21 



In some parts of the earth nature is kind and bountiful ; often 

 too much so. Life is easy and simple ; there are few wants, and 

 these are easily supplied ; no exertion is necessary, and so no 

 exertion ever developes itself. No high civilisation has ever arisen 

 in a tropical region. Eeferring to this, Mr. Buckle says : — " In 

 Asia, civilisation has always been confined to that vast tract where 

 a rich and alluvial soil has secured to man that v/ealth, without 

 some share ol which no intellectual progress can begin. This 

 great region extends with a few interruptions from the East of 

 8outh China to the West Coasts of Asia Minor, Phoenicia, and 

 Palestine. To the North of this immense belt there is a long line 

 of barren country, which has invariably been peopled by rude and 

 wandering tribes who are kept in poverty by the ungenial nature 

 of the soil, and who, as long as they remained on it, have never 

 emerged from their uncivilised state. Yet those same hordes have 

 at different times founded great monarchies by invasion, e. g. 

 China, India, and Persia, There they found the materials of 

 wealth, and there consequently they acquired some degree of 

 refinement, produced a national literature, and organised a 

 national policy, none of which things they, in their native land, 

 had been able to effect." (" Hisfc. Civilisation). 



In other parts nature is so harsh and unkind that she yields 

 nothing to labour. Man gives it up, makes no more attempts to 

 conquer her, and hence we find thousands of square miles in such 

 districts as waste and barren as they were 1 0,000 years ago. But 

 where she is bountiful in her returns to labour and perseverance, 

 and only to them, there she developes peoples of steady, determined, 

 and untiring energy, persevering and self reliant. In such localities 

 have arisen the nations that have conquered the world. 



Slowly and gradually has man emancipated himself from the 

 overwhelming difficulties of his surroundings ; not even yet has he 

 become completely independent of them, and certainly, I may 

 venture to say, he never will, so long as diversity of surface, 

 climate, and soil shall exist— so long, that is to say, as the geo- 

 logical agencies of past and present times shall continue to act. 

 And this brings me to the more immediate point of this lecture. 

 What are these " circumstances" which produce such diversity of 

 character among nations, such variety of pursuits even among the 

 inhabitants of the same country ? Already I have referred them 

 to physical surroundings, i.e., to the geography of the country. 

 This physical geography is dependent on, and only to be explained 

 by, geological action. The two are most intimately connected, so 

 much so that it is impossible to draw a dividing line ; they are in 

 fact, two aspects of one science, and so, throughout what I have to 

 say, I shall be alternating between the two, though I trust, without 

 any resulting confusion. 



