This precious stone set in the silver sea,
and all the rest of that splendid passage. France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Scandinavia, are all more fortunate than Germany or Austria in this respect; and the lack of such natural boundaries has been in the past, and threatens to be in the future, a source of weakness to the German nation. We may, I think, not improbably attribute, in part at least, to this circumstance a peculiarity often noticed in German emigrants—namely, that they rapidly become denationalised and assimilated by the peoples among whom they settle, and that an Americanised German, for example, has often less sympathetic feeling for Germany than a foreigner. For, owing largely to the lack of natural boundaries and the consequent fluctuations that have occurred, and the mingling and blending with other peoples, Germany is a less clear-cut conception than Great Britain or France; to be a German is something much less definite than to be an Englishman or a Japanese, or even a Frenchman or a Spaniard[65]. And the presence or lack of definite natural territorial boundaries operates in a similar way through many centuries, determining on the one hand historical continuity to a people as a whole, or on the other hand breaches of historical continuity.
The United States of America afford a fine example of the binding influence of a well-defined territory; for here the effect is clearly isolated from racial factors and from slowly accumulated tradition. The Monroe doctrine is the outward official expression of this effect. The private individual effect is a sense of part ownership of a splendid territory with a great future before it. And we are told, I believe truly, that this sense is very strong and very generally diffused even among immigrants; that it inspires an unselfish enthusiasm for the work of developing the immense resources of the country; that this is the idealistic motive of much of the intense activity which we are apt to ascribe to the love of the ‘almighty dollar’; and that it is one of the main causes of the rapid assimilation of immigrants to the national type of mind.
The Chinese nation, again, owes its existence and its homogeneity of mental and physical type to geographical unity. Roughly, China consists of the basins of two immense rivers, not separated from one another by any great physical barrier, but forming a compact territory well marked off save in the north. It comprises no such partially separate areas as in Europe are constituted by Spain, or Italy, or Greece, or Scandinavia, or even France; almost all parts are well adapted for agriculture. Hence, largely, the national unity and the national sentiment which have long existed, and possibly a latent capacity for national thought and action.
Perhaps the most striking instance of all is ancient Egypt. There, in the long strip of land rendered fertile by the waters of the Nile, a people of mixed origin was long shut up and isolated; there all men felt their immediate dependence on the same great powers, the great river which once a year overflows its banks, and the scorching sun which passes every day across a cloudless sky. There all men looked out on the same unvarying and unvaried landscape, hoped and feared for the same causes, suffered the same pains, prayed for the same goods. There was formed one of the most stable and enduring of nations, whose uniform culture certainly bears the impress of the uniform monotonous physical environment[66].
The other way in which physical environment affects homogeneity is by determining similarity or difference of occupations and, through them, similarities or differences of practical interests and of acquired qualities. So long as such differences are determined in many small areas, the result is merely a greater differentiation of the parts, without danger to the unity of the whole nation. But, when the physical differences divide a whole people into two or more locally separate groups differing in occupation and interests and habits, they endanger the unity of the whole. There are to-day many countries in which the distribution of mineral wealth is exerting an influence of this sort, giving rise to the differentiation of an industrial area from agricultural areas and a consequent divergence of interests and of mental habits; notably South Africa, Spain, and Italy.
Great Britain is fortunate in this respect also. Its geological formation presents on a small scale all the principal strata from the oldest to the most recent, a fact which secures great diversity within a compact area, an area too compact to allow of divergences of population being produced by differences of geological formation; so that it enjoys the advantages of diversity without its drawbacks. Although a certain degree of differentiation between north and south may be noted, it is not sharp or great enough to be dangerous. But let us imagine that coal and iron had been confined to Scotland. Would there be now the same harmony between the two countries as actually obtains? The United States of America afford a good illustration of this principle, as I have already pointed out; the sub-tropical climate of the southern states gave rise to a differentiation of occupation, and consequently of ideas and interests and sentiments, which was almost fatal to the unity of the nation. A similar differentiation between the agricultural west and the industrial and commercial east seems to be the greatest danger to the future unity of the nation; and the same may be said of the Canadian people.
Ireland illustrates well the effects of both kinds of physical influence. The Irish Channel has perpetuated that difference of race and consequent difference of religion, which, but for it, would probably have been wiped out by free intermarriage; while the lack of coal and iron in the greater part of the country has prevented the spread of industrialism, and has thus accentuated the difference between the Irish people and the English. And it is obvious that among the Protestants of Ulster the accessibility of coal and iron, maintaining a divergence of occupations and of interests which prevents racial and cultural blending, perpetuates the racial and traditional differences between them and the rest of the population.