These are the fibers of the land which become woven into the whole fabric of the nation's life.

These are the geographic elements constituting the soil in which empires are rooted; they rise in the sap of the nation.
[Sidenote: Strength of the land bond in the state.] The geographic basis of a state embodies a whole complex of physical conditions which may influence its historical development.

The most potent of these are its size and zonal location; its situation, whether continental or insular, inland or maritime, on the open ocean or an enclosed sea; its boundaries, whether drawn by sea, mountain, desert or the faint demarking line of a river; its forested mountains, grassy plains, and arable lowlands; its climate and drainage system; finally its equipment with plant and animal life, whether indigenous or imported, and its mineral resources.

When a state has taken advantage of all its natural conditions, the land becomes a constituent part of the state,[105] modifying the people which inhabit it, modified by them in turn, till the connection between the two becomes so strong by reciprocal interaction, that the people cannot be understood apart from their land.

Any attempt to divide them theoretically reduces the social or political body to a cadaver, valuable for the study of structural anatomy after the method of Herbert Spencer, but throwing little light upon the vital processes.
[Sidenote: Weak land tenure of hunting and pastoral tribes.] A people who makes only a transitory or superficial use of its land has upon it no permanent or secure hold.