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are slaves among the native inhabitants of Canada, and are chiefly valued for the toils they endure, and the domestic service they yield *)..

The burning ardours, and the torturing jealousies of the seraglio, and the haram, which have reigned so long in Asia and Africa, and which, in the southern parts of Europe, have scarcely given way to the difference of religion and civil establishments, are found, however with an abatement of heat in the climate, to be more easily changed, in one latitude, into a temporary passion which ingrosses the mind, without enfeebling it, and excites to romantic atchievements: by a farther progress to the north, it is changed into a spirit of gallantry, which employs the wit and the fancy more than the heart; which prefers intrigue to enjoyment; and substitutes affectation and vanity, where sentiment and desire have failed. As it departs from the sun, the same passion is farther composed into a habit of domestic connection, or frozen into a state of insensibility, under which the sexes at freedom scafcely chuse to unite their society.

These variations of temperament and character, do not indeed correspond with the number of degrees that are measured from the equator to the pole; nor does the temperature of the air itself depend on the latitude. Varieties of soil and position, the distance or neighbourhood of the sea, are known to affect the atmosphere, and may have signal effects in composing the animal frame.

The climates of America, though taken under the same parallel, are observed to differ from those of Europe. There, extensive marshes, great lakes, aged, decayed, and crowded forests, with the other circumstances that mark an uncultivated country, are supposed to replenish the air with heavy and noxious vapours, that give a double asperity to the winter, and during many months, by the frequency and continuance of fogs, snow, and frost, carry the inconveniencies of the frigid zone far into the temperate. The Samojede and the Laplander, however, have their counterpart, though on a lower latitude, on the shores of America: the Canadian and the Iroquois bear a resemblance to the ancient inhabitants of the middling climates of Europe: the Mexican, like the Asiatic of India, being addicted to pleasure, was sunk in effeminacy;

*) Charlevoix.

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and in the neighbourhood of the wild and the free, had suffered to be raised on his weakness, a domineering superstition, and a permanent fabric of despotical government.

Great part of Tartary lies under the same parallels with Greece, Italy, and Spain; but the climates are found to be different; and while the shores not only of the Mediterranean but even those of the Atlantic, are favoured with a moderate change and vicissitude of seasons, the eastern parts of Europe, and the northern continent of Asia, are afflicted with all their extremes. In one season, we are told, that the plagues of ardent summer reach almost to the frozen sea; and that the inhabitant is obliged to screen himself from noxious vermin in the same clouds of smoke in which he must, at a different time of the year, take shelter from the rigours of cold. When winter returns, the transition is rapid, and with an asperity almost equal in every latitude, lays waste the face of the earth, from the northern confines of Siberia, to the descents of Mount Caucasus and the frontier of India.

With this unequal distribution of climate, by which the lot, as well as the national character, of the northern Asiatic may be deemed inferior to that of Europeans, who lie under the same parallels, a similar gradation of temperament and spirit, however, has been observed, in following the meridian on either tract; and the southern Tartar has over the Tonguses and the Samojede, the same pre-eminence that certain nations of Europe are known to possess over their northern neighbours, in situations more advantageous to both.

The southern hemisphere scarcely offers a subject of like observation. The temperate zone is there still undiscovered, or is only known in two promontories, the Cape of Good Hope, and Cape Horn, which stretch into moderate latitudes on that side of the line. But the savage of South America, Rothwithstanding the interposition of the nations of Peru and of Mexico, is found to resemble his counterpart on the North, and the Hottentot, in many things, the barbarian of Europe; her is tenacious of freedom, has rudiments of policy, and a national vigour, which serve to distinguish his race from the other African tribes, who are exposed to the more vertical rays of the sun.

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While we have, in these observations, only thrown out what must present itself on the most cursory view of the history of mankind, or what may be presumed from the mere

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obscurity of some nations, who inhabit great tracts of the hei earth, as well as from the lustre of others, we are still unable to explain the manner in which climate may effect the termperament, or foster the genius of its inhabitant.

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That the temper of the heart, and the intellectual operations of the mind, are, in some measure, dependent on the state of the animal organs, is well known from experience..th Men differ from themselves in sickness and in health, under .ba a change of diet, of air and of exercise: but we are, even in these familiar instances, at a loss how to connect the cause with its supposed effect: and though climate, by including a variety of such causes, may, by some regular influence, affect the characters of men, we can never hope to explain the manner of those influences till we have understood what probably we shall never understand, the structure of those finer organs with which operations of the soul are connected.

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When we point out, in the situation of a people, circumstances which, by determining their pursuits, regulate their habits, and their manner of life, and when, instead of referring to the supposed physical source of their dispositions, we assign their inducements to a determinate conduct; in this we speak of effects and of causes whose connection is more familiarly known. We can understand for instance, why a race of men like the Samoiede, confined, during great part of the year, to darkness, or retired into caverns, should differ, in their manners and apprehensions, from those who are at liberty in every season, or who, instead of seeking relief from the extremities of cold, are employed in search of precautions against the oppressionss of a burning sun. Fire and exercise are the remedies of cold; repose and shade the securities from heat. The Hollander is laborious and industrious in Europe; he becomes more languid and slothful in India *).

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Great extremities, either of heat or cold, are, perhaps, in a moral view, equally unfavourable to the active genius of mankind, and by presenting alike insuperable difficulties to be overcome, or 'strong inducements to indolence and sloth, equally prevent the first applications of ingenuity, or limit

*) The Dutch sailors who were employed in the siege of Malaco, tore or burnt the sail-cloth which was given them to make tents, that they might not have the trouble of making or pitching them. Voy de Matelief.

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their progress. Some intermediate degrees of inconvenience in the situation, at once excite the spirit, and, with the hopes of success," encourage its efforts. ,, It is in the feast favour

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able situations," says Mr. Rousseau,,,that the arts have ,, flourished the most. I could show them in Egypt, as they ,, spread with the overflowing of the Nile; and in Attica as ,, they mounted up to the clouds, from a rocky soil and from „barren sands; while on the fertile banks of the Eurotas they were not able to fasten their roots,"

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Where mankind from the first subsist by toil, and in the midst of difficulties, the defects of their situation are supplied by industry and while dry, tempting, and healthful lands are left uncultivated *), the pestilent marsh is drained, with great labour, and the sea is fenced off with mighty barriers, the materials and the costs of which, the soil to be gained can scarcely afford, or repay. Harbours are opened, and crowded with shipping, where vessels of burden, if they are not constructed with a view to the situation, have not water to float. Elegant and magnificent edifices are raised on foundations of slime; and all the conveniencies of human life are made to abound, where nature does not seem to have prepared a reception for men. It is in vain to expect, that the residence of arts and commerce should be determined by the possession of natural advantages. Men do more when they have certain difficulties to surmount, than when they have supposed blessings to enjoy: and the shade of the harren oak and the ping are more favourable to the genius of mankind, than that of the palm or the tamarind.

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Among the advantages which enable nations to run the career of policy, as well as of arts, it may be expected, from the observations already made, that we should reckon every circumstance which enables them to divide and to maintain themselves indistinct and independent communities. The society and concourse of other men, are not more necessary to form the individual, than the rivalship and competition of nations are to invigorate the principles of political life in a state. Their wars, and their treaties, their mutual jealousies, and the establishments which they devise with a view to each other, constitute more than half the occupations of mankind, and furnish materials for their greatest and most improving

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*) Compare the state of Hungary with that of Holland.

exertions. For this reason, clusters of islands, a continent divided by many natural barriers, great rivers, ridges of mountains, and arms of the sea, are best fitted for becoming the nursery of independent and respectable nations. The distinction of states being clearly maintained, a principle of political life is established in every division, and the capital of every district, like the heart in an animal body, communicates with ease the vital blood and the national spirit to its members.

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The most respectable nations have always been found where at least one part of the frontier has been washed by the sea. This barrier, perhaps the strongest of all in the times of ignorance, does not however, even then supersede the cares of a national defence; and in the advanced state of arts» gives the greatest scope and facility to commerce.

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Thriving and independent nations were accordingly scattered on the shore of the Pacific and the Atlantic. surrounded the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Baltic; while, a few tribes excepted, who retire among the mountains bordering on India and Persia, or who have found some rude, establishment among the creeks and the shores of the Caspian and the Euxine, there is scarcely a people in the vast conti-nent of Asia who deserves the name of a nation. The unbounded plain is traversed at large by hordes, who are in perpetual motion, or who are displaced and harassed by their mutual hostilities. Although they are never perhaps actually blended together in the course of hunting, or in the search of pasture, they cannot bear one great distinction of nations, which is taken from the territory, and which is deeply impressed by an affection to the native seat., They move in troops, without the arrangement or the concert of nations; they become easy accessions to every new empire among themselves, or to the Chinese and the Muscovite, with whom they hold a traffic for the means of subsistence, and the materials of pleasure.

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Where a happy system of nations is formed, they do not rely for the continuance of their separate names, and for that of their political independence, on the barriers erected by nature. Mutual jealousies lead to the maintenance of a balance of power; and this principle, more than the Rhine and the Ocean, than the Alps and the Pyrenees in modern Europe; more than the straits of Thermopyla, the mountains

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