s with climate.--First steps toward civilization.--Interior of
Asia.--Pastoral habits of the people.--Picture of pastoral life.--Large
families accumulated.--Rise of patriarchal governments.--Origin of the
towns.--Great chieftains.--Genghis Khan.

There are four several methods by which the various communities into
which the human race is divided obtain their subsistence from the
productions of the earth, each of which leads to its own peculiar
system of social organization, distinct in its leading characteristics
from those of all the rest. Each tends to its own peculiar form of
government, gives rise to its own manners and customs, and forms, in
a word, a distinctive and characteristic type of life.

These methods are the following:

1. By hunting wild animals in a state of nature.

2. By rearing tame animals in pasturages.

3. By gathering fruits and vegetables which grow
spontaneously in a state of nature.

4. By rearing fruits and grains and other vegetables by
artificial tillage in cultivated ground.

By the two former methods man subsists on animal food. By the two
latter on vegetable food.

As we go north, from the temperate regions toward the poles, man is
found to subsist more and more on animal food. This seems to be the
intention of Providence. In the arctic regions scarcely any vegetables
grow that are fit for human food, but animals whose flesh is
nutritious and adapted to the use of man are abundant.

As we go south, from temperate regions toward the equator, man is
found to subsist more and more on vegetable food. This, too, seems to
be the intention of nature. Within the tropics scarcely any animals
live that are fit for human food; while fruits, roots, and other
vegetable productions which are nutritious and adapted to the use of
man are abundant.

In accordance with this difference in the productions of the different
regions of the earth, there seems to be a difference in the
constitutions of the races of men formed to inhabit them. The tribes
that inhabit Greenland and Kamtschatka can not preserve their
accustomed health and vigor on any other than animal food. If put upon
a diet of vegetables they soon begin to pine away. The reverse is true
of the vegetable-eaters of the tropics. They preserve their health
and strength well on a diet of rice, or bread-fruit, or bananas, and
would undoubtedly be made sick by being fed on the flesh of walruses,
seals, and