The family needs firm ground under its feet. Industry needs the sea.

What does the sea mean?

Trade across the sea is a risk. Whoever sends out a ship puts his profit at stake. Storms, pirates, shipwreck. Precisely through this, he rises above mere greed for gain. He lets go of clinging to his own clod of earth. Instead of narrowness, there is movement, danger and possible ruin.

A great connection:

The sea links distant lands. It brings them into trade with one another, and into contracts too. In this lies a great means of culture. And here trade has its meaning for world history.

Rivers and seas do not divide:

The poet Horace thought that a god had divided the lands by the ocean. That is wrong. Rivers and seas connect people. The Greeks on both coasts of their sea show this. Or Denmark and Norway. Often the people on the coast have closer ties with those across the sea than with those inland.

The other side:

Peoples who forbade themselves seafaring, like the Egyptians and the Indians, have grown dull inside. They have sunk into the most dreadful and shameful superstition. All great, striving peoples press toward the sea.

Summary: For industry, the sea is what the soil is for the family. It connects peoples and educates them. Great peoples press toward the sea.