Rousseau_contrat-social

Poland as Egypt -- further south, we shall have Africa and the Indies;
further north, nothing at all. To get this equality of product, what a
difference there must be in tillage: in Sicily, there is only need to
scratch the ground; in England, how men must toil! But, where more hands
are needed to get the same product, the superfluity must necessarily be
less.
Consider, besides, that the same number of men consume much less in hot
countries. The climate requires sobriety for the sake of health; and
Europeans who try to live there as they would at home all perish of
dysentery and indigestion. "We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous animals,
wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics. Some attribute the sobriety of
the Persians to the fact that their country is less cultivated; but it
is my belief that their country abounds less in commodities because the
inhabitants need less. If their frugality," he goes on, "were the effect
of the nakedness of the land, only the poor would eat little; but
everybody does so. Again, less or more would be eaten in various
provinces, according to the land’s fertility; but the same sobriety is
found throughout the kingdom. They are very proud of their manner of
life, saying that you have only to look at their hue to recognise how
far it excels that of the Christians. In fact, the Persians are of an
even hue; their skins are fair, fine and smooth; while the hue of their
subjects, the Armenians, who live after the European fashion, is rough
and blotchy, and their bodies are gross and unwieldy."
The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on. Meat they
hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and cassava are their ordinary
food. There are in the Indies millions of men whose subsistence does not
cost a halfpenny a day. Even in Europe we find considerable differences
of appetite between Northern and Southern peoples. A Spaniard will live
for a week on a German’s dinner. In the countries in which men are more
voracious, luxury therefore turns in the direction of consumption. In
England, luxury appears in a well-filled table; in Italy, you feast on
sugar and flowers.
Luxury in clothes shows similar differences. In climates in which the
changes of season are prompt and violent, men have better and simpler
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