ra. xvnij TEE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. 199 



especially, perhaps, in the earlier stages of civilization. No 

 doubt civilization will first arise, other things equal, in a 

 locality where food and shelter can he ohtained with a 

 medium amount of exertion ; where nature is neither too 

 niggard nor too lavish in the bestowal of her favours. No 

 doubt there is a physical significance in the fact that civiliza 

 tion began, not in barren Siberia, or in luxuriant Brazil, but 

 in countries like Egypt and Mesopotamia, which were neither 

 so barren as to starve, nor so luxuriant as to spoil, the 

 labourer. No doubt the Greeks owed much to the extent of 

 their coast-line. No doubt above all the Mediterranean is 

 justly sacred to the student of history as partly the civilizer 

 of the peoples who upon its waves first courted adventure, 

 and conducted commerce, and imparted to each other cosmo 

 politan sympathies which could never have been evoked but 

 for some such intercourse. All this may be granted. But as 

 civilization advances, the organized experience of past gene 

 rations becomes to a greater and greater extent the all- 

 important factor of progress. As Comte expresses it, in one 

 of his profoundest aphorisms, the empire of the dead over 

 the living increases from age to age. If we contemplate, 

 from a lofty historical point of view, the relative importance 

 of the factors in the environment of our United States, I 

 believe we shall be forced to conclude that the victory of the 

 Greeks at Marathon, the conquest of Gaul by Caesar, the 

 founding of Christianity, the defeat of Attila at Chalons and 

 of the Arabs at Tours, the advent of the Normans in England, 

 the ecclesiastic reforms of Hildebrand, the Crusades, the 

 revolt of Luther, the overthrow of the Spanish Armada, and 

 the achievements of scientific inquirers from Archimedes to 

 Faraday, have influenced and are influencing our social con 

 dition to a far greater extent than the direction of the Rocky 

 Mountains, or the position of the Great Lakes or the course 

 of the Gulf Stream. Or if we inquire why the Spaniards 

 are still so superstitious and bigoted, I believe we shall find 



