Remarks on the influence of climate, situation, nature of country, population, nature of food, and way of life, on the disposition and temper, manners and behaviour, intellects, laws and customs, form of government, and religion, of mankind / by William Falconer, M.D.F.R.S.

  • William Falconer
Date:
1781
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the influence of climate, situation, nature of country, population, nature of food, and way of life, on the disposition and temper, manners and behaviour, intellects, laws and customs, form of government, and religion, of mankind / by William Falconer, M.D.F.R.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    531/606 (page 507)
    The Scandinavian religion, on the other hand, admitted all who fell in battle to the hall of j] Odin; whilfl: thofe who died a natural death, or by difeafes or accidents, were condemned to a painful ex- idence in another life, in a place of mifery : it mattered not in what caufe they fell, fo that they died fighting bravely. It is re- markable, that this circumdance, when in fupport of a bad caufe, is mentioned by § Virgil as an aggravation of the crime, and as a caufe of puniflmient. Literature and fcience have, I am perfuaded, been of great fer** vice to religion, by introducing the propagation of it by argument and perfuafion. Ignorance has been generally favourable to perfe- cution ; and it is in a great meafure owing to the increafe of learn- ing, that thofe horrid cruelties that difgraced human nature, and ChrilHanity more efpecially, begin now to be regarded almoft uni- verfally with deteftation and abhorrence. Aut qul divitlis foil incubuere repertis, Nec partem pofuere fuis ; quse maxima turba eft : Quique ob aclulterium caefi, quique arma fecuti Impia, nec veriti dominorum fallere dextras j Inclufi poenam expectant. iEneid. lib. vi. 1. 607. & deinceps. |1 This fanatic hope of going to the hall of Odin, derived additional force frotri the ignominy affixed to every kind of death, but fuch as was of a violent nature, and from the fear of being fent, after fuch an exit, into Niflheim. This was a place confifting of nine worlds, referved for thofe who died of difeafe or old-age. Held or Death there exercifed her defpotic power; her palace was Anguifla, her table Famine, her waiters were Expectation and Delay; the threfhold of her door was Precipice, her bed Leannefs ; fhe was livid, and ghaftly pale ; her very looks in- fpired horror.—Mallet’s North. Antiquit. abr. vol. i. p. 121. To go to war, to plunder, and to deftroy, and furmount every obftacle that oppofed their defigns, the Icelanders deemed the fureft path to immortality.—Letters om Iceland, p, 84* § See the line quoted above, note J. 3T2 C H A P.