Goldwin Smith, in his Lectures and Essays, maintains that national characteristics are not congenital, but are the result of environment. The greatness of Rome and the greatness of England have been due to position. The Romans owed their successes to being at first less warlike than their neighbors. They were traders in the centre of the Italian seacoast, and had to depend on discipline to make headway against marauders on the surrounding hills. Only when drawn into foreign conquest did the ascendency of the military spirit become complete, and then the military spirit brought despotism as its natural penalty. Brought into contact with varied races, Rome was led to the founding of colonies. She adopted and assimilated the nations which she conquered, and in governing them learned organization and law. _Parcere subjectis_ was her rule, as well as _debellare superbos_. In a similiar manner Goldwin Smith maintains that the greatness of England is due to position. Britain being an island, only a bold and enterprising race could settle it. Maritime migration strengthened freedom. Insular position gave freedom from invasion. Isolation however gave rise to arrogance and self-assertion. The island became a natural centre of commerce. There is a steadiness of political progress which would have been impossible upon the continent. Yet consolidation was tardy, owing to the fact that Great Britain consists of _several_ islands. Scotland was always liberal, and Ireland foredoomed to subjection. Isaac Taylor, Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, has a valuable chapter on Palestine as the providential theatre of divine revelation. A little land, yet a sample-land of all lands, and a thoroughfare between the greatest lands of antiquity, it was fitted by God to receive and to communicate his truth. George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land is a repertory of information on this subject. Stanley, Life and Letters, 1:269-271, treats of Greek landscape and history. Shaler, Interpretation of Nature, sees such difference between Greek curiosity and search for causes on the one hand, and Roman indifference to scientific explanation of facts on the other, that he cannot think of the Greeks and the Romans as cognate peoples. He believes that Italy was first peopled by Etrurians, a Semitic race from Africa, and that from them the Romans descended. The Romans had as little of the spirit of the naturalist as had the Hebrews. The Jews and the Romans originated and propagated Christianity, but they had no interest in science.