Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 52.djvu/160

146 We are still further assured of the truth of these geographical generalizations on comparison of the racial history of England with that of Ireland; for we thereby have opportunity to observe the effects of different degrees of such insularity. In the latter case, it



has become a bit too pronounced to be a favorable element in the situation. Disregarding her modern political history—for we are dealing with races and not nations—it is indeed true, as Dr. Beddoe says, that Ireland "has always been a little behindhand." Ethnic invasions, if they took place at all, came late and with spent energy; most of them, as we shall see, whether of culture or of physical types, failed to reach her shores at all. These laws apply to all forms of life alike. Thus the same geographical isolation which excluded the