Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/66

48 be the highest; since so little time and labor are necessary to satisfy the necessities of the body, the mind would have opportunity to expand. It would seem that a fertile soil, an exuberant vegetation, soft skies and balmy air, a country where raiment was scarcely essential to comfort, and where for food the favored inhabitant had but to pluck and eat, should become the seat of a numerous population and a high development. Is this the fact? "Wherever snow falls," Emerson remarks, "there is usually civil freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent, and pampered at the cost of higher qualities; the man is sensual and cruel;" and we may add that where wheat grows, there is civilization, where rice is the staple, there mental vigor is relaxed.

Heat and moisture being the great vegetative stimulants, tropical lands in proximity to the sea are covered with eternal verdure. Little or no labor is required to sustain life; for food there is the perpetually ripening fruit, a few hours' planting, sometimes, being sufficient to supply a family for months; for shelter, little more than the dense foliage is necessary, while scarcely any clothing is required.

But although heat and moisture, the great vegetative stimulants, lie at the root of primitive progress, these elements in superabundance defeat their own ends, and in two ways: First, excessive heat enervates the body and prostrates the mind, languor and inertia become chronic, while cold is invigorating and prompts to activity. And in tropical climates certain hours of the day are too hot for work, and are, consequently, devoted to sleep. The day is broken into fragments; continuous application, which alone produces important results, is prevented, and habits of slackness and laxity become the rule of life. Satisfied, moreover, with the provisions of nature for their support, the people live without labor, vegetating, plant-like, through a listless and objectless life. Secondly, vegetation, stimulated by excessive heat and moisture, grows with