Strange Divergence of a Race
The coldest countries in the world are either entirely uninhabited—as Spitzbergen and Franz Josef’s Land—or very thinly populated. Some are politically without a master—the two territories just mentioned, for example; some are politically occupied, as is Greenland, but are of very little value. History teaches that traffic between such colonies and the mother country may cease entirely without the mother country suffering any loss thereby. The hottest regions in the world are for the most part colonies or dependencies of European Powers. This applies to the whole of tropical Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania, and partly to tropical America.
The exclusion of European nations from grasping for possessions in America was not determined upon in the compromised territory of tropical America, but in the United States, a short distance south of 39° north latitude. What a difference in the parts played in history by the two branches of the Tunguse race, the one held in subjection in the cold latitude of Russia, the other conquering China, and now the sovereign power in the more temperate climate of that country; or between the Turks who, as Yakuts, lead a nomadic life in the Lena valley, and the Turks who govern Western Asia! Latham called the region extending from the Elbe to the Amoor—within which dwell Germans, Sarmatians, Ugrian Finns, Turks, Mongolians, and Manchurians, peoples who strike with a two-edged sword—a “Zone of Conquest.” Farther to the north nations are poor and weak; toward the equator, luxurious and enervated. The inhabitants of this central zone have over-run their neighbours both to the north and to the south, while never, either from the north or from the south, have they themselves suffered any lasting injury. The Germans have advanced from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean; the Slavs inhabit a territory that extends from the Arctic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea; the Turks and Mongolians have penetrated as far south as India; and there have been times when Mongolians ruled from the Arctic Ocean to Southern India. Finally, the Manchurians have extended their sphere of influence over Northern Asia as far south as the tropic of Cancer.
EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON THE COURSE OF HISTORY
A map on which the isothermal lines are drawn is rich in historical instruction. Where the lines diverge we have regions of equal temperature; where they crowd together, districts of different mean annual temperatures lie close together. The crowding of climatic variations in any region enlivens and hastens the course of history.
These differences occur over again in more restricted areas, even within the temperate zone itself. The inhabitants of the colder portions of a country have often shown their superiority to the men who dwell in the warmer districts. The causes of the contrast between the Northerners and the Southerners, which has dominated in the development of the United States, may for the most part be clearly traced: the South was weakened by the plantation method of cultivation, and slavery; its white population increased slowly, and shared to a lesser degree than did the Northerners in the strengthening, educating influences of agriculture and manufacturing industries. Thus after a long struggle that finally developed into a war, the North won the place of authority.
Sunbeams and Rainfall in History
In Italy and in France the superiority of the north over the south is partially comprehensible; and in Germany the advantages possessed by Prussia, at least in area and in sea coast, are obvious. But when in English history also the north is found to have been victorious over the south, conditions other than climatic must have been the cause. In this case elements have been present that are more deeply-rooted than in sunbeams and rainfall alone.
We must call to mind the zone-like territories of early times, occupied by peoples from which the nations of to-day are descended; the boundary lines have disappeared, but the northern elements have remained in the north, and the southern elements in the south. It is well known that Aristotle adjudged political superiority and the sphere of world-empire to the Hellenes because they surpassed the courageous tribes of the north in intelligence and in mechanical instinct, and were superior to the both intelligent and skilful inhabitants of Asia in courage. “As the Hellenic race occupies a central geographical position, so does it stand between both intellectually.” The thought that this union of extreme intellectuality and power in arms on Hellenic soil could be the result of ethnical infiltration did not seem to have occurred to the philosopher. The fundamental idea of Aristotle, the aristocratic state, in which the talented Hellene alone was to rule over bondmen of various origins, who were, above all, to labour for him, could not have been possible had his views been otherwise. And yet he had clearly seen that the two talents—for war and for industry—were unequally distributed among the different Hellenic stocks, and that they were also variable according to time.