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Page 9
[11] The various types of Jews also afford a striking instance of
the effect of natural surroundings on bodily structure.
The social condition of mankind is also profoundly affected by climatic
and other external circumstances. The intense cold of the Arctic and
Antarctic regions is fatal to anything approaching a developed form of
civilisation. Intense heat, on the other hand, although not
incompatible with a certain degree of progress, is unfavourable to its
permanence;[12] the extinct societies of the tropics, such as Cambodia,
Mexico and Peru, affording instances of the operation of this law. It
is impossible for man to get beyond the nomad state in the vast deserts
of Northern Africa; and the extreme moisture of the atmosphere in other
portions of the same continent puts an effectual check on anything like
social advance. In some parts of the world social development has been
hindered by external circumstances of another character, such as the
want of wood, the scarcity of animals, the absence of edible fruits. In
fact, it is only within a comparatively temperate zone that human
society has been able permanently to assume highly complex forms and to
build itself up on an extensive scale. In this zone, climate, while
favouring man up to a certain point, has at the same time compelled him
to eat bread in the sweat of his brow. It has compelled him to enter
into conflict with natural obstacles, the result of which has been to
call forth his powers of industry, of energy, of self-reliance, and to
sharpen his intellectual faculties generally. In addition to exercising
and strengthening these personal attributes, the climatic influences of
what has been called the zone of civilisation have brought man's social
characteristics more fully and elaborately into play. The nature of
these influences has forced him to cooperate more or less closely with
his fellows; while each step in the path of cooperation has involved
him in another of a more complex kind. The growth of social cooperation
is not necessarily accompanied by a corresponding development of the
moral sentiments; increased cooperation in some cases involving a
distinct ethical loss. In many directions, however, highly organised
societies tend to evolve loftier types of morality; and it is in
harmony with the facts to say that the highest moral types are not to
be found where nature does most or where it does least in the way of
providing food and shelter for man.
[12] Ratzel. _V�lkerkunde_, i. 20.
It is also interesting to observe the effect which climate, through the
agency of religion, has had upon human conduct. One of the main factors
in the origin of religion is the feeling of dependence upon nature so
strongly manifested in all primitive forms of faith. The outcome of
this feeling of dependence was to exalt the forces of nature into
divinities, and man's conception of these divinities, shaped as it was
by the attitude of nature around him, had an incalculable influence on
his life and actions. The remains of this influence are still visible
in the aesthetic effects which the forces and operations of nature
produce on civilised man; in all other respects it has to a large
extent passed away.[13]
[13] Darwin says that in elaborating his theory of Natural
Selection he attributed too little to external surroundings.
_Life and Letters_.
We have now touched upon most of the ways in which external
surroundings have had a hand in shaping the course of human life in the
past; it will be our next business to inquire whether these
surroundings have any effect upon human conduct at the present day, and
especially upon those manifestations of conduct which are known as
crimes. That they still have an effect is an opinion which has long
been entertained.
Going back to the ancient Greeks, we find Hippocrates holding that all
regions liable to violent changes of climate produced men of fierce,
impetuous and stubborn disposition. "In approaching southern
countries," says Montesquieu, "one would believe that morality was
being left behind; more ardent passions multiply crimes; each tries to
gain from others all the advantages which can minister to these
passions." Buckle believes that the interruption of work caused by
instability of climate leads to instability of character. In analysing
the contents of French statistics, Quetelet,[14] while admitting that
other causes may neutralise the action of climate, proceeds to say that
the "number of crimes against property relatively to the number of
crimes against the person increases considerably as we advance towards
the north." Another eminent student of French criminal statistics, M.
Tarde, comes to very much the same conclusions as Quetelet; he admits
that a high temperature does exercise an indirect influence on the
criminal passions. But the most exhaustive investigations in this
problem have been undertaken in Italy, by Signor Enrico Ferri. After a
thorough examination of French judicial statistics for a series of
years, Ferri arrives at the conclusion that a maximum of crimes against
the person is reached in the hot months, while, on the other hand,
crimes against property come to a climax in the winter.[15]
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