Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/245

 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 233

bounded by rivers, mountains, etc. However, rivers and moun- tains are not impassable barriers. They are above all material signs of the frontiers of the group. The error of the theorists has been in considering them as natural frontiers, as indications presented by nature for the fixation, according to a certain plan, of the regions within the limits of which each group is destined to live and develop. This theory was never more than a super- ficial and metaphysical one, by means of which the jurists and purely political theoricians attempted to give a material basis to the conception of a natural and immutable order of societies. Neither rivers, nor mountains, nor seas, nor oceans are frontiers traced by nature once and for all and in a definite fashion. Always and everywhere they have been traversed and passed beyond, according to necessities of the internal and external equilibrium of societies. Their defensive character is altogether secondary. Their indicative character is, on the contrary, essen- tial. The territory of the group does not extend beyond the water courses nor over the opposite slopes of mountains so long as the territory thus bounded suffices for the social needs. When these require an extension, it is produced by, or at least produces, the conflict which, according to several modes, military or peace- ful, furnishes the basis of a new equilibrium.

What is constant is a limit, and so far as possible, but acces- sorily, a more or less visible and precise indication of this limit. There is always a frontier even in absence of mountains or water courses. Rocks, cascades, and great trees, easily recognizable, serve as boundaries. From trees as post-indicators, covered with the national colors, the evolution is visible. The one fact remain- ing true is that the most apparent natural sign-indicators succes- sively give place, as indicators of limits, to purely symbolical and even purely ideal signs, but susceptible of being graphically repre- sented upon a map; as, for example, in Africa, where the limits of certain parts of English, French, Belgian, and German terri- tories are indicated by the enunciation of a simple degree of longitude.

Rivers and mountains in the establishment of frontiers, aside from this indicative nature, which they have in common with