ON THE TRAIL OF CIVILIZATION.

West Coast Times, Issue 662, 7 November 1867, Page 4

ON THE TRAIL OF CIVILIZATION.

A LECTURE, DjILITEBED TO THE MeSTBEES OF THE Litbbaby Institute, Hokitika, 18th October, 1867, by Malcolm Fbaseb, Esq. [continued.] Of all the physical agents by which the increase of the labouring classes is affected that of food is the most active and universal. The food consumed by man produces two, and only two, effects necessary for his existence. These are, first, to supply him with that animal heat without which the functions of life would stop ; and, secondly, to repair the waste constantly taking place in his tissues, that is, the mechanism of his frame. These are the two great divisions of food, and if we inquire into the laws which regulate the relation they bear to man, we shall find that in each division the most important agent is cUmate^J^hen men live in a hot cowtfay the animal heat is more easily kept up than when they live in a cold one. Since, therefore, the inhabitants of hot climates do, in their natural and ordinary state, consume less food than the inhabitants of cold ones, it inevitably follows that, provided other things remain equal, the growth of population will be more rapid in countries which are hot than in those which are cold. When men eat less, the result will be just the same as if they had more ; and thus population will gain a power of increasing more quickly than it could do in a colder country, where, even if provisions were equally abundant, they, owing to the climate, would be sooner exhausted. This is the first view in which the laws of climate are, through the medium of food, connected with the laws of population, and, therefore, with the laws of the distribution of wealth. But there is another point of ■view which follows the same line of thought, and will be found to strengthen the argument just stated. This" is, that in cold countries not only are men compelled to eat more than in hot ones, but their food is dearer, that is to say, to get it is more difficult, and requires a greater amount of labour, and it is a most jiumrkable fret that, owing to some general

law of which we are ignorant, highly carbonised food is more costly than food in which comparatively little carbon is found. The fruits of the earth of which oxygen is the most active principle, are very abundant ; they may be obtained without danger, and with very little trouble. But that highly carbonised food, which in a cold climate is absolutely necessary to life, is not produced in so facile and spontaneous a manner. The result has been that, amougst nations where the coldness of the climate renders a highly carbonised diet necessary, there is for the most part displayed, even in the infancy of society, a bolder and more adventurous character than we find among those other nations whose ordinary nutriment, being highly oxidised, is easily obtained. From this original divergence there follows many other consequences, which, however, I am not now concerned to trace; my present object being merely to point out how this difference of food effects the proportion in which wealth is distributed to the different classes.

The facts then by which this proportion is actually altered are simply these. The rate of wages fluctuates with the population ; increasing when the labour market is under supplied, diminishing when it is over-sup plied. Population itself, though affected by many other circumstances, does undoubtedly fluctuate with the supply of food. The food essential to life is scarcer in cold countries than in hot ones, and not only is it scarcer, but more of it is required, so that on both grounds smaller encouragement is given to the growth of that population from whose ranks the labour market is stocked. To express, therefore, the conclusion in its simplest form, we may say that there is a strong and constant tendency in hot countries for wages to be low, in cold countries for them to be high. Applying now this great principle to the general course of history, we shall find proofs of its accuracy in every direction. In Asia, hi Africa, and in AJmerica, all the ancient civilisation were seated in hot climates ; and in all of them wages were very low, and, therefore, the condition of the labouring classes very depressed. In Europe, for the first tune, civilisation arose in a colder climate, hence the reward of labour was increased, and the distribution of wealth rendered more equal than was possible in countries in which an excessive abundance of food stimulated the growth of population. This difference produced many social and political consequences of immense importance.

In Europe there was some approach to equality, some tendency to correct that enormous disproportion of wealth and power, which formed the essential weakness of the greatest of the ancient countries. As a natural consequenco it is in Europe that everything worthy of the name of civilisation has originated ; because there alone have attempts been made to preserve the balance of its relative parts. There alone has society been organised to a scheme, not indeed sufficiently large, but still wide enough to include all the different classes of which it is composed, and thus by leaving room for the progress of each, to secure the permanence and advancement of the whole.

Thus far have I crudely sketched the way that civilisation has been affected by food, climate, and soil. It now remains for us to examine the effect of those other physical agents to which I have given the name of Aspects of Nature, and which will be found suggestive of some wide and very comprehensive inquiries into the influence exercised by the external world in predisposing men to certain habits of thought, and thus giving a particular tone to religion, literature, arts, and, in a word, to all the manifestations of the human mind. For as we have seen that climate, food, and soil mainly concern the accumulation and distribution of wealth, so also may we see that the Aspects of Nature concern the accumulation and distribution of thought.

The Aspects of Nature, when considered from this point of view, are divisible into two classes. The first class being those most likely to excite the imagination, and the other class those which address themselves to the understanding, that is to the mere logical operations of the intellect. For although it is true that in a complete and well balanced mind each play their respective parts, it is also true that, in a majority of instances, the understanding is too weak to curb the imagination. The tendency of advancing civilisation is to remedy this disproportion, and invest the reasoning powers with that authority which, in an early state of society, the imagination exclusively possesses. Now, so far as natural phenomena are concerned, it is evident that, whatever inspires feelings of terror, or of wonder, and whatever excites in the mind an idea of the vague and uncontrollable, has a natural tendency to inflame the imagination, and bring under its dominion the slower and more deliberate operations of the understanding. In such cases man, contrasting himself with the force and majesty of nature, becomes painfully conscious of his own insignificance. A sense of inferiority steals over him. His* mind, appalled by the indefined and indefinable, hardly cares to scrutinise the details of which such imposing grandeur consistSjOn the other hand, wJiere the works of nature are small and feeble, man regains confidence ; he seems more able to rely on his own power. Looking in thi3 way at the human mind, as effected by the Aspects of Nature, it is a remarkable fact that all the great early civilisations were situated witliin, or immediately adjoining'the tropics, where those aspects are most sublime, most terrible, and where nature is, in every respect, most dangerous to man. Indeed, generally in Asia, Africa, and America, the external world is more formidable than in Europe. This holds good, not only i of the fixed and permanent phenomena, such j as mountains and other great natural barriers, but also of occasional phenomena, sucli as earthquakes, tempests, "hurricanes, pestilences, all of which are in those regions very frequent and very disastrous. Of those physical events which increase the insecurity of man, earthquakes are certainly among the most striking, in regard to the loss of life which they cause, and in regard to their sudden and unexpected occurrence. In Peru, where earthquakes appear to be more common than in any other country, every succeeding visitation increases the general dismay. The manner in which the Aspects of Nature, when they are threatening, stimulate the imagination, and by encouraging superstition, discourage knowledge, may bo made more apparent by one or two facts. Among an ignorant people it constantly happens, not only the danger is submitted to, but that it is actually worshipped. This is the case with some of the Hindoos in the forests of Malabar ; and many similar instances will occur to whoever has studied the condition of barbarous tribes. Indeed, so far is this carried, that in some countries the inhabitants, from feelings of reverential fear, refuse to destroy wild beasts and noxious reptiles ; the mischief these animals inflict being the cause of the impunity they enjoy. It is in this way that the old tropical civilisations had to struggle with innumerable difficulties unknown to the temperate zone, where European civilisation has long flourished. The devastations of animals hostile to man, the ravages of hurricanes, tempests, earthquakes, and similar perils pressed upon them, and affected the tone of their national character.

Summing up these facts, it may be stated that, in the civilisations anterior to Europe, all nature conspired to increase the authority of the imaginative faculties, and weaken the authority of the reasoning ones. With the materials now existing it would be possible to follow this vast law to its remotest consequences, and to show how in Europe it is opposed by another law diametrically opposite, and by virture of which the tendency of natural phenomena is, on the whole, to limit the imagination and embolden the under* standing. Before closing this section of my lecture, let us compare India and Greece. In Greece we see » country altogether the reverse of

India. The works of natui'e, which are are in India of startling magnitude, are iv Greece far smaller, feebler, and. in every way less threatening to man. In the great centre of Asiatic civilisation the energies of the human race were confined, and, as it were, intimidated by the surrounding phenomena. Besides the dangers incidental to tropical climates, there arc those noble mountains which seem to touch the sky, and from whose sides are discharged mighty rivers. There are impassable forests, interminable jungles, and dreary deserts, without there are great seas, ravaged by tempests, far more destructive than any known in Europe. And in these regions, as if everything combined to cramp the activity of man, the whole line of coast from the mouth of the Ganges to the extreme south of the Peninsula does not contain a single safe harbour, which is perhaps rnoro necessary there than in any part of the world. But in Greece the aspects of nature are so entirely different that the very conditions of existence are changed, for while in the Asiatic country everything is great and terrible, in the European country everything is small and feeble.

These striking differences in the material phenomena of the two countries gave rise to corresponding differences in their mental associations. For as all ideas must arise, partly from what are called spontaneous operations iv the mind, and partly from what is suggested to the mind by the external world, it was natural that so gi"eat an alteration in one of the causes should produce an alteration in the effect. The tendency of the surrounding phenomena was, in India, to inspire feav; in Greece, to give confidence ; in India, man was intimidated; in Greece, he was encouraged.

The effect of these different habits of thought on the national religion must be obvious to whoever has compared the popular creed of India with that of Greece. The mythology of India, like that of every tropical country, is based on terror, and so deeply is this impressed on the mind that the most popular deities are invariably those with whom images of fear are invariably associated. Thus, for example, the worship of Siva, which is more general than any other. Siva is represented to the Indian mind as a hideous being, encircled with a girdle of snakes, with a human skull in his hand, and wearing a necklace composed of human bones. He has three eyes ; the ferocity of his temper is marked by his being clothed in a tiger's skin; he is represented as wandering about like a madman ; and over his shoulder the deadly cobra di capella rears its head. If we turn to Greece, we find even in the infancy of its religion not the faintest trace of anything approaching to this. For in Greece the causes of terror being less abundant the expression of fear was less common. The tendency of Asiatic civilisation was to widen the distance between men and their deities, that of the Greeks to diminish it. Thus it is, that in Hindostan all the gods had something monstrous about them, as Vishun, with four hands. Brahma, with five heads and the like. But the Greek gods had not only human forms, but also human attributes, human pursuits, and human tastes. The men of Asia, to whom every object of nature was a source of awe, acquired such habits of reverence, that they never dared to assimilate then 1 own actions with those of their deities. The men of Europe, encouraged by the safety and inertness of the material world, did not fear to strike a parallel. It is thus that the Greek divinities are so different from these of Hindus that we seem to pass from one creation to another. (To be continued.)

On the Spot. — Mr Eoberts, the champion billiard-player, is so proficient in the spotstroke, that he can enter the den of leopards in the Zoological-gardens and carre'ss the animals with perfect impunity. Quilp thinks it ' rather remai-kable that while several thousand feet are required to make one rood, a single foot, properly applied, is often sufficient to make one civil. It is to be hoped that visitors to the Paris Exhibition will, during their stay in France, learn the art of making a good cup of coffee ; as what is at present offered to the British public under the name of that beverage is nothing but a perfect Mocha-ry ! A certain author, speaking of the quickness and brilliant genius of the English, says that in writing letters on any one subject the men will fill a folio sheet of four pages ; but, to the praises of the women be it spoken, they will write the same sized letter of four pages on no subject at all !