there wanting minor verifications. Comparisons among African races are suggestive of similar contrasts in consti- tution, similarly caused. Of the varieties of negroes Livingstone remarks (Miss, Trav., p. 78) — " Heat alone does not produce blackness of skin, but heat with moisture seems to insure the deepest hue }" and Schweinfurth, in his lately-issued Hea/rt of Africa, similarly remarks on the relative blackness of the Denka and other tribes living on the alluvial plains, and contrasts them with '^the less swarthy and more robust races who inhabit the rocky hills of the interior.'^ (Vol. I., p. 148.) There seem generally recognizable, corresponding differences in energy and social advance. But I note this difference of colour arising in the same race, between those subject to a moist heat and those subject to a dry heat, for the purpose of suggesting its probable connexion with the fact that the lighter- skinned races are habitually the dominant races. We see it to have been so in Egypt. It was so with the races spreading south from Central Asia. There is evidence that it was so in Central America and Peru. And if, heat being the same, darkness of skin accompanies humidity of the aur, while relative lightness of skin accompanies dryness of the air, then, in this habitual predominance of the lighter-complexioned varieties of men, we find further 26 THE DATA OV SOCIOLOQT.
evidence that constitutional activity^ and in so for social development, is favoured by a climate conducing to rapid evaporation.
I do not mean that the energy thus resulting determines, of itself, higher social development: this is neither implied deductively nor shown inductively. But greater constitu- tional activity, making easy the conquest of less active races and the usurpation of their richer and more varied habitats, also makes possible a utilization of such habitats that was not possible to the aborigines.
§ 1 7. On passing from climate to surface, we have to note, first, the effects of its configuration, as favouring or hindering social integration — aiding or preventing subordination to a central power.
That the habits of men, originally hunters or nomads, may be changed into those required for settled communities, the surface occupied must be one within which coercion is easy, and beyond which the difficulties of existence are considerable. The successful resistances made by mountain tribes, due to the difficulties of pursuit, have been in many times and in many places exemplified. Instance the lUyrians, who remained independent of the adjacent Greeks, gave trouble to the Macedonians, and mostly recovered their in- dependence after the death of Alexander -, instance the Swiss; instance, more recently, the people of the Caucasus. The inhabitants of desert tracts, as well as those of mountain- tracts, are difficult to consolidate: facility of escape, joined with habits of life adapted to sterile regions, greatly hinder social subordination. Within our own island we have seen that surfaces otherwise very different, have simi- larly hindered political integration, when their physical traits have made it difficult to get at their occupants. The history of Wales shows us how, within that mountainous district itself, subordination to one ruler was difficult to establish; and still more how difficult it was to bring the whole under the OKIGINAL KXTEBNAL FACTORS. 27 central power: from the primitive Old-English period down to 1400; eight centuries of resistance passed before the subju- gation was complete, and a further interval before the final incorporation with England. The region of the Pens, in the earliest times a haunt of marauders and those who escaped from established power, became, at the time of the Conquest, the last refuge of the still-resisting English; who, for many years, maintained their freedom in this tract, made almost inaccessible by morasses. The long-continued independence of the Highland clans, who were brought under central government only after General Wade's roads put their wild refuge within reach, yields a later proof. Conversely, social integration is facilitated within a territory which, while it is able to support a large population, affords facilities for coercing the units of that population: especially if at the same time it is bounded by regions offering little sustenance, or peopled by enemies, or both. Egypt fulfilled these conditions to social integration in a high degree. Crovermental force was unimpeded by physical obstacles within the occupied area; and escape from it into the adjacent desert, involved either starvation or robbery and enslavement by the wandering hordes. Joining to- gether these examples of hinderance to social integration by some forms of sur&ce and facilitation by others, we may figuratively say that it is a process of welding, which can be effectually carried on only when there is both pressure and difficulty in evading that pressure. And here, indeed, we are reminded how, in extreme cases, the nature of the surface permanently determines the type of social life it bears. Prom the earliest recorded times, these arid tracts in the East have been peopled by Semitic tribes having a rudimentary social type fitted to them. In like manner the description in Herodotus of the Scythian's mode of life and social organization, is substantially the same as that given of the Kalmucks by Pallas. Even were regions fitted for no- mads to have their inhabitants exterminated, they would be 28 THE DATA Of 80CI0L00T.
re-peopled by refugees from neighbonrmg settled societies; who would similarly be compelled to wander by the charac- ters of their habitat^ and would similarly acquire an adapted form of union^ with its fit ideas^ sentiments^ usages. There is^ indeed^ a modem instance in point: not exactly of a re- genesis of an adapted type of society^ but of a genesis de novo. Since the colonization of South America^ some of the pampas have become the refuges of robber-tribes like Bedouins.
Another trait of the inhabited surface next to be noted as influential, is its degree of heterogeneity. Other things equals localities that are comparatively uniform are un- favourable to social progress. Leaving out for the present its effects on the Flora and Fauna, sameness of surface im- plies absence of varied inorganic materials^ absence of varied experiences, absence of varied habits, and, therefore, puts obstacles to the development of commerce and the arts of life. Neither Central Asia, nor Central Africa, nor the central region of either American continent, has been the seat of an indigenous civilization of any height. Regions like the Russian steppes, however possible it may be to carry into them civilizations elsewhere developed, are regions within which civilization is not likely to be initiated j because the differentiating influences are insufficient. Uniformity of habitat, even when caused in quite another way, has else- where the like effect. As Professor Dana asks respecting a coral-island: — "How many of the various arts of civilized life could exist in a land where shells are the only cutting instruments — afresh water barely enough for househoM purposes — no streams, nor mountains, nor hills? How much of the poetry and literature of Europe would be intelligible to persons whose ideas had expanded only to the Umits of a coral-island, who had never conceived of a surfisuse of land above half a mile in breadth— of a slope higher than a beach, or of change in seasons beyond a variation in the prevalence of rain?"
Contrariwise, the effect produced by geological and geo- graphical heterogeneity in furthering social development.
ORIGINAL XXTSlOrAL FACT0B8. 29 is conspicaous. Though^ considered absolatelj, the Nile« Talley is not mnltif orm in character to a gpreat degree^ yet^ in comparison with sorrounding tracts it is so; and it presents that which seems the most constant antecedent to civilization — ^the juxtaposition of land and water. Though the Baby- lonians and Assyrians had habitats that were not specially varied^ yet they were varied in comparison with the riverlesn regions lying East and West. The strip of territory in which the PhGenician society arose^ united the characters of a relatiyely-extensiye coast-line; many rivers &lling into it, famishing at their mouths sites for the chief cities; plains and Talleys running inland, with hills between them and mountains beyond them. Still more conspicuously does heterogeneity distinguish the area in which development of the Greek society took place: it is varied in its multitudi- nous and complex distributions of land and sea, in its contour of surface, in its soil. As is remarked by Mr. Tozer in his recent Lectures on tJis Geography of Oreece, " No part of Europe — ^perhaps it would not be too much to say no part of the world — ^presents so great a variety of natural features within the same area as Ghreece.^^ The Greeks themselyes, indeed, observed the effects of local circumstances within their own territory, in so far as the unlikc- ness between coast and interior goes. As says Mr. Grote: — *'The ancient philosophers and legislators were deeply impressed with the contrast between an inland and a maritime city: in the former simplicity and nniformity of life, tenacity of ancient habits and dislike of what is new or foreign, great force of exclusive sympathy and narrow range both of objects and ideas; in the latter, variety and novelty of Bensations, expansive imaginations, toleration and occasional preference for extraneous customs, greater activity of the individual and corre- sponding mutability of the state." — History of Greece, voL il, p. 296.
Though it is obvious that the effects here described are, in large measure, those due to foreign intercourse; yet, since this itself is dependent on the local relations of land and sea, these relations must be recognized as the primwy causes of the difference. Jnst observing that in Italy, likewise, civi- 30 THE T)ATA Of SOCIOLOOT.
lization found a seat of considerable complexiiy^ geological and geographical^ we may pass to the New World, where we see the same thing. Central America, which was the source of its indigenous civilizations, is characterized by compara- tive multiformity, including, especially, its double coast-line. So, too, with Mexico and with Peru. The Mexican table- land, surrounded by mountains, contained many fine lakes: that of Tezcuco, with its islands and shores, being the seat of govenunent; and besides the varied surface of Peru, we see that the Ynca-power spread from the mountainous is- lands of the large, irregular, elevated lake, Titicaca.
How soil, considered simply as fertile or barren, affects progress, remains to be observed. The belief that abund- ance of food obtained with little trouble, is unfavourable to social evolution, while not without an element of truth, is by no means true as currently accepted. The various semi- civilized peoples of the Pacific — ^the Sandwich Islanders, Tahitians, Tongans, Samoans, Fijians — show us consider- able advances made in places where great productiveness renders life relatively ea&j. In Sumatra, where the luxu- riance is such that rice yields 80 to 140 fold, and in Mada- gascar, where it yields 50 to 100 fold, and where other returns for labour are similarly large, social development has not been insignificant. On the adjacent continent it is the same. Kaffirs, inhabiting a tract having rich and exten- sive pasturage, contrast favourably, both individually and socially, with neighbouring races occupying regions that are relatively unproductive; and those parts of Central Africa in which the indigenous races have made most social pro- gress, as Ashantee and Dahomey, have extremely-luxuriant vegetations. Indeed, if we call to mind the Nile-valley, and the exceptionally-fertilizing process it is naturally sub- ject to, we see that the most ancient social development known to us, began in a region which, fulfilling other re- quirements, was also characterized by great productiveness.
And here, with respect to fertility, we may recognize a 0BI6INAL EXTEHNMi VACTOBS. 31 trutli allied to tliat whiclx we recognized in respect to climate; namely^ that the earlier stages of social growth and development are possible only where the resistances to be overcome are relatively small. As those arts of life by which loss of heat is prevented or counterbalanced^ must be considerably developed before the relatively-inclement regions can be well peopled; so^ the agricultural arts must be considerably developed before the less fertile tracts can support populations large enough to favour social evolution. And since arts of every kind are advanced only as societies progress in size and structure^ it follows that there must be societies having habitats where abundant food can be pro- cured by inferior arts, before there can be developed the arts required for dealing with less productive habitats. While yet feeble and little-evolved, societies can survive only where the circumstances are least trying. The ability to survive where circumstances are more trying, can be possessed only by the stronger and more evolved societies descending from these; and inheriting their acquired organi- zation, appliances, and knowledge.
It should be added that variety in the character of the soil is a factor of importance; since this is influential in determining that multiplicity of vegetal products which largely aids social progress. In Damara-land, where the uniformity of surface is such that four kinds of mimosap exclude nearly every other kind of tree or bush, it is clear that, apart from further obstacles to progress, paucity of materials must be a great one. But here we verge upon another order of factors.
§ 18. How the character of its Flora affects the fitness of a habitat for supporting a society, scarcely needs showing. It is needful, however, to point out that while a defective Flora is a negative hinderance to social progress, a luxuriant Flora does not necessarily aid, but may impede. We will glance at both sets of effects.
32 THB DATA OF SOCIOLOOY.
Some of the Esqaimaux have no wood at all; while others have only that which comes to them as ocean-drift. In this extreme case^ by nsing snow or ice to build their hojises^ and by the shifts they are put to in making cups of seal-skin^ iishing-lines and nets of whalebone^ and even bows of bone or horn, these people show us how greatly adyance in the arts of life is hindered by absence of fit vegetal products. With this Arctic race, too, as also with the nearly Antarctic Fuegians, we see that the absence or extreme scarcity of food-bearing plants, is an insurmountable impedi- ment to social progress: implying, as it does, restriction to animal-food, necessarily more limited in quantity. Evidence better than that furnished by these regions where extreme cold is a coexisting hinderance, is furnished by Australia; where, in a climate that is on the whole favourable, the paucity of food-bearing plants and of plants otherwise useful, has been a part-cause of continued arrest at the lowest stage of barbarism. Large tracts of it, supporting but one inhabitant to sixty square miles, do not admit any- thing approaching to that density of population which is a needful condition to civilization.
Conversely, after observing how increase of population, making possible advance of social evolution, is furthered by abundance of vegetal products, as above shown in speaking of fertility of soil, we may observe how variety of vegetal products conduces to the same effect. Not only in the cases of the slightly-developed societies existing in regions covered by plants of numerous species, do we see that de- pendence on many kinds of roots, fruits, cereals, etc., is a safeguard against the famines apt to arise from failure of any single crop; but we see that the many useful materials furnished by a heterogeneous Flora, make possible a multi- plication of appliances, a consequent advance of the arts, and an accompanying development of skill and intelligence. The Tahitians have on their island, fit woods for the frame- works and roofs of houses, with pahn-leaves for thatch j OBIQINAL XZTXBNAL YAOIOBS. 33 Ui^e are plants yielding ihem fibres oat of whicli to twist cords, fislung-lines, matting, etc.; the tapa-bark, duly pre- pared, famishes a cloth for their varioas articles of dress i they have cocoa-nats for caps, etc., materials for baskets, sieyes, and Varioas domestic implements; they haye plants guying them scents for their imgaents, flowers for their wreaths and necklaces; they haye dyes for stamping patterns on their dresses — all besides the yarioas f ood^ bread-frait> tare, yams, sweet-potatoes, arrow-root, fern- root, cocoa-nats, plantains, bananas, jambo, ti-root, sagar- cane, etc.: eiiabling them to prodace nameroas made dishes. And the utilization of all these materials obyioasly sup- plies a caltare and discipline acting in yarioas ways towards social adyance. How inflaential the heterogeneity of a Flora is in this way, we may infer on obserying that kindred results from it haye arisen among an adjacent people, widely tmlike in character and political organization^ Those ferocious cannibals the Fijians, goyemed by feelings that are in many respects anti-social, haye reached a deyelop- ment of the arts comparable with that of the Tahitians, with a diyision of labour and a commercial organization that are eyen superior, in a habitat similarly characterized by yariety of yegetal products. Among the thousand species of indigenous plants in the Fiji Islands, there are such as yield the inhabitants materials for all purposes, from the building of war-canoes capable of carrying 800 men down to the making of dyes and perfumes. It may, indeed, be nrged that the New Zealanders, exhibiting a social deyelopment similar in degree to that reached in Tahiti and Fiji, had a habitat of which the indigenous Flora was not yaried.^ But the r^ly is that both by their language and their mythology, the New Zealanders are shown to haye separated from other Malayo-Polynesians, after the arts of life had been con- siderably adyanced; and that they brought these arts {as well as some cultiyated plants) to a region which, though poor in edible plants, suppUedin abundance plants otherwise usef uL 34 THS DATA Of 80CI0L0GT.
As above hinted^ mere luznriance of yegetaiion is in cases a hinderance to progress — ^vegetation, that is, which does not famish available materials. Even that inclement region inhabited by the Faegians, is^ strange to say, made worse by the dense growth of useless nnderwood which clothes the rocky hills. And living though they do under conditions otherwise so different, t^e Andamaneee are simi* larly restricted to the borders of the sea, by the impenetrable thicket which covers the laud. Indeed various equatorial regions, rendered almost useless even to the partiaUy oivi- lized by jungle and tangled forest, were utterly worthless to the aborigines, who had no tools for clearing the ground. The primitive man, possessed of rude stone implements only, could find but few parts of the Earth's surfoce which, neither too barren nor bearing a growth too luxuriant, were available: so again reminding us that rudimentary societies are at the mercy of environing conditions.
• § 19. There remains to be treated the Fauna of the region inhabited. Evidently this has a powerful effect, both on the degree of social growth and on the type of thai growth.
The presence or absence of wild animals fit for food, influential as it is in determining the kind of individual life, is therefore influential in determining the kind of social organization. Where, as in North America, there existed a sufficiency of game to support the aboriginal races, hunting tended to continue the dominant activity; and a more or less nomadic habit being entailed by the migrations after game,, there was a persistent impediment to agriculture, to increase of population, and to industrial development. We have but to consider the antithetical case of the various Polynesian races, and to observe how, in the absence of any considerable land-Fauna^ they have been forced into agricul* ture with its concomitant settled life, larger population, and advanced arts, to see how great an effect the kind and OmaiNAL EXTEfiNAL FACTOBS. 35 amount of ntilizable animal-life in a locality lias on civilization. When we glance at that pastoral type of society wliich^ still existing^ lias played in past times an important part in human progress^ we again see that over wide regions the indigenous Fauna has been chiefly influential in fixing the form of social union. On the one hand^ in the absence of horses^ camels^ oxen, sheep, goats — maTninalfl admitting of domestication — ^the kind of life followed by the three great conquering races in their original habitats, would have been impossible; and, on the other hand, this kind of life, bringing with it the adapted social relations, prevented, so long as it continued, that formation of larger settled unions which is needed for the higher social relations. On recalling the cases of the Laplanders with their reindeer and dogs, the Tartars with their horses and cattle, and the South Americans with their llamas and g^uinea-pigs, it becomes obvious, too, that in various cases this nature of the Fauna, joined with that of the surface, still continues to be a cause of arrest at a certain stage of evolution.
While the Fauna is thus an important factor as containing an abundance or scarcity of members useful to man, it is also an important factor as containing an abundance or scarcity of injurious members. The presence of the larger carnivores is, in some places, a considerable impediment to the carrying on of social life: as in Sumatra, where villages are not uncommonly depopulated by tigers; as in India, where " a single tigress caused the destruction of 13 villages, and 256 square miles of country were thrown out of cultiva-^ tion,'' and where ''in 1869 one tigress killed 127 people, and stopped a public road for many weeks.'' Indeed we need but recall the evils once experienced in England from wolves, and those still experienced in northern parts of Europe, to see that perfect freedom to carry on out-door occupations, and perfect freedom of intercourse, which are among the conditions to social advance, may be hindered by 36 THB DATA OF BOCIOLOGT.
predatory uniinals. Nor must we forget how greatly that subjugatioiL of surface implied by development of agri- culture^ is occasionally interfered with by reptiles: instance^ again^ the case of India^ where^ according to Dr. Fayrer's recent work^ 20^000 persons die of snake-bite annually — a number given in recent official returns as 25^664. To which evils directly inflicted by the higher animals^ have to be added the indirect evils which they join insects in inflicting^ by destroying crops. Sometimes injuries of this last kind appear considerably to affect the mode of individual^ and consequently of social^ life; as in Kaffirland^ where crops are subject to great depredations from mammals^ birds^ and Insects^ and where the transformation of the pastoral state into a higher state is thus discouraged; or as in the Bechuana-country^ which, while "peopled with countless herds of game, is sometimes devastated by swarms of locusts/' ' Clearly, where the industrial tendencies are still feeble, un- certainty in getting a return for labour must hinder the development of them, and prompt reversion to older modes of life if these can still be pursued.
Many other mischiefs, caused especially by insects^ seriously interfere with social progress. Even familiar experiences in Scotland, where the midges sometimes drive one indoors, suffice to show how greatly ''the plague of flies " must, in tropical regions, discourage continuous out- door activity by men already averse to labour. Where, as on the Orinoco, the morning salutation is — '' How have the mosquitos used you V and where the torment is such that a priest could not believe Humboldt voluntarily sub- mitted to it merely that he might see the country, the desire for relief must often outbalance the already-feeble motive to work« Even the effects of flies on cattle, in- directly modify social life: as among the Earghiz, who, in May, when the steppes are covered with rich pasture, are obliged by the swarms of flies to take their herds to the jnountainB; or as in Africa*, where the tseUe negatives the ORIGINAL EXTERNAL FACTORS. 37 pastoral occnpation in some localities. And then, in other cases^ great disconragement is experienced from the t&nmtes, which^ in parts of East Africa^ consnme dress^ fnmitnre, beds^ etc. " A man may be rich to-day and poor to- morrow, from the ravages of the white ants,*' said aPorta- gaese merchant to Livingstone. Nor are these the only evils tliey inflict. As Humboldt remarks, ''where the termites destroy all docnments, there can be no advanced civilization.'^ Thus there is a close relation between the type of social life indigenons in a locality, and the character of the indigenous Fauna. The presence or absence of useful species, and the presence or absence of injurious species, have their favouring and hindering effects. In every case these effects vary ac- cording to the specialities and proportions of these causes; and there is not only so produced a furtherance or retarda- tion of social progress, generally considered, but there is produced ihore or less speciality of nature in the structures and functions of the community.
§ 20. To enumerate and describe fuUy these original external factors, in their multitudinous degrees and com- binations, is out of the question. An approximately-complete account of the classes briefly characterised above, would be a work of years; and there would have to be added many special influences of environing conditions not yet indicated.
Effects of differences in degree and distribution of light, as illustrated by the in-door life and culture which the Arctic night causes among the Icelanders, would have to be treated; as also the minor effects due to greater or less brilliancy of ordinary daylight in sunny and cloudy climates on the mental states, and therefore on the actions, of the 'inhabitants. The familiar fact that habitual fineness of weather and habitual inclemency, lead respectively to out- door social intercourse and in-door family-life, and so influence the characters of citizens, would have to be taken 38 TSS DATA OF SOCIOLOGY.
into account. So, too, would the modificationB of popular ideas and feelings wrought hj imposing meteorologic and geologic phenomena. And bejrond the effects, made much of by Mr. Buckle, which these grand and unexpected displays of natural energies produce on men's imaginations, and consequently on their behaviour, there would have to be noted their effects of other orders: as, for instance, those which frequent earthquakes in a locality have on the type of architecture — causing a preference for houses that are low and slight; and so modifying both the domestic arrangements and the SBsthetio culture. Again, the character of the fuel which a locality yields has consequences that ramify in various directions; as we see in the contrast between our own coal-burning London, with its blackened rows of houses made gloomy and depressing by absorption of ligbt, and the wood-burning cities of the continent, where general lightness and the use of bright colouring induce a different state of feeling having different results. How the mineralogy of the region affects the degree of civilization and the industrial arrangements, scarcely needs pointing out. Entire absence of metals may negative local advance ' out of the stone-age; presence of copper may lead to an