"He leadeth me beside the still waters," not the noisy rushing stream of the rainy lands, but the quiet desert pool that reflects the stars.

What real significance has the tropical radiance of the lotus flower, the sacred symbol of Buddhism, for the Mongolian lama in the cold and arid borders of Gobi or the wind-swept highlands of sterile Tibet?
And yet these exotic ideas live on, even if they no longer bloom in the uncongenial soil.

But to explain them in terms of their present environment would be indeed impossible.
[Sidenote: Partial response to environment] A people may present at any given time only a partial response to their environment also for other reasons.

This may be either because their arrival has been too recent for the new habitat to make its influence felt; or because, even after long residence, one overpowering geographic factor has operated to the temporary exclusion of all others.
Under these circumstances, suddenly acquired geographic advantages of a high order or such advantages, long possessed but tardily made available by the release of national powers from more pressing tasks, may institute a new trend of historical development, resulting more from stimulating geographic conditions than from the natural capacities or aptitudes of the people themselves.

Such developments, though often brilliant, are likely to be short-lived and to end suddenly or disastrously, because not sustained by a deep-seated national impulse animating the whole mass of the people.