Influences of Geographic Environment

l, to make such an adapted restatement of the principles, with a view to making them pass current where they are now unknown. But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of a radical modification of the original plan. Ratzel performed the great service of placing anthropo gcography on a secure scientific basis. He had his fore runners in Montesquieu, Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Rittcr, Kohl, Peschel and others but he first investigated the subject from the modern scientific point of view, constructed his system according to the principles of evolution, and based his conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which his pre decessors did not command the data. To this task he brought thorough training as a naturalist, broad reading and travel, a profound and original intellect, and amazing fertility of thought. Yet the field which he had chosen was so vast, and its material so complex, that even his big mental grasp could not wholly compass it. His conclusions, therefore, are not al ways exhaustive or final. Moreover, the very fecundity of his ideas often left him no time to test the validity of his principles. He enunciates one brilliant generalization after another. Sometimes he re veals the mind of a seer or poet, throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the face of them convincing, vi PREFACE but which on examination prove untenable, or at best must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But these were just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not always worthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he did not execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and his work and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view of things, kept his eyes always on the far horizon, and in the splendid sweep of his scientific conceptions sometimes overlooked the details near at hand. Herein lay his greatness and his limitation. These facts brought the writer face to face with a serious problem. RatzePs work needed to be tested, verified. The only solution was to go over the whole field from the begin ning, making research for the data as from the foundation, and checking off the principles against the facts. This was especially necessary, because it was not always obvious that Ratzel had based his inductions on sufficiently broad data and his published work had been open to the just criticism of inadequate citation of authorities. It was imperative, moreover, that any investigation of geographic environment for the English-speaking world should meet its public well supported both by facts and authorities, because that public had not previously known a Rittcr or a Pcschcl. The writers own investigation revealed the fact that Rat zePs principles of anthropo-geography did not constitute a complete, well-proportioned system...