s represented a bold policy of
inland expansion for that day. The modern historian sees in that step
the momentous advance of history beyond the narrow limits of the
Mediterranean basin, and its gradual inclusion of all the Atlantic
countries of Europe, through whose maritime enterprise the historical
horizon was stretched to include America. In the same way, mediaeval
trade with the Orient, which had familiarized Europe with distant India
and Cathay, developed its full historico-geographical importance when it
started the maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century. The expansion
of the geographical horizon in 1512 to embrace the earth inaugurated a
widespread historical movement, which has resulted in the
Europeanization of the world.

[Sidenote: Civilization and mobility.]

Civilized man is at once more and less mobile than his primitive
brother. Every advance in civilization multiplies and tightens the bonds
uniting him with his soil; makes him a sedentary instead of a migratory
being. On the other hand every advance in civilization is attended by
the rapid clearing of the forests, by the construction of bridges and
interlacing roads, the invention of more effective vehicles for
transportation whereby intercourse increases, and the improvement of
navigation to the same end. Civilized man progressively modifies the
land which he occupies, removes or reduces obstacles to intercourse, and
thereby approximates it to the open plain. Thus far he facilitates
movements. But while doing this he also places upon the land a dense
population, closely attached to the soil, strong to resist incursion,
and for economic reasons inhospitable to any marked accession of
population from without. Herein lies the great difference between
migration in empty or sparsely inhabited regions, such as predominated
when the world was young, and in the densely populated countries of our
era. As the earth grew old and humanity multiplied, peoples themselves
became the greatest barriers to any massive migrations, till in certain
countries of Europe and Asia the historical movement has been reduced to
a continual pressure, resulting in compression of population here,
repression there. Hence, though political boundaries may shift, ethnic
boundaries scarcely budge. The greatest wars of modern Europe have
hardly left a trace upon the distribution of its peoples. Only in the
Balkan Peninsula, as the frontiers of the Turkish Empire have been
forced b