of life at any given place of abode, or between the national food, and the local religious creations. But we may, perhaps, find something serviceable where we should least expect it, among the old Arabian geographers. Although they were disciples of the Alexandrian Greeks, and familiar with the Ptolemaic division into degrees, in their popular expositions of their science they nevertheless distributed the earth into climates, or, as we are wont to express it, into climatic zones. These zones were not always of the same breadth, but were about seven degrees, more or less. Each zone was supposed to possess certain products, animal, vegetable, and mineral, in special perfection; even towards the close of the Middle Ages our schoolmen believed that black men were to be found only on or close to the equator, and that gold and precious stones never occur beyond the limits of the second zone. In the language of this systematic error, Shemseddin, who was named Demeshqi, after his native city of Damascus, stated that people of light color and high intellectual endowments are limited to the third and fourth climates, or between 19° and 33° 49′ north latitude, and that in these zones were born all the great founders of religion, philosophers, and scholars, himself included. This zone begins a little to the south of the parallel of Mecca (21° 21'), a great deal to the south of the parallel of Kapilavastu (27°), the birthplace of the Buddha Gautama; on the other hand, its northern margin does not include Rai (Rhagae) near Teheran, and still less Balkh (Bactra). As we have already mentioned, it was in one

1 From The Races of Man, from the German of Oscar Peschel, pp. 314-318, New York, 1894. By permission of D. Appleton & Co.

of these towns that Zoroaster was born. Yet there is some truth in the observation of the Arabian geographers, that the founders of the higher and still existing religions, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed, belong to the subtropical zone. For the birthplace of the latest of the prophets alone falls within the tropics, though only by about seventy-four miles. We make no mention of Confucius, not on account of the high latitude of his birthplace in the district of Yen-chau, in the province of Shan-tung, but because we should degrade the other founders of religion were we to reckon the Chinese moralists among their number.

The fact that the zone of religious founders does not lie within temperate latitudes might be explained by the supposition that it was only in the presence of advanced intellectual development that mankind was able to add a yet higher dignity to human existence by allegiance to ideal objects, and that it was exactly in the subtropical climates that the most ancient social organizations had flourished. But even when civilization in its advance had passed outside the tropics, subtropical Asia still remained the fruitful parent of religions. Christianity did not make its appearance in the overrefined European empire of the Romans, but in Palestine. Islam came into existence six hundred years later, not in Byzantium, but in Arabia. In the cold of the temperate zone man has always been obliged to struggle hard for his existence, working more than praying, so that the burden of the day's labor constantly withheld him from deep inward meditation. In warm countries, on the contrary, where nature facilitates the acquisition of the necessaries of life, and the sultry hours of midday prohibit any bodily exertions, opportunities for mental absorption are far more abundant.

The place of abode is not, however, quite without influence on the direction taken by religious thought. The three monotheistic doctrines, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, originated with the Semitic nations, yet the tendency of the race was not exclusively to monotheism; for other Semites, such as the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, took other courses, while even among the Jews reversions to polytheism were frequent, and in Egypt