develop the national genius in such direction as the local geographic
conditions permit. In the unceasing movements which have made up most of
the historic and prehistoric life of the human race, in their migrations
and counter-migrations, their incursions, retreats, and expansions over
the face of the earth, vast unfenced areas, like the open lowlands of
Russia and the grasslands of Africa, present the picture of a great
thoroughfare swept by pressing throngs. Other regions, more secluded,
appear as quiet nooks, made for a temporary halt or a permanent rest.
Here some part of the passing human flow is caught as in a vessel and
held till it crystallizes into a nation. These are the conspicuous areas
of race characterization. The development of the various ethnic and
political offspring of the Roman Empire in the naturally defined areas
of Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, and France illustrates the process of
national differentiation which goes on in such secluded locations.

A marked influence upon this development is generally ascribed to the
protection afforded by such segregated districts. But protection alone
is only a negative force in the life of a people; it leaves them free to
develop in their own way, but does not say what that way shall be. On
the other hand, the fact that such a district embraces a certain number
of geographic features, and encompasses them by obstructive boundaries,
is of immense historical importance; because this restriction leads to
the concentration of the national powers, to the more thorough
utilization of natural advantages, both racial and geographical, and
thereby to the growth of an historical individuality. Nothing robs the
historical process of so much of its greatness or weakens so much its
effects as its dispersion over a wide, boundless area. This was the
disintegrating force which sapped the strength of the French colonies in
America. The endless valleys of the St. Lawrence and the Mississippi and
the alluring fur trade tempted them to an expansion that was their