Geographic isolation

“ If we hold with Moritz Wagner and others that isolation in naturally defined regions, alternating with periods of migration, offers the necessary condition for the rapid evolution of type forms, and thus go farther than Darwin, who regards isolation merely as a fortunate contributory circumstance, we find that for the evolution of mankind it is large areas like Eurasia which afford the greatest number and variety of these naturally segregated habitats, and at the same time the best opportunity for vast historical movements. ”

“ Those states which, like Norway and Switzerland, cannot expand and which have exploited their natural resources to the utmost, must resign themselves to the emigration of their redundant population. But those which have remained within their own boundaries and have adopted a policy of isolation, like China, feudal Japan during its two and a half centuries of seclusion, and numerous Polynesian islands, have been forced to war with nature itself by checking the operation of the law of natural increase. ”

“ Primitive peoples, accustomed to dismemberment in small tribal groups, bear all the marks of territorial contraction. Their geographical horizon is usually fixed by the radius of a few days' march. Inter-tribal trade and intercourse reach only rudimentary development, under the prevailing conditions of mutual antagonism and isolation, and hence contribute little to the expansion of the horizon. Knowing only their little world, such primitive groups overestimate the size and importance of their own territory, and are incapable of controlling an extensive area. ”

“ Protection of an island environment.
The concomitant of isolation is protection. Though this protection, if the result of extreme isolation, may mean an early cessation of development, history shows that in the lower stages of civilization, when the social organism is small and weak, and its germs of progress easily blighted, islands offer the sheltered environment in which imported flowers of culture not only survive but improve; in less protected fields they deteriorate or disappear. ”

“ Differentiation and isolation.
Differentiation results not only from contrasted geographic conditions, but also from segregation. A moving or expanding throng in search of more and better lands drops off one group to occupy a fertile valley or plain, while the main body goes on its way, till it reaches a satisfactory destination or destinations. The tendency to split and divide, characteristic of primitive peoples, is thus stimulated by migration and expansion. ”

“ It may mean in one case retardation, in another accelerated development. Its geographical advantages are distinctly relative, increasing rapidly with a rising scale of civilization. Therefore in an island habitat the race factor may operate with or against the geographic factor in producing a desirable historical result. If the isolation is almost complete, the cultural status of the inhabitants low, and therefore their need of stimulation from without very great, the lack of it will sink them deeper in barbarism than their kinsmen on the mainland. ”

“ Thus while an insular population is allied in race and civilization to that of the nearest continent, it nevertheless differs from the same more than the several sub-groups of its continental kindred differ from each other. In other words, isolation makes ethnic and cultural divergence more marked on islands than on continents. The English people, despite their close kinship and constant communication with the Teutonic peoples of the European mainland, deviate from them more than any of these Germanic nations deviate from each other. ”

“ The larger the area which a civilized nation occupies, the more numerous are its points of contact with other peoples, and the less likely is there to be a premature crystallization of its civilization from isolation. Extension of area on a large scale means eventually extension of the seaboard and access to those multiform international relations which the ocean highway confers. The world wide expansion of the British Empire has given it at every outward step wider oceanic contact and eventually a cosmopolitan civilization. ”

“ He finds that geographic conditions have condemned India to isolation. On the land side, a great sweep of high mountains has restricted intercourse with the interior; on the sea side, the deltaic swamps of the Indus and Ganges Rivers and an unbroken shoreline, backed by mountains on the west of the peninsula and by coastal marshes and lagoons on the east, have combined to reduce its accessibility from the ocean. ”

“ Japan's sudden and complete abandonment of a policy of seclusion which had been rigidly maintained for two hundred and fifty years, and her entrance upon a career of widespread intercourse synchronously with one of territorial expansion and extensive emigration, form one of those apparently irreconcilable contradictions constantly springing from the isolation and world-wide accessibility of an island environment ”

“ Despite this general poverty of species, island life is distinguished by a great proportion of peculiar or endemic forms, and a tendency toward divergence, which is the effect of isolation and which becomes marked in proportion to the duration and effectiveness of isolation. ”

“ If population begins to press upon the limits of subsistence, the acquisition of a new bit of territory obviates the necessity of applying more work and more intelligence to the old area, to make it yield subsistence for the growing number of mouths; the stimulus to adopt better economic methods is lost. Therefore, natural boundaries drawn by mountain, sea and desert, serving as barriers to the easy appropriation of new territory, have for such peoples a far deeper significance than the mere determination of their political frontiers by physical features, or the benefit of protection. ”

“ On the other hand, where the hem of the continents is fertile enough to support a dense population, a large number of people are brought into contact with the sea, even where no elaborate articulation lengthens the shoreline. When this teeming humanity of a garden littoral is barred from landward expansion by desert or mountain, or by the already overcrowded population of its own hinterland, it wells over the brim of its home country, no matter how large, and overflows to other lands across the seas. ”

“ The larger people, commanding its larger area, expands numerically and territorially, and continues to throw out wider frontiers, till it meets insurmountable natural obstacles or the confines of a people strong as itself. After a pause, during which the existing area is outgrown and population begins to press harder upon the limits of subsistence, the weight of a nation is thrown against the barrier, be it physical or political. ”

“ The frozen rim of arctic lands, the coastline of the continents, the outermost arable strip on the confines of the desert, the barren or ice-capped ridge of high mountain range, are all such natural boundaries which set more or less effective limits to the movement of peoples and the territorial growth of states. The sea is the only absolute boundary, because it alone blocks the continuous, unbroken expansion of a people. When the Saxons of the lower Elbe spread to the island of Britain, a zone of unpeopled sea separated their new settlements from their native villages on the mainland. ”

“ Territorial expansion is always preceded by an extension of the circle of influence which a people exerts through its traders, its deep-sea fishermen, its picturesque marauders and more respectable missionaries, and earlier still by a widening of its mere geographical horizon through fortuitous or systematic exploration. ”

“ Small naturally defined regions, which take the lead in historical development because they counteract the primitive tendency towards excessive dispersal, are in danger of teaching too well their lesson of concentration. In course of time geographic enclosure begins to betray its limitations. The extent of a people's territory influences their estimate of area per se, determines how far land shall be made the basis of their national purposes, fixes the territorial scale of their conquests and their political expansion. This is a conspicuous psychological effect of a narrow local environment. ”

“ Entrance into a naturally isolated district, from which subsequent incursions are debarred, gives conditions for divergence and the creation of a new type. On the other hand, where few physical barriers are present to form these natural pockets, the process of assimilation goes on over a wide field. Europe is peculiar among the family of continents for its "much divided" geography, commented upon by Strabo. ”

“ All people, especially those in the lower stages of culture, are conservative in their fundamental activities. Agriculture is intolerable to pastoral nomads, hunting has little attraction for a genuine fisher folk. Therefore such peoples in expansion seek an environment in which the national aptitudes, slowly evolved in their native seats, find a ready field. Thus arise natural provinces of distribution, whose location, climate, physical features, and size reflect the social and economic adaptation of the inhabitants to a certain type of environment. ”

“ That precocious development characteristic of small naturally defined areas shows its inherent weakness in the tendency to accept the enclosed area as a nature-made standard of national territory. The earlier a state fixes its frontier without allowance for growth, the earlier comes the cessation of its development. Therefore the geographical nurseries of civilization were infected with germs of decay. Such was the history of Egypt, of Yemen, of Greece, Crete, and Phoenicia. ”

“ Herein lies the great difference between migration in empty or sparsely inhabited regions, such as predominated when the world was young, and in the densely populated countries of our era. As the earth grew old and humanity multiplied, peoples themselves became the greatest barriers to any massive migrations, till in certain countries of Europe and Asia the historical movement has been reduced to a continual pressure, resulting in compression of population here, repression there. ”

“ A littoral population barred from its hinterland by mountain range or steep plateau escarpment or desert tract feels little influence from the land; level or fertile soil is too limited in amount to draw inland the growing people, intercourse is too difficult and infrequent, transportation too slow and costly. Hence the inhabitants of such a coast are forced to look seaward for their racial and commercial expansion, even if a paucity of good harbors limits the accessibility of the sea ”

“ All peoples in their geographical distribution tend to follow a social and political law of gravitation, in accordance with which members of the same tribe or race gather around a common center or occupy a continuous stretch of territory, as compactly as their own economic status, and the physical conditions of climate and soil will permit. This is characteristic of all mature and historically significant peoples who have risen to sedentary life, maintained their hold on a given territory, and, with increase of population, have widened their boundaries. ”

“ In no other field of endeavor have German efficiency and German science been so eminently successful as in the conservation of that country's limited resources to such a remarkable degree that even after three years of isolation from world markets, on which formerly it depended so largely for sustenance, the nation is not yet faced with the alternatives of surrender or starvation. ”

“ High massive mountain systems present the most effective barriers which man meets on the land surface of the earth. To the spread of population they offer a resistance which long serves to exclude settlers. The difficulty of making roads up steep, rocky slopes and through the forests usually covering their rain-drenched sides, is deterrent enough; but in addition to this, general infertility, paucity of arable land, harsh climatic conditions, and the practical lack of communication with the outside world offer scant basis for subsistence. ”

“ If a state lacks the energy and national purpose, like Italy, or the possibility, like Switzerland, for territorial expansion, and accepts its boundaries as final, the natural increase of population upon a fixed area produces an increased density, unless certain social forces counteract it. Without these forces, the relation of men to the land would have tended to modify everywhere in the same way. Increase in numbers would have been attended by a corresponding decrease in the amount of land at the disposal of each individual. ”

“ Land-masses, as we have found, are independent by location or independent by size. Large islands, especially where they occupy an outskirt location, may long succeed in maintaining an independent national existence; but to render this permanent, they must supplement their area by the acquisition of continental lands, according to the law of increasing territorial aggregates. Great Britain and Japan, though ethnically and culturally appendages of the nearby mainland, were large enough, aided by the dividing sea, to maintain political autonomy. ”

“ The decrease of food resources from lower to higher levels makes the passage of a mountain system an ordeal for every migrating people or marching army that has to live off the country which it traverses. Mountains therefore repel population by their inaccessibility and also by their harsh conditions of life, while the lowlands attract it, both in migration and settlement. Historical movement, when forced into the upheaved areas of the earth, avoids the ridges and peaks, seeks the valleys and passes, where communication with the lowlands is easiest. ”