ECONOMIC HISTORY AND KINDRED SCIENCES 205 



of law and custom, and the nation has therefore been animated in 

 turn by different ideas which have influenced its action. The history 

 of civilization has here to be consulted. Geography, too, must play 

 its part, since the natural conditions of the earth's surface form the 

 basis for the development of nations as of mankind. Even if Liebig's 

 saying went beyond the mark, that "ever and in all times it has 

 been the soil with its fruitfulness which has conditioned the life 

 of nations," if in truth civilized man in his progress has succeeded 

 marvelously in emancipating himself from nature and in ruling 

 her more and more instead of being ruled by her, it nevertheless 

 remains true that here definite bounds are placed to the power of 

 man, that until very recent times economic development has been 

 ruled by nature, and that this development now and for all time is 

 in the highest degree influenced by the conditioning force of climate 

 and soil upon the natural capabilities of man. Thus the superiority 

 of England, its economic and political predominance in the last 

 century, is due as much to the coal and iron in the depths of its soil 

 and to the waterways which lead directly to the mines as to the 

 physical strength and mental energy of the people which has flour- 

 ished upon its soil and in its temperate climate. 



Buckle has already pointed out the great influence exerted by 

 climate upon human character and intellectual capacity, but it is 

 far more important to observe how under the same natural condi- 

 tions man has at different periods developed quite different capabil- 

 ities, how he has learned to make use of nature and to employ her 

 gifts for the satisfaction of his wants. These wants, however, have 

 not remained the same; on the contrary, they have continually 

 changed, and not entirely without justice has it been said that the 

 history of human wants is the history of human culture, both 

 economic and intellectual. Cultivation of the intellect increases the 

 capacity for enjoyment and at the same time the ability to devise 

 new means of satisfying the new wants. It was only higher civilization 

 which made possible the centuries of invention, that of the Reforma- 

 tion period, and again the last century; and the new inventions in 

 turn, which had made possible the production of new and cheaper 

 commodities, aroused the taste and desire for them in widening 

 sections of the population, so that despite the great labor-saving 

 expedients, the population, even with the most strenuous exertion, 

 is unable to produce all that is desired. Thus man is just as inventive 

 in awakening within himself new needs as in discovering new means 

 of satisfaction, and through the problems thus set him, which to his 

 good he can never finally solve, he is led to an ever higher develop- 

 ment of his intellectual powers. Here lies the chief foundation for 

 the progress of civilization. The life of the state appears thus only 

 as means, not as end. The study of the growth of economic interests 



