ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 1 07 



of Europe than in the wildest region of a barbarous country." * 

 He discredits all theories of hereditary transmission of virtues and 

 vices, even madness, but fails to discriminate between acquired 

 and inborn variations. 2 " Here then," he says, " is the gist 

 of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal power, 

 but of external advantage." 3 



This does not mean that Buckle was not a believer in the 

 general theory of evolution but biological evolution with him 

 stopped with the physical basis of primitive man and all further 

 development was the result of environment and education. 



With Buckle there are two separate realms, nature, with its 

 laws of development, and the mind, with its laws. These two 

 realms somehow interact but he makes no attempt to get at the 

 real nexus. " On the one hand we have the human mind obeying 

 the laws of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled by external 

 agents, developing itself according to the conditions of its organ- 

 ization. On the other hand, we have what is called nature, 

 obeying likewise its laws; but incessantly coming into contact 

 with the minds of men, exciting their passions, stimulating their 

 intellect, and therefore giving to their actions a direction which 

 they would not have taken without such disturbance." 4 "When 

 we consider the incessant contact between man and the external 

 world," he says, " it is certain that there must be an intimate 

 connection between human actions and physical laws," and he 

 looks forward to a time when physical science shall show the 

 connection. 6 



His chief contribution to our subject is in his contrast between 

 those sections of the earth where man is dominated by his environ- 

 ment and where civilization is thus a product of the interplay of 

 forces unguided by intelligence, as in Egypt and India, thus 

 illustrating passive adaptation, and those sections of the earth 

 where the environment has stimulated the development of the in- 

 tellect until man controls nature in the interest of his highest well- 

 being as in western Europe, thus illustrating active adaptation. 



1 In this he deserves great credit as being the forerunner of Ward, Kidd, Boas, 

 Angell, and a host of other modern sociologists. 2 Op. tit., p. 161. 



* Op. cit., p. 162. * Op. cit., p. 19. 6 Op. cit., p. 32. 



