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surnamed the wood-cutter, for having grubbed up and cleared vast provinces, and felled the trees with which it was all covered. Nor were they less cleared away in Norway and Denmark. Thus a change in the climate must long have preceded that in the manners.
What conclusion ought we to draw from all this? If for these fifteen or sixteen centuries, the arts, sciences, industry and politeness have been incessantly advancing in the north of Europe, we cannot but evidently discover three causes of this, which, though different in their natures, have yet been productive of the same effect. The first is that restlessness natural to the people of all nations, but which acts more forceably on the inhabitants of Europe, and is ever urging them to exchange their present condition, in hopes of a better: the second, slower but equally sure, is the change of climate: the third, more sensible, more expeditious, but more accidental, is that communication formed between mankind by commerce and religion, and cemented by a thousand new relations; which has in a short time transported from the South into the North new arts, manners and opinions. These three causes have continually operated, and the
