76 



NATURE 



{May 23, 1889 



just when we had relapsed into something like silence on 

 the point, and had agreed to put our views to the test of 

 practice, the debate was vigorously revived in the Father- 

 land. In part this was the effect of the sympathy and 

 of the supply of material for criticism which came across 

 the water, but in the main it was due to Dr. Gerland's 

 striking introduction to the first volume of the Strassburg 

 " Contributions to Geophysics." In the last Geographisches 

 Jahrbuch Dr. Wagner sums up both the English and the 

 German discussions, and, though he differs radically from 

 Dr. Gerland's fundamental positions, he gives to his essay 

 the place of honour. The clearness and richness of its style, 

 the closeness of its argument, the extreme and unhesitating 

 views it enunciates, and its author's great experience 

 command attention, and must be the excuse for once 

 more bringing an almost threadbare subject before 

 English readers. 



The three propositions which Dr. Gerland aims chiefly 

 at establishing are that geography has to deal not merely 

 with the earth's surface, or even the earth's crust, but 

 with the earth as a whole ; that the human element 

 should be shut out entirely from the view of the geo- 

 grapher, and that geography must be a single science 

 characterized by a single method of investigation, the 

 " mathematical-physical " to the exclusion of the " bio- 

 logical-historical." He defines the task of geography as 

 the study of the " interaction between the earth's interior 

 and the earth's surface," of the " interaction of the forces 

 connected with the earth's matter, and the arranging 

 and rearranging — the development — of the earth's matter 

 as a result of these forces ; " in a word of " the earth as 

 a whole," the surface being but the expression of the in- 

 terior. He enumerates five "geographical disciplines" — 

 mathematical geography, geophysics, Ldnderkunde , geo- 

 graphy of organisms, history of geography— and of these 

 geophysics is the most important. He regards mathe- 

 matics, physics, and geology, as the sciences auxiliary to 

 geography, but mathematics as the least dispensable. He 

 agrees with the views expressed in England in 1887, in 

 laying down the difference between geology and geography 

 as consisting not in the objects studied, which are to 

 a certain extent the same, but in the point of view from 

 which they are studied. After comparing the definitions 

 and programmes of geology according to Naumann, 

 Lapparent, Lyell, and Credner, he terms geography the 

 science of the forces of the earth as a whole {Krdfie 

 der Gesammterde) ; geology, that of the structure of the 

 earth's crust {Striictur der Erdrinde). It should be noted 

 that his Ldnderkunde is purely physical, the " special 

 part of geophysics " ; and that his geography of organ- 

 isms refuses to touch the organism man. He excludes 

 the human element, or, to use Ratzel's term, Anthropo- 

 geographie, from geography, on the grounds that, while 

 geography is a science auxiliary to history, the converse 

 is not true ; that geography would have two methods— 

 the " mathematical-physical-exact " and the " biological- 

 historical-conclusive " ; that mastery of the two methods 

 exceeds the power of one man, and that, as an educa- 

 tional discipline, geography loses force and logical co- 

 hesion owing to the mixture of the two methods. He 

 assigns anthropogeography to the historian, whose point 

 of view is that of the microcosm, man. 



Dr. Gerland claims for geography, as defined by him, 



that it is a single science, dealing with a homogeneous 

 mass of facts, with one method and a logical unity, 

 making it a true field for the investigator, and of value 

 to the teacher. His essay of fifty-four pages contains a 

 wealth of examples and of neat formulae which compel 

 admiration ; but it is questionable whether he does much 

 good with his chief positions. With Dr. Wagner, we are 

 disposed to think that he exaggerates the importance of 

 his point that the earth as a whole is the subject of 

 geography. He keenly combats the view that the sur- 

 face of the earth, the topographical, is the specific cha- 

 racteristic of geography. Yet surely the burden of what 

 has been recently said, on the part even of those who 

 hold this view, has been that you must not stop short at 

 the defining of relative position, but inquire into causes, 

 and those causes lie largely within the earth. But Dr. 

 Gerland's second position, his uncompromising exclusion 

 of the human element, has more substance. Bold though 

 he is, he has not dared to exclude the geography of (non- 

 human) organisms. Does not his inconsistency here 

 invalidate his programme? All through his essay one 

 fancies there is a certain undertone of contempt for the 

 merely probable results of anthropogeography. But are 

 the results of the investigation of the distribution of 

 animals at best more than highly probable ? Are they not 

 attained by the biological-historical-conclusive method? 

 Are they capable of mathematical expression or certainty ? 

 Again, is it fatal to geography that it is too much for one 

 man? Is any man equally master of all the methods of 

 any science ? Dr. Gerland is hardly fair to anthropogeo- 

 graphy. He says, "river and town are heterogeneous 

 conceptions which geography can never bind logically 

 together." Surely a river may be viewed under two 

 aspects — physical and human. It is part of a great circu- 

 lation beginning and ending in the ocean, and it is an 

 obstacle or an advantage, according to circumstances, to 

 human communication. Lines of human communication 

 and points of human settlement are not heterogeneous 

 conceptions. 



But the real seriousness of Dr. Gerland's contention lies 

 in its results in education ; indeed here only is it important. 

 You cannot hedge in the original investigator ; you cannot 

 forbid him to cultivate the march-lands which sever the 

 different fields of knowledge. You are only entitled to 

 define what you expect of a geographical teacher and 

 text-book. To exclude the human element would be 

 fatal to the early or general learning of geography. None 

 but mathematical specialists have the preliminary know- 

 ledge needed for Dr. Gerland's geography. It would be 

 equally bad to have two geographies, one for the school- 

 master, another for the professor, for it is just because 

 the Universities have neglected this subject that the * 

 school teaching has been so ineffectual. Logically,| 

 mathematical geography should no doubt come first, but 

 a teacher rarely does well to begin his teaching with the 

 first principles of his subject. H. J. Mackinder. 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 

 Gleanings from Japan. By W. G. Dickson. (Edinburgh] 



and London : W. Blackwood and Sons, 1889.) 

 After an interval of twenty years, Mr. Dickson revisitedj 

 Japan in 1883-84, and in the present volume he gives an] 

 account of what he saw. The book contains no very novelj 



