e the most highly civilized peoples in
their nautical efficiency, distributed the meager elements of Mohammedan
civilization over the Malay Archipelago. [See map of the Religions of
the Eastern Hemisphere, in chapter XIV.]

[Sidenote: Cultural advantages of large political area.]

The larger the area which a civilized nation occupies, the more numerous
are its points of contact with other peoples, and the less likely is
there to be a premature crystallization of its civilization from
isolation. Extension of area on a large scale means eventually extension
of the seaboard and access to those multiform international relations
which the ocean highway confers. The world wide expansion of the British
Empire has given it at every outward step wider oceanic contact and
eventually a cosmopolitan civilization. The same thing is true of the
other great colonial empires of history, whether Portuguese, Spanish,
Dutch or French; and even of the great continental empires, like Russia
and the United States. The Russian advance across Siberia, like the
American advance across the Rockies, meant access to the Pacific, and a
modification of its civilization on those remote shores.

A large area means varied vicinal locations and hence differentiation of
civilization, at least along the frontier. How rapidly the vivifying
influences of this contact will penetrate into the bulk of the interior
depends upon size, location as scattered or compact, and general
geographic conditions like navigable rivers or mountains, which
facilitate or bar intercourse with that interior. The Russian Empire has
eleven different nations, speaking even more different languages, on its
western and southern frontiers. Its long line of Asiatic contact will
inevitably give to the European civilization transplanted hither in
Russian colonies a new and perhaps not unfruitful development. The
Siberian citizen of future centuries may compare favorably with his
brother in Moscow. Japan, even while impressing its civilization upon
the reluctant Koreans, will see itself modified by the contact and its
culture differentiated by the transplanting; but the content of Japanese
civilization will be increased by every new variant thus formed.

[Sidenote: Politico-economic advantages.]

The larger the area brought under one political control, the less the
handicap of internal friction and the greater its economic independence.
Vast territory has enabled the United States to