TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 801 



British Empire as my subject, if justiBcation and apology seem to any one to he 

 necessary. To the i^enerous hearts of our distinguished foreign visitors who honour 

 us quite as much as they delight us by their presence, I am sure of my appeal. 

 Every true man loves his own country the best in the world. That beautifyino' 

 love of country does not require him to be ignorant of or to hate other countVies". 

 The community of the civilised nations, no longer to be described as Christendom 

 even, for Japan has been received into it, is a mighty fact in geography no less 

 than in politics. To love mankind one must begin by loving individuals ; before 

 attaining to true cosmopolitanism one must first be patriotic. 



Now, besides dealing with the topography of the globe, geography considers also 

 the collective distribution of all animal, vegetable, and mineral productions which are 

 found upon its surface. The aspect of the science which deals with man's environ- 

 ment, and with those influences which mould his national character and compel 

 his social as well as his political organisation, is profoundly interesting intrinsically 

 and of enormous practical usefulness when rightly applied. Given the minute 

 topography of a country, a complete description of its surface features, its rivers, 

 mountains, plains, and boundaries, a full account of its vegetable and mineral 

 resources, a knowledge of its climatic variations, we have at once disclosed to us 

 the scene where we may study with something like clearness man's procession 

 through the ages. Many of the secrets of human action in the past are explained 

 by the laud-forms of the globe, while existing social conditions and social organisa- 

 tions can often thereby be intelligently examined and understood. Persistent 

 national characteristics are often easy to explain from such considerations. For 

 instance, the doggedness of the Dutch river-population, caused verv greatly by a 

 perpetual struggle against the sea, or the commercial carrier-instinct of the Nor- 

 wegians, those northern folk born in a country which is all sea-coast of countless 

 indentations. Having few products to barter, the Norwegians hire themselves 

 to transport the merchandise of other peoples. We British also vs-ere obviously pre- 

 destined to isolation and insularity, when perhaps in the human period the Thames 

 ceased to be a tributary of the Rhine. Our Irish fellow-countrymen were similarly 

 fated for all time to lead a separate, special, and national life apart from our own, 

 when at a still earlier period, geologically, the Irish Channel was formed. 



Such large-scale facts are not to be overlooked ; there are others, however, of 

 varying degrees of prominence. Some merely require to be interpreted thought- 

 fully, while others, after diligent study, may still remain dubious and matter" for 

 speculation. Geography is the true basis of historical investigation and the 

 elucidation of contemporary movements. At the present time great social and 

 political changes are occurring throughout the world — in Europe, Asia, Africa, and 

 America, and in the islands of the great seas. These changes are absolutely 

 dependent upon the physical peculiarities of the different lands actinsr upon 

 generations of men during a prolonged period of time. As a consequence of 

 certain soils, geographical characteristics, and climates, we notice how harsh 

 surroundings have disciplined some races to hardiness and strenuous industry, 

 accompanied by keen commercial activity, which is itself both a result of in- 

 creasing population and the cause of still greater overcrowdino-. Then we see 

 other people at first sight more happily circumstanced. With them the struggle 

 to live is less ferocious, their food is found with little toil. But we perceive that 

 the outcome of generations of Nature's favouritism has been to leave them less 

 forceful and less ingenious in the never-ending warfare of existence. By com- 

 parison they grow feeble of defence against the hungrier nations, ravenous for 

 provender. Man for ever preys upon his own kind, and an easy life in bland 

 surroundings induces a flabbiness which is powerless against the iron training of 

 harsh latitudes, or against the fierce energy and the virile strength produced by 

 hereditary wrestling with unkindly ground. 



_ The discovery of America and Vasco da Gama's voyage round the Cape 

 originated movements and brought into play those subtle influences of foreign lands 

 upon alien sojourners, and through them upon their distant kindred, which alter 

 the course of history and modify national manners and perhaps national charac- 

 teristics also. The colonisation of territories in the temperate zone by European 

 1900. 3 p 



