LOOKING back upon the history of man, it appears to us the history of the human race as a life phenomenon bound and confined to this planet alone. We are thus unable to form any conception of progress into the infinite, for every tellurian life-development is dependent upon the earth, and must always return to it again. New life must follow old roads. Cosmic influences may broaden or narrow the districts within which man is able to exist. This was experienced by the human race during the Glacial Period, when the ice sheet first drove men toward the equator, and later, receding, enabled them once more to spread out to the north. The limits of world life in general depend upon earthly influences; and thus, for mankind, progress limited by both time and space is alone possible.
Perhaps it would be well, for the elucidation of the question of development, were geography to designate as progress only that which from sufficient data may be established as such beyond all doubt. Thus, to begin with, we have learned to know of a progress in space—man’s diffusion over the earth—which proceeds in two directions. The expansion of the human race signifies not only an extension of the boundaries of inhabited land far into the Polar regions, but also the growth of an intellectual conception of the whole world.
Manifold Growth of Mankind
Together with this progress there have been countless expansions of economic and political horizons, of commercial routes, of the territories of races and of nations—an extraordinarily manifold growth that is continually advancing. Increase of population and of the nearness of approach of peoples to one another goes hand in hand with progressing space. Mankind cannot become diffused uniformly over new areas without becoming more and more familiar with the old. New qualities of the soil and new treasures have been discovered, and thus the human race has constantly been made richer. While these gifts enriched both intellect and will, new possibilities were all the while arising, enabling men to dwell together in communities; the population of the earth increased, and the densely inhabited regions, at first but small, constantly grew larger and larger.
History is the Growth of Differences
With this increase in number, latent abilities came to life; races approached one another; competition was entered into; interpenetration and mingling of peoples followed. Some races acted mutually in powerfully developing one another’s characteristics; others receded and were lost, unless the earth offered them a possibility of diffusion over better protected regions. Already we see in these struggles the fundamental motive of the battle for area; and at the same time, on surveying this progress, we may also see the limit set to it—that increase in population is unfavourable to the progress of civilisation in any definite area, if the number of inhabitants become disproportionately large in respect to the territory occupied. Many regions are already over-populated; and the numbers of mankind will always be restricted by the limits of the habitable world.
Already in the differences in population of different regions lie motives for the internal progress of man; but yet more powerful are those incentives to the development of internal differences in races furnished by the earth itself through the manifoldness of its conformation.
The entire history of the world has thus become an uninterrupted process of differentiation. At first arose the difference between habitable and uninhabitable regions, and then within the habitable areas occurs the action brought about by variations in zones, divisions of land, seas, mountains, plains, steppes, deserts, forests—the whole vast multitude of formations, taken both separately and in combination. Through these influences arise the differences which must at first develop to a certain extent in isolation before it is possible for them to act upon one another, and to alter, either favourably or unfavourably, the original characteristics of men.
Earth’s Variety Reflected in its Peoples
All the variations in race and in civilisation shown by different peoples of the world, and the differences in power shown by states, may be traced to the ultimate processes of differentiation occasioned by variations in situation, climate, and soil, and to which the constantly increasing mingling of races, that becomes more and more complex with the diffusion of mankind over the globe, has also contributed. The birth of Roman daughter states, and the rise of Hispano-Americans and Lusitano-Americans from some of these very daughter nations, are evidences of a development that ever strives for separation, for diffusion over space, which may be compared only to the trunk of a tree developing, and putting forth branches and twigs. But the bole that has sent forth so many branches and twigs was certainly a twig itself at one time; and thus the process of differentiation is repeated over and over again. Progress in respect to population and to occupied area is undoubted; but can these daughter nations be compared to Rome in other respects? They have shown great powers of assimilation and great tenacity, for they have held their ground. Nevertheless, their greatest achievement has been to have clung fast to the earth; in other words, to have persisted. Certainly this is far more important than the internal progress in which the branches might perhaps have been able to surpass the older nation.