INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT 3 



may obviously be discussed independently either from 

 the scientific or from the historical side. Any investiga- 

 tion which deals with the changes that have taken place 

 in the outward aspect of a country since man first set 

 foot upon its surface, and with the sources of informa- 

 tion regarding them, must obviously appeal strongly to 

 the lover of science, inasmuch as it brings before him 

 the evidence for various kinds of geological process, 

 the actual operation and rate of progress of which he 

 may thereby be enabled to watch and determine. It 

 may thus be made to throw light upon one of the vexed 

 problems of science — the value of time in geological 

 inquiry. But it is of the relations of such an investi- 

 gation to human history that I would first more par- 

 ticularly speak. Such inquiries seem to me eminently 

 calculated to engage the sympathies and even the active 

 co-operation of literary students. There can be no 

 doubt that the advancement of our knowledge of the 

 mutations of the land since the beginning of history 

 must depend largely upon help from the study of 

 historical documents. 



No long series of years has passed since the truth V 

 was recognised that man is in large measure the creature 

 of his environment ; that his material progress and 

 mental development have been guided and modified 

 by the natural conditions in which he has been placed. 

 The full extent and application of this truth, however, 

 are perhaps not even yet comprehended. If the sur- 

 rounding and limiting conditions have been such potent 

 factors in human development, we may well believe 

 that any serious change or modification in them can- 

 not but have reacted upon man. If nature alters her 



