THE EVOLUTION OF NATIONS 165 



in it may be established and maintained on a permanent basis, with the 

 returns from human efforts exceeding the demands of immediate needs. 

 Under favorable conditions the cultivation of the soil offers such a 

 chance for permanent establishment. Hence agriculture becomes the 

 broad basis on which the development of important nationality may be 

 said to depend, and an environment which permits agriculture is to be 

 considered as a fundamental requirement for a budding nation. 



Each nation, in every stage of its development, finds itself con- 

 fronted by needs which must be satisfied, and it is forced to seek ways 

 of gratifying those needs in order to preserve the national existence. 

 Each nation, occupying its political unit, has in that unit certain 

 natural opportunities which are the result of physical conditions, and 

 which represent the sum total of means available to meet national 

 needs, either directly or indirectly. Hence, each nation in its different 

 stages of past development, in its present organization, and in its future 

 importance, must be considered largely as the product of the physical 

 or geographical conditions by which it has been surrounded. 



It does not appear, however, that the operation of these geographic 

 factors is accorded the proper recognition in the study of nations, 

 whatever the guise under which that study is made. Thus, in one of 

 the latest texts at hand, a book designed to complete the course in 

 geography in the schools, a book well thought of generally, widely used, 

 and a fair sample, a half a dozen pages are devoted to the United 

 Kingdom, and less to Germany. A marvelous example, it is, of con- 

 centration of facts, but it gives no reasons; no indication of inter-rela- 

 tionship between the nation and its surroundings; no idea or apprecia- 

 tion of the factors which have so closely shaped the whole course of 

 British development ; no hint of a real understanding of the nation ; it 

 gives simply a collection of statements concerning places and things. 



A nation is more than a disorganized array of cities, products and 

 industries. A nation is a living entity: a unit produced by the action 

 of uncompromising physical forces, and its cities, products and indus- 

 tries, at any given time, are but the temporary manifestation of those 

 forces. 



The Modifying Factors. — No two nations have been identical in all 

 aspects of their evolution, for no two nations have had identical geo- 

 graphical surroundings. In numerous cases, nations, unlike in impor- 

 tant respects, have been composed of people of common origin, as in 

 the case of England and Australia. On the other hand, similarities in 

 physical surroundings have, in every case, produced similarities in 

 development in nations composed of people of different origin, as indi- 

 cated by Argentine and Australia, or by England and modern Japan. 

 National evolution, therefore, is not a simple question of race, but a 

 more complex question of surroundings and opportunities. 



