(d) Why Man's Higher Needs Depend on Geography.—That country stands highest in which the greatest number of people take an intelligent and active interest in government, education, science, religion, and art. These means of satisfying the higher needs are much influenced by geographic surroundings even though they also depend largely upon racial character, the accidents of historical development, and the presence of men of genius. The geographical influences act through five agencies: (1) density of population; (2) degree of prosperity; (3) degree of isolation; (4) local differences in interests or resources, and (5) degree of energy.
(1) How Density of Population is Favorable to Man's Higher Needs.—Where the population is dense people can easily get together and talk things over; they can all be within the reach of law courts, election places, schools, churches, and art museums, and they can leain how to adapt themselves to new surroundings much more easily than can people who are scattered in small groups over a large area. That is one reason why southern Scotland is less conservative and better educated than the northern part of the country. Nevertheless the people of the North may be even more competent than those of the South.
(2) How Prosperity and Poverty Influence the Higher Needs.— Where favorable surroundings like those of Indiana make a com munity rich and prosperdus it can afford to maintain a good govern ment, and support teachers, scientists, clergymen, and artists. A region like eastern Quebec with poorer soil and a less favorable climate cannot afford to spend so much.
(3) How Isolation is Unfavorable to Man's Higher Needs.—China illustrates the effect of geographical isolation on the higher activities. Although Buddhism came from India, the intervening mountains have prevented the two countries from having much influence on one another. The sea long shut China off from the rest of the world. Now, however, the old isolation is breaking down. So we see the Chinese government change from an absolute monarchy to a republic; the old system of learning by rote gives place to study for the purpose of learn ing to think; writing with thousands of difficult characters gives place to a new system with only thirty-nine letters, almost as simple as our own; and witchcraft is beginning to be replaced by scientific medicine.
(4) How Local Circumstances Alter the Responses to Man's Higher Needs.—Geographical conditions often have a direct effect on the nature of art, religion, government, education, and other phases of civilization. For instance, the scattered location of the various parts of the British Empire causes the most progressive of them to be far more independent than are the States in our own country. In the same way because our States cover a large area and have different climates and different relations to the sea, they can be joined happily in a single country only if the various parts have more self-govern ment than have the provinces of France, which lie close together and have only slight divergences of interests. Again in education, con trast the great number of trade schools in England, where coal, iron, and other factors combine to encourage manufacturing, with the schools of a country like Argentina, where such subjects find no place.
So, too, Germany has turned especially to chemistry because the presence of rich deposits of unusual minerals, and the use of the beet for sugar gave the Germans great interest in that science. In like fashion the English, because of their wide use of the sea, have been the chief investigators of the science of oceanography; and California, by reason of its clear air, holds an uncommonly high place in astronomy.
Every religion is at least modified by its surroundings, especially those of its birthplace. The objects of worship are often deter mined by geography. In India where the coming of the rain is uncertain, the rain god is one of the chief deities. In the lofty pla teaus of the Central Andes, where one is never warm, except when actually in the sunlight, sun worship prevails. In Egypt the Nile was once an object of religious adoration, since the Egyptians knew that their very lives depended upon it. The fact that both Judaism and Christianity sprang from a dry region where sheep herding is one of the chief occupations is evident in many parts of the Bible: " I am the good shepherd and know my sheep." " The shepherd giveth his life for his sheep." " The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters." Such quotations reflect the chief occu pation of Palestine.