By the West I mean those peoples and cultures which, in addition to customs, usages and ideas stemming severally from their native soil, trace genetically their systems of valuation, their ways of life and their civilization in general, to Greece, Rome and Christianity. All the roots originated in Greece and the Near East, but the taking over, the tending and developing, and the blooming took place in regions and by peoples beyond, both north and west. The compactness of the land mass of Europe west of the Ural Mountains and including of course the British Isles and the possibilities of transmission and interchange inherent in the Mediterranean supplied over the millennia the physical base for this entire development. In relation to India and China — the proper East — it would therefore be correct to designate this civilization as "Mediterranean-Western."