, but also shows why they have not
advanced like their European cousins. Their environment is one of
the finest in the world, but--it lies far away from the highways
of culture.
In much the same way can we interpret the swarming peoples of
Africa. The more primitive peoples which arrived first, and were
driven south or into the central forests by the later and better
equipped invaders from the central zone, have remained the more
primitive. The more northern peoples, on the fringe of, or liable
to invasion from, the central zone, have made more advance, and
have occasionally set up rudimentary civilisations. But the
movements from the north to the south in early historical times
are too obscure to enable us to trace the action of the principle
more clearly. The peoples of the Mediterranean fringe of Africa,
living in the central zone of stimulation, have proved very
progressive. Under the Romans North Africa was at least as
civilised as Britain, and an equally wise and humane European
policy might lead to their revival to-day.
When we turn to Asia we encounter a mass of little-understood
peoples and a few civilisations with obscure histories, but we
have a fairly clear application of the principle.
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