tinental peoples are constantly exposed. But even here the
advantage lies in insulation but not in isolation,[885] in a location
like that of England or Japan, near enough to a continent to draw thence
culture, commerce and occasional new strains of blood, but detached by
sea-girt boundaries broad enough to ward off overwhelming aggressions.
Such a location insures enough segregation for protection, but also
opportunity for universal contact over the vast commons of the sea.

[Sidenote: Excessive isolation.]

Excessive isolation may mean impoverishment in purse and progress even
for an advanced race. Ireland has long suffered from its outskirt
location. It lies too much in the shadow of England, and has been barred
by the larger island from many warming rays of immigration, culture and
commerce that would have vitalized its national existence. The "round
barrow" men of the Bronze Age, the Romans, and the Normans never carried
thither their respective contributions to civilization. The
Scandinavians infused into its population only inconsiderable strains of
their vigorous northern blood.[886] In consequence the Irish are to-day
substantially the same race as in Caesar's time, except for the small,
unassimilated group of antagonistic English and Lowland Scotch, both
Teutonic, in Ulster.[887] Barred by Great Britain from direct contact
with the Continent and all its stimulating influences, suffering from
unfavorable conditions of climate and topography, Ireland's political
evolution progressed at a snail's pace. It tarried in the tribal stage
till after the English conquest, presenting a primitive social
organization such as existed nowhere in continental Europe. Property was
communal till the time of the Tudors, and all law was customary.[888]
Over-protected by excessive isolation, it failed to learn the salutary
lesson of political co-operation and centralization for defense, such as
Scotland learned from England's aggressions, and England from her close
continental neighbors. Great Britain, meanwhile, intercepted the best
that the Continent had to give, both blows and blessings, and found an
advantage in each. The steady prosecution of her continental wars
demanded the gradual erection of a standing army, which weakened the
power of feudalism; and the voting of funds for the conduct of these
same wars put a whip into the hand of Parliament.

[Sidenote: The case of Iceland.]

The history of Iceland illustrates the adv