Political Science Of The State

Sl6 POLITICAL SCIENCE.
difficulties of finding subsistence scatter men over a wide sur-
face. Thus states, properly speaking, neither can exist nor are
wanted. Nor can there be much improvement in condition
from abroad, for strangers from lands of higher civilization
rarely go into the regions within the frozen zones, and can
bring no instruments by which industry can be advanced,
since little growth is possible in such a climate. Govern-
ment, there, must be confined to family and social usages,
and apparently would be so confined within a century or two,
if a cultivated race had been driven into those frozen soli-
tudes without opportunity of communication with their old
homes.
The other extreme of torrid climates, by making a little
labor supply natural wants, and by enervating the body, de-
stroys the principal motives to exertion. A little clothing
and fuel, shelter from heat and rain, alone call for contrivan-
ces to make exertion tolerable and light. Yet here the social
feeling gathers numbers near one another, unless in arid
regions, and the family as well as political institutions may
flourish. If the tribe or state is near the coast, industry may
be awakened and civilization may come in from abroad. Yet,
in most of the countries where the heats are great almost
through the entire year, only despotic states are found and
scarcely any political capacity. The climate is against reso-
lute assertions of the free spirit, and men of especial endow-
ments or advantages, getting the power into their hands, rule
as military tyrants. Yet it is not certain that such climates
in the, end will be able to resist the influence of civilizing and
elevating causes imported from abroad.
Between these extremes there is a great variety of temper-
ate climates, or of such as by the alternations of heat and cold
stimulate the inhabitants to industry and providence. It is
necessary to lay up stores for winter, and to work in the
other seasons, if husbandry is the occupation ; and the pur-
suits of a nomadic life require attention through the year to
the state of the flocks, and to a shelter against the extremes of
temperature. If the political forms of the higher races are