Chapter 1: About Political Servitude

Political servitude is not less subject to the climate's nature than civil and domestic servitude, as is going to be shown.

Chapter 2: A Difference Among Peoples in Relation to Courage

We have already said that severe heat undermined men's strength and courage, and that, in cold climates, there were a certain strength of body and mind that made men capable of lengthy, arduous, great, and bold actions. That is noticed not only from nation to nation but also from part to the other within the same nation. Peoples from China's north (a) are more courageous than they are from the south. The peoples from Korea's south (b) are not as much so as they are from the north.

It is not necessary to be astonished, therefore, that the cowardliness of peoples from hot climates should almost always have rendered them slaves, while the courage of peoples from cold climates should have preserved them in freedom. That is an effect which derives from its natural cause.

This is also found to be true in America. The despotic empires of Mexico and Peru were nearer the equator, while nearly all the petty free peoples were and still are near the poles.

Chapter 3: About Asia's Climate

The accounts tell us (ac) “that northern Asia, that vast continent which extends from the fortieth parallel or thereabout up to the pole and from the Muscovite marches up to the China sea, is in a most cold climate. That immense terrain is separated from west to east by a chain of mountains which leave Siberia to the north and the great Tartar plains to the south. The climate of Siberia is so cold that, save for certain spots, it can not be cultivated. And although the Russians might have some settlements all along the Irtis, they cultivate nothing there. In that country nothing comes forth but a few pinons and shrubs. The indigenous peoples of the country are divided into destitute tribes which are like those of Canada. [It is said] that the reason for the coldness derives, on the [one] hand, from the elevation of the terrain and, on the other hand, from the fact that to the extent one moves from the south to the north the mountains flatten out in such a manner that the wind blows through everywhere, finding no obstacle.