1. _The habits and characteristics of the dwellers in the Temperate Zone differ widely from those of the dwellers in the Torrid Zone._ This is an obvious fact; and the causes of this difference are equally obvious to the observant mind. In the tropical regions the powers of vegetable and animal life are stimulated to the highest degree, and here nature displays her fullest energy, her greatest variety, and her richest splendors. Excessive heat enfeebles and enervates man. It induces lassitude, dreaminess, effeminacy, and tempts to quietude and indolence. Where nature pours her fullness into the lap of ease, forethought and providence are little needed. Here is none of that struggle for existence which awakens sagacity and develops industry. Nothing calls man to that effort for the conquest of nature by which the intellect is aroused and the reasoning faculties are developed. Consequently the mere life of the body, the powers of the physical nature of man, overmaster the faculties of the mind. The instincts predominate over the reason. Simple spontaneity of thought is manifested, but little or no analytic reflection. Feeling, imagination, sentiment, predominate over intellect, reason, and science. In a temperate climate all is reversed. The alternations of heat and cold render man more vigorous, and impart more physical tone. Where there is less profusion and lavishment of nature's gifts, there is more room and motive for industry. The change of seasons, and an annual period of dormancy, demand forethought and prudence. The preservation of life demands, not merely physical toil, but some degree of contrivance, and, indeed, the vigorous exertion of the intellectual powers. And here, though nature is not prodigal of her gifts, she grants to industry and skill something more than the bare necessities of life. She allows man to lay up a store for the future, and furnishes some leisure for the culture of the mind. The active powers of man, his reason and judgment, rule his instincts, and control, more or less, his appetites and emotions. Here man becomes a careful observer of events; he treasures up the results of experience, compares one fact with another, notes their relations, and makes new experiments to test his conclusions. Thus science has its birth in the Temperate Zone.[378]