growing out of this manifold use of the land. Sedentary agriculture,
which forms its initial economic basis, is followed by industrialism and
commerce. The migratory life presents only limited accumulation of
capital, and restricts narrowly its forms. Permanent settlement
encourages accumulation in every form, and under growing pressure of
population slowly reveals the possibilities of every foot of ground, of
every geographic advantage. These are the fibers of the land which
become woven into the whole fabric of the nation's life. These are the
geographic elements constituting the soil in which empires are rooted;
they rise in the sap of the nation.

[Sidenote: Strength of the land bond in the state.]

The geographic basis of a state embodies a whole complex of physical
conditions which may influence its historical development. The most
potent of these are its size and zonal location; its situation, whether
continental or insular, inland or maritime, on the open ocean or an
enclosed sea; its boundaries, whether drawn by sea, mountain, desert or
the faint demarking line of a river; its forested mountains, grassy
plains, and arable lowlands; its climate and drainage system; finally
its equipment with plant and animal life, whether indigenous or
imported, and its mineral resources. When a state has taken advantage
of all its natural conditions, the land becomes a constituent part of
the state,[105] modifying the people which inhabit it, modified by them
in turn, till the connection between the two becomes so strong by
reciprocal interaction, that the people cannot be understood apart from
their land. Any attempt to divide them theoretically reduces the social
or political body to a cadaver, valuable for the study of structural
anatomy after the method of Herbert Spencer, but throwing little light
upon the vital processes.