Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 1

by Wilhelm Roscher

Section XXXVI.

External Nature.—Further Divisions Of Nature's Gifts.

The gifts of nature, we further divide into those which can be directly enjoyed and those which are of use only indirectly, by facilitating production. (Natural means of enjoyment,—means of acquisition.)[220] An extreme superfluity of the former is as disastrous to civilization as a too great scarcity of them. How simple the economy of a tropical country! A banana field will support twenty-five times as many men as a wheat field (K. Ritter); and with infinitely less labor; for all that is needed is to cut the stems with their ripened fruit, to loosen the earth a little and very superficially, when new stems shoot up.[221] At the base of the mountains of Mexico, a father needs labor only two days in the week to support his family. Hence, nothing so much excites the wonder of the traveler there as the diminutiveness of the cultivated ground surrounding each Indian hut.[222] But in these earthly paradises, [pg 134] where, as Byron said, even bread is gathered like fruit, the powers of man slumber as certainly as they grow torpid in polar deserts.[223] The sentence: “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread,” has been a blessing to mankind. Athens was not only the literary and political, but also the economic capital of Greece; and yet Attica was one of the most sterile countries in the world.[224] Unfortunate Messina, on the other hand, was the most fertile province of Greece. In modern times, no countries of equal extent have produced as many great captains, statesmen, savants and artists as Holland, whose securest portions are as unfertile as those which are fertile are threatened by the sea. On the other hand, how lately and imperfectly has the so-called black-earth of southern Russia fallen under the influence of civilization![225]

Section XXXVII.

External Nature.—The Geographical Character Of A Country.

The geographical character of a country is, as a rule,[226] most intimately connected, not only with its flora and fauna, but also with the character of its people. One of the crowning glories of the progress of modern science is, that it has recognized anew the power of this wonderful organism, and that it has made geography an explanatory medium between nature and history. The conditions most favorable to the development of civilization are found in a well developed country which slopes gradually through a series of intermediate terraces from a mountain summit to a plain; especially when they are connected with one another by a good system of streams; since here the opposite peculiarities of the populations of the highlands and coast-lands[227] tend to produce a nationality both one and varied. Where the transitions are too abrupt, as for instance, in New Holland, they easily impede inter-communication; and, still more, where the several parts of the country are of very great extent; as, for example, the desert of North Africa, the plateau of South Africa or that of Central Asia. Europe is favored above all other parts of the world by the happy combination of mountain and plain.[228] We might pursue the parallel existing between the soil and the character of a people into the minutest details, and discover, even in the [pg 136] difference between Spanish, French, German and Hungarian wines, a reflection of the different characters of the people.[229]

But whence is this? Can it be that dead nature has thus irresistibly affected the living mind? We do not need to give a materialistic answer to the question.[230] Almost every people has migrated at some period of its existence. Urged on by their peculiar tastes and tendencies, they settled in the places most in harmony with their character. A higher hand was over them; one which, we should unreservedly trust, placed them in such external circumstances as were most favorable to the development of all their faculties.

But the influences of man on nature are no less notable than those of nature upon man. The greater number of domestic animals and plants which Europe possesses to-day, it has been obliged to introduce from other parts of the globe.[231] In the interior of Gaul, the vine rarely ripened, at the time of Christ.[232] On the other hand, Mesopotamia, formerly one of the gardens [pg 137] of the world, is now covered with dried-up canals, filled a little below the surface with heaps of brick and broken vases, the remains and other vestiges of a once dense population. Its former rich alluvial soil, now almost calcined, produces at present scarcely anything except a few saline plants, mimosas etc.[233] The higher the civilization of a people, the less does it depend on the nature of the country.