242 WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION 



evidence is already strong enough to cause us to ponder most 

 thoughtfully. We dare not do otherwise, for if this conclusion is 

 true it will alter our present methods in a hundred different ways. 

 Somehow we must explain the fact that statistics as to the ebb and 

 flow of some of the greatest activities in the United States and Ger- 

 many appear to show an intimate relation to the ebb and flow of 

 health and of weather. 



To some minds it will seem difficult to believe that the strength 

 of Germany on the one hand and of her enemies on the other is due 

 in considerable measure to the stimulus of their climates. Oddly 

 enough, people are willing to believe that tropical countries are 

 backward because of their bad climate, while those same people 

 balk at the idea that the strength of their own countries owes 

 much to the good health and constant vigor which arise from good 

 climates. They seem to think that such a belief overlooks the im- 

 portance of racial character and of education and religion. That 

 is by no means the case. Racial characteristics, on the one hand, 

 and the many influences which we may call training on the other, 

 determine the direction in which a country's energies shall be ex- 

 pended. Climate, on the contrary, acting not only on the present 

 generation, but on an infinite series of past generations, determines 

 how great those energies shall be. Even here its effects are modi- 

 fied by food, by training, by ideals, and in many other ways. 

 Nevertheless, a broad survey of civilization, both today and in the 

 past, makes it appear that along this line also the effect of climate 

 deserves most careful study. Could Germany, for example, have 

 defied the world four years or even four months if she had been 

 located in equatorial Africa? That is the kind of question that 

 we must answer once and for all. If we decide that the progress 

 of a nation depends largely upon the health and energy of its in- 

 dividuals and thus upon climate, the responsibility of the more 

 favored races is correspondingly increased. If we admit that Ger- 

 many shares this tremendous energy which arises from a favorable 

 physical environment, it becomes more than ever important that 



