In Polynesia, which, in point of size, far surpasses the Antilles group north of South America, we have the most dismembered region on the surface of the globe. It is the highest degree of insulation, of individualization, and results from the extreme carrying out of dispersing causes. The space occupied by the greater Sunda group, with its five seas—the China, Java, Molucca, Celebes, and Mindoro—together with the islands adjacent, the whole lying between longitude 110° and 160° east and latitude 10° south and 20° north, a tract 3525 miles long and 2115 miles wide may worthily be compared with the area of Europe. Such a mass of island groups and single isles, belonging not to Asia with any strict right, but in truth a maritime world of itself, having but the slightest connections with the adjacent continent, is not to be compared with the island system of Europe, which is bound to the main land by the closest ties. Were a similar insular dismemberment the universal principle on which the world is constructed, and were there no continents whatever, there would be an entire want of direct dependence in nations upon each other, and a degree of independence which would be fatal to the best interests of man. Europe would be broken up into a number of great islands, like Borneo, and into countless islets. In the conformation of Europe, however, there is the happiest system of compensations, and the most harmonious play of contrasts to be found in the world. The disadvantages of a too great dividing up into islands, as in Polynesia, and of too compact and unrifted a central mass, as in Africa, are alike shunned. Both extremes could not fail to be injurious to the best interests of the population. The fullness and richness of nature might, perhaps, be increased; but the effects on human life could not fail to be bad. Man’s highest development does not consist with any extreme in the natural world: it is linked to the action and reaction of contrasts. In Polynesia, the district of extreme dismemberment, the Malays are the least homogeneous of any race on the earth. Malays, Battahs, Dakkas, Horasuras, and Papuas are all engaged in destructive war on each other, and are among the most degraded peoples on the globe. In this region there is the greatest diversity in physical nature, but not in the essential characteristics of man. One point of accord ought not to be passed by: there, where the forces of nature, maritime and volcanic, are on the greatest scale known, the warlike passions of man are on a not less consuming scale. In Polynesia there are the rankest vegetation, the most fervid heat, the most costly spices, animals very large and rare; but man attains to no such superiority,—he degenerates in worth and takes a low place. Where the three natural kingdoms attain their perfection, man seems to linger in the rear.