is a question not difficult to answer.

In the first place, they have been fewer in number. The lowlands of the
world, being the richest spots, have been generally the soonest conquered,
the soonest civilized, and therefore the soonest taken out of the sphere
of romance and wild adventure, into that of order and law, hard work and
common sense, as well as--too often--into the sphere of slavery,
cowardice, luxury, and ignoble greed. The lowland populations, for the
same reasons, have been generally the first to deteriorate, though not on
account of the vices of civilization. The vices of incivilization are far
worse, and far more destructive of human life; and it is just because they
are so, that rude tribes deteriorate physically less than polished
nations. In the savage struggle for life, none but the strongest,
healthiest, cunningest, have a chance of living, prospering, and
propagating their race. In the civilized state, on the contrary, the
weakliest and the silliest, protected by law, religion, and humanity, have
chance likewise, and transmit to their offspring their own weakliness or
silliness. In these islands, for instance, at the time of the Norman
Conquest, the average of man was doubtless superior, both in body and
mind, to the average of man now, simply because the weaklings could not
have lived at all; and the rich and delicate beauty, in which the women of
the Eastern Counties still surpass all other races in these isles, was
doubtless far more common in proportion to the numbers of the population.

Another reason--and one which every Scot will understand--why lowland
heroes "carent vate sacro," is that the lowlands and those who live in
them are wanting in the poetic and romantic elements. There is in the
lowland none of that background of the unknown, fantastic, magical,
terrible, perpetually feeding curiosity and wonder, which still remains in
the Scottish highlands; which, when it disappears from thence, will remain