Science in Public Affairs 

 XIII 



It may be taken as a postulate of social geo- 

 graphy that every region contains the potency of 

 a city or cities, which shall be for that region, here 

 and now, its heaven or its hell. And in the com- 

 plexity of causes that lead to evolution towards 

 the ideal city or towards its negation, there is a 

 geographical factor awaiting discernment, analysis, 

 comparison with the other factors, and re-synthesis 

 into a synthetic conception. The traditional Civi- 

 tas, the Urbs Solis, and other similar Utopist 

 visions, have thus their necessary geographical 

 aspect, unless they are to be completely divorced 

 from reality. To the traveller (who is, of course, 

 an incipient geographer) one aspect at least of the 

 geographical factor is necessarily known. The 

 hard experience of the desert is, to the traveller, 

 a geographical prerequisite of the good time that 

 awaits him in Damascus ; and, if dispensing with 

 the geographical prerequisite, he attempts to make 

 his Damascus a perpetual Elysium, what happens ? 

 He is not long in discovering the reality of the 

 phenomenon known in archaic phrase as the 

 Fall, and he quickly discovers a vital connection 

 between geography and theology. Geography, 

 indeed, like every other science, has its element 

 to contribute to the reinterpretation and revitalis- 

 ing of religious phenomena. If it may be allowed 

 to a modest geographer to revise the judgment 

 of so great a theologian as St. Augustine, it would 

 be to point out the tenuity of his geographical 



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