Page:Anglo-African Magazine volume 1.pdf/15

 The next topic is the influence of

upon civilization; a subject which has not yet received the profound attention to which it is justly entitled. Men advanced in the 'Arts of War and Peace,' are so apt to attribute this advancement to innate superiority of race—the Great Idol of the Tribe—that they care little to seek in other sources the causes of their greatness.

Geographical position has two distinct relations to civilization: First, the climatic or climate influence, embracing temperature (which has been briefly treated above,) geodaesic, direction and prevalence of winds, &c. Secondly, the facilities or obstacles which geobraphicalgeographical [sic] position may afford to the intercourse of mankind.

In regard to the latter of these topics, Thirlwall, in his History of Greece, says, 'The character of every people is more or less closely connected with that of its land. The station which the Greeks filled among nations, the part which they acted, and the works which they accomplished, depended in a great measure on the position which they occupied on the face of the globe. The manner and degree in which the nature of the country affected the bodily and mental frame and the social institutions of its inhabitants, may not be so easily determined; but its physical aspect is certainly not less important in an historical point of view than it is striking and interesting in itself.'

It has been observed by Professor Ritter, 'that the civilization of countries is greatly influenced by their geographical forms, and by the relation which the interior spaces bear to the extent of coast. To every thirty seven square miles of continent in Europe, there is one mile of coast; Asia has one hundred and five, Africa one hundred and thirty seven square miles of continent to one mile of coast. The ramifications of Asia, excluded from the continental trapezium are one fifth bartpart [sic], of Europe one third part of the entire continent: Africa is of compact and undivided form, with natural barriers which render access to the great regions of the interior remarkably difficult. In Africa there may be said to be no branches whatever: in Asia the stock is much greater in proportion to the branches, and thence the more highly advanced culture of the branches has remained for the most part excluded from the great interior space. In Europe on the other hand, from the different relation of its spaces, the condition of the external parts had much greater influence on the interior. Hence, the higher culture of Greece and Italy penetrated more easily into the interior, and gave to the whole continent one harmonious character of civilization, while Asia contains many separate regions, which may be compared individually to Europe, and each of which could receive only its peculiar kind of culture from its own branches. Africa, deficient in these endowments of nature, and wanting both separating gulfs, and inland seas, could obtain no share in the expansion of that fruitful tree, which, having driven its roots deeply in the heart of Asia, spread its branches and blossoms over the western and southern tracts of the same continent, and expanded its crown over Europe. In Egypt alone it possessed a river so formed as to favor the developement of similar productions.'—(Prichard's Researches into the Physical Hist. of mankind, Vol. 2. p. 354.)

The same views hold in regard to the American continent, where the most remarkable advances in civilization were found in Central America, where the proportion of coast to the interior spaces approaches nearest to the standard of Europe.

These views relate to the spread rather than to the origin of civilization. The influence of Geographical position on the origin or developement of civilization is not discussed by Ritter nor