In conclusion I will quote from two writers on tropical America.
Buckle says:
"Amidst the pomp and splendor of nature, no place is left for man; he
is reduced to insignificance by the majesty with which he is
surrounded. The forces that oppose are so formidable that he has never
been able to make head against them.
"The energies of nature have hampered his spirit; nowhere else is the
contrast so painful between the grandeur of the external world and
{29} the littleness of the internal, and the mind, cowed by this
unequal struggle, has been unable to advance.
"Here, where physical resources are the most powerful, where
vegetation and animals are most abundant, where the soil is watered by
the noblest rivers and the coast studded by the finest harbors, the
profusion of nature has hindered social progress and opposed that
accumulation of wealth without which progress is impossible."
Mr. Bates, the naturalist, after a residence of many years on the
Amazon, closes his book as follows:
"The superiority of the bleak north to tropical regions is only in its
social aspects, for I hold to the opinion that although humanity can
reach an advanced state of culture only by battling with the
inclemency of nature in high latitudes, it is under the equator alone
that the perfect race of the future will attain to complete fruition
of man's beautiful heritage, the earth."
_Washington, January, 1891_.
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