n6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



can only become a science when human events are recognized as phe- 

 nomena. When we say that they are due to the actions of men, there 

 lurks in the word 'actions' the ghost of the old doctrine of free will, 

 which, in its primitive form, asserts that any one may either perform a 

 given action or not according as he may will. From this point of 

 view it is not supposed that any event in human history need have 

 occurred. If the men whose actions caused it had willed otherwise it 

 would not have occurred. 



The scientific view of history is that human events are phenomena 

 of the same general character as other natural phenomena, only more 

 complex and difficult to study on account of the subtle psychic causes 

 that so largely produce them. It has been seen more or less clearly 

 by the men I have named and by many others that there must be causes, 

 and the philosophy of history that gradually emerged from the chaos 

 of existing history was simply an attempt to ascertain some of these 

 causes and to show how they produced the effects. To those who make 

 the philosophy of history coextensive with sociology this is all that 

 sociology implies. Certainly it was the first and most essential step 

 in the direction of establishing a science of society. The tendency at 

 first was strong to discover in the environment the chief cause of social 

 variation, and some authors sought to expand the term climate to 

 include all this. This doctrine was of course carried too far, as shown 

 by the saying that 'mountains make freemen while lowlands make 

 slaves/ It was found that this was only half of the truth, that it 

 took account only of the objective environment, while an equally 

 potent factor is the subjective environment: ccelum non animum 

 mutant qui trans mare currunt. Character, however acquired, is diffi- 

 cult to change and must be reckoned with in any attempt to interpret 

 human events. Thus expanded, the study of society from this point of 

 view becomes a true science, and recently it has been given the 

 appropriate name of mesology. The great influence of climate and 

 physical conditions must be fully recognized. It reaches back into the 

 domain of ethnology and physiology and doubtless explains the color 

 of the skin, the character of the hair, and the general physical nature of 

 the different races of men. The psychic effects of the environment are 

 scarcely less important, and the qualities of courage, love of liberty, 

 industry and thrift, ingenuity and intelligence, are all developed by 

 contact with restraining influences adapted to stimulating them and 

 not so severe as to check their growth. 



The social effects are still more marked. We first see them in the 

 phenomena of migration and settlement and the ways in which men 

 adapt themselves to the conditions, resources and general character of 

 the region they may chance to occupy. The question asked by the 

 traditional boy in the geography class, why the large rivers all run 



