Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/391

 STUDIES IN POLITICAL AREAS 373

by reason of the superiority of English civilization. The result is the wholesome condition of parallel growth in expansion of nationality and extension of political sway.

The rapid course of the active life of a people dwelling in a small territory, with its often brilliant features, early leads to old age, and very often to a complete decay of its political importance, ending in a historical disappearance, as in the case of Macedon after its third Roman war, or in that of the Greek states when they were absorbed by Rome. In a narrow area the people become too numerous ; they interfere with one another, they irritate, fight, and wear out one another, unless colonization makes more room for them. The city-states are the classic ground of civil strife, which ended in emigration or expulsion.- Without imports from other regions, they grow poor from an increase of population out of proportion to their area ; with it, they easily grow dependent upon outside coun- tries, and not unfrequently is this the case when, through sup- plies from subject colonies, their own freshness and energy are paralyzed, as a national life, at any rate, is prone to become without the new tasks which belong to large territories. An intellectual impoverishment becomes unavoidable in a con- tracted mental horizon, even in the midst of apparently inex- haustible wealth. We find this even in the classical literatures which " knew and recognized only themselves " (Saint-Beuve), where the limited range of their imaginations is reflected in the use of the same ever-recurring figures from nature, history, and mythology, and in their adherence to a few models.

In a limited area rulers and peoples change rapidly, early finish the course of their lives. Consider in how many hands Sicily has been, and how the different nationalities have stamped upon it the mark of their presence and deeper influence. In Greece, the way the most widely different tribes crowded in and over one another confuses our understanding of its history, which, also, suffers from an excess of independent phases of development, in part brilliant, but always entirely too limited in point of territorial extent. Everything, on the other hand, which retards the quick rate of these life-processes of nations