14 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



for instance, from Southern Europe to Brazil and Paraguay, or 

 from the British Isles to Rhodesia and Nyassaland. 



What is true of man must be no less true of his works ; from 



which it follows that racial and cultural zones must 



Correspond- coincide, while a correspondence must also exist 



ence of Geogra- 

 phical with between these and the zones of temperature, except 



Racialand Cu!- r -, ,._ , . . . 



turai Zones. so i ar as the latter may be modified by altitude, 

 marine influences, or other local conditions. A 

 glance at past and existing relations the world over will show 

 that such harmonies have at all times prevailed. No doubt the 

 overflow of the leading European peoples during the last 400 

 years has brought about divers dislocations, blurrings, and in 

 places even total effacements of the old landmarks. 



But, putting aside these disturbances, it will be found that in 

 the eastern hemisphere the inter-tropical regions, hot, moist and 

 more favourable to vegetable than to animal vitality, have always 

 been the home of savage, cultureless populations. Within the 

 same sphere are also comprised most of the extra-tropical southern 

 lands, all tapering towards the antarctic waters, and consequently 

 too contracted to constitute areas of higher specialisation. 



Similarly the sub-tropical Asiatic peninsulas, the bleak Tibetan 

 tableland, the Pamir, and arid Mongolian steppes are found mainly 

 in possession of somewhat stationary communities, which present 

 every stage between sheer savagery and civilisation. 



In the same way the higher races and cultures are confined to 

 the more favoured north temperate zone, so that between the 

 parallels of 24 and 50 (but owing to local conditions falling in 

 the far East to 40 and under, and in the extreme West rising to 

 55), are situated nearly all the great centres, past and present, of 

 human activities the Egyptian, Babylonian, Mykenaean (^Egean), 

 Hellenic, .Etruscan, Roman, and modern European. Almost the 

 only exceptions are the Minsean and Sabsean- (Himyaritic) of 

 Yemen (Arabia Felix) and Abyssinia, where the low latitude is 

 neutralised by altitude and a copious rainfall. 



Thanks also to altitude, to marine influences, and the con- 

 traction of the equatorial lands, the relations are almost completely 

 reversed in the New World. Here all the higher developments 

 took place, not in the temperate but in the tropical zone, within 



