CHAPTER VI
NATIONS, WHETHER PROGRESSING OR STAGNATING, ARE INDEPENDENT OF THE REGIONS IN WHICH THEY LIVE
I must now consider whether the development of peoples is affected (as many writers have asserted) by climate, soil, or geographical situation. And although I have briefly touched on this point in speaking of environment,[1] I should be leaving a real gap in my theory if I did not discuss it more thoroughly. Suppose that a nation lives in a temperate climate, which is not hot enough to sap its energies, or cold enough to make the soil unproductive; that its territory contains large rivers, wide roads suitable for traffic, plains and valleys capable of varied cultivation, and mountains filled with rich veins of ore—we are usually led to believe that a nation so favoured by nature will be quick to leave the stage of barbarism, and will pass, with no difficulty, to that of civilization.[2] We are just as ready to admit, as a corollary, that the tribes which are burnt by the sun or numbed by the eternal ice will be much more liable to remain in a savage state, living as they do on nothing but barren rocks. It goes without saying, that on this hypothesis, mankind is capable of perfection only by the help of material nature, and that its value and greatness exist potentially outside itself. This view may seem attractive at first sight, but it has no support whatever from the facts of observation.
Nowhere is the soil more fertile, the climate milder, than in certain parts of America. There is an abundance of great rivers. The gulfs, the bays, the harbours, are large, deep, magnificent, and innumerable. Precious metals can be dug out almost
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