The former is isolated and out of the way, and the
people simple, uncouth, and uncultivated--contented, it is true, but,
nevertheless, enjoying but little of the abundance and variety in which
people of culture luxuriate. The valley population have a city,
villages, rich lands, trade, and commerce; they are wealthy, cultivated,
and realize far more the legitimate fruition of our entire nature.
Even missionaries, whose prejudices may be presumed to have been in
favor of purely moral means, tell us that that heathen can only be
permanently Christianized through changes in their physical conditions
which commerce alone can bring about.
Physical conditions affect the destiny of nations, and go far to
determine the extent and character of political organizations. It makes
a great difference whether a country has or has not the means of ready
communication and transportation from one section to another. While the
great body of Europe was comparatively uncultivated, with only the
natural channels of commerce, and these unimproved, there could be
little communication between the different sections of country; and
Europe had no political or social unity. The people of the entire
continent were in a fragmentary and disorganized mass, comparatively
isolated, and independent of each other.
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