adaptations, of which we have briefly spoken, let us consider the effects of these three general types of climate upon the development of civilization, that is, of the apparatus of artificial adaptation. This really means, as we have seen (§§ 139, 140) the effects upon the development of mind and mental reactions. The first general fact with which we are confronted is that no great civilization has ever taken origin within the torrid regions of the earth. The seats of ancient culture— the valleys of the Chinese rivers, of the Euphrates and Tigris, of the Nile-are all within the temperate or subtemperate zone.1 The Aztecs and Peruvians, the two most advanced peoples of the Americas, occupied highlands where altitude tempered latitude. It is true that India boasts an ancient civilization in a region at least partly tropical, but it was not self-sufficient or self-propagating; the vigor which it displayed was lent to it by periodic reënforcement of fresh blood and vitality from the cooler regions. The same thing may be asserted regarding those other seats of ancient civilization just mentioned, even when they lay farther from the equator; the development of civilization generally took place in the warmer parts of the temperate zone, but those who developed it came for the most part from the north. This was so at the outset, and the situation has not changed through history. In our own day the nations of the temperate regions of the earth still represent civilization, while the hot or cold zones form a field of activity for the overflow of their energy. In the north temperate zone are Europe, southern Siberia, China and Japan, Canada, the United States, and the center of activity of Mexico; in the south temperate, southern Brazil, parts of Peru, Argentina and Chile, Cape Colony, Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand. It is significant that the movement for independence of the Spanish American states grew to strength in Argentina, and that for Brazilian independence in the southern region of São Paulo; in these cooler districts lay the numbers and the energy.2 147. Extra-temperate conditions. These striking and significant considerations certainly have a physical explanation behind them. It would be hazardous, of course, to refer them to any single cause, such as the difference of temperature. But taking together the influences of climate and the complex of physical factors which vary with 1" For the earliest development of civilization . . . the warmer climate - as the one making less demand-has wielded a more favorable influence" (Ratzel, Anth., I, 332). 2 Keller, Colonization, pp. 159 ff., 321 ff. "Even in densely populated India and China the largest areas of density lie, in the one case, north of the tropic, and, in the other, of the parallel of 30° north latitude" (Ratzel, Anth., II, 267). climate, abundance of vegetal and animal life, etc., we may distinguish marked effects upon the numbers and character of races referable to residence within cold, hot, or temperate regions (cf. §§ 122 ff.). In the colder regions the struggle for existence presses constantly upon the individual and the society; the most strenuous of activity yields little more than enough to satisfy immediate needs. The winning of subsistence demands almost the total of bodily energy. The astonishing cleverness of invention to which men are driven enables them to continue to live rather than to rise to a higher plane of comfort; little energy is freed for what we call higher activities, i.e. more perfect and successful adaptation. Numbers are restricted by the possibilities of the region, the death rate being high and the birth rate low; any extensive disturbance in the food-yield of the environment results in great mortality; the polar peoples live on the edge of things and are readily pushed over the brink. Their numbers being small and scattered, the total Eskimo population of North America is estimated at about 25,000, and they live in segregated groups of at most a few families, the development of culture through the contact and reactions of individuals and groups is impossible. The importance for the growth of civilization of numbers and their contact will be taken into account in a later chapter (§§ 166, 173); but it is to be noted that for the polar and some subpolar regions. the sparsity of population, rendered inevitable by climatic conditions, precludes all serious advance of culture. The following estimates are made of the density of population per square mile under such conditions: Hyperboreans (of northern Asia), 2-25; Kamtchadales and western Eskimo, less than 1; Indians in the United States (1825), 0.57 (Peschel); Eskimo of Greenland and Labrador, 0.24 and 0.3 respectively; Aleuts, 0.3-1; natives of Alaska, 0.5; Reindeer Chukchi, 0.4; Patagonians, less than 0.1. In addition it may be said that north of the wheat zone there are very seldom over 40 to the square mile, beyond the barley zone almost never over 2, even in Europe.1 In the hot lands, on the other hand, the struggle for existence is often the opposite of arduous. The luxuriance of nature is such that the indolence engendered by the elevation of temperature is fostered rather than assailed by the vicissitudes of life. In several tropical lands, under natural conditions, twenty-seven breadfruit trees, covering an acre, are said to suffice, at the expense of a few days' labor, to support a family of ten or twelve for the eight months of bearing. A great deal of fruit can be had simply for the gathering, and when one 1 Ratzel, Anth., II, 256 ff., 205. kind is giving out another is attaining maturity. In ancient times the date palm is said already to have had 360 uses (Strabo). It would not be difficult to collect many instances of the easy life of the tropics; most accounts of travel in these regions teem with them. Captain Cook reported that a Polynesian who had in his lifetime planted only ten breadfruit trees had done his duty to his own and the next generation as fully and richly as some farmer in a colder climate who had plowed and harvested in raw and inclement weather his whole life through, and finally saved a meager sum for his children. The changelessness of the seasons relieves man from the taking of thought for the morrow; he lives the life of the day and develops but a rudimentary foresight. Breadfruit introduced from the Pacific is said to have carried the Caribs back to savagery (cf. §§ 175 ff.). Other natural needs than those of food, e.g. clothing, are few and easily satisfied. The spur of necessity is absent; as life is, as it were, too hard in the cold regions, so it is too easy in the hot. That in nature which really calls civilization into being and then secures its advance is not the prodigality of gifts offered to man, but the incitement to effort of which he is the (often resisting) object. 148. Temperate conditions. Between these two extremes a kind of life is lived where effort and reward are more equitably adjusted (cf. §§ 116 ff.). In the temperate zone, life is scarcely possible without sustained effort; but the rewards of labor are generous, returning not only subsistence but a surplus.1 Effort is not harmful to health; in fact, the well-being of the body calls for it. Temperature and light conditions are favorable to industry. The length of the working day is at a maximum; it is said, for example, that "the climate of the British Isles enables men to work in the open air for more hours a day throughout the whole year than in any other part of the world." The changefulness of the seasons demands facility of physical adaptation, a mobility of the organism, and also a development of economy and foresight to provide against times of scarcity. The contest with nature is enlivened by the elation of well-planned and well-won success.2 Numbers increase rapidly and, in contrast with the generally sluggish inertia of hot countries, societies move about, mingle, and naturally give and receive the civilization that each possesses. From this 1 It has been said, with the exaggeration natural to such condensation of statement, that in the cold regions man gets nothing for something, in the tropics, something for nothing, and in the temperate areas, something for something. 2 This influence of climate on disposition should never be ignored; it is shown by too many peoples in forms too nearly parallel to allow of an absence of causal connection. See Ratzel, Anth., I, 314. results a progressively increasing power of intellectual adaptation to allied varieties of shifting conditions; that is, an ever-augmenting knowledge of and power over nature. Such faculties and masteries develop even more irresistibly with increasing exercise; civilization grows by feeding upon itself; and presently there exists between the progressive groups of the temperate regions and the hampered ones of the regions of extreme cold or heat an impassable gulf, a sharp distinction, a relation of superior and inferior. Nearly 98 per cent of the world's population live between the isothermals of 4.5° and 21° C., and almost 75 per cent between those of 7° and 15°. The greatest density is found in regions where the temperature in the warmest month is between 21° and 27°. Nearly all the great cities lie in this belt.1 Enough has perhaps been said to establish the general proposition that human societies can be distinguished on the basis of the climate of their stations. Although this is a very broad distinction, it will be found to be of practical value for our subject; and it can be applied to relatively local cases when properly limited by reckoning in other and more special factors of environment. 1 Ratzel, Anth., II, 206. CHAPTER VIII ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES FLORA AND FAUNA 149. Importance of the organic environment. The next factor of environment which deserves especial treatment as of extraordinary importance to the life of man is the organic life of a lower gradethe kind of flora and fauna, the quality of plant and animal life-by which man is surrounded, with which he has to contend, or upon which he is able to prey. This factor, as has been seen (§§ 133 ff., 144), is very closely connected with climate; for instance, the long and continuous solar heat has a very marked effect upon the quality of grain, so that fine wheat is raised at 60° N. in western Canada, and the same cereal can be ripened in Siberia in as little time as in the Nile valley. Furthermore, other natural factors, like rainfall (§ 120) and ocean currents (§ 19), influence the distribution of flora and fauna; and there enters, directly as respects flora, and indirectly as respects fauna, the controlling condition of soil (§§ 69 ff., 78). Naturally this latter influence is indirect in its impact upon the man-animal, and consequently can receive little mention in the present section of this book; but that it remains a powerful factor, though, as it were, behind the scenes, must not be lost to view. The character of the flora and fauna of his habitat can seldom be regarded as a matter of indifference to man. The whole of physical nature is so bound up together that whether the bonds of relationship are open and obvious, or hidden and subtle, there are yet but few parts of the whole that are not sensitive to the fate or form or movements of other parts. In the case of man his plant and animal environment is often determinative of his existence and its vicissitudes; the humbler forms of life may be man's ineradicable enemies, his prey, or his friends; they are seldom neutral and must always be reckoned with in a greater or less degree. 150. Man's enemies. For example, let us take the influence of the flora of a country upon its human inhabitants. Naturally enough plants can scarcely be hostile to men in the way in which active, moving beings could. However, there are cases which approximate to direct competition; for instance, the exuberance of tropical vegetation is such that it is constantly encroaching upon artificial clearings and |