Chapter VI 



THE SPLENDOUR OF GREECE 



We have so far said nothing about the civilizations 

 of Asia or America, and, although this is not a 

 manual of history, we ought to consider how civiliza- 

 tions could arise so far away from the central 

 germinating region of the earth. As far as the 

 main theatre of civilization is concerned, we now have 

 a very fair idea of the evolution. If you take a pair 

 of compasses and draw a small circle, with Cyprus 

 as its centre, on the map of the world, you have the 

 area of all the oldest civilizations; and the reason 

 for this we have already given. The African is not 

 of an inferior race, but the vast desert, from the 

 Atlantic to the Red Sea, cut him off from this stimu- 

 lating region. So with the Australian, the Melane- 

 sian, the Eskimo, and so on. If you wonder why 

 the Polynesian is much more advanced than any of 

 these, the answer is that experts now generally believe 

 that the Polynesians really came from the Caucasic 

 region and were cousins to the Europeans. 



Now there might very well be other parts of the 

 earth where the conditions of the Mediterranean 

 region were more or less reproduced — that is to say, 

 where circumstances brought a large number of 

 peoples with differing cultures into close contact 

 with each other. One of these is Central America. 

 The inhabitants of South America have all had to 



73 f 



