Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/268

264 scenes of the most important historical developments for several centuries. From the temperate zones have come the great explorers and adventurers of the past, and are coming the exploiters and colonizers of to-day. In the occurrence of the temperate zone seasons lies much of the secret—who can say how much of it?—of the energy, ambition, self-reliance, industry, thrift, of the inhabitants of the temperate zones. The monotonous heat of the tropics and the continued cold of the polar zones are both depressing. Their tendency is to operate against man's highest development. The seasonal changes of the temperate zones stimulate man to activity. They develop him physically and mentally. They encourage higher civilization. A cold, stormy winter necessitates forethought in the preparation of clothing, food and shelter during the summer. Carefully planned, steady, hard labor is the price of living in these zones. Development must result from such conditions. In the warm, moist tropics, life is too easy. In the cold polar zones it is too hard. Temperate zone man can bring in what he desires of polar and tropical products, and himself raises what he needs in the great variety of climates of the intermediate latitudes. Near the poles the growing season is too short. In the moist tropics it is so long that there is little inducement to labor at any special time. The regularity and the need of outdoor work during a part of the year are important factors in the development of man in the temperate zones. Where work is a necessity for all, labor becomes dignified, well-paid, intelligent, independent. Behind our civilization there lies what has been well called a "climatic discipline"—the discipline of a cool season which shall refresh and stimulate, both physically and mentally, and prevent the deadening effect of continued heat. On the other hand, a very long winter is about as unfavorable as a very long summer. If outdoor work is seriously interrupted, progress is retarded. It is not surprising to learn that the difficulty of keeping farm-hands through the long winter has in the past been a handicap in western Canada, and that it was urged against the abolition of slavery in Russia that it would be impossible, without some form of compulsion, to keep farmhands through the winter.

Northward Movement of Civilization in the North Temperate Zone.—The gradual migration of the center of civilization away from the tropics, and the highest development of the human race, not where life is easiest, but in extra-tropical latitudes, are significant. "Slowly but surely," as Benjamin Kidd says, "we see the seat of empire arid authority moving like the advancing tide northward. The evolution of character which the race has undergone has been northwards from the tropics." From the Mediterranean region, where the world's civilization, its commerce and its power were long centered, westward through Spain and Portugal, the migration continued farther and farther