Should it be urged that the magnitude and form of the head, on which the intellectual and moral character of nations so much depends, are determined chiefly by regimen, modes of living, political, religious, and social institutions—I reply, that all of these are no less modified by climate than the geographical distribution of plants and animals :—that if the natives of the polar regions live chiefly on flesh, and clothe themselves with skins, it is because the climate does not afford grain, grass, fruits, cotton, flax, wool, and silks; all of which abound in warmer latitudes :- that if the Budhists, Brahmins, and Essenes, of southern Asia, abstained from animal food and spirituous liquors, it was because they are injurious to health in hot climates:-that if, like the priests of Egypt, they enjoined the frequent use of the cold bath as a religious duty, it was because they found it salutary in a burning climate:—that if they had resided in Russia, they would have substituted in its place warm bathing, which the Russians regard as a panacea :-that if the laws of Moses against the use of pork, hares, rabbits, all carnivorous animals, shell fish, and fat of every description, were adapted to the climate of Palestine, they are constantly violated by even the Jews, in the higher latitudes of Europe, Asia, and America; for no laws will ever be long and widely obeyed, unless founded on, and in harmony with, those of nature.

Thus it is manifest, that the diet, clothing, habitations, manners, customs, and religious ceremonies of mankind, are greatly modified by geographical position,-that" creeds and morals vary in every clime, growing like herbs upon the soil,"that the physical character of nations, and even their political institutions, depend greatly on the region in which they are created. For in countries where the climate is unfit for agriculture, the population must necessarily be poor, thinly scattered, and separated into numerous tribes of wandering shepherds, robbers, and hunters, who cannot unite under regular forms of government, nor make any considerable progress in civilization, arts, science, and general improvement. As the higher intellectual and moral faculties are but little exercised, they are imperfectly developed, and the animal feelings greatly predominate.

But in countries where the population is dense, all the higher faculties are stimulated to exertion, by the prospect of obtaining wealth, pleasure, distinction, or power,-which are both the cause and effect of improvement of the nobler faculties. Even the organs of voice are modified by climate. And as among barbarous tribes, the objects are few about which the mind is employed, language is poor, or deficient in copiousness and variety. On the other hand, I fully agree with Mr. Lawrence, that "bad government, oppressive laws, neglected education, bigotry, fanaticism, and reli

gious intolerance, will counteract the noblest gifts of nature, and plunge into ignorance, degradation, and weakness, nations capable of the highest culture, the most splendid moral and intellectual achievements." If the climates of India and China are less favourable to a high developement of physical, intellectual, and moral endowments, than those of Europe, the inhabitants have also been kept stationary for the last 2000 years by the institution of casts, and the misfortune of a hieroglyphic language; so that the finest portions of Asia are buried in profound darkness, and prevented from improving their condition; while in Russia, the mass of the people have been hitherto degraded to the condition of serfs, and sold with the estates on which they labour, like beasts of burden.

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CHAPTER II.

"If the human mind can ever flatter itself with having been successful in discovering the truth, it is when many facts, and these facts of different kinds, unite in producing the same result." BAILLIE.

It is still an unresolved problem among Philosophers, whether all the varieties of mankind have resulted from the influence of climate, geographical position, and different modes of living, as supposed by Herodotus, Diodorus, Hippocrates, Buffon, Zimmerman, Forster, Herder, Smith, and some others, or from an original difference of race, as maintained by Voltaire, Humboldt, Adelung, Caldwell, Lawrence, and others. The most prevalent hypothesis of the present day is, that all the nations of the earth may be traced to different races, which have been mingled by conquests, colonizations, marriages, &c. Without denying that all of them may have descended from the same original stock, Blumenbach has reduced the whole to five distinct classes, which he terms the Caucasian, the Mongolian, the Malay, the American, and the Ethiopian races.

To the first of these classes belong the Hindoos, Arabians, Persians, Egyptians, Lybians, Phœnicians, Greeks, Romans, Saxons, Celts, with their descendants, now spread over Europe and many

other parts of the world. To the second, or Mongolian family, belong the ancient Scythians, and their descendants, the modern Tartars of central Asia, the Chinese, Japanese, the Indo-Chinese, and the various tribes of northern Asia. To the Malay race belong the natives of Malacca, Borneo, Sumatra, Java, New Zealand, the Philippine, and other islands of the South Sea. The fourth class embraces the numerous tribes of America, from the arctic ocean to Cape Horn; while the black natives of central Africa, New Holland, and New Guinea, belong to the fifth, or Ethiopian

race.

It is maintained by Mr. Lawrence, in his very able and learned work on the Natural History of Man, that "external agencies, whether physical or moral, will not account for the bodily and mental differences which characterize the several tribes of mankind,-and that they are the offspring of natural differences in the breed or race." (pp. 300, 387,442, 486.) M. Quetelet also observes, in his late Treatise on Man, that "different races must be admitted, although the characters on which these distinctions are established have not been sufficiently defined." And he adds, "how can we study the modifications which the elements relative to man, as well as their laws of developement, undergo in the different races, when we have not settled the point of commencement?"

In regard to the first abode of mankind, termed he Garden of Eden, or the terrestrial Paradise