Note 312 — Chapter VI · —Geographical Area

Of adjacent areas equally advanced in civilization and in density of population but of unequal size, the larger must dominate because its people have the resistance and aggressive force inherent in the larger mass. This is the explanation of the absorption of so many colonies and conquerors by the native races, when no great cultural abyss or race antagonism separates the two. The long rule of the Scandinavians in the Hebrides ended in their absorption by the local Gaelic stock, simply because their settlements were too small and the number of their women too few. The lowlands on the eastern coasts of Scotland accommodated larger bands of Norse, who even to-day can be distinguished from the neighboring Scotch of the Highlands; but on the rugged western coast, where only small and widely separated deltas at the heads of the fiords offered a narrow foothold to the invaders, their scattered ethnic islands were soon inundated by the contiguous population.312 The Teutonic elements, both English and Norwegian, which for centuries filtered into Ireland, have been swallowed up in the native Celtic stock, except where religious antagonisms served to keep the two apart. So the dominant Anglo-Saxon population of England was a solvent for the Norman French, and the densely packed humanity of China for their Manchu conquerors.