SOCIOLOGY AND HERO-WORSHIP 



rection of the Rocky Mountains or the position 

 of the Great Lakes. On the next page, allud- 

 ing to Mr. Buckle's theory that the difference 

 in Arabian civilization before and after the time 

 of Mohammed was due to the difference between 

 the soil of Arabia and that of Spain, Persia, and 

 India, I say, " To exhibit the utter superficiality 

 of this explanation, we have only to ask two 

 questions : First, if the Arabs became civilized 

 only because they exchanged their native deserts 

 for Spain, Persia, and India, why did not the 

 same hold true of the Turks when they ex- 

 changed their barren steppes for the rich empire 

 of Constantinople ? Though they have held for 

 four centuries what is perhaps the finest geogra- 

 phical position on the earth's surface, the Turks 

 have never directly aided the progress of civili- 

 zation. Secondly, how was it that the Arabs 

 ever came to leave their native deserts, and to 

 conquer the region between the Pyrenees and 

 the Ganges ? Was it because of a geologic con- 

 vulsion ? Was it because the soil, the climate, 

 the food, or the general aspect of nature had 

 undergone any sudden change ? One need not 

 be a profound student of history to see the ab- 

 surdity of such a suggestion. It was because 

 their minds had been greatly wrought upon by 

 new ideas ; because their conceptions of life, its 

 duties, its aims, its possibilities, had been revo- 

 lutionized by the genius of Mohammed. The 

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