Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 73.djvu/522

518 man, alike in physique, institutions and religion. It is probable that the food-supply at hand in each region may be an important element in these variations, whilst the nature of the food and drink preferred there may itself be due in no small degree to climatic conditions. Each zone has its own peculiar products, and beyond doubt the natives of each region differ in their tastes for food and drink. The aboriginal of the tropics is distinctly a vegetarian, whilst the Eskimo within the arctic circle is practically wholly carnivorous. In each case the taste is almost certainly due to the necessities of their environment, for the man in the arctic regions could not survive without an abundance of animal fat. It is probable that the more northward man advanced the more carnivorous he became in order to support the rigors of the northern climate. The same holds equally true in the case of drink. Temperance reforms would enforce by legislation complete abstinence from all alcoholic liquors, and they point to the sobriety of the Spaniards, Italians and other South Europeans, and urge, if these nations are so temperate, why should Britons and Irish continue to drink beer and spirits in such large quantities? This appeal depends, unfortunately, on the false assumption that the natives of these islands enjoy the same climate as the people of the sunny south. All across northern Europe and Asia there is a universal love of strong drink, which is not the mere outcome of vicious desires, but of climatic law. In Shakespeare's time "your Englishman was most potent in potting," and this was no new outbreak of depravity, for the earliest reference in history to the natives of these islands tells the same tale. When Pytheas of Marseilles traveled in these regions, about 350 he found the people making "wine from barley," and, though he does not explicitly say so, we need not doubt that it was meant for home consumption. In view of these facts we must regard this tendency as essentially climatic. This view derives additional support from the well-authenticated fact that one of the chief characteristics of the descendants of British settlers in Australia is their strong teetotalism. This can not be set down to their having a higher moral standard than their ancestors, but rather, as in the case of Spaniards and Italians, to the circumstance that they live in a country much warmer and drier than the British Isles. We must, therefore, no matter how reluctantly, come to the conclusion that no attempt to eradicate this tendency to alcohol in these latitudes can be successful, for the most that can be done by the philanthropist and the legislator is to modify and control it, but especially by moral means.

I have spoken of the principles at work in the differentiation of one race from another. It may be that the same principles or others closely allied may be at work within each community, for each community is but the whole world writ small. Within the United