Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/323

 STUDIES IN POLITICAL AREAS

words, the ideal of a great political whole, embracing the conti- nent or at least a large part of it, is held up to Europe also. If this great territorial project should triumph over the geographic dismemberment and the ethnographic diversity of Europe, it would be the greatest achievement of which such a project could possibly be capable. Indeed, how differently will this space even then be filled by its varied contents, as compared with Anglo- Saxon Australia and North America, Russian North and Central Asia, or Hispano-Portuguese South America! The European world, both in its peoples and states, will always bear the mark of an historical epoch which dealt with smaller areas than ours ; for that reason it will always give the impression of antiquity.

The differences, too, between the northern and southern con- tinents affect the size of their states. The great expanse of land in the north of the northern hemisphere afforded room in Europe, Asia and North America for the largest domains. The two states of continental proportions in the southern hemisphere stand, in point of area, to those of the northern hemisphere in the ratio of 2 : 7. In this fact lies not only the preponderance of political power in the northern hemisphere, but also the increase of competition among its states and peoples, a competi- tion which grows with the numerical strength of both. In the number of their states, also, the northern continents form an overwhelming contrast to the southern. We must make an exception of Africa, since it is not yet politically organized enough to be compared with the others. But, however we may count, the states of the northern continents are still at least twice as numerous as those of the southern.

In every part of the earth, the configuration of the land and the natural irrigation conditioned by it are factors in determin- ing the size of political areas ; they operate according to the rule that territorial growth is promoted by all circumstances that accelerated historic activity. Among those peoples whom we are wont to call historic in the true sense of the term and in the hands of whom, from their first appearance, we see ships and