mplex of influences. People living in the
mountain fastnesses, those living at the ocean side, and those living
on great interior plains vary considerably as to mental characteristics
and views of life in general. Buckle has expanded this idea at some
length in his comparison of India and Greece. He has endeavored to
show that "the history of the human mind can only be understood by
connecting with it the history and aspects of the material universe."
He holds that everything in India tended to depress the {148} dignity
of man, while everything in Greece tended to exalt it. After comparing
these two countries of ancient civilization in respect to the
development of the imagination, he says: "To sum up the whole, it may
be said that the Greeks had more respect for human powers; the Hindus
for superhuman. The first dealt with the known and available, the
second with the unknown and mysterious." He attributes this difference
largely to the fact that the imagination was excessively developed in
India, while the reason predominated in Greece. The cause attributed
to the development of the imagination in India is the aspect of nature.

Everything in India is overshadowed with the immensity of nature. Vast
plains, lofty mountains, mighty, turbulent rivers, terrible storms, and
demonstrations of natural forces abound to awe and terrify. The causes
of all are so far beyond the conception of man that his imagination is
brought into play to furnish images for his excited and terrified mind.
Hence religion is extravagant, abstract, terrible. Literature is full
of extravagant poetic images. The individual is lost in the system of
religion, figures but little in literature, and is swallowed up in the
immensity of the universe. While, on the other hand, the fact that
Greece had no lofty mountains, no great plains; had small rivulets in
the place of rivers, and few destructive storms, was conducive to the
development of calm reflection and reason. Hence, in Greece man
predominated over nature; in India, nature overpowered man.[1]

There is much of truth in this line of argument, but it must not be
carried too far. For individual and racial characteristics have much
to do with the development of imagination, reason, and religion. The
difference, too, in the time of development, must also be considered,
for Greece was a later product, and had the advantage of much that had
preceded in human progress. And so far as can be