Frenchman is not less than that from the rude marble block to the statue which the genius of an artist designs from it. So, while the earth has evolved slowly, man has developed with a feverish activity. With time he has contracted new needs and tastes, which have caused him to appreciate and seek out what he had despised; and, collected in groups, with gathered knowledge, men have acquired powerful forces which have enabled them finally to surmount obstacles that had at first stopped them. It could not be otherwise than that the value of the relation between the earth and man should have been frequently and materially modified.
Every one of the four factors of which we have determined the essential importance has undergone great variations in the course of man's evolution. Consider the relief. Hills and small mountains appear to have been the first places inhabited by man. It was in the foothills of the Pyrenees and the Alps, in the moderately elevated limestone plateaus of the central massif, and the modest heights of Charolais and Picardy, that were found the traces of the most ancient human occupation in France. It is reasonable that it should be so. The nascent brook, the living spring, the slightly undulating slope, are mollified natural forms with which the individual man can enter into immediate relation without exerting too great effort.
The plain, or rather the wet plain, offers only much later vestiges than the hills. Some may say it is because it has been dug over so often; but it is probable that life became possible in such situations only after some development of civilization. Regions subject to overflow and excess of stagnant water present obstacles to cultivation and comfortable living which it was beyond the power of primitive man to overcome, and would repel habitation for a long time. But once made habitable, the plain, with its mellow, fertile soil and its rivers offering easy ways of communication, would become attractive and draw population down from the hills, the chief value of which would henceforth lie in their adaptability to purposes of defense against attack.
Only the high mountain still remains unsubdued; but daily progress is made toward mastering it. Terrible in aspect, and seemingly beyond man's reach a hundred years ago, it is now the resort of tourists, and is climbed, traversed, and tunneled or threatened by railroads. It is not yet subdued, but it no longer stops us.
Thus each form of relief is more or less adapted to some of the many human wants. Each has its special value, changing from one epoch of civilization to another. The hill, an obstacle to the agriculturist and the merchant, has become auxiliary to the manufacturer through the motor force which is derived from its streams.
