doing badly. He therefore does badly who spends his money luxuriously when he might invest it productively.

Emulation in extravagance. Nothing could contribute more to the general prosperity and well-being of the nation than such moral habits as would discourage extravagant consumption and encourage thrift and wise investments in all sorts of productive enterprises. A particularly vicious and wasteful factor in many a social group is competition or emulation in extravagance. What Professor Thorstein Veblen1 has called spicuous waste" is sometimes required of everyone with social ambitions. Of all forms of competition, competitive consumption is the most pernicious and wasteful. When men and women try to advertise their solvency by ostentatious wastefulness, there develops a real competition to see who can advertise most effectively.

con

This is part of a very widespread tendency. Certain Chinese mandarins of an older day used to allow their finger nails to grow to inordinate lengths as a visible sign that they did not have to work. The binding of the feet of women served much the same purpose. Where work is not regarded as respectable, some visible sign of respectability is generally sought. Sometimes these customs are copied even by those who do have to work, as in the case of high-heeled shoes and of long trains.

Emulation in the waste of physical energy. It is not only the possession of plenty of money which is thus vulgarly advertised. The possession of abounding physical energy is also advertised by the practice of conspicuous vices which tend to dissipate energy. The young man who can dissipate freely can thus advertise to the world that he has health and energy to spare, just as he can advertise to the world that he has money to spare when he spends it extravagantly. When there is no sense of moral values and no sober self-restraint, the possession of abundant health and the possession of abundant 1 The Theory of the Leisure Class.

money lead to equally demoralizing vices. The poor are safeguarded by their poverty from the extravagant use of money, but they are quite as likely to indulge in the extravagant uses of vitality as are the rich. If there be any difference, the dissipation of physical energy is worse than the dissipation of money.

The teacher, the preacher, or the moral leader who can persuade the people to abandon such habits and use their surplus money and their surplus energy productively rather than wastefully will deserve to stand among the greatest of statesmen and nation builders. Nations are built by the wise expenditure of human energy. The less it is wasted, and the more it is used up in production or useful work, the greater the progress of the nation.

We have chosen to discuss, in this chapter, a theme which is not ordinarily treated in works on economics. It has generally been assumed that economics had nothing to do with morals and religion. With certain sentimental and conventional aspects of these human interests, perhaps the economist has nothing to do. But in so far as they are factors, or may become factors, in national wealth, prosperity, and power, nothing can be of more interest to the economist. Even religion, if it stimulates the productive virtues and discourages the vices which waste and dissipate human energy, may become one of the greatest factors in the building of a great, prosperous, and powerful nation. The nation which possesses such a religion will eventually outgrow in all these particulars the nation which does not, or which possesses a religion which enervates, which lulls to sleep, or which represses the productive virtues.1

1 For a fuller discussion of this topic, see the author's book entitled "The Religion Worth Having." Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1912.

CHAPTER VII

THE GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION

The human factor is the most important factor in national prosperity. Nevertheless, the natural situation is a factor which must be taken into consideration. However gifted and courageous a race may be, it will find it easier to expand and become prosperous, powerful, and great in a favorable than in an unfavorable environment.

Importance of environment. But what is a favorable environment? It is easy to overemphasize the bodily comfort of living in a warm as opposed to a hot or a cold climate, and to ignore the bracing effects of changeable weather. It is also easy to overemphasize the tremendous productivity of certain tropical regions and to forget that they produce the enemies as well as the friends of man in great profusion. It is equally easy to go too far in the opposite direction and to hold that hard conditions, such as a harsh climate and a sterile soil, are best for man's development. If hard conditions are all that men need, the Eskimos of the Far North are peculiarly blest.

If we take everything into consideration, it is probable that the temperate zones are most favorable to man's development as well as to his prosperity. He has here fewer unconquerable enemies than in the tropics or in the frigid zones. He finds a wider variety of useful materials, such as grass, timber, and minerals, and he finds them in greater abundance here than elsewhere. Here the advantages to be gained by work are more obvious and more easily comprehended by the average intellect than anywhere else. The intelligence required to see the advantage of building shelters, making clothing, and kindling fires, especially in a place where, along with the cold

weather, there is an abundance of suitable material, is not very great. It requires much more scientific knowledge to enable men to guard against the hookworm and the various harmful bacteria which infest the tropics. These, together with venomous insects and reptiles, not to mention the larger beasts of prey, imperil the lives of the dwellers in the tropics quite as much as our cold winters imperil the lives of dwellers in these northern latitudes.

Northern-grown crops are generally best. It is a fact of observation, however we may account for it, that many of our farm crops reach their highest perfection very near the northern limits of the areas within which they can be grown without injury from frost. The cotton belt of this country, though confined to the southern states, is in reality near the northern limit for cotton. Our corn belt is likewise near the northern limit for corn. The oranges of California and Florida are likewise grown near the line where frost will destroy the crop. The potato and the sugar beet do better either in high altitudes or high latitudes, where the summers are barely warm enough and the seasons barely long enough to mature the crop. One explanation of this general rule is that by migrating northward a plant escapes many of its ancient and hereditary enemies. When seed corn is saved, dried, and protected during the winter, and special care given it during the growing season, it can grow farther north than would be possible if it had to shift for itself. Its natural enemies in its original habitat, not having man's help, cannot live over winter or mature between frosts in our corn belt. Therefore the corn plant escapes some of its worst enemies. The same is true of the cotton plant (though some of its ancient enemies seem to be following it northward) and also of other plants which seem to flourish under cultivation in latitudes where they could not survive without cultivation. Similarly, when man learns to keep himself warm by building houses, manufacturing clothing, and making fires, he can live in latitudes which enable him to

escape some of his ancient and hereditary enemies, such as the hookworm and the germs of yellow fever, malaria, etc. The northern limit of his best development, however, must coincide with the northern limits of the production of abundant means of satisfying his multifarious desires. Another explanation is that during the growing season for plants, that is, during the summer, the days are longer in high than in low latitudes. This gives plants more light while they are growing. The proportion of sugar in sugar beets seems to depend upon the amount of sunlight which they get while they are growing. Buckle's generalizations. In his famous work, "The History of Civilization in England," Henry Thomas Buckle makes a great deal of several other factors in the geographical situation. These he groups under four heads, namely, climate, food, soil, and the general aspect of nature. He goes to the extreme of attributing to these factors a controlling influence not only on the economic prosperity of the people but even on their intellectual, moral, and religious development as well. Without following him to these extremes, we may profitably give attention to some of his observations regarding the influence exercised by these factors on the industrial development of a people. No one is likely to deny that the presence of cheap coal has had a great deal to do with the economic development of Europe and America, or that the former abundance of timber in this country had a great deal to do with the kind of houses we built and are still building. A shingled roof, for example, is unknown except in countries where timber has been abundant.

That ancient civilizations arose in regions where labor applied to land was highly productive is a commonplace in history. The fertile river valleys of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China supported civilizations when our European ancestors were still savages. Here food was so abundant that men had time to do other things besides satisfying their immediate daily needs; or, rather, a part of the population could produce food enough to support the rest while the latter gave