Influences Of Geographic Environment On The Basis Of Ratzel's System OfAnthropo-Geography
By Ellen Churchill Semple
Author of "American History and Its Geographic Conditions"
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 bea simplified paraphrase or restatement of the principles embodied inFriedrich Ratzel's Anthropo-Geographie. The German work is difficultreading even for Germans. To most English and American students ofgeographic environment it is a closed book, a treasure-house bolted andbarred. Ratzel himself realized "that any English form could not be aliteral translation, but must be adapted to the Anglo-Celtic andespecially to the Anglo-American mind." The writer undertook, withRatzel's approval, to make such an adapted restatement of theprinciples, with a view to making them pass current where they are nowunknown. But the initial stages of the work revealed the necessity of aradical modification of the original plan.
Ratzel performed the great service of placing anthropo-geography on asecure scientific basis. He had his forerunners in Montesquieu,Alexander von Humboldt, Buckle, Ritter, Kohl, Peschel and others; but hefirst investigated the subject from the modern scientific point of view,constructed his system according to the principles of evolution, andbased his conclusions on world-wide inductions, for which hispredecessors did not command the data. To this task he brought thoroughtraining as a naturalist, broad reading and travel, a profound andoriginal intellect, and amazing fertility of thought. Yet the fieldwhich he had chosen was so vast, and its material so complex, that evenhis 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 testthe validity of his principles. He enunciates one brilliantgeneralization after another. Sometimes he reveals the mind of a seer orpoet, throwing out conclusions which are highly suggestive, on the faceof them convincing, but which on examination prove untenable, or atbest must be set down as unproven or needing qualification. But thesewere just the slag from the great furnace of his mind, slag not alwaysworthless. Brilliant and far-reaching as were his conclusions, he didnot execute a well-ordered plan. Rather he grew with his work, and hiswork and its problems grew with him. He took a mountain-top view ofthings, kept his eyes always on the far horizon, and in the splendidsweep of his scientific conceptions sometimes overlooked the detailsnear 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 goover the whole field from the beginning, making research for the data asfrom the foundation, and checking off the principles against the facts.This was especially necessary, because it was not always obvious thatRatzel had based his inductions on sufficiently broad data; and hispublished work had been open to the just criticism of inadequatecitation of authorities. It was imperative, moreover, that anyinvestigation of geographic environment for the English-speaking worldshould 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'sprinciples of