Wordsworth held the other view and could sing:
The thought of death sits easy on the man
Who has been born and dies among the mountains.
But it is obvious, on reading the note in which he explains the source of his observation, that it was their social culture, not their local habitation, which imparted this seeming indifference to the peasantry. Precisely the same indifference to death among their congeners in France was noted long before by Montaigne.
There are three chief economic factors, derived from geographic surroundings, which decide the material welfare of a human group on any part of the earth’s surface. They are:
1.—The distribution of the surface land and water.
2.—The character of the soil with reference to productiveness, in the mineral, floral, and faunal realms.
3.—Its salubrity for man.
These favour or oppose the three essential desiderata for human progress, to wit:
1.—Intercommunication.