Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/321

 STUDIES IN POLITICAL AREAS 307

the European states. In addition to the eighteen independent countries of the western continents, the American holdings, as at present divided, of the European powers form nineteen colo- nial territories or dependent states, and eleven of these are smaller than Hayti, the smallest free American country (11,100 square miles). The average size of these thirty-seven divisions is nevertheless 504,000 square miles.

In the history of Europe, the conclusions remain yet to be deduced as to the unavoidable reaction of non-European upon Europian spacial conditions. Like everything unfinished, this state of affairs has a disturbing effect, above all naturally in the case of those countries whose size has not been determined by nature itself. Europe pays for the superiority of its concentrated situation in the temperate zone, so favorable to civilization, with the disadvantage of its limited space. One can speak of general European evils which find their root in this cause. Even in the times of powerful expansion, in Europe nothing more than a fragmentary extension in smaller districts has ever been possible for the Europeans, since every current of migration has met a counter-current which split it up. For this reason the German expansion towards the east was a laborious advance, a forward struggle in certain regions and an enforced halt in others. The final result, therefore, is a dismembered situation, fertile in fric- tion, as we see it in eastern Germany. Similarly, also, one dis- ease of Europe is the miserable condition of agriculture, which is caused by the crowding of a growing population into a space already become too small, and by the exhaustion of the soil in consequence of increasing competition with larger, newer coun- tries which are thinly populated and produce at little expense.

Since every age derives the scale of its views from the extent of its space, and at the same time is governed by the law of the increase of political areas, we see in the present not merely domains of proportions unknown to the ancients, but even more pronounced tendencies in this direction, which must be counted among the singular features of recent history. Empires which embrace half continents are endeavoring to combine whole con-