world when Herodotus first looked on it and described it to us, and
thus, as it seems to me, were its varying colours produced.

If it be thought that I have made out that these forces of imitation
and elimination be the main ones, or even at all powerful ones, in
the formation of national character, it will follow that the effect
of ordinary agencies upon that character will be more easy to
understand than it often seems and is put down in books. We get a
notion that a change of government or a change of climate acts
equally on the mass of a nation, and so are we puzzled--at least, I
have been puzzled--to conceive how it acts. But such changes do not
at first act equally on all people in the nation, On many, for a
very long time, they do not act at all. But they bring out new
qualities, and advertise the effects of new habits. A change of
climate, say from a depressing to an invigorating one, so acts.
Everybody feels it a little, but the most active feel it
exceedingly. They labour and prosper, and their prosperity invites
imitation. Just so with the contrary change, from an animating to a
relaxing place,--the naturally lazy look so happy as they do
nothing, that the naturally active are corrupted. The effect of any
considerable change on a nation is thus an intensifying and
accumulating effect. With its maximum power it acts on some prepared
and congenial individuals; in them it is seen to produce attractive
results, and then the habits creating those results are copied far
and wide. And, as I believe, it is in this simple but not quite
obvious way, that the process of progress and of degradation may
generally be seen to run.

No. IV.