Heat as the antagonist: when climate dissolves civility and moral order

“ We may rub along through life with scanty knowledge of the history of dead nations or the philosophy of living ones, but heat and cold, the climate of the coming winter, yesterday's rainfall or to-morrow's frost, are matters which take hold of every one of us and affect us every hour of the day. ”

“ It appears, then, that in founding towns we must beware of districts from which hot winds can spread abroad over the inhabitants. For while all bodies are composed of the four elements (in Greek στοιχεἱα) , that is, of heat, moisture, the earthy, and air, yet there are mixtures according to natural temperament which make up the natures of all the different animals of the world, each after its kind.
6. Therefore, if one of these elements, heat, becomes predominant in any body whatsoever, it destroys and dissolves all the [19] others with its violence. ”

“ The death and destruction of the life of Man, is no other thing saving a dissimilitude and contrariety, whereby that which is alike and temperate is destroyed and dissipated, whether it be done by too much heat or too much cold, ’tis both on the same manner. ”

“ For example, if nature were to constitute a thing of wax or of ice, she would not preserve it by putting it in a hot place, for the opposing quality would quickly destroy it, seeing that heat dissolves that which cold congeals. ”

“ While man keeps within this measure, proportion or temperament, he is strong and healthy, but as soon as he steps or falls beyond the temperament or measure of the four natures, which happens when heat takes the upper hand and strives to stifle cold, or, on the contrary, when cold begins to suppress heat, or man becomes full of cold moisture, or again is deprived of the due measure of moisture, he falls of necessity into sickness, and draws nigh unto death. ”

“ What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance. ”

“ Civilization thwarts the ends of nature. In our cities, according to our customs, the virgin destined by nature for the open air, made to run in the sunlight; to admire the nude wrestlers, as in Lacedemonia, to choose and to love, is shut up in close confinement and bolted in. ”

“ Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of the venomous creatures as little as I do the other. ”

“ But why loiter to enumerate the coolie’s small revenges, the mean tricks by which, when you rise, he flips you in the eye with the punkah fringe, disordering your hair and sweeping it this way and that, — the petty retaliation of finding out a hole in the tattie, and flinging water through it on to your matting, angering the dog that was lying in the cool, damp shade? These and such are the coolie’s revenges, when the hot weather by which he lives embitters him against his kind. But at night he develops into a fiend, for whom a deep and bitter loathing possesses itself of the hearts of men. ”

“ At times a messenger, with his head swathed in cloths, trudges along through the white dust; or a camel, his cloven feet treading the hot, soft surface of the road as if it were again pressing the sand-plains of the Khanates, goes lounging by; but the world holds the mid-day to be intolerable, and has renounced it, seeking such respite as it may from the terrible breath of that hot wind which is shrivelling up the face of nature, making each tree as dry as the Oak of Mamre, suffocating out of it all that has life. ”

“ The tempest now shall howl unheard by you,
⁠While ocean smites in vain the trembling shore.
On you the blast, surcharged with rain and snow,
⁠In winter's dismal nights no more shall beat;
Unfelt by you the vertic sun may glow,
⁠And scorch the panting earth with baneful heat. ”

“ Heat, in this climate, converts the soil into something almost as unstable as water; and in my land cold often converts the water itself into a substance as hard as rock. Let us speak of this no longer, for the thoughts of the calm, clear, blue refulgence of a winter's lake, glimmering to stars and moonbeam, aggravate the horrors of this fiery desert, where, methinks, the very air which we breathe is like the vapour of a fiery furnace seven times heated. ”

“ For as to the four elements of which the nature of bodies is composed, heat, that is, and cold, wet and dry, who is so perverted in his understanding as not to know that these things exist indeed in combination, but if separated and taken alone they tend to destroy even one another according to the prevailing power of the more abundant element? For heat is destroyed by cold if it be present in greater quantity, and cold again is put away by the power of heat, and what is dry, again, is moistened by wet, and the latter dried by the former. ”

“ But in the cities the heat of noon is worse. There is wanting even the relief of herbage and running water. The white sunlight lies upon the roads, so palpable a heat that it might be peeled off; the bare, blinding walls, surcharged with heat, refuse to soak in more, and reject upon the air the fervor beating down upon them. In the dusty hollows of the roadside the pariah dogs lie sweltering in dry heat; beneath the trees sit the crows, their beaks agape; the buffaloes are wallowing in the shrunken mud-holes, — but not a human being is abroad of his own will. ”

“ But as the sun strengthens all nature begins to confess the heat, and even the crow caws sadly. On the water the sun dances with such a blinding sparkle that the panoplied crocodile, apprehensive of asphyxia, will hardly show his scales above the river, and the turtles shut up their telescope necks, shrewdly suspecting a sunstroke. On the shaded hillside the herded pigs he dreamily grunting, and in the deep coverts the deer stretch themselves secure. The peasants in the fields have loosed their bullocks for a respite ”

“ The temperature’s terrible; the atmosphere’s more so; the furious light and heat seem to intensify the dreadful definiteness. When things are so ugly they shouldn’t be so definite, and they’re terribly ugly here. ”

“ If we have healthy chests, we will encase ourselves in flannel; but if we happen to have chest complaint, we will use nothing of the sort. When we go out, we will empanoply our persons, so that we may warm ourselves by shutting in all exhalation from our bodies, and by husbanding what little heat we permit nature to provide for us.
In summer we will eat rich dinners and drink wine, will cast off three-fourths of the thickness of our winter clothing, and still be oppressed by heat. Iced drinks shall take the place of fire.
Civilized people can not endure being much wetted. ”

“ I. It will be sufficient to name the degrees of heat, the improper aliment, the tight dresses, and the premature studies children are exposed to, in order to show the ample scope for diseases, which is added to the original defect of stamina they derive from their ancestors.
II. Civilization rises in its demands upon the health of women. Their fashions; their dress and diet; their eager pursuits and ardent enjoyment of pleasure; their indolence and undue evacuations in pregnancy; their cordials, hot regimen, and neglect, or use of art, in child-birth, are all so many inlets to disease. ”

“ Excessive heat, as well as excessive cold, is apt to cause distempers of the skin; and as the fine lady, by her strange habits, is as prone to such changes as the desert-wandering gipsy, it is requisite that she should be particularly careful to correct the deforming consequences of her fashionable exposures. ”

“ The heat, the burning atmosphere which makes you feverish, those suffocating blasts of wind from the south, those waves of fire which come from the desert which is so near us, that oppressive sirocco, which is more destructive and withering than fire, that perpetual conflagration of an entire continent, that is burnt even to its stones by a fierce and devouring sun, inflame the blood, excite the flesh, and make brutes of us. ”

“ With a persistent insolence it returns to your nose, perching irreverently upon the feature, until sudden death cuts short its ill-mannered career. In this matter my sympathies are rather with that Roman Emperor who impaled on pins all the flies he could catch, than with Uncle Toby who, when he had in his power a ruffianly bluebottle, let it go out of the window, — to fly into his neighbor’s house and vex him. The only consolation is that the neighbor probably killed it.
The sun is hardly up yet, so the doors are open. From the garden come the sounds of chattering hot-weather birds. ”

“ But the punkah-coolie is left outside. His lines have been cast to him on the wrong side of the tattie. The hot wind, whose curses the sweet kiss of the kus-kus turns to blessings, whose oven-breath passes into our houses with a borrowed fragrance, finds the punkah-coolie standing undefended in the verandah, and blows upon him; the sun sees him and, as long as he can, stares at him; until the punkah-coolie, in the stifling heat of May-day, almost longs for the flooded miseries of Michaelmas. ”

“ It is upon him that the strong man, furious at the sudden cessation of the breeze, makes armed sallies. It is on him that the mosquito-bitten subaltern, wakeful through the oil-lit watches of the night, empties the vial of his wrath and the contents of his wash-hand basin: who shares with the griff’s dogs the uncompromising attentions of boot-jacks and riding-whips. ”

“ For him ingenious youth devises rare traps, cunning pyramids of beer-boxes with a rope attached — curious penalties to make him suffer, — for the coolie, after the sun has set, becomes a demoralized machine that requires winding up once every twenty minutes, and is not to be kept going without torture. And thus for eight shillings a month he embitters your life, making the punkah an engine wherewith to oppress you. ”

“ "What poor, mean trash this whole business of human virtue is! A mere matter, for the most part, of latitude and longitude, and geographical position, acting with natural temperament. The greater part is nothing but an accident! ”

“ XXIII.As those who have well constituted bodies are able to endure cold and heat, so those who have well constituted souls are able to bear anger, and grief, and excessive joy, and the other affections of the mind. ”

“ These changes give a variety to our climate which is, on the whole, very beneficial to man. The North Temperate Zone, with strong seasonal changes in temperature and weather, is the zone of the highest civilization and of the greatest energy of man. In the Torrid Zone the changes of temperature are, as a whole, small. There is no harsh winter. The climate is monotonous and deadening, rather than enlivening. Man finds it easy to live without much work, and the inhabitants of the Torrid Zone have not, as a rule, advanced far in the scale of civilization. ”

“ A high and stable civilization has rarely arisen in the tropics, because there the overabundance of Nature renders sustained work unnecessary, while the hot, enervating climate tends to destroy initiative and ambition. ”

“ Consequently the mere life of the body, the powers of the physical nature of man, overmaster the faculties of the mind. The instincts predominate over the reason. Simple spontaneity of thought is manifested, but little or no analytic reflection. Feeling, imagination, sentiment, predominate over intellect, reason, and science. In a temperate climate all is reversed. The alternations of heat and cold render man more vigor [Pg 261] ous, and impart more physical tone. Where there is less profusion and lavishment of nature's gifts, there is more room and motive for industry. ”

“ Civilized man to a great extent makes a climate for himself; his life in the North is spent mainly indoors, where artificial heat replaces the sun. The idea which still haunts us, that formidable vigour and aptitude for conquest are the appanage of Northern races, is a survival from the state in which the rigour of nature selected and hardened the destined conquerors of the Roman Empire. ”

“ Where the climate and soil are most favorable to the highest development; where the environment is neither too hard nor too indulgent; where man is neither enervated by heat and the absence of necessity to labor, nor stunted by cold and hardship and the ever-present necessity to search or labor for food and warmth; there will be the highest types and forms of civilization.*
* See Appendix A*
If the Buddhist religion had chanced to be the one that in the process of events took root in the climate and soil where the Hebrew Bible and the Christian belief hold sway ”

“ And if it is true that varieties of the human race, adapted to these localities, show us, in comparison with ourselves, some indolence, this does not seem greater than, or even equal to, the indolence of the primitive man in temperate climates.
Contemplated in the mass, the facts do not countenance the current idea that great heat hinders progress. Many societies have arisen in hot climates, and in hot climates have reached large and complex growths. All our earliest recorded civilizations belonged to regions which, if not tropical, almost equal the tropics in height of temperature. ”

“ Though your mouth glows and your skin is parched with heat, yet you feel no languor, the effect of humid heat; your lungs are lightened, your sight brightens, your memory recovers its tone and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and imagination are powerfully aroused and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes around you stir up all the energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger or strife. Your morale improves; you become frank and cordial, hospitable and single-minded: the hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilization are left behind you in the city.... ”

“ While the hunter of old had to scour fifty or sixty square miles to find food for his family, the civilized man supports his household, with far less pains, and far more certainty, on a thousandth part of that space. Climate is no longer an obstacle. When the sun fails, man replaces it by artificial heat; and we see the coming of a time when artificial light also will be used to stimulate vegetation. Meanwhile, by the use of glass and hot water pipes, man renders a given space ten and fifty times more productive than it was in its natural state. ”

“ If the original heat had increased instead of diminishing, the termites and the ants would perhaps be two great nations, sharing between them the empire of the world, and man would be one of their preys. But you discovered the art of fire and raised yourself above all other animals. Fire, in giving you a constant summer, also gave you leisure. Thence your civilisations, proud daughters of idleness, who deny their mother. It is from idleness that everything has been born among men. ”

“ There is no more beautiful mechanism in nature than that which keeps man's internal heat always about 98° day and night, summer and winter, in the Arctic regions or in the tropics; but even that most wonderful of all self-adapting pieces of mechanism, if it be taxed too much, as by extremes of day and night temperature, will get out of gear ”

“ Remembering the analogy of the steam engine, let us now inquire what becomes of the energy supplied to the body in the fuel foods eaten, and which is turned into heat by this process of combustion constantly going on.
1. A large amount of heat is constantly being expended in keeping the body warm. Like the locomotive, the body is warmer than the surrounding air, and is constantly losing heat to the atmosphere. Unlike the locomotive, however, the body has a nearly uniform temperature throughout, namely, 98 degrees Fahr. ”

“ In the first place, since death is a corruption which takes place through deficiency of heat, [1] and since all living things are warm, all dying things cold, there must be a particular seat and fountain, a kind of home and hearth, where the cherisher of nature, the original of the native fire, is stored and preserved; whence heat and life are dispensed to all parts as from a fountain head ”

“ A cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose, and must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak have no more,—have less. 'Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat to dissolve everybody's facts. Heat puts you in right relation with magazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the want of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God should raise the dead. ”

“ With heat of heart thou kindlest the quick sea,
⁠And the dead earth takes spirit from thy sight;
The natural body of things is warm with thee,
⁠And the world's weakness parcel of thy might;
Thou seest us feeble and forceless, fit to be
⁠Slaves of the years that drive us left and right,
⁠Drowned under hours like waves
⁠Wherethrough we row like slaves;
⁠But if thy finger touch us, these take flight.
⁠If but one sovereign word
⁠Of thy live lips be heard,
⁠What man shall stop us, and what God shall smite? ”

“ Thus I say, being hot for heaven, by virtue only of the sense and fear of the torments of hell, as their sense of hell and the fears of damnation chills and cools, so their desires for heaven and salvation cool also. So then it comes to pass, that when their guilt and fear is gone, their desires for heaven and happiness die, and they return to their course again. ”

“ We are no sooner warmed with the celestial flames, but natural corruption is inclining us to grow cold; like hot water, which loseth its heat by degrees, unless the fire be continually kept under it. Who feeleth not that as soon as in a sermon, or prayer, or holy meditation, his heart hath got a little heat, as soon as it is gone, it is prone to its former earthly temper, and by a little remissness in our duty, or thoughts, or business about the world, we presently grow cold and dull again. ”

“ Curiously enough, it seems that at times the spiritual side prevails, and then the materialistic side — in wave-like motions following each other. In the same country there will be different tides. At one time the full flood of materialistic ideas prevails, and everything in this life — prosperity, the education which procures more pleasures, more food — will become glorious at first and then that will degrade and degenerate. Along with the prosperity will rise to white heat all the inborn jealousies and hatreds of the human race. ”

“ Diseases were regarded as defects in the composition of the humors, to be counteracted by appropriate applications of heat and cold, or of dry and moist, to restore a favorable equilibrium. Winter was held to be the dangerous season for a temperament lacking in fire; the body must not be too full of humors nor yet be too dry and sapless. ”

“ To understand how this happens, let us consider for a moment the nature of heat, and cold.—Heat is one of those stimuli which act upon the excitability, and support life: for if it was totally withdrawn, we should not be able to exist even a few minutes; and cold is only a diminution of heat. When heat is present, in a proper degree, or the atmosphere is about that degree of heat which we call temperate, it just gives such a stimulus, and keeps the excitability exhausted to such a degree, as to preserve the body in health ”

“ Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And Summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy eternal Summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest ”

“ To a high degree we are, through art and science, cultured. We are civilized – perhaps too much for our own good – in all sorts of social grace and decorum. But to consider ourselves as having reached morality – for that, much is lacking. The ideal of morality belongs to culture; its use for some simulacrum of morality in the love of honor and outward decorum constitutes mere civilization. ”

“ In some cases ordinary brown sugar in one-half the quantity can take the place of milk sugar, or Mellin's food, malted milk or cereal milk can be used in the place of the milk sugar. Milk of magnesia can be used for lime-water as before directed. Orange juice can be given to infants over nine months old.
What modifications should I make in very hot weather? The proportion of fat (top-milk or milk and cream mixed) should be less and when it is very hot, for a short period, it should be much less. ”

“ If they had no clothing, no good houses, no good furniture, no proper food, they would sink into a state of nature; they would lose their refinement, their sense of propriety, their love of neatness and order; they would, in short, cease to be civilized, and become savages.
“How are these things to be remedied?” said one of the old men to the governor. “I will tell you my views upon this subject,” said the latter.
“It is by the labor of the hands alone that mankind can live, in a civilized state. It is the labor of the hands that produces hats, shoes, shirts, coats, gowns, handkerchiefs ”

“ Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight does not reside in Nature, but in man or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For Nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs is overspread with melancholy to-day. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. ”