The Distribution, Condition, and future Prospects of the Human Race.

More than 800,000,000 of human beings are scattered over the face of the earth, of all nations and kindreds and tongues, and in all stages of civilization, from a high state of moral and intellectual culture, to savages but little above the animals that contend with them for the dominion of the deserts and forests through which they roam. This vast multitude is divided into nations and tribes, differing in external appearance, character, language, and religion. The manner in which they are distributed, the affinities of structure and language by which they are connected, and the effect that climate, food, and customs may have had in modifying their external forms, or their moral and mental powers, are subjects of much more difficulty than the geographical dispersion of the lower classes of animals, inasmuch as the immortal spirit is the chief agent in all that concerns the human race. The progress of the universal mind in past ages, its present condition, and the future prospects of humanity, rouse the deep sympathies of our nature, for the high but mysterious destiny of the myriads of beings yet to come, who, like ourselves, will be subject for a few brief years to the joys and sorrows of this transient state, and fellow-heirs of eternal life hereafter.

Notwithstanding the extreme diversity, personal and mental, in mankind, anatomists have found that there are no specific differences—that the hideous Esquimaux, the refined and intellectual Caucasian, the thick-lipped Negro, and the fair blue-eyed Scannavian, are mere varieties of the same species. The human race forms five great varieties marked by strong distinctive characters. Many nations are included in each; distinguished from one another by different languages, manners, and mental qualities, yet bearing such a resemblance in general physiognomy and appearance as to justify a classification apparently anomalous.

The Caucasian group of nations, which includes the handsomest and most intellectual portion of mankind, inhabit all Europe, except Lapland, Finland, and Hungary; they occupy North Africa, as far as the 20th parallel of north latitude, Arabia, Asia Minor, Persia, the Himalaya to the Brahmapootra, all India between these mountains and the ocean, and the United States of North America. These nations are remarkable for a beautifully-shaped small head, regular features, fine hair, and symmetrical form. The Greeks, Georgians, and Circassians are models of perfection in form, especially the last, which is assumed as the type of this class of mankind; of which it is evident that colour is not a characteristic, since they are of all shades, from the fair and florid, to the clear dark brown and almost black. This family of nations has always been, and still is, the most civilized portion of the human race. The inhabitants of Hindostan, the Egyptians, Arabians, Greeks, and Romans, were in ancient times what the European nations are now. The cause of this remarkable development of mental power is, no doubt, natural disposition, for the difference in the capabilities of nations seems to be as great as that of individuals. The origin of spontaneous civilization and superiority may generally be traced to the talent of some master-spirit gaining an ascendancy over his countrymen. Natural causes have also combined with mental—mildness of climate, fertility of soil; rivers and inland seas, by affording facility of intercourse, favoured enterprise and commerce; and the double-river systems in Asia brought distant nations together, and softened those hostile antipathies which separate people, multiply languages, and reduce all to barbarism. The genius of this family of nations has led them to profit by these natural advantages; whereas the American Indians are at this day wandering as barbarous hordes in one of the finest countries in the world. An original similarity or even identity of many spoken languages may be adverted to as facilitating communication and mental improvement among the Caucasian variety in very ancient times.

The Mongol-Tartar family forms the second group of nations. They occupy all Asia north of the Persian table-land and of the Himalaya; the whole of Eastern Asia from the Brahmapootra to Behring’s Straits, together with the Arctic regions of America north of Labrador. This family includes the Tourkomans, Mongol and Tartar tribes, the Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Japanese, the Esquimaux, and the Hungarians, now located in the very heart of Europe. These nations are distinguished by broad skulls and high cheek-bones, small black eyes obliquely set, long black hair, and a yellow or sallow olive complexion; some are good-looking, and many are well-made. A portion of this family is capable of high culture, especially the Chinese, the most civilized nation of eastern Asia, although they never have attained the excellence of the Caucasian group, probably from their exclusive social system, which has separated them from the rest of mankind, and kept them stationary for ages; the peculiarity and difficulty of their language have also tended to insulate them. The Kalmuks, who lead a pastoral wandering life on the steppes of central Asia, and the Esquimaux, have wider domains than any other of this set of nations. The Kalmuks are rather a handsome people, and, like all who lead a savage life, have acute senses of seeing and hearing. The inhabitants of Finland and Lapland are nearly allied to the Esquimaux, who are spread over all the high latitudes of both continents—a diminutive race, equally ugly in face and form.

Malayan nations occupy the Indian Archipelago, New Zealand, Chatham Island, the Society group, and several other of the Polynesian islands, together with the Phillipines and Formosa. They are very dark, with lank coarse black hair, flat faces, and obliquely set eyes. Endowed with great activity and ingenuity, they are mild and gentle, and far advanced in the arts of social life, in some places; in others, ferocious and vindictive, daring and predatory; and from their maritime position and skill, they are a migratory race. Several branches of this class of nations had a very early indigenous civilization, with an original literature in peculiar characters of their own.

The Ethiopian nations are widely dispersed; they occupy all Africa south of the Great Desert, half of Madagascar, the continent of Australia, Mindanao, Gilolo, the high lands of Borneo, Sumbawa, Timor, and New Ireland. The distinguishing characters of this group are, a black complexion, black woolly or frizzled hair, thick lips, projecting jaws, high cheek-bones, and large prominent eyes. A great variety, however, exists in this jetty race: some are handsome both in face and figure, especially in Ethiopia; and even in Western Africa, where the Negro tribes live, there are groups in which the distinctive characters are less exaggerated. This great family has not yet attained a high place among nations, though by no means incapable of cultivation; part of Ethiopia appears to have made considerable progress in civilization in very ancient times. But the formidable deserts, so extensive in some parts of the continent, and the unwholesome climate in others, have cut off intercourse with civilized nations; and, unfortunately, the infamous traffic in slaves, to the disgrace of Christianity, has made the nations of tropical Africa more barbarous than they were before: while, on the contrary, the Foulahs and other tribes who were converts to Mahommedanism 400 years ago, have now large commercial towns, cultivated grounds, and schools. The Australians and Papuans, who inhabit the eastern islands mentioned, are the most degraded of this dark race, and indeed of all mankind.

The American race, who occupy the whole of that continent from 62° N. lat. to the Straits of Magellan, are almost all of a reddish brown or copper colour, with long black hair, deep-set black eyes, aquiline nose, and often of handsome slender forms. In North America they live by hunting, are averse to agriculture, slow in acquiring knowledge, but extremely acute, brave, and fond of war, and, though revengeful, are capable of generosity and gratitude. In South America many are half-civilized, but a greater number are still in a state of utter barbarism. In a family so widely scattered great diversity of character prevails, yet throughout the whole there is a similarity of manners and habits which has resisted all the effects of time and climate.

Each of these five groups of nations, spread over vast regions, is accounted one family; and if they are so by physical structure, they are still more so by language, which expresses the universal mind of a people, modified by external circumstances, of which none have a greater influence than the geographical features of the country they inhabit—an influence that is deepest in the early stages of society. The remnants of ancient poetry in the south of Scotland partake of the gentle and pastoral character of the country; while Celtic verse, and even the spoken language of the Highlander, are full of poetical images of war and stern mountain scenery. This is particularly to be observed in the noble strains of Homer, and in the heroic poems of the early Hindus, which reflect the lofty and sublime character of eastern scenery.^[188] As civilization advances, and man becomes more intellectual, language keeps pace in the progress. New words and new expressions are added, as new ideas occur and new things are invented, till at last language itself becomes a study, is refined and perfected by the introduction of general terms. The improvement in language and the development of the mind have been the same in all nations which have arrived at any degree of refinement, and shows the identity of human nature in every country and climate. The art of printing perpetuates a tongue, and great authors immortalize it; yet language is ever changing to a certain degree, though it never loses traces of its origin. Chaucer and Spenser have become obscure; Shakespeare requires a glossary for the modern reader; and in the few years that the United States of America have existed as an independent nation, the colloquial language has deviated from the mother-tongue. When a nation degenerates, it is split by jealousy and war into tribes, each of which, in process of time, acquires a peculiar idiom, and thus the number of dialects is increased, though they still retain a similarity; whereas when masses of mankind are united into great political bodies, their languages by degrees assimilate to one common tongue, which retains traces of all to the latest ages. The form of the dialects now spoken by some savage tribes, as the North American Indians, bears the marks of a once higher state of civilization.

More than 2000 languages are spoken, but few are independent; some are connected by words having the same meaning, some by grammatical structure, others by both; indeed the permanency of language is so great, that neither ages of conquest, nor mixing with other nations, have obliterated the native idiom of a people. The French, Spanish, and German retain traces of the common language spoken before the Roman conquest, and the Celtic tongue still exists in the British Islands.

By a comparison of their dialects, nations far apart, and differing in every other respect, are discovered to have sprung from a common, though remote origin. Thus, all the numerous languages spoken by the American Indians, or red men, are similar in grammatical structure: an intimate analogy exists in the languages of the Esquimaux nations who inhabit the arctic regions of both continents. Dialects of one tongue are spoken throughout North Africa, as far south as the oasis of Siwah on the east, and the Canary Islands on the west. Another group of cognate idioms is common to the inhabitants of Equatorial Africa, while all the southern part of the continent is inhabited by people whose languages are connected. The monosyllabic speech of the Chinese and Indo-Chinese shows that they are the same people; and all the insular nations of the Pacific derived their dialects from some tribes on the continent of India and the Indian Archipelago. Cognate tongues are spoken by the Tartars, Mandtchoux, Fins, Laplanders, many of the Siberian nations, and by the Hungarians.

The Persian, Arabic, Greek, Latin, German, and Celtic tongues are connected by grammatical structure, and words expressive of the same objects and feelings, with the Sanscrit, or sacred language of India; consequently, the nations inhabiting that vast extent of country from the mouths of the Ganges to the British Isles, the coast of Scandinavia and Iceland, must have had the same origin. “The words that fall thoughtlessly from our lips in the daily vocations of life are no idle sounds, but magic symbols which preserve for ever the first migrations of the race, and whose antiquity makes Greece and Rome appear but of yesterday.”

The number of languages spoken from the Ganges to Scandinavia, differing so widely from one another, is a proof of the strength of individual character in nations, which can so powerfully impress its peculiarities on the same mother tongue. In fact every nation, as well as every individual, has its own physical, moral, and intellectual organization, which influences its language and its whole existence.

In the Indo-Germanic nations, which have been dominant for ages, civilization has been progressive, though not without interruptions. Providence has endowed these nations with the richest and most ornamental gifts. Imagination has been liberally granted, and embodied in all that is sublime and beautiful in architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry. In strength of intellect and speculation, in philosophy, science, laws, and the political principles of society, they have been pre-eminent.

The prevailing races of mankind now inhabiting Europe are the Teutonic, Celtic, and Sclavonian. In the greater part of the continent these races are mixed, but the blood is purely Teutonic throughout Iceland, Scandinavia, round the Gulf of Bothnia, in Denmark, Germany, and the east of England from Portsmouth to the Tyne. Pure Celtic blood is confined to the Basque Provinces in Spain, the south and south-west of France, a part of the Grisons and Switzerland, and some part of Great Britain. The Sclavonian blood is widely dispersed in middle Russia, from the Ural Mountains to the west of the Valdai table-land, and from Novogorod to the lower course of the Don. The three races have been much improved by mixture, in appearance, energy, and versatility of mind.

It is extraordinary that nations should lose their vitality without any apparent cause; throughout the Indian Archipelago there is no longer any one great Malayan nation, in Europe pure Celtic blood has been on the decline for twenty centuries, and even the mixed Celtic variety has not increased in proportion to the Teutonic, although for 2000 years they have been exposed to the same external circumstances.

At present the Teutonic race, including the inhabitants of North America and the British colonies, considerably outnumber the Celtic, though its numbers were far inferior in ancient times. The Teutonic variety has subdued and even exterminated the other varieties in its progress towards the west; it is undoubtedly the most vigorous, both in body and mind, of all mankind, and seems destined to conquer and civilize the whole world. It is a singular fact, whatever the cause may be, that the Celts are invariably Catholic, while the Teutonic population is inclined to Protestantism.

Various other races inhabit Europe, much inferior in numbers to those above mentioned, though occasionally mixed with them, as the Turks, Fins, the Samojedes, who live on the shores of the White Sea and in the north-east of Russia, and the Hungarians, the higher class of which are a fine race of men, and on a par with the most civilized of the European nations. There are many mixed Tartar tribes, chiefly in the south and east of the Russian territories; also Jews and Gipsies, who live among all nations, yet mix with none.^[189]

The inhabitants of Great Britain are of Celtic and Teutonic origin. The Celtic blood is purest in Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, in Wales, and the Isle of Man: in the highlands of Scotland and the Hebrides it is more mixed than is generally supposed, as plainly appears from the frequency of red hair and blue eyes. In some parts of Ireland there is pure Celtic blood, but throughout the greater part of that country it is mixed, although the Celtic character predominates; but in Ulster, where the earliest colony settled, the blood is purely Teutonic. In Ireland the difference in the organization of the two races is strongly marked: placed under the same circumstances, the Teutonic part of the population has prospered, which, unfortunately, has not been the case with the Celtic.^[190]

The dialects spoken in the Celtic districts are closely allied to the Semitic languages of Asia, and to one another. The Cornish is worn out, the Manx is nearly so, and the Gaelic is declining fast in the highlands of Scotland.

The Roman invasion had no effect on the Anglo-Saxon or old English, a language of Teutonic origin, but the Normans in ancient times had altered it considerably, and in modern times the English tongue has unfortunately been corrupted by the introduction of French, Latin, and Latinized words. Scotch spoken throughout the Lowlands of Scotland is a language independent of the English, though of the same stock; it is derived from the low German, the Frisian, Dutch, and Flemish, and differs widely from the Anglo-Saxon.

No circumstance in the natural world is more inexplicable than the diversity of form and colour in the human race. It had already begun in the antediluvian world, for “there were giants in the land in those days.” No direct mention is made of colour at that time, unless the mark set upon Cain, “lest any one finding him should kill him,” may allude to it. Perhaps, also, it may be inferred that black people dwelt in Ethiopia, or the land of Cush, which means black in the Hebrew language. At all events, the difference now existing must have arisen after the flood, consequently all must have originated with Noah, whose wife, or the wives of his sons, may have been of different colours, for aught we know.

Many instances have occurred in modern times, of albinos and red-haired children having been born of black parents, and these have transmitted their peculiarities to their descendants for several generations, but it may be doubted whether pure-blooded white people have had perfectly black offspring. The varieties are much more likely to have arisen from the effects of climate, food, customs, and civilization upon migratory groups of mankind; and of such, a few instances have occurred in historical times, limited, however, to small numbers and particular spots; but the great mass of nations had received their distinctive characters at a very early period. The permanency of type is one of the most striking circumstances, and proves the length of time necessary to produce a change in national structure and colour. A nation of Ethiopians existed 3450 years ago, which emigrated from a remote country and settled near Egypt, and there must have been black people before the age of Solomon, otherwise he would not have alluded to colour, even poetically. The national appearance of the Ethiopians, Persians, and Jews, has not varied for more than 3000 years, as appears from the ancient Egyptian paintings in the tomb of Rhameses the Great, discovered at Thebes by Belzoni, in which the countenance of the modern Ethiopian and Persian can be readily recognized, and the Jewish features and colour are identical with those of the Israelites daily met with in London. Civilization is supposed to have great influence on colour, having a tendency to make the dark shade more general, and it appears that, in the crossing of two shades, the offspring takes the complexion of the darker and the form of the fairer. But as there is no instance of a new variety of mankind having been established as a nation since the Christian era, there must either have been a greater energy in the causes of change before that time, or, brief as the span of man on earth has been, a wrong estimate of time antecedent to the Christian period must have made it shorter.^[191]

Darkness of complexion has been attributed to the sun’s power from the age of Solomon to this day—“Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me;” and there can be no doubt that, to a certain degree, the opinion is well founded. The invisible rays in the solar beams, which change vegetable colours, and have been employed with such remarkable effect in the Daguerreotype, act upon every substance on which they fall, producing mysterious and wonderful changes in their molecular state—man not excepted.^[192]

Other causes must have been combined to occasion all the varieties we now see, otherwise every nation between the tropics would be of the same hue, whereas the sooty Negro inhabits equatorial Africa, the Red man equinoctial America, and both are mixed with fairer tribes. In Asia, the Rohillas, a fair race of Affghan extraction, inhabit the plains north of the Ganges: the Bengalee and the mountaineers of Nepaul are dark, and the Mahrattas are yellow. The complexion of man varies with height and latitude; some of the inhabitants of the Himalaya and Hindoo Koosh are fair, and even a red-haired race is found on the latter. There are fair-haired people with blue eyes in the Ruddhua mountains in Africa. The Kabyles, that inhabit the country behind Tunis and Algiers, are similar in complexion to the nations in high northern latitudes. This correspondence, however, only maintains with regard to the northern hemisphere, for it is a well-known fact that the varieties of the numerous species in the great southern continents are much more similar in physical characters to the native races of the torrid zone, than any of the aboriginal people of the northern regions. Even supposing that diversity of colour is owing to the sun’s rays only, it is scarcely possible to attribute the thick lips, the woolly hair, and the entire difference of form, extending even to the very bones and skull, to anything but a concurrence of circumstances, not omitting the invisible influence of electricity, which pervades every part of the earth and air—and possibly terrestrial magnetism.

The flexibility of man’s constitution enables him to live in every climate, from the equator to the ever-frozen coasts of Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, and that chiefly by his capability of bearing the most extreme changes of temperature and diet, which are probably the principal causes of the variety in his form. It has already been mentioned that oxygen is inhaled with the atmospheric air, and also taken in by the pores on the skin; part of it combines chemically with the carbon of the food, and is expired in the form of carbonic acid gas and water; that chemical action is the cause of vital force and heat in man and animals. The quantity of food must be in exact proportion to the quantity of oxygen inhaled, otherwise disease and loss of strength would be the consequence. Since cold air is incessantly carrying off warmth from the skin, more exercise is requisite in winter than in summer, in cold climates than in warm; consequently, more carbon is necessary in the former than in the latter, in order to maintain the chemical action that generates heat, and to ward off the destructive effects of the oxygen, which incessantly strives to consume the body. Animal food, wine, and spirits, contain many times more carbon than fruit and vegetables, therefore animal food is much more necessary in a cold than in a hot climate. The esquimaux, who lives by the chace, and eats 10 or 12 pounds weight of meat and fat in 24 hours, finds it not more than enough to keep up his strength and animal heat, while the indolent inhabitant of Bengal is sufficiently supplied with both by his rice diet. Clothing and warmth make the necessity for exercise and food much less, by diminishing the waste of animal heat. Hunger and cold united soon consume the body, because it loses its power of resisting the action of the oxygen, which consumes part of our substance, when food is wanting. Hence, nations inhabiting warm climates have no great merit in being abstemious, nor are those guilty of committing an excess who live more freely in colder countries. The arrangement of Divine Wisdom is to be admired in this as in all other things, for, if man had only been capable of living on vegetable food, he never could have had a permanent residence beyond the latitude where corn ripens. The Esquimaux, and all the inhabitants of the very high latitudes of both continents, live entirely on fish and animal food. What effects the difference of food may have upon the intellect is not known.

A nation or tribe driven by war, or any other cause, from a warm to a cold country, or the contrary, would be forced to change their food both in quality and quantity, which in the lapse of ages might produce an alteration in the external form and internal structure. The probability is still greater, if the entire change that a few years produces in the matter of which the human frame is composed be considered. At every instant during life, with every motion, voluntary and involuntary, with every thought and every exercise of the brain, a portion of our substance becomes dead, separates from the living part, combines with some of the inhaled oxygen, and is removed. By this process it is supposed that the whole body is renewed every 7 years; individuality, therefore, depends on the spirit, which retains its identity during all the changes of its earthly house, and sometimes even acts independently of it. When sleep is restoring exhausted nature, the spirit is often awake and active, crowding the events of years into a few seconds, and, by its unconsciousness of time, anticipates eternity. Every change of food, climate, and mental excitement, must have their influence on the reproduction of the mortal frame; and thus a thousand causes may co-operate to alter whole races of mankind placed under new circumstances, time being granted.

The difference between the effects of manual labour and the efforts of the brain appears in the intellectual countenance of the educated man, compared with that of the peasant, though even he is occasionally stamped with nature’s own nobility. The most savage people are also the ugliest. Their countenance is deformed by violent unsubdued passions, anxiety, and suffering. Deep sensibility gives a beautiful and varied expression, but every strong emotion is unfavourable to perfect regularity of feature; and of that the Greeks were well aware when they gave that calmness of expression and repose to their unrivalled statues. The refining effects of high culture, and, above all, the Christian religion, by subduing the evil passions, and encouraging the good, are more than anything calculated to improve even the external appearance. The countenance, though perhaps of less regular form, becomes expressive of the amiable and benevolent feelings of the heart, the most captivating and lasting of all beauty.^[193]

Thus, an infinite assemblage of causes may be assigned as having produced the endless varieties in the human race; but the fact remains an inscrutable mystery. But amidst all the physical vicissitudes man has undergone, the species remains permanent; and let those who think that the difference in the species of animals and vegetables arises from diversity of conditions, consider, that no circumstances whatever can degrade the form of man to that of the monkey—or elevate the monkey to the form of man.

Animals and vegetables, being the sources of man’s sustenance, have had the chief influence on his destiny and location, and have induced him to settle in those parts of the world where he could procure them in greatest abundance. Wherever the chace or the spontaneous productions of the earth supply him with food, he is completely savage, and only a degree further advanced where he plants the palm and the banana; where grain is the principal food, industry and intelligence are most perfectly developed, as in the temperate zone. On that account the centres of civilization have generally been determined, not by a hot, but by a genial climate, fertile soil, by the vicinity of the sea-coast or great rivers, affording the means of fishing and transport, which last has been one of the chief causes of the superiority of Europe and Southern Asia. The mineral treasures of the earth have been the means of assembling great masses of men in Siberia and the table-land of the Andes, and have given rise to many great cities, both in the Old and the New World. Nations inhabiting elevated table-lands and high ungenial latitudes have been driven there by war, or obliged to wander from countries where the population exceeded the means of living—a cause of migration to which both language and tradition bear testimony. The belief in a future state, so universal, shown by respect for the dead, has no doubt been transmitted from nation to nation. The American Indians, driven from their hunting-grounds, still make pilgrimages to the tombs of their fathers; and these tribes alone, of all uncivilized mankind, worship the Great Spirit as the invisible God and Father of all—a degree of abstract refinement which could hardly have sprung up spontaneously among a rude people, and which must have been transmitted from races who held the Jewish faith.

It is probable that America had been peopled from Asia before the separation of the continents by Behring’s Straits, and there is reason to believe that the location of various races of mankind, now insulated, may have taken place before the separation of the lands by mediterranean seas; whilst others, previously insulated, may be now united by the drying up of inland seas, as those which covered the Sahara desert, and the great hollow round the Caspian Sea, of which it and the Black Sea are probably the remnants.

M. BouÉ has observed that mountain chains running nearly east and west establish much more striking differences among nations than those which extend from north to south—a circumstance confirmed by observation through the history of mankind. The Scandinavian Alps have not prevented the countries on both sides from being occupied by people of a common descent; while the feeble barrier of the Cheviot Hills, between England and Scotland, and the moderate elevation of the Highland mountains, have prevented the amalgamation of the Anglo-Saxons and the Celts, even in a period of high civilization. The Franks and Belgians are distinct, though separated by hills of still less elevation. For the same reason the Spaniards and Italians differ far more from their neighbours on the other side of the eastern and western chains, than the Spaniards do from the Portuguese, or the Piedmontese from the ProvenÇals. A similar distinction prevails throughout Asia; and in America, where all the principal chains run north and south, there is but one copper-coloured race throughout the continent, which stretches over more climates than Europe and Africa, or even than Asia and Australia, united. It is along chains running north and south that the fusion of languages takes place, and not along those of an easterly and westerly direction. From Poland, for instance, there are intermediate insensible gradations through Germany into France; while in crossing from a German district of the Alps to the valleys of Italy, different tribes and different languages are separated by a single mountain. Even wars and conquest have ever been more easy in one direction than in the other. The difference in the fauna and flora on the two sides of the great table-land and mountains of Asia is a striking illustration of the influence which high lands running east and west have on natural productions, and thus, both directly and indirectly, they affect the distribution of mankind.

The circumstances which thus determine the location of nations, and the fusion or separation of their languages, must, conjointly with moral causes, operate powerfully on their character. The minds of mankind, as well as their fate, are influenced by the soil on which they are born and bred. The natives of elevated countries are attached to their mountains; the Dutch are as much attached to their meadows and canals; and the savage, acquainted only with the discomforts of life, is unhappy when brought among civilized man. Early associations never entirely leave us, however much our position in life may alter, and strong attachments are formed to places which generate in us habits differing from those of other countries.

The Baltic and Mediterranean Seas have had no inconsiderable share in civilizing Europe; one combined with a cold and gloomy climate, the other with a warm and glowing sky, have developed dissimilar characters in the temperament and habits of the surrounding nations, originally dissimilar in race. The charms of climate, and the ease with which the necessaries of life are procured, were favourable to the development of imagination in the more southern nations, and to an indolent enjoyment of their advantages. In the north, on the contrary, the task imposed upon man was harder, and perhaps more favourable to strength of character. The Dutch owe their industry and perseverance to their unceasing struggle against the encroachments of the ocean; the British are indebted to their insular position for their maritime disposition, and to the smallness of their country and the richness of their mines, for their manufacturing and colonizing habits; the military propensities of the French, to the necessity of maintaining their independence among the surrounding nations, as well as to ambition and the love of fame.

Thus, external circumstances materially modify the character of nations, but the original propensities of race are never eradicated, and they are nowhere more prominent than in the progress of the social state in France and England. The vivacity and speculative disposition of the Celt appear in the rapid and violent changes of government and in the succession of theoretical experiments in France; while in Britain the deliberate slowness, prudence, and accurate perceptions of the Teuton are manifest in the gradual improvement and steadiness of their political arrangements. “The prevalent political sentiment of Great Britain is undoubtedly conservative, in the best sense of the word, with a powerful under-current of democratic tendencies. This gives great power and strength to the political and social body of this country, and makes revolutions by physical force almost impossible. It can be said, without assumption or pretension, that the body politic of Britain is in a sounder state of health than any other in Europe; and that those know very little of this country, who, led away by what they see in France, always dream of violent and revolutionary changes in the constitution. Great Britain is the only country in Europe which has had the good fortune to have all her institutions worked out and framed by her in a strictly organic manner—that is, in accordance with organic wants, which require different conditions at different and successive stages of national development—and not by theoretical experiments, as in many other countries which are still in a state of excitement consequent upon these experiments. The social character of the people of this country, besides the features which they have in common with other nations of Teutonic origin, is, on the whole, domestic, reserved, aristocratic, and exclusive.”^[194]

In speculating upon the effects of external circumstances, and on the original dispositions of the different races of mankind, the stationary and unchanged condition is a curious phenomenon in the history of nations. The inhabitants of Hindostan have not advanced within the historical period; neither have the Chinese. The Peruvians and Mexicans had arrived at a considerable degree of civilization, at which they became stationary, never having availed themselves of their fine country and noble rivers; and their conquerors, the Spaniards, degenerated into the same apathy with the conquered. The unaccountable gipsies have for ages maintained their peculiarities in all countries; so have the Jews and Armenians, who by the perseverance with which they have adhered to their language and institutions, have resisted the influence of physical impressions.

The influence of external circumstances on man is not greater than his influence on the material world. He cannot create power, it is true, but he dexterously avails himself of the powers of nature to subdue nature. Air, fire, water, steam, gravitation, his own muscular strength, and that of animals rendered obedient to his will, are the instruments by which he has converted the desert into a garden, drained marshes, cut canals, made roads, turns the course of rivers, cleared away forests in one country, and planted them in another. By these operations he has altered the climate, changed the course of local winds, increased or diminished the quantity of rain, and softened the rigour of the seasons. In the time of Strabo, the cold in France was so intense, that it was thought impossible to ripen grapes north of the Cevennes: the Rhine and the Danube were every winter covered with ice thick enough to bear any weight. Man’s influence on vegetation has been immense, but the most important changes had been effected in the antediluvian ages of the world. Cain was a tiller of the ground. The olive, the vine, and the fig-tree have been cultivated time immemorial: wheat, rice, and barley, have been so long in an artificial state, that their origin is unknown; even maize, which is a Mexican plant, was in use among the American tribes before the Spanish conquest; and tobacco was already used by them to allay the pangs of hunger, to which those who depend upon the chace for food must be exposed. Most of the ordinary culinary vegetables have been known for ages, and it is remarkable that in these days, when our gardens are adorned with innumerable native plants in a cultivated state, few new grains, vegetables, or fruits have been reclaimed; the old have been produced in infinite variety, and many brought from foreign countries: yet there must exist many plants capable of cultivation, as unpromising in their wild state as the turnip or carrot.

Some families of plants are more susceptible of improvement than others, and, like man himself, can bear almost any climate. One kind of wheat grows to 62° N. latitude; rye and barley are hardier, and succeed still farther north; and few countries are absolutely without grass. The cruciform tribe abounds in useful plants, indeed that family, together with the solanum, the papilionaceous and umbelliferous tribes, furnish most of our vegetables. Many plants, like animals, are of one colour only in their wild state, and their blossoms are single. Art has introduced the variety we now see in the same species, and, by changing the anthers of the wild flowers into petals, has produced double blossoms: by art, too, many plants, natives of warm countries, have been naturalized in colder climates. Few useful plants have beautiful blossoms—but if utility were the only object, of what pleasure should we be deprived! Refinement is not wanting in the inmates of a cottage covered with roses and honeysuckle; and the little garden cultivated amidst a life of toil, tells of a peaceful home.

Among the objects which tend to the improvement of our race, the flower-garden and the park adorned with native and foreign trees have no small share: they are the greatest ornaments of the British Islands; and the love of a country life, which is so strong a passion, is chiefly owing to the law of primogeniture, by which the head of a family is secured in the possession and transmission of his undivided estate, and therefore each generation takes pride and pleasure in adorning the home of its forefathers.

Animals yield more readily to man’s influence than vegetables, and certain classes have greater flexibility of disposition and structure than others. Those only are capable of being perfectly reclaimed that have a natural tendency for it, without which man’s endeavours would be unavailing. This predisposition is greatest in animals which are gregarious and follow a leader, as elephants, dogs, horses, and cattle do in their wild state; yet even among these some species are refractory, as the buffalo, which can only be regarded as half-reclaimed. The canine tribe, on the contrary, are capable of the greatest attachment, not the dog only, man’s faithful companion, but even the wolf, and especially the hyÆna, generally believed to be so ferocious. After an absence of many months, a hyÆna which had been the fellow-passenger of a friend of the author’s in a voyage from India, recognized his voice before he came in sight, and on seeing him it showed the greatest joy, lay down like a dog and licked his hands. He had been kind to it on the voyage, and no animal forgets kindness, which is the surest way of reclaiming them. There cannot be a greater mistake than the harsh and cruel means by which dogs and horses are too commonly trained; but it is long before man learns that his power is mental, and that it is his intellect alone that has given him dominion over the earth and its inhabitants, of which so many far surpass him in physical strength. The useful animals were reclaimed by the early inhabitants of Asia, and it is very remarkable, notwithstanding the enterprise and activity of the present times, that among the multitudes of animals that inhabit America, Central and Southern Africa, Australia and the Indian Archipelago, 4 only have been domesticated, yet many may be capable of becoming useful to man. Of 35 species, of which we possess one or more domestic races, 31 are natives of Asia, Europe, and North Africa; these countries are far from being exhausted, and a complete hemisphere is yet unexplored. An attempt has been made to domesticate the Llama, the Dziggetai, Zebra, and some species of Indian deer, but the success is either doubtful or the attempt has not been followed up. Little has been left for modern nations but the improvement of the species, and in that they have been very successful. The variety of horses, dogs, cattle, and sheep is beyond number. The form, colour, and even the disposition, may be materially altered, and the habits engrafted are transmitted to the offspring, as instinctive properties independent of education. Domestic fowls go in flocks on their native meads when wild. There are, however, instances of solitary birds being tamed to an extraordinary degree, as the raven, one of the most sagacious.

Man’s necessities and pleasure have been the cause of great changes in the animal creation—and his destructive propensity of still greater. Animals are intended for our use, and field-sports are advantageous by encouraging a daring and active spirit in young men, but the utter destruction of some races, in order to protect those destined for his pleasure, is too selfish. Animals soon acquire a dread of man, which becomes instinctive and hereditary; in newly-discovered uninhabited countries, birds and beasts are so tame as to allow themselves to be caught; whales scarcely got out of the way of the ships that first navigated the Arctic Ocean, but now they universally have a dread of the common enemy: whales and seals have been extirpated in various places; sea-fowl and birds of passage are not likely to be extinguished, but many land animals and birds are vanishing before the advance of civilization. Drainage, cultivation, cutting down of forests, and even the introduction of new plants and animals, destroy some of the old, and alter the relations between those that remain. The inaccessible cliffs of the Himalaya and Andes will afford a refuge to the eagle and condor, but the time will come when the mighty forests of the Amazons and Orinoco will disappear with the myriads of their joyous inhabitants. The lion, the tiger, and the elephant will be known only by ancient records. Man, the lord of the creation, will extirpate the noble creatures of the earth—but he himself will ever be the slave of the canker-worm and the fly. Cultivation may lessen the scourge of the insect tribe, but God’s great army will ever, from time to time, appear suddenly—no one knows from whence; the grub will take possession of the ground, and the locust will come from the desert and destroy the fairest prospects of the harvest.

Though the unreclaimed portion of the animal creation is falling before the progress of improvement, yet man has been both the voluntary and the involuntary cause of the introduction of new animals and plants into countries in which they were not natives. The Spanish conquerors little thought that the descendants of the few cattle and horses they allowed to run wild, would resume the original character of their species, and roam in hundreds of thousands over the savannahs of South America. Wherever man is, civilized or savage, there also is the dog, but he too has in some places resumed his native state and habits, and hunts in packs. Domestic animals, grain, fruit, vegetables, and the weeds that grow with them, have been conveyed by colonists to all settlements. Birds and insects follow certain plants into countries in which they were never seen before. Even the inhabitants of the waters change their abode in consequence of the influence of man. Fish, natives of the rivers on the coast of the Mexican Gulf, have migrated by the canals to the heart of North America; and the mytilus polymorphus, a shell-fish brought to the London Docks in the timbers of ships from the brackish waters of the Black Sea and its tributary streams, has spread into the interior of England by the Croydon and other canals.

The influence of man on man is a power of the highest order, far surpassing that which he possesses over inanimate or animal nature. It is, however, as a collective body, and not as an individual, that he exercises this influence over his fellow-creatures. The free-will of man, nay, even his most capricious passions, neutralize each other, when large numbers of men are considered. Professor Quetelet has most ably proved, that the greater the number of individuals, the more completely does the will of each, as well as all individual peculiarities, moral or physical, disappear, and allow the series of general facts to predominate, which depend upon the causes by which society exists and is preserved. The uniformity with which the number of marriages in Belgium occurred in 20 years, places the neutralization of the free-will of the individual man beyond a doubt, and is one of many instances of the importance of average quantities in arriving at general laws.

Certainly no event in a man’s life depends more upon his free will than his marriage, yet it appears from the records in Brussels, that nearly the same number of marriages take place every year, in the towns as well as in the country, and, moreover, that the same constancy prevails in each province, though the numbers of the people are so small, that accidental causes might be more likely to affect the general result than when the numbers are larger. In fact the whole affair passes as if the inhabitants of Belgium had agreed to contract nearly the same number of marriages annually, at each stage of life. Young people may possibly be in some degree under the control of parents, but there can be no restraint on the free will of men of 30 and women of 60 years of age, yet the same number of such incongruous marriages do annually take place between men and women at those unsuitable ages—a fact which almost exceeds belief. The day fixed for a wedding is of all things most entirely dependent on the will of the parties, yet even here there is regularity in the annual recurrence. (See Table on next page.)

With regard to crimes also, M. Quetelet observes that the same number of crimes of the same description are committed annually, with remarkable uniformity, even in the case of those crimes which would seem most likely to baffle all attempt at prediction. The same regularity occurs in the sentences passed on criminals: in France, in every hundred trials there were sixty-one convictions regularly, year after year.

Forgetfulness, as well as free-will, is under constant laws: the number of undirected letters put into the post-office in London and in Paris is very nearly the same year after year respectively—in London they amount to 2000: so that even the deviations from free-will proves the generality and the constancy of the laws that govern us.

Scientific discoveries and social combinations, which put in practice great social principles, are not without a decided influence; but these causes of action coming from man, are placed out of the sphere of the free-will of each: so that individual impulse has less to do with the progress of mankind than is generally believed. When society has arrived at a certain point of advancement, certain discoveries will naturally be made; the general mind is directed that way, and if one individual does not hit upon the discovery, another will. Therefore, on the disputes and discussions of different nations for the honour of particular inventions or discoveries, as for example the steam-engine, a narrow view of the subject is taken; they properly belong to the age in which they are made, without derogating from the merits of those benefactors of mankind who have lessened his toil or increased his comfort by the efforts of their genius. The time had come for the invention of printing, and printing was invented; and the same observation is applicable to many objects in the physical, as well as to the moral world. In the present disturbed state of society the time is come for the termination of the feudal system, which will be swept away by the force of public opinion, though individuality merges in these general movements.

Though each individual is accountable to God for his conduct, it is evident that the great laws which regulate mankind are altogether independent of his will, and that liberty of action is perfectly compatible with the general design of Providence. “A more profound study of the social system will have the effect of limiting more and more the sphere in which man’s free-will is exercised, for the Supreme Being could not grant him a power which tends to overthrow the laws impressed on all the parts of creation: He has traced its limits, as He has fixed those of the ocean.”

Man is eminently sociable; he willingly gives up part of his free-will to become a member of a social body; and it is this portion of the individuality of each member of that body, taken in the aggregate, which becomes the directrice of the principal social movements of a nation. It may be greater or less, good or bad, but it determines the customs, wants, and the national spirit of a people; it regulates the sum of their moral statistics; and it is in that manner that the cultivation or savageness, the virtues or the vices, of individuals have their influence. It is thus that private morality becomes the base of public morality.

The more man advances in civilization the greater will be his collective influence, for knowledge is power; and at no time did the mental superiority of the cultivated races produce such changes as they do at present, because they have extended their influence to the uttermost parts of the earth by emigration, colonization, and commerce. In civilized society the number of people in the course of time exceeds the means of sustenance, which compels some to emigrate; others are induced by a spirit of enterprise to go to new countries, some for the love of gain, others to fly from oppression.

The discovery of the New World opened a wide field for emigration. Spain and Portugal, the first to avail themselves of it, acquired dominion over some of the finest parts of South America, which they have maintained till lately a change of times has rendered their colonies independent states. Liberal opinions have spread into the interior of that continent, in proportion to the facility of communication with the cities on the coasts, from whence European ideas are disseminated. Of this Venezuela and Chile are instances, where civilization and prosperity have advanced more rapidly than in the interior parts of South America, where the Andes are higher and the distance from the sea greater. Civilization has been impeded in many of the smaller states by war, and those broils inevitable among people unaccustomed to free institutions. Brazil would have been further advanced but for slavery, that stain on the human race, which corrupts the master as much as it debases the slave.

Some of the native South American tribes have spontaneously made considerably progress in civilization in modern times; others have benefited by the Spanish and Portuguese colonists; and many have been brought into subjection by the Jesuits, who have instructed them in some of the arts of social life. But these Indians are not more religious than their neighbours, and, from the restraint to which they have been subject, have lost vigour of character without improving in intellect; so that now they are either stationary or retrograde. Extensive regions are still the abode of men in the lowest state of barbarism: some of the tribes inhabiting the silvas of the Orinoco, Amazons, and Uruguay are cannibals.

The arrival of the colonists in North America sealed the fate of the red men. The inhabitants of the Union, too late awakened to the just claims of the ancient proprietors of the land, have recently, but vainly, attempted to save the remnant. The white man, like an irresistible torrent, has already reached the centre of the continent; and the native tribes now retreat towards the far west, and will continue to retreat, till the Pacific Ocean arrests them, and the animals on their hunting-grounds are exterminated. The almost universal dislike the Indian has shown for the arts of peace has been one of the principal causes of his decline, although the Cherokee tribe, which has lately migrated to the west of the Mississippi, is a remarkable exception; the greater number of them are industrious planters or mechanics; they have a republican government, and publish a newspaper in their own language, in a character lately invented by one of that nation.

No part of the world has been the scene of greater iniquity than the West Indian islands—and that perpetrated by the most enlightened nations of Europe. The native race has long been swept away by the stranger, and a new people, cruelly torn from their homes, have been made the slaves of hard task-masters. If the odious participation in this guilt has been a stain on the British name, the abolition of slavery by the universal acclamation of the nation will ever form one of the brightest pages in their history, so full of glory: nor will it be the less so, that justice was combined with mercy, by the millions of money granted to indemnify the proprietors. It is deeply to be lamented that our brethren on the other side of the Atlantic have not followed the example of their fatherland; but in limited monarchies the voice of the people is listened to, while republican governments are more apt to become its slave. The Northern States have nobly declared every man free who sets his foot on their territory—and the time will come when the Southern States will sacrifice interest to justice and mercy.

It seems to be the design of Providence to supplant the savage by civilized man in the continent of Australia as well as in North America, though every effort has been made to prevent the extinction of the natives. Most of the tribes in that continent are as low in the scale of mankind as the cannibal Fuegians, whom Captain Fitzroy so generously, but so ineffectually, attempted to reclaim. Some of the New Hollanders are faithful servants for a time, but they almost always find the restraint of civilized life irksome, and return to their former habits, though truly miserable in a country where the means of existence are so scanty. Animals and birds are very scarce, and there is no fruit or vegetable for the sustenance of man.

Slavery has been a greater impediment to the improvement of Africa than even the physical disadvantages of the country—the great arid deserts and unwholesome coasts. A spontaneous civilization has arisen in various parts of Southern and Central Africa, in which there has been considerable progress in agriculture and commerce; but civilized man has been a scourge on the Atlantic coast, which has extended its baneful influence into the heart of the continent, by the encouragement it has given to warfare among the natives for the capture of slaves, and for the introduction of European vices, unredeemed by Christian virtues. Now that France and England have united in the suppression of this odious traffic, some hopes may be entertained that their colonies may be beneficial to the natives, and that other nations may follow their example, in which, however, they have been anticipated by three Mahommedan sovereigns; the Sultan has abolished the slave market in Constantinople, Ibrahim Pasha on his return from France and England gave freedom to his bondsmen in Egypt, and the Bey of Tunis has abolished slavery in his dominions.

The French are zealous in improving the people in Algiers, but the constant warfare in which they have been embroiled ever since their conquest must render their success in civilizing the natives at least remote. The inhabitants of those extensive and magnificent countries in the eastern seas that have long been colonized by the Dutch have made but little progress under their rule.

The British colony at the Cape of Good Hope has had considerable influence on the neighbouring rude nations, who now begin to adopt more civilized habits. When Mr. Somerville visited Litako, the natives for the first time saw a white person and a horse, and were scantily clothed with skins. When Dr. Smith visited them 20 years afterwards, he found the chief men mounted on horseback, wearing hats made of rushes, and an attempt made to imitate European dress.

Colonization has nowhere produced such happy results as among the amiable and cultivated inhabitants of India, who are sensible of the benefits they derive from the impartial administration of just and equal laws, the foundation of schools and colleges, and the wide extension of commerce.

All the causes of emigration have operated by turns on the inhabitants of Britain, and various circumstances have concurred to make their colonies permanent. In North America, that which not many years ago was a British colony has become a great independent nation, occupying a large portion of the continent. The Australian continent and New Zealand will in after ages be peopled by a British race, and will become centres of civilization which will spread its influence to the uttermost islands of the Pacific. These splendid islands, possessing every advantage of climate and soil, with a population in many parts far advanced in the arts of civilized life, industry, and commerce, though in others savage, will in time come in for a share of the general improvement. The success that has attended the noble and unaided efforts of Sir J. Brooke in Borneo, shows how much the influence of an active and benevolent mind can in a short time effect.

The colonies on the continent of India are already centres from which the culture of Europe is spreading over the East.

Commerce has not less influence on mankind than colonization, with which it is intimately connected; and the narrow limits of the British Islands have rendered it necessary for its inhabitants to exert their industry. The riches of our mines in coal and metals, which produce a yearly income of 24,000,000l. sterling, is a principal cause of our manufacturing and commercial wealth; but even with these natural advantages, more is due not only to our talents and enterprise, but to our high character for faith and honour.

Every country has its own peculiar productions, and by an unrestrained interchange of the gifts of Providence the condition of all is improved. The exclusive jealousy with which commerce has hitherto been fettered, shows the length of time that is necessary to wear out the effects of those selfish passions which separated nations when they were yet barbarous. It required a high degree of cultivation to break down those barriers consecrated by their antiquity; and the accomplishment of this important change evinces the rate at which the present age is advancing.

A new era in the history of the world began when China was opened to European intercourse; but many years must pass before European influence can penetrate that vast empire, and eradicate those illiberal prejudices by which it has so long been governed.

Two important triumphs yet remain to be achieved over physical difficulties by the science and energy of man, namely, the junction of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at the Isthmus of Central America, and the union of the Red Sea with the Mediterranean at that of Suez. The first seems to be on the eve of accomplishment, and, in conjunction with the treasures with which the auriferous district of California is said to abound, may bring about a complete revolution in the tide of affairs; and that country, hitherto so completely separated from the rest of the world and so little known, will become a new centre of civilization, whose influence will be diffused over the wide Pacific to the shores of the eastern continent; the expectation of Columbus will then be realized—of a passage to the East Indies by the Atlantic. Should the Mediterranean and Red Sea be united by a water communication, Alexandria, Venice, and the other maritime cities of southern Europe may regain, at least in part, the mercantile position which they lost by the discovery of Vasco da Gama.^[195]

The advantages of colonization and commerce to the less civilized part of the world are incalculable, as well as to those at home, not only by furnishing an exchange for manufactures, important as this is, but by the immense accession of knowledge of the earth and its inhabitants, that has been thus attained.

The history of former ages exhibits nothing to be compared with the mental activity of the present. Steam, which annihilates time and space, fills mankind with schemes for advantage or defence: but however mercenary the motives for enterprise may be, it is instrumental in bringing nations together. The facility of communication is rapidly assimilating national character. Society in most of the capitals is formed on the same model; and as the study of modern languages is now considered a part of polite education, and every well-educated person speaks more than one modern tongue, one of the great barriers to the assimilation of character amongst nations will be removed.

Science has never been so extensively and so successfully cultivated as at the present time: the collective wisdom and experience of Europe and the United States of America is now brought to bear on subjects of the highest importance in annual meetings, where the common pursuit of truth is as beneficial to the moral as to the intellectual character, and the noble objects of investigation are no longer confined to a philosophic few, but are becoming widely diffused among all ranks of society, and the most enlightened governments have given their support to measures that could not have been otherwise accomplished.^[196] Simultaneous observations are made at numerous places in both hemispheres on electricity, magnetism, on the tides and currents of the air and the ocean, and those mysterious vicissitudes of temperature and moisture, which bless the labours of the husbandman one year, and blight them in another.

The places of the nebulÆ and fixed stars, and their motions, are known with unexampled precision, and the most refined analyses embrace the most varied objects. Three new satellites and six new planets have been discovered within four years, and one of these under circumstances the most unprecedented. In the far heavens, from disturbances in the motions of Uranus which could not be accounted for, an unknown and unseen body was declared to be revolving on the utmost verge of the solar system; and it was found in the very region of the heavens pointed out by analysis. On earth, though hundreds of miles apart, that invisible messenger, electricity, instantaneously conveys the thoughts of the invisible spirit of man to man—results of science sublimely transcendental.

Vain would be the attempt to enumerate the improvements in machinery and mechanics, the canals and railroads that have been made, the harbours that have been improved, the land that has been drained, the bridges that have been constructed; and now, although Britain is inferior to none in many things, and superior to all in some, one of our most distinguished engineers declares that we are scarcely beyond the threshold in improvement; to stand still is to retrograde, human ingenuity will always keep pace with the unforeseen, the increasing wants of the age.^[197] “Who knows what may yet be in store for our use; what new discovery may again change the tide of human affairs; what hidden treasures may yet be brought to light in the air or in the ocean, of which we know so little; or what virtues there may be in the herbs of the field, and in the treasures of the earth—how far its hidden fires, or stores of ice, may yet become available—ages can never exhaust the treasures of nature or the talent of man.”^[198] It would be difficult to follow the rapid course of discovery through the complicated mazes of magnetism and electricity; the action of the electric current on the polarized sun-beam, one of the most beautiful of modern discoveries, leading to relations hitherto unsuspected between that power and the complex assemblage of visible and invisible influences on solar light, by one of which nature has recently been made to paint her own likeness. It is impossible to convey an idea of the rapid succession of the varied and curious results of chemistry, and its application to physiology and agriculture; moreover, distinguished works have lately been published at home and abroad on the science of mind, which has been so successfully cultivated in our own country. Geography has assumed a new character, by that unwearied search for accurate knowledge and truth that marks the present age, and physical geography is altogether a new science.

The spirit of nautical and geographical discovery, begun in the 15th century, by those illustrious navigators who had a new world to discover, is at this day as energetic as ever, though the results are less brilliant. Neither the long gloomy night of a polar winter, nor the dangers of the ice and the storm, deter our gallant seamen from seeking a better acquaintance with “this ball of earth,” even under its most frowning aspect; and that, for honour, which they are as eager to seek even in the cannon’s mouth. Nor have other nations of Europe and America been without their share in these bold adventures. The scorching sun and deadly swamps of the tropics as little prevent the traveller from collecting the animals and plants of the present creation, or the geologist from investigating those of ages long gone by. Man daily indicates his birthright as lord of the creation, and compels every land and sea to contribute to his knowledge.

The most distinguished modern travellers, following the noble example of Baron Humboldt, the patriarch of physical geography, take a more extended view of the subject than the earth and its animal and vegetable inhabitants afford, and include in their researches the past and present condition of man, the origin, manners, and languages of existing nations, and the monuments of those that have been. Geography has had its dark ages, during which the situation of many great cities and spots of celebrity in sacred and profane history had been entirely lost sight of, which are now discovered by the learning and assiduity of the modern traveller. Of this, Italy, Egypt, the Holy Land, Asia Minor, Arabia, and the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris, with the adjacent mountains of Persia, are remarkable instances, not to mention the vast region of the East, and the remote centres of aboriginal civilization in the New World. The interesting discoveries of Mr. Layard, who possessed every acquirement that could render a traveller competent to accomplish so arduous an undertaking, have brought to light the long-hidden treasures of the ancient Nineveh, where its own peculiar style of art had existed anterior to that of Egypt.^[199] In many parts of the world the ruins of cities of extraordinary magnitude and architecture show that there are wide regions of whose original inhabitants we know nothing. The Andes of Peru and Mexico have remains of civilized nations before the age of the Incas. Mr. Pentland has found numerous remains of Peruvian monuments in every part of the great valley of the Peru-Bolivian Andes, and many parts of the imperial capital Cusco, little changed from what they were at the downfall of Atahualpa. Mr. Stephens has found in the woods of Central America the ruins of great cities, adorned with sculpture and pictorial writings, vestiges of a people far advanced, who had once cultivated the soil where these entangled forests now grow. Picture-writings have been discovered by Sir Robert Schomburgk on rocks in Guiana, spread over an extent of 350,000 square miles, similar to those found in the United States and in Siberia. Magnificent buildings still exist in good preservation all over eastern Asia, and many in a ruinous state belong to a period far beyond written record.

Ancient literature has furnished a subject of still more interesting research, from which it is evident that the mind of man is essentially the same under very different circumstances: every nation far advanced in civilization has had its age of poetry, the drama, romance, and philosophy, each stamped with the character of the people and times, and still more with their religious belief. Our profound Oriental scholars have made known to Europeans the refined Sanscrit literature of Hindostan, its schools of philosophy and astronomy, its dramatic writings and poetry, which are original and beautiful, and to these the learned in Greece and Italy have contributed.

The riches of Chinese literature, and their valuable geography, were introduced into Europe by the French Jesuits of the last century, and followed up with success by the French and English philosophers of the present: to France we also owe much of our knowledge of the poetry and letters of Persia; and from the time that Dr. Young deciphered the inscriptions on the Rosetta Stone, Egyptian hieroglyphics and picture-writing have been studied by the learned of France, England, and Italy, and we have reason to expect much new information from the more recent researches of Professor Lepsius of Berlin. The Germans, indeed, have left few subjects of ancient literature unexplored, even to the language written at Babylon and Nineveh—the most successful attempt to decipher which is due to a distinguished countryman of our own, Colonel Rawlinson.

The press has overflowed with an unprecedented quantity of literature, some of standard merit, and much more that is ephemeral, suited to all ranks, on every subject, with the aim, in our own country at least, to improve the people, and to advocate the cause of morality and virtue. All this mental energy is but an effect of those laws which regulate human affairs, and include in their generality the various changes that tend to improve the condition of man.

The fine arts do not keep pace with science, though they have not been altogether left behind. Painting, like poetry, must come spontaneously, because a feeling for it depends upon innate sympathies in the human breast. Nothing external could affect us, unless there were corresponding ideas within; poetically constituted minds of the highest organization are most deeply impressed with whatever is excellent. All are not gifted with a strong perception of the beautiful, in the same way as some persons cannot see certain colours, or hear certain sounds. Those elevated sentiments which constitute genius are given to few; yet something akin, though inferior in degree, exists in most men. Consequently, though culture may not inspire genius, it cherishes and calls forth the natural perception of what is good and beautiful, and by that means improves the tone of the national mind, and forms a counterpoise to the all-absorbing useful and commercial.

Historical painting is successfully cultivated both in France and Germany. The Germans have modelled their school on the true style of the ancient masters. They have become their rivals in richness and beauty of colouring, and are not surpassed in vividness of imagination, nor in variety and sublimity of composition, which is poetry of the highest order embodied. Sculpture and architecture are also marked by that elevated and pure taste which distinguish their other works of art.^[200] French artists, following in the same steps, have produced historical works of great merit. Pictures of genre and scenes of domestic life have been painted with much expression and beauty by our own artists; and British landscapes, like some painted by German artists, are not mere portraits of nature, but pictures of high poetical feeling, and the excellence of their composition has been acknowledged all over Europe, by the popularity of the engravings which illustrate many of our modern books. The encouragement given to this branch of art at home may be ascribed to the taste for a country life so general in England. Water-colour painting, which is entirely of British growth, has now become a favourite style in every country, and is brought to the highest perfection in our own.

The Italians have had the merit of restoring sculpture to the pure style which it had lost, and that gifted people have produced some of the noblest specimens of modern art. The greatest genius of his time left the snows of the far North to spend his days in Rome, the head-quarters of art; and our own sculptors of eminent talents have established themselves in Rome, where they find a more congenial spirit than in their own country, in which the compositions of Flaxman were not appreciated till they had become the admiration of Europe. Munich can boast of some of the finest specimens of modern sculpture and architecture.

The Opera, one of the most refined of theatrical amusements in every capital city in Europe, displays the excellence and power of Italian melody, which has been transmitted from age to age by a succession of great composers. German music, partaking of the learned character of the nation, is rich in original harmony, which requires a cultivated taste to understand and appreciate.

Italy is the only country that has had two poetical eras of the highest order; and, great as the Latin period was, that of Dante was more original and sublime. The Germans, so eminent in every branch of literature, have also been great as poets; the power of Goethe’s genius will render his poems as permanent as the language in which they are written. France is, as it long has been, the abode of the Comic Muse; and although that nation can claim great poets of a more serious cast, yet the language and the habits of the people are more suited to the gay than the grave style. Though the British may have been inferior to other nations in some branches of the fine arts, yet poetry, immeasurably the greatest and most noble, redeems, and more than redeems us. The nation that produced the poetry of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton, with all the brilliant train, down nearly to the present time, must ever hold a distinguished place, as an imaginative people. Shakespeare alone would stamp a language with immortality. The British novels stand high among works of imagination, and they have generally had the merit of advancing the cause of morality. Had French novelists attended more to this, their knowledge of the human heart and the brilliancy of their composition would have been more appreciated.

Poetry of the highest stamp has fled before the utilitarian spirit of the age; yet there is as much talent in the world, and imagination too, at the present time, as at any former period, though directed to different and more important objects, because the whole aspect of the moral world is altered. The period is come for one of those important changes in the minds of men which occur from time to time, and form great epochs in the history of the human race. The whole of civilized Europe could not have been roused to the enthusiasm which led them to embark in the Crusades by the preaching of Peter the Hermit, unless the people had been prepared for it: men were ready for the Reformation before the impulse was given by Luther; and Pius IX. merely applied the match to a train already laid. These are the barometric storms of the human mind.

The present state of transition has been imperceptibly in progress, aided by many concurring circumstances, among which the increasing intelligence of the lower orders, and steam-travelling, have been the most efficient. The latter has assisted eminently in the diffusion of knowledge, and has probably accelerated the crisis of public affairs on the Continent, by giving the inhabitants of different countries opportunities of intercourse, and comparing their conditions. No invention that has been made for ages has so levelling a tendency, which accords but too well with the present disposition of the people. The spirit of emancipation, so peculiarly characteristic of this century, appears in all the relations of life, political and social. On the continent of Europe it has shaken the whole fabric of society, subverted law and order, and ruined thousands, in order to throw down the crumbling remains of the feudal system. The same emancipating spirit which has thrown young and old into a state of insubordination and rebellion abroad, has been quietly but gradually altering the relations of social and domestic life at home. Parent and child no longer stand in the same relation to one another; even at an early age boys assume the character and independence of men, which may perhaps fit them sooner for taking their share in the affairs of the world; for it must be acknowledged that, whether from early independence or some other cause, no country has produced more youthful and able statesmen than our own; but, at the same time, it places them on a less amicable and more dangerous position, by depriving them of the advice and experience of the aged, to which the same deference is no longer paid. The working man considers his interest to be at variance with that of the manufacturer, and the attachment of servants to their masters is nearly as extinct in Britain as vassalage. Ambition, to a great extent, pervades the inferior and middle grades of society, and so few are satisfied with the condition in which they were born, that the pressure upwards is enormous. The numerous instances of men rising from an inferior rank to the highest offices in the State encourages the endeavour to rise in society, which is right and natural, if pursued by legitimate means, but the levelling disposition so prevalent abroad is pernicious as it is impracticable. So long as men are endowed with different dispositions and different talents, so long will they differ in condition and fortune, and this is as strongly marked in republics as in any other form of government; for man, with all his attempts to liberate himself from nature’s ordinances, by the establishment of equal laws and civil rights, never can escape from them—inequality of condition is permanent as the human race. Hence, from necessity we must fulfil the duties of the station in which we are placed, bearing in mind that, while Christianity requires the poor to endure their lot with patience, it imposes a heavy responsibility on the rich.

In Britain, respect for the labouring classes, together with active benevolence, form the counterpoise to the evil propensities of this state of transition; a benevolence which is not confined to alms-giving, but which consists in the earnest desire to contribute with energy to the sum of human happiness. In proportion as that disposition is diffused among the higher classes, and the more they can convince the lower orders that they have an ardent desire to afford them every source of happiness and comfort that is in their power, so much sooner will the transient evils pass away, and an improved state of things will commence; kindly and confiding feelings will then take the place of coldness and mistrust.

The continual increase of that disinterested benevolence and liberal sentiment, which in our own country is the most hopeful and consoling feature of the age, manifests itself in the frequency with which plans for ameliorating the condition of the lower classes are brought before Parliament; in the societies formed for their relief; and in the many institutions established for their benefit and comfort.

Three of the most beneficial systems of modern times are due to the benevolence of English ladies—the improvement of prison discipline, savings-banks, and banks for lending small sums to the poor. The success of all has exceeded every expectation, and these admirable institutions are now adopted by several foreign countries. The importance of popular and agricultural education is becoming an object of attention to the more enlightened governments; and one of the greatest improvements in education is, that teachers are now fitted for their duties, by being taught the art of teaching. The gentleness with which instruction is conveyed no longer blights the joyous days of youth, but, on the contrary, encourages self-education, which is the most efficient.

The system of infant-schools, established in many parts of Europe and throughout the United States of America, is rapidly improving the condition of the people. The instruction given in them is suited to the station of the scholars, and the moral lessons taught are often reflected back on the uneducated parents by their children. Moreover, the personal intercourse with the higher orders, and the kindness which the children receive from them, strengthen the bond of reciprocal good feeling. Since the abolition of the feudal system, the separation between the higher and the lower classes of society has been increasing; but the generous exertions of individuals, whose only object is to do good, is now beginning to correct a tendency that, unchecked, might have led to the worst consequences to all ranks. We learn from statistical reports that the pains taken by individuals and associations are not without their effect upon the character of the nation. For example, during the eleven years that preceded 1846, in which the criminal returns indicated the intellectual condition of persons accused, there were 31 counties in England and Wales in which not one educated woman was called before a court of law, in a population of 2,617,653 females.^[201]

Crime has generally decreased in proportion to the religious and moral education of the people: the improvement in the morality of the factory-children is immense since Government appointed inspectors to superintend their health and education;^[202] and indeed the improvement in the condition of the whole population appears from the bills of mortality, which unquestionably prove that the duration of human life is continually increasing throughout Great Britain.^[203]

The voluntary sacrifices that have been made to relieve the necessities of a famishing nation evince the humane disposition of the age. But it is not one particular and extraordinary case, however admirable, that marks the general progress—it is not in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still small voice of consolation heard in the cabin of the wretched, that is the prominent feature of the charities of the present time, when the benevolent of all ranks seek for distress in the abodes of poverty and vice, to aid and to reform. No language can do justice to the merit of those who devote themselves to the reformation of the children who have hitherto wandered neglected in the streets of great cities; in the unpromising task they have laboured with patience, undismayed by difficulties that might have discouraged the most determined—but they have had their reward, they have succeeded.^[204] The language of kindness and sympathy, never before heard by these children of crime and wretchedness, is saving multitudes from perdition. But it would require a volume to enumerate the exertions that are making for the accommodation, health, and improvement of the people, and the devotion of high and low to the introduction of new establishments and the amelioration of the old. Noble and liberal sentiments mark the proceedings of public assemblies, whether in the cause of nations or of individuals, and the severity of our penal laws is mitigated by a milder system. Happily this liberal and benevolent spirit is not confined to Britain, it is universal in the States of the American Union, and it is spreading widely through the more civilized countries of Europe.

No retrograde movement can now take place in civilization; the diffusion of Christian virtues and of knowledge ensures the progressive advancement of man in those high moral and intellectual qualities that constitute his true dignity. But much yet remains to be done at home, especially in religious instruction and the prevention of crime; and millions of our fellow-creatures in both hemispheres are still in the lowest grade of barbarism. Ages and ages must pass away before they can be civilized; but if there be any analogy between the period of man’s duration on earth and that of the frailest plant or shell-fish of the geological periods, he must still be in his infancy; and let those who doubt of his indefinite improvement compare the first revolution in France with the last, or the state of Europe in the middle ages with what it is at present. For, notwithstanding the disturbed condition of the Continent, and the mistaken means the people employ to improve their position, crime is less frequent and less atrocious than it was in former times, and the universal indignation it now raises is a strong indication of improvement. In our own country, men who seem to have lived before their time were formerly prosecuted and punished for opinions which are now sanctioned by the legislature, and acknowledged by all. The moral disposition of the age appears in the refinement of conversation. Selfishness and evil passions may possibly ever be found in the human breast, but the progress of the race will consist in the increasing power of public opinion, the collective voice of mankind regulated by the Christian principles of morality and justice. The individuality of man modifies his opinions and belief; it is a part of that variety which is a universal law of nature; so that there will probably always be a difference of views as to religious doctrine, which, however, will become more spiritual, and freer from the taint of human infirmity; but the power of the Christian religion will appear in purer conduct, and in the more general practice of mutual forbearance, charity, and love.