Note (return) — Chapter I

The climate of Attica is what, in physical geography, would be called maritime. "Here are allied the continental vigor and oceanic softness, in a fortunate union, mutually tempering each other." 22 The climate of the whole peninsula of Greece seems to be distinguished from that of Spain and Italy, by having more of the character of an inland region. The diversity of local temperature is greater; the extremes of summer and winter more severe. In Arcadia the snow has been found eighteen inches thick in January, with the thermometer at 16° Fahrenheit, and it sometimes lies on the ground for six weeks. The summits of the central chains of Pindus and most of the Albanian mountains are covered with snow from the beginning of November to the end of March. In Attica, which, being freely exposed to the sea, has in some measure an insular climate, the winter sets in about the beginning of January. About the middle of that month the snow begins to fall, but seldom remains upon the plain for more than a few days, though it lies on the summit of the mountain for a month. 23 And then, whilst Bœotia, which joins to Attica, is higher and colder, and often covered with dense fogs, Attica is remarkable for the wonderful transparency, dryness, and elasticity of its atmosphere. All these climatal conditions exerted, no doubt, a modifying influence upon the character of the inhabitants. 24 In a tropical climate man is enfeebled by excessive heat. His natural tendency is to inaction and repose. His life is passed in a "strenuous idleness." His intellectual, his reflective faculties are overmastered by his physical instincts. Passion, sentiment, imagination prevail over the sober exercises of his reasoning powers. Poetry universally predominates over philosophy. The whole character of Oriental language, religion, literature is intensely imaginative. In the frozen regions of the frigid zone, where a perpetual winter reigns, and where lichens and mosses are the only forms of vegetable life, man is condemned to the life of a huntsman, and depends mainly for his subsistence on the precarious chances of the chase. He is consequently nomadic in his habits, and barbarous withal. His whole life is spent in the bare process of procuring a living. He consumes a large amount of oleaginous food, and breathes a damp heavy atmosphere, and is, consequently, of a dull phlegmatic temperament. Notwithstanding his uncertain supplies of food, he is recklessly improvident, and indifferent to all the lessons of experience. Intellectual pursuits are all precluded. There is no motive, no opportunity, and indeed no disposition for mental culture. But in a temperate climate man is stimulated to high mental activity. The alternations of heat and cold, of summer and of winter, an elastic, fresh, and bracing atmosphere, a diversity in the aspects of nature, these develop a vivacity of temperament, a quickness of sensibility as well as apprehension, and a versatility of feeling as well as genius. History marks out the temperate zone as the seat of the refined and cultivated nations.