made to produce all
that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to maintain itself
and yield a revenue, and, better than that, made a reform school, and a
manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer made fresh
water out of salt: all these are examples of that tendency to combine
antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high civilization.

Civilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the snake,
all the organs are sheathed: no hands, no feet, no fins, no wings. In
bird and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play. In man, they
are all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this unswaddling, he
receives the absolute illumination we call Reason, and thereby true
liberty.

Climate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has
never loved the hot zones. Wherever snow falls, there is usually civil
freedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and
pampered at the cost of higher qualities: the man is grasping, sensual,
and cruel. But this scale is by no means invariable. For high degrees of
moral sentiment control the unfavorable influences of climate; and some
of our grandest examples of men and of races come from the equatorial
regions,--as the genius of Egypt, of India, and of Arabia.

These feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate is
an important influence, though not quite indispensable, for there have
been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics. But
one condition is essential to the social education of man,--namely,
morality. There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though
it may not always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point
of honor, as in the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the
Spartan and Roman republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious sect
which imputes its virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or _esprit du
corps_, of a masonic or other association of friends.

The evolution of a highly destined society must be moral; it must run in
the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims. What
is moral? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal ends.
Hear the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: "Act always so
that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal rule for
all intelligent beings."

Civilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what
is higher. This rule holds i