Symmetry of form gains in Europe a clear advantage over mere mass. Europe, the smallest of the continents, was destined to gain precedence over all the rest, Asia included. As Asia, lying within all the zones, colossal in size, and most plentifully enriched with the gifts of nature, was fitted to be the nursery of supply for all other parts of the world without impoverishing itself; so Europe, limited in size and confined to the temperate zone, but most complex in its subdivision, having a great diversity in its ocean inlets, as well as in its hills, valleys, plateaus, and mountains, yet, without great extremes, has been especially fitted for the reception of stranger races, and for the development of their energies and the advance of their culture. The symmetry and harmony of Europe have constituted the true home of all varieties of national character, and have adapted it to their mutual action, and to the transfer of their distinctive character to one another. Throughout the entire center of Europe there is an intimate connection with the sea-coast and with the extremities, with the least possible disadvantages. This is accomplished by those sinuous river-courses whose analogies are to be found nowhere in the adjacent continents. The very broadest part of Russia even is intersected with large navigable rivers; and the west and center of Europe are not less richly supplied with these lines of communication, whose starting-points lie often close together, as in the case of the Danube, the Rhine, the Po, and the Rhone. How different is this from the hydrographical system of Central Asia, where the sources of the eastern rivers lie thousands of miles removed from those of the western rivers, and where the rivers of the north are separated by almost as great distances from those of the south! To what nature has given to Europe man has largely added, seeking by means of canals and railways to make the whole continent subject to him and auxiliary to his needs. In this way the interior districts have appropriated to themselves the advantages of the sea-coast, and the distance which it has placed between itself and Asia and Africa has only been increased. Nature first gave Europe its vantage-ground, and man has gone on from that point and doubled the gifts of nature.