Influences of Geographic Environment

Influences of Geographic
Environment

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Title: Influences of Geographic Environment On the Basis of Ratzel's
System of Anthropo-Geography
Author: Ellen Churchill Semple
Release Date: March 8, 2005 [EBook #15293]
Language: english
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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INFLUENCES OF GEOGRAPHIC ENVIRONMENT ON THE
BASIS OF RATZEL'S SYSTEM OF ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY
BY ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE

TO THE MEMORY OF FRIEDRICH RATZEL
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars Repairing, in their golden urns
draw light. MILTON.

PREFACE
The present book, as originally planned over seven years ago, was to be
a simplified paraphrase or restatement of the principles embodied in
Friedrich Ratzel's _Anthropo-Geographie_. The German work is
difficult reading even for Germans. To most English and American
students of geographic environment it is a closed book, a
treasure-house bolted and barred. Ratzel himself realized "that any
English form could not be a literal translation, but must be adapted to
the Anglo-Celtic and especially to the Anglo-American mind." The
writer undertook, with Ratzel's approval, 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-geography on a
secure scientific basis. He had his forerunners in Montesquieu,
Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Ritter, 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
predecessors 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 always 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 reveals the mind of a seer or poet,
throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the face of
them convincing, 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.
Ratzel's work needed to be tested, verified. The only solution was to go
over the whole field from the beginning, 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 Ritter or a
Peschel.
The writer's own investigation revealed the fact that Ratzel's principles
of anthropo-geography did not constitute a complete, well-proportioned
system. Some aspects of the subject had been developed exhaustively,
these of course the most important; but others had been treated
inadequately, others were merely a hint or an inference, and yet others
were represented by an hiatus. It became necessary, therefor, to work

up certain important themes with a thoroughness commensurate with
their significance, to reduce the scale of others, and to fill up certain
gaps with original contributions to the science. Always it was necessary
to clarify the original statement, where that was adhered to, and to
throw it into the concrete form of expression demanded by the