y the aridity of their surrounding lands. But the
precocious development and early cessation of growth marking all
Mediterranean national life have given to this basin a variegated
history; and in every period and every geographical region of it, from
ancient Phoenicia to modern Spain and Italy, the early exhaustion of
resources and dwarfing of political ideals which characterize most small
areas become increasingly conspicuous. The history of Sweden, Denmark,
and the Hanse Towns in the Baltic tells the same story, the story of a
hothouse plant, forced in germination and growth, then stifled in the
close air.

[Sidenote: Successive maritime periods in history.]

Growth demands space. Therefore, the progress of history has been
attended by an advance from smaller to larger marine areas, with a
constant increase in those manifold relations between peoples and lands
which the water is able to establish. Every great epoch of history has
had its own sea, and every succeeding epoch has enlarged its maritime
field. The Greek had the Aegean, the Roman the whole Mediterranean, to
which the Middle Ages made an addition in the North Sea and Baltic. The
modern period has had the Atlantic, and the twentieth century is now
entering upon the final epoch of the World Ocean. The gradual inclusion
of this World Ocean in the widened scope of history has been due to the
expansion of European peoples, who, for the past twenty centuries, have
been the most far-reaching agents in the making of universal history.
Owing to the location and structure of their continent, they have always
found the larger outlet in a western sea. In the south the field widened
from the Phoenician Sea to the Aegean, then to the Mediterranean, on to
the Atlantic, and across it to its western shores; in the north it moved
from the quiet Baltic to the tide-swept North Sea and across the North
Atlantic. Only the South Atlantic brought European ships to the great
world highway of the South Seas, and gave them the choice of an eastern
or western route to the Pacific. Every new voyage in the age of
discovery expanded the historical horizon; and every improvement in the
technique of navigation has helped to eliminate distance and reduced
intercourse on the World Ocean to the time-scale of the ancient
Mediterranean.

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the larger oceanic
horizon has meant a corresponding increase in the relative content and
importance of hist