“Nay,” replied he, “I am very far from denying the influence of moral causes on national character.  The history of every country affords abundant evidence of it.  I mean only to say, that though it does much, it does not do every thing.  It seems more reasonable to impute the changes in national character to the mutable habits and institutions of man, than to nature, which is always the same.  But if we look a little nearer, we may perhaps perceive, that amidst all those mutations in the character of nations, there are still some features that are common to the same people at all times, and which it would therefore be reasonable to impute to the great unvarying laws of nature.  Thus it requires no extraordinary acuteness of observation, no strained hypothesis, to perceive a close resemblance between the Germans or the Britons of antiquity and their modern descendants, after the lapse of eighteen centuries, and an entire revolution in government, religion, language, and laws.  And travellers still perceive among the inhabitants of modern Greece, deteriorated and debased as they are by political servitude, many of those qualities which distinguished their predecessors:  the same natural acuteness—­the same sensibility to pleasure—­the same pliancy of mind and elasticity of body—­the same aptitude for the arts of imitation—­and the same striking physiognomy.  That bright, serene sky—­that happy combination of land and water, constituting the perfection of the picturesque, and that balmy softness of its air, which have proved themselves so propitious to forms of beauty, agility, and strength, also operate benignantly on the mind which animates them.  Whilst the fruit is still fair to the eye, it is not probable that it has permanently degenerated in fragrance or flavour.  The great diversities of national character may, perhaps, be attributed principally to moral and accidental causes, but partly also to climate, and to original diversities in the different races of man.”

CHAPTER IV.

Continuation of the voyage—­View of Europe; Atlantic Ocean; America—­ Speculations on the future destiny of the United States—­Moral reflections —­Pacific Ocean—­Hypothesis on the origin of the Moon.

By this time the whole Mediterranean Sea, which, with the Arabian Gulf, was seen to separate Africa from Europe and Asia, was full in our view.  The political divisions of these quarters of the world were, of course, undistinguishable; and few of the natural were discernible by the naked eye.  The Alps were marked by a white streak, though less bright than the water.  By the aid of our glass, we could just discern the Danube, the Nile, and a river which empties itself into the Gulf of Guinea, and which I took to be the Niger:  but the other streams were not perceptible.  The most conspicuous object of the solid part of the globe, was the Great Desert before mentioned.  The whole of Africa, indeed, was of a lighter hue than either Asia or Europe, owing, I presume, to its having a greater proportion of sandy soil:  and I could not avoid contrasting, in my mind, the colour of these continents, as they now appeared, with the complexions of their respective inhabitants.