THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 173 



quickly welding diverse racial elements, especially in England, into a 

 strong national unit. Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, in fact all the earlier 

 nations of the world benefited in varying degree from the same im- 

 portant asset of compactness in a restricted area. Russia, on the other 

 hand, is a conspicuous example of the weakness resulting from an ab- 

 sence of that quality, since one of the great problems confronting Rus- 

 sian advance, as a nation, is the unification of her diverse human ele- 

 ments into a national whole. The perpetuation of the present lack of 

 unity is directly traceable to the vastness of area and the consequent 

 lack of common contact. Great size may also include, at the outset, 

 such strongly opposed interests as to binder or seriously endanger 

 temporarily the permanency of national unity. Thus in both the 

 United States and in Australia the question of differences of climate 

 between the warmer and the colder parts of the national territory in- 

 troduced issues which threatened to split each nation. 



The restriction of area which promotes an early development of 

 national unity and strength is likely, however, to become no less a 

 source of weakness in later stages of evolution. The question of making 

 important, or of perpetuating, a nation hinges on the opportunities 

 available for supplying its population with the primary needs of food, 

 clothing and shelter, and whatever may be required in the shape of 

 utensils and mechanical power. Of these, food, clothing, shelter and 

 utensils depend on the soil and materials to be secured from the earth's 

 crust. Mechanical power alone may be derived elsewhere than from the 

 soil or earth's crust, and power plus human direction may to a certain 

 extent be used to purchase the materials of food, clothing and shelter. 

 But since the greater the area the greater are likely to be the oppor- 

 tunities for supplying all these needs directly, size itself, other things 

 being equal, is always a significant measure of relative strength and 

 permanency of national importance. The relative decline of Holland 

 since 1650, from a position near world leadership to a rank far down 

 in the scale of nations, must be attributed largely to the handicap of 

 small size. Though Holland, as a nation, is now probably more pros- 

 perous than ever before in its history, its own physical limitations are 

 too great for it to occupy a leading position among nations. 



Here again, Britain serves as an instructive example of the variable 

 effect of size at different times in its national life. Profiting mate- 

 rially in its early days from the fact that it was a " tight little island," 

 that very restriction of area and natural opportunity is now forecasting 

 the relative decline of Britain, no less than the same factor did for Hol- 

 land two centuries ago. Britain contains at present a population of 

 forty millions in an area less than, and not so richly endowed as, that 

 of the three states of Indiana, Illinois and Iowa; a population living 

 in large part through a process of exchange, which now depends on the 



