Income as affected by climatic conditions
1. The bounty and variety of the natural supply of indirect goods in the material world are the prime conditions of a bountiful income to society. The effect of climate on the supply of goods available for man is complex. Climate is itself a direct source of gratification. As temperature must be adjusted to man's need, climate satisfies wants directly. Health, energy, the beauty of noonday woods and of sunlit clouds are conditioned on the favor of nature. Climate affects, further, the supply of material economic goods. All the earlier civilizations arose in warmer countries. But, after man had gained a certain mastery over the obstacles of nature, he was able to soften the harsher features of climate, and with better shelter and clothing, with better stocks of winter food and fuel, the more favorable features of the temperate zone could be utilized. So civilization moved northward from Egypt and India to Greece and Rome, to northern Europe and America.
By natural resources
Soil conditions for vegetable life determine first the amount and kind of animal life. Animal life from one point of view is a parasite, living on the vegetable; it is only the vegetable that has power to assimilate most inorganic compounds. Water being a need of plant life, the amount of rainfall is one of the most important conditions of industry. Man, therefore, depends on the resources of the soil directly or indirectly; a fertile soil furnishes him either directly a supply of vegetable food, or indirectly a supply of animal food.
Natural supplies of metals, of coal, and of timber are important consumption goods, but they are also indirectly the condition for a vast variety of other goods. The industry that could exist without iron, copper, and coal would be of a very low grade.
By flora and fauna
The variety of flora and fauna, and their fitness for man's needs, largely condition the possible production. If, in the course of evolution, it had chanced that wheat and corn, the horse and the cow, had been crowded out in the struggle for existence, we should have had a very different civilization. The possibilities of civilization in Peru, and those of all the Indians on the American continent, were limited for lack of domestic animals. Animals that are fit for domestication are a necessary intermediate agent by aid of which man can appropriate and turn to his use the fertile qualities of the soil.
Not content with the material world about him, even when it is at its best, man alters it in many ways. He enriches the soil, improves the varieties of animals, he even in some slight degree affects the climate, and by the use of a multitude of artificial bits of matter called tools, works profound changes in the world in which he lives.
By motion and energy
2. A large part of the utility of goods is conditioned on motion and energy. It has been said that man's power in production is limited to moving things. The outer world is to man the sole source of motive forces. He can bring things together and they produce the result. Further, it may be said that nearly every kind of utility is conditioned on motion. It is man's aim to secure a constant inflow of goods. To secure this either he must move to get the goods, or he must cause goods to move toward him.