340 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



settled government have generally led to loss of energy. War 

 has ceased to be the normal state and the physical conditions of 

 life have been easy. Consequently degeneration has set in and 

 some half barbarous race has been able to defeat its more 

 cultured rivals in spite of their superiority in the arts and 

 sciences. Northern nations are better off since their climate has 

 enabled them, to a great extent, to maintain their energy without 

 the help of perpetual wars. But physical energy is only the 

 necessary basis, and it has often happened that nations, though 

 well enough off in this respect, have stagnated. How this 

 comes about, I shall try to explain in this chapter. 

 An histori- j t WO uld be very interesting to have a map of the world made 



cal atlas to .11 



illustrate with the regions occupied by progressive and stagnant peoples 

 progress differently coloured. An historical atlas illustrating the same 

 stagnation subject would be of the utmost interest. Supposing that red 

 were adopted as the progressive colour, we should find in early 

 times the banks of some great rivers, such as the Nile, a very 

 brilliant red. Later on the colour would be found, not so much 

 along river banks, but still near to water, always at no great 

 distance from the sea, and not along every coast, but usually 

 where the line of the shore is long in proportion to the area of 

 land, jutting out in peninsulas, presenting also good harbours 

 and navigable estuaries. And if in the spirit of prophecy a map 

 of the world a century or two hence were added, we might see 

 bright red extending over large continental areas formerly 

 steeped in the black, or whatever the colour might be, of 

 stagnation. Even in the map of the world of the present day 

 it would be a striking thing to see the whole of habitable 

 North America covered with the most brilliant red obtainable. 

 Looking at and reflecting upon such a series of maps it would 

 be difficult to avoid the conclusion that rivers and seas have 

 something to do with progress. And, leaving the prophetic 

 map alone, we might infer from the colour of the North America 

 of the present day that some change had come about and that 

 sea and river had less to say, in the matter of progress, than 

 formerly. It would not be difficult now to advance a step 

 further and see that ease of communication was the important 



