and Bœotia, as the whole northern coast of Peloponnesus, to water approach.... It will thus appear that there was no part of Greece proper which could be considered as out of the reach of the sea, whilst most parts of it were easy of access. The sea was thus the sole channel for transmitting improvements and ideas as well as for maintaining sympathies" between the Hellenic tribes.[19] The sea is not only the grand highway of commercial intercourse, but the empire of movement, of progress, and of freedom. Here man is set free from the bondage imposed by the overpowering magnitude and vastness of continental and oceanic forms. The boisterous and, apparently, lawless winds are made to obey his will. He mounts the sea as on a fiery steed and "lays his hand upon her mane." And whilst thus he succeeds, in any measure, to triumph over nature, he wakes to conscious power and freedom. It is in this region of contact and commingling of sea and land where man attains the highest superiority. Refreshing our historic recollections, and casting our eyes upon the map of the world, we can not fail to see that all the most highly civilized nations have lived, or still live, on the margin of the sea. [Footnote 18: Cousin, vol. i. pp. 151, 170.] [Footnote 19: Grote's "Hist, of Greece," vol. ii. pp. 221, 225.] The peculiar configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people. Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and, at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they rendered each separate community secure against the encroachments of the rest. The pass of Thermopylæ, between Thessaly and Phocis, that of Cithæron, between Bœotia and Attica; and the mountain ranges of Oneion and Geraneia, along the Isthmus of Corinth, were positions which could be defended against any force of invaders. This signal peculiarity in the forms of relief protected each section of the Greeks from being conquered, and at the same time maintained their separate autonomy. The separate states of Greece lived, as it were, in the presence of each other, and at the same time resisted all influences and all efforts towards a coalescence with each other, until the time of Alexander. Their country, a word of indefinite meaning to the Asiatic, conveyed to them as definite an idea as that of their own homes. Its whole landscape, with all its historic associations, its glorious monuments of heroic deeds, were perpetually present to their eyes. Thus their patriotism, concentrated within a narrow sphere, and kept alive by the sense of their individual importance, their democratic spirit, and their struggles with surrounding communities to maintain their independence,