46 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



neighbors, but on nothing like the American scale. Moreover, 

 prosperity in all the countries of western Europe is likely to occur 

 at the same time. This of course diminishes the ease with which 

 labor can be diverted from one country to another, and thus 

 lessens the dangers of overproduction. America, on the contrary, 

 possesses a potent attractive force not only in her immediate 

 labor conditions, but in her magic charm as a supposed land of 

 freedom. 



There is another and stronger reason why England's deathrate 

 shows so little relation to her economic life. In order to under- 

 stand this we must anticipate a conclusion which will be fully 

 discussed in the next chapter. The conclusion is that variations 

 in health from year to year are due largely to climatic conditions. 

 This carries with it the corollary that under certain climatic 

 conditions people are mentally stimulated, while under other 

 conditions they are depressed. In England such variations both 

 in health and in feelings are not nearly so marked as in the United 

 States. The extreme fluctuations in the deathrate there are only 

 about half as great as here. More than this, the fluctuations do 

 not appear to be of great importance in their nervous effects. 

 England is located in a fortunate climate where extremes are rare. 

 That is probably one reason why Englishmen seem to Americans 

 phlegmatic. They are not inactive in the sense that tropical 

 people are inactive, but they are not nervous in the way that 

 Americans, Canadians, and Australians are nervous. Nor do they 

 go to those extremes of elation and of despondency which are 

 characteristic of the Russians, and which seem, in part at least, 

 to be the result of extreme fluctuations in climate. Hence the 

 variations in the health of the English do not have nearly so much 

 effect upon their mental activity as do the similar variations in 

 this country. Thus even though England does not show the effect 

 of health upon economic cycles, it amply supports the main thesis 

 of this book. That thesis is, that climatic conditions, through 

 their effect upon health, are largely responsible for differences 



