THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 183 



may be drawn from this discussion. First, each nation should be 

 regarded as following a regular life course of definite ages, in which it 

 is influenced at all times by the combined effect of the geographical 

 factors of its environment. Second, from the proper valuation of these 

 controlling factors it is possible in any stage of evolution to measure 

 the real strength of a nation. Finally, every nation will arrive even- 

 tually at a stage where its physical surroundings set a limit to further 

 development, materially, though not necessarily in culture. It may be 

 expected that each nation as it arrives at this later stage in its existence 

 will exhibit the spectacle of a static population, and such a nation may 

 be said to have attained its full maturity — that is a condition of 

 practically perfect adjustment between national opportunity and 

 national development. France may be taken as an example of a nation 

 which has reached, earlier than any of the others, this stage of full 

 maturity. 



It may even be that in individual cases, as perhaps in Germany and 

 Japan, the temporary operation of one or two factors, as coal and some 

 useful minerals, have already induced a condition of development which 

 will necessitate subsequent readjustments, even to the point of actual 

 decadence. A parallel condition might also arise through the misuse 

 and consequent destruction of those national opportunities which should 

 be permanent, as through soil erosion and the destruction of water 

 power by deforestation. Wherever, by one means or the other, the 

 basis for maintaining the national existence is materially lessened or 

 destroyed, the nation must be regarded as old, or physically decadent, 

 having exhausted the forces with which it was naturally endowed, just 

 as in the old age of the human being, it is the breaking down of the 

 individual physical endowment which marks the decline. 



This inevitable adjustment of the nations of the world to their 

 environments seems to call for relative decadence, like that of Hol- 

 land since 1650, on the part of many nations holding a more or less 

 prominent place to-day, especially so in the case of those of small 

 area and restricted opportunity : and a corresponding rise, both relative 

 and absolute, in most of the large units, which, in most cases, are still 

 in the early, or young stages of their national evolution. In this latter 

 group Russia, perhaps, is the most striking example, while the United 

 States is somewhat farther along toward the stage of maturity: it 

 might be described as having passed its adolescence and beginning to 

 feel its strength, while Eussia has still to reach the adolescent stage of 

 youth. Thus the great nation of to-day may in one case be the great 

 nation of to-morrow; in another case not. The real measure of fitness 

 lies in the relation of each individual nation to the physical factors by 

 which its evolution and its strength are determined. 



