Miscellanies; or, literary recreations. By I. D'Israeli:

ON THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON THE HUMAN MIND.

AMONG the follies of the wise, may be ranked that system which cir|cumscribes the energies of the human mind, by the influence of climate. It has been confuted, and is still believed, for there are some whom no confuta|tions can confute. We shall form an enquiry into it's origin, with some no|tices of that fanciful chain it has thrown over the intellects of the most vigorous geniuses, and we shall incul|cate the independence of the intellec|tual powers.

This extravagant system derives it's modern rejuvenescence from a writer whose talents are the most brilliant and seductive, modern literature dis|plays. Montesquieu, ever vigilant in

striking the mind by novelties, disco|vered in the writings of some of the ancients, a few fanciful and casual conjectures on the influence of climate on the human mind, and which he also extended to manners. Curious absur|dities, not less eccentric, remain yet for some future Montesquieu to adopt. These slight conjectures he seized with avidity, amplified with ingenuity, de corated by the graces of fancy, and divulged with the triumphant air of a modern discovery.

Baillet, who wrote at the close of the last century, without a solitary charm of Montesquieu's fancy, was well acquainted with this extravagant notion. It is probable, that to this compiler Montesquieu, with some kin|dred geniuses, were indebted for the seminal heat of all their variegated flowers. In his volume on National Prejudices, he adverts to this system, and quotes Hippocrates, Plato, Aris|totle,

Seneca, and others, who had conceived that the temperature of the air contributes something to the natu|ral dispositions of the mind. Long an|terior to Montesquieu, our own Mil|ton expressed this prejudice;* 1.1 and as Filangieri observes, Chardin, Fonte|nelle, Du Bos, and others, had ex|plained

and adopted the notion. But what the reasoning of Chardin, the wit of Fontenelle, and the ingenuity of Du Bos, failed to establish, was fixed by the seductive eloquence of Montesquieu. His brilliant strokes dazzled the eyes of Europe, and iced, with an additional frost, the heart of many a literary Russian and Dane. It is thus follies are hereditary among writers, and one generation perpetu|ates or revives the extinct follies of another.

It was the talent of exquisite com|position that gave to Montesquieu the power of disguising an exploded the|ory. Who can resist such poignant epigrams as these, allowing that every lively epigram is a conclusive argu|ment?—

"The empire of climate is the first of all empires."

—

"As we distin|guish climates by degrees of latitude, we might distinguish them, thus to express myself, by degrees of sensibi|lity."

—

"In those countries, instead of precepts, we must have padlocks."

—Such is the witty system of the presi|dent Montesquieu, which perhaps was first conceived with a smile, but con|ducted with ingenious gravity. We suffer our follies to become agreeable, when we suffer them to become fa|miliar.

When the "Spirit of laws" was first published, every literary centinel did not silently admit the enemy of intel|lectual freedom, nor was every genius rendered somniferous by the corrup|tions of wit. The alarm was given. This paradox kindled the philosophic indignation of Gray, and inspired his exquisite muse to commence a poem of considerable magnitude, designed to combat a position so fatal to intel|lectual exertion. Churchill revolted from the degrading notion; a line on genius conveys his idea, that it is not

circumscribed by local situation, for, says he,

"It may hereafter, e'en in Holland rise."

Armstrong found it necessary to in|veigh with sarcastic acerbity against this system; but it was the philoso|phic Hume, who with solid arguments crushed the brilliant epigrams of Mon|tesquieu.

Filangieri,* 1.2 who had all the advan|tage of posterior knowledge, united to an investigating genius, has marched between these systematisers and their adversaries, by attempting to shew that Climate influences the mind as a relative, not as an absolute cause, and that the difference is not perceptible in temperate climates. But one of his political reveries is that of drying marshes, and felling woods to change the character of a people. I much

fear that the Italian, (for his nation are most politic refiners,) has only mistaken the national humour of Addison, who tells us, that

"a famous university in this land, was formerly very much in|fested with puns; but whether or no this might not arise from the fens and marshes in which it was situated, and which are now drained, I must leave to the determination of more skilful naturalists."

As France is a very extensive coun|try, and has great variation of climate, it offered an ample circuit for these systematisers to verify their favourite positions, by tracing the effects of cli|mate through that diversified country. The inhabitants of Picardy being placed in a colder situation than the other provinces, were imagined to be eminent for their indefatigable labour, and their writers were supposed to be students of great erudition. But here, as almost in every instance, where facts

are produced to confirm this fanci|ful theory, we shall find that moral are often taken for physical effects. Baillet remarks on this observation concerning Picardy, that the industry of it's writers is owing to those devas|tations of war, which, having injured the fortunes of the natives, induced them rather to apply to useful than to agreeable compositions, as a means of ameliorating their fortune. Normandy having great inequality of climate, was supposed to occasion a similar inequal|ity in the literary productions of it's authors; and Auvergne having high mountains and deep vallies, was con|jectured to produce both men of great genius and great dullness; for those born on the mountains were said to have more delicate organs, and a more aetherial spirit, than the gross and stu|pid students of the valleys. Such are the materials, which, with many others,

might be employed in a history of the follies of philosophy.* 1.3

But if an Englishman is amused by these airy fancies, he will come at length to resent, with a due spirit of in|dignation, the national attacks which these fantastic systematisers have con|stantly levelled at our country. Bri|tain has been considered by them as a Beotia. Profound disquisitions, and sarcastic exultations, have been made concerning our foggy island; but the same fogs remain, while the finest com|positions now enrich our language. The classics of England exhibit models of the purest taste to literary Europe; but moral causes long impeded the progress of taste in our country; when individuals want patronage, they often want genius; our monarchs have been torpid and parsimonious, but our pub|lic

at length has been rapid and mag|nificent. We may resound our tri|umphs to the manes of Du Bos,* 1.4 of Montesquieu, and Winckelman, who have affirmed that we could have no genius for the fine arts, because they informed the world that the sensibility of taste was obstructed by an obnox|ious clime. Such are the sentiments which have been echoed from one writer to another, till even some of our own have been pleased to calum|niate themselves.

Among many curious criticisms of foreigners, I must not pass silently Winckelman's notion concerning Mil|ton. He tells us, that all the descrip|tions in the Paradise Lost, excepting the amorous and delicate scenes of the primeval pair, are like well-painted gorgons, which resemble each other, but are always frightful; and this he

attributes to the climate. But what is here attempted to be depreciated, every critic of taste will conceive to be the terrible graces of a sublime po|esy; a sublimity (the grandest charac|teristic of a poet) unrivalled in modern or in ancient times. As the subject is peculiar, and of the most elevated na|ture, so it found in Milton a genius as peculiar, and faculties the most ele|vated. If the English Muse has sur|passed her sisters in loftiness, she yields not in the more delicate and sweeter portions of her art. Of late we have excelled in picturesque description; the most pleasing paintings of nature variegate the verse of Thomson, who, as a shrewd observer remarks, was born more northerly than Milton. Goldsmith has cultivated the same powers, and they have proved so at|tractive to the public taste, that Eng|lish verse can now exhibit some of the most exchanting and the most vivid

scenery in poetry. The Muse was con|sidered to be under

"a skiey influ|ence;"

but whenever a national impe|diment is removed, and Time, in every polished nation, subverts such causes, that people will not fail of equalling the efforts of those who have been placed in happier circumstances.

Men of genius cease to be such, when like the common people, they precipitate themselves on one another with the stupid docility of a flock of sheep, who follow the one who hap|pens to be the foremost. Writers have yielded up their sensations and their reflections to this favourite theory. Spence has accounted for the turgidity of Lucan, on the principles of this system. He says,

"The swellings in his poem may be partly accounted for, perhaps, from his being born in Spain, and in that part of it which was farthest removed from Greece and Rome."

But the following instance will parallel any

literary extravagance. When Dyer gave the "Fleece," he acquainted the world, to apologize for the defects of the poem, that

"It was published un|der some disadvantages; for many of it's faults must be imputed to the air of a fenny country, where I have been for the most part above these five years."

Such criticisms remind me of a couplet of the ingenious De Foe, whose good sense appears also to have wandered wildly into these fancies. In one of his Political Poems, he says of his hero William,

"Batavian climates nourished him a-while, Too great a genius for so damp a soil."

It is evident, that when Milton first proposed to himself the composition of his epic, this sublime genius felt a full conviction of this prejudice of his age, respecting the influence of climate on the human mind. He tells us in one of his prose works, that he intends to write an epic

"out of our own an|cient

stories; if there be nothing ad|verse in our climate, or the fate of this age."

At a more remote period, when he was near the conclusion of his im|mortal labour, he adorns these erro|neous notions by the charms of his verse, and lays a peculiar stress on the word cold. These are the lines,

"—higher argument Remains, sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years damp my intended wing."

Even Young, in "The Merchant," complains, that

"his poetic vein runs slow in this cold climate."

The notion of this influence of the climate was indeed so universal in those days, that Descartes feared that the warmth of the climate in France would too much exalt his imagination, and disturb that temperate state of the mind necessary for philosophical disco|veries. He therefore took refuge from the sun, in Holland. All the frost of

the northern climates could never ren|der his burning imagination tepid; the visionary would have dreamt on a pil|low of snow.

Such have been the imbecillities of great men; and on such foundations rested the brilliant edifice which the hand of Montesquieu did not construct, but only adorned. It is to be lamented that some superior minds prefer the little vanity of temporary novelties to the infinite glory of enduring truths. Every error of this kind long links an additional fetter on the human mind, and half the wisdom of man now con|sists in destroying the chains of his own fabrication. Age succeeds to age, and the human mind, as it calculates it's genuine acquisitions, wonders at the petty amount; while, if we scru|tinise most of our former attempts, we perceive with a sigh, that philosophy has been more curious than knowing, more active than progressive, more

specious than solid; that it has gene|rally consisted in becoming familiar with the incongruous opinions of others, and having no opinions of our own; and that while we run after the capricious coquetry of a meretricious fancy, Truth has often past by, in sober and unadorned beauty, unsolicited, undesired, but rarely unseen.

Let us view this topic in a more in|structive manner. Aristotle, in his Politics, observes, that the northern nations, and generally all Europe, are naturally courageous and robust, but are improper for mental exertion, without powers for meditation, and without industry for the arts; on the contrary, the Asiatics have great ta|lents for works of genius, are inclined to reasoning and meditation, and skil|ful in the invention and perfection of arts. The reverse of all this, in the present age, is the truth. Aristotle drew this representation from the ex|isting

scene; but had that acute mind happened to reflect on the powers which the customs and the government of a people have over the human mind, he had then perceived that not the frosts and snows of the northern realms made men addict themselves to war, but that predatory genius which must prevail in a people, who were con|stantly distressed by poverty and fa|mine. When a new civilization had taken place, and the severities of the climate were mitigated by the benefi|cial influence of art and science; when the descendants of these men employed their armaments in commerce, as well as in war; when their iron was plun|ged into the reluctant bosom of earth; when, in their cities, universities were erected, academies instituted, and the peaceful occupations of genius che|rished; then, while the same climate existed, the national characters be|came changed. Heroic and polished

Greece and Rome are now barbarous and pusillanimous; and the gravity and superstition of the Spaniard, the po|litic and assassinating spirit of the Ita|lian, the diligence and suppleness of the Scotchman, and the suspiciousness and profundity of the Englifhman, are derived from their manners and go|vernments. MAN is a mere imitative CREATURE, and the wise LEGISLATOR may be a powerful CREATOR.

It was once enquired why Paris and Toulouse produced so many eminent lawyers. It was long attributed to the climate; till some reasonable being discovered, that the universities of those cities offered opportunities and en|couragements for that study which others did not. The Germans have long been an injured literary nation. A taste for science and erudition having been diffused among that industrious people, they were constantly aspersed by their lively neighbours, for invete|rate

dullness and sterile imaginations. The eminent success of the French in the Belles Lettres, placed the fright|ened genius of that nation in a volun|tary seclusion; of late awakened from their stupor, they begin to rank high in polite letters; and although their productions have not yet attained that novelty of combination, which is the effect of long industry and multifarious composition, yet have they already produced some spirited and affecting works of imagination which can fear no rivals.

Men of genius, at London, or at Petersburgh, in the retirement of their cabinet, if employed on the same to|pic, and equal in their acquisitions, will think and write alike. The man|ners of a people occasion some varia|tions in national tastes; there is an ar|bitrary and an ideal beautiful; or, in other words, a local and an universal sensation. The present systematisers

not having sufficiently investigated the causes of arbitrary or local sensations, in perceiving them, they at once re|ferred them to the influence of CLI|MATE, and not to the influence of GOVERNMENT.

From this and the two preceding essays, we may, perhaps, conclude, that it is with a people, as with an in|dividual, and with an individual, as with a people. The human mind is indeed influenced not by climate, but by government; not by soils, but by customs; not by heat and cold, but by servitude and freedom. A happy edu|cation, an elegant leisure, and a pas|sion for glory, must form a great man; as an excellent government, an or|derly liberty, and a popular felicity, must form a great people. But for these purposes, numerous conjunctures must succeed each other, which, in the position of human affairs, can be but rare; and to the present moment

no system of education for the indivi|dual, or system of government for the people, has been discovered, which can satisfy the philosophical mind; a great people, like a great man, must therefore become a singularity; yet, as the characteristic of man is imitation, when one excels, there exists a con|tagion of excellence. Nourished by persevering industry, a diffusion of emulation is propagated from indivi|dual to individual, and from nation to nation. Whenever, through moral causes, this emulation cannot exist, industry must be extinct, and excel|lence unacquired.

INDUSTRY is the vital principle of excellence; but we must not, there|fore, suppose, that the advice of a preceptor, or the mandate of a sove|reign, can produce an instantaneous effect; there is a regular progression in human affairs; and no power, less than omnipotence, could have pro|duced

that singular operation of com|manding light, and there was light. Miracles have departed from this phi|losophic age; but INDUSTRY is left to us, which may be said, to perform miracles.

Notes

• * 1.1

  It is curious to observe, that Spenser, that child of fancy, had on this subject, a sounder philosophy than Milton. I allude to his View of the State of Ireland; it is composed in the dialogue manner, and one of the speakers conceives that the barbarity of that country proceeds from the very genius of the soil, or influence of the stars. But he is justly reprimanded by the other, in expressions so philosophical and plea|sing, that I shall transcribe them,

  "Surely, I sup|pose this but a vain conceit of simple men, which judge things by their effects, and not by their causes; for I would rather think the cause of this evil which hangeth upon that country, to proceed rather of the unsoundness of the counsels, and plots which you say have been oftentimes laid for the reformation, or of faintness in following and effecting the same, than of any such fatal course appointed of God, as you misdeem; but it is the manner of men, that when they are fallen into any absurdity, or their actions succeed not as they would, they are always ready to impute the blame thereof unto the heavens, so to excuse their own follies and imperfections."

  The admirable Spenser is another instance to prove that an exquisite imagina|tion may be combined with the soundest intellect; and it is now, perhaps, the first time that Spenser the poet, has been quoted as Spenser the philosopher.
• * 1.2

  Filangieri's Science of Legislation has been trans|lated, and commented on, by Mr. Kendall, with such energy of style, that it affords the pleasure of an original performance.
• * 1.3

  So late as in 177••, a learned French writer com|posed a Dissertation on the Physical Influence of Cli|mates, to prove the superiority of the French genius, in consequence of a temperate climate!
• * 1.4

  This writer conceives, that a difference of talents in the same people, in different ages, is to be ascribed to some variation of their climate!