the human mind
which have never been surpassed elsewhere. That the high moral and
mental status of these people is fully recognised by their European
successors is proved by the fact that many Americans in high stations
to-day actually boast of having in their veins the blood of the North
American Indian. And yet these highly gifted people had not when
Columbus discovered America attained to the knowledge of iron. Despite
the advantages of a most favourable environment and a stimulating
climate, the Red Indians were in point of mechanical development behind
the earliest Bantu; they had no iron implements, no tillage and no
settled or permanent abodes, and whatever may have been the cause of
their lack of development, the fact remains that there was no
achievement despite undeniable capacity.

The early Scandinavians who lived in a state of barbarism ages before
and long after Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, Greece and Rome developed
their various civilisations, furnish another illustration of the fact
that there may well be capacity without accomplishment, for no one can
doubt the keenness of the minds of these people who have advanced to the
front ranks of human endeavour. These rude sea-rovers must have lived in
what is generally supposed to have been a most stimulating climate
during long ages while other races in Southern Europe and in Asia built
up mighty civilisations within environments that seem to have been far
less incitative of progress.

Although the broad facts of history are known to us the causes that have
contributed in the past to keep down some races while other peoples who
were no better endowed or situated rose to the greatest heights of human
effort cannot be stated with certainty. It is easy to cite the
circumstances that are commonly conjectured as accounting for the origin
and growth of civilisation, such as soil, climate and geographical
position, but it is equally easy to point to times and places when and
where great civilisations have arisen under conditions that have
concurred elsewhere with miserable stagnation in rude barbarism.

Climate is, perhaps, the factor which is most generally condescended
upon as being the chief of the causes that contribute to that
collective accomplishment which we call civilisation, but the connection
between the two things is far from clear, indeed it seems to be often
negatived by actual facts. Seeing, for instance, that the easy fruition
of desire which is pos