The peoples of Europe

HERBERT JOHN FLEURE, D.Sc.
PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY AND ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES HON. SECRETARY TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION
LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS HUMPHREY MILFORD 1922
Oxford University Press
London Edinburgh Glasgow Copenhagen New York Toronto Melbourne Cape Town Bombay Calcutta Madras Shanghai
Humphrey Milford Publisher to the UNIVERSITY
CONTENTS


If there be any truth in the view that our philosophical theories grow out of our circumstances, it cannot be doubted that the philosophy of change, sometimes optimistically called progress, is curiously appropriate to Europe. The intimate juxtaposition of small areas of mountain and plateau, of river and sea, of valley and plain has multiplied contacts between men of diverse activities, experience, and outlook, and has thus encouraged not only exchange of ideas but also fermentation of thought. Economically, also, the trend has always been towards mutual dependence, and the penetration of inland seas far into the Continent has further assisted intercourse from far-off times. A self-sufficing community left to itself will evolve a routine and may stagnate therein; external contacts are most important in that they may ward off this danger. On the other hand, it must be remembered that these contacts may prove disastrous by breaking threads of tradition developing towards a fuller realization of the good life. Thus social importations into many regions of the Mediterranean in the days of the growth of the Roman dominion were brought about through conquest followed by transportation of the enslaved foemen, with grievous results both to Rome and to the slaves. Or again, the rapid growth of British trade at the Industrial Revolution brought many new contacts that, as in the case of Rome long before, promoted exploitation on a large scale, and made the stories both of the factory-children of England and of the slaves of America stand dismally parallel with those of the slaves of ancient Rome. In both instances the loss of social and intellectual heritage involved in these ugly schemes is full of fateful consequences, which worked themselves out in the case of Rome and may be doing so in the case of Britain. Contact and association without alien dominations, whether personal or regional, at any rate are of the utmost value as refreshers, and Europe has had unequalled opportunities in this direction.