RELATION OF GEOGRAPHY TO THE SCIENCES 5 1 



such even the first of great modern geographers, Alexander von Hum- 

 boldt, considered it. He was probably the first to point out that the 

 different special natural sciences needed to be supplemented by a gen- 

 eralizing science which should bring together the isolated results of the 

 others and trace from them the general features of the world. He said 

 that the results of scientific research should be considered in their vast 

 relations to mankind, and showed that geography does this. More 

 recently Karl Ritter, another of the founders of the modern German 

 school of geography, has adopted as a liberal translation of "geography" 

 the word Erdkunde, which may be defined as "knowledge of the 

 earth." By this he means that geography is not so much a mere 

 description as a subject full of scientific problems requiring solution. 



Lieutenant-General R. Strachey, one of the pioneer English- 

 men in modern geographic methods, has said : " I therefore claim for 

 geography, in the sense that I have spoken of it, a place among' the 

 natural sciences, as supplying the needful medium through which to 

 obtain a connected and consistent conception of the earth and what' is 

 on it, on the importance of which I have already insisted. In this ' 

 respect the position of geography may be looked on as analogous to 

 that of mathematics." Another Englishman, Professor H. F. Tozer, 

 who is primarily a student of the historical side of geography, claims 

 that geography " is the most central in its position of all the sciences, 

 standing as it does half-way between history, sociology > and the Cther 

 studies which relate to man, on the one side, and those which^deal 

 with the composition of the earth, which is his dwelling-place, such as 

 geology, on the other ; so the history of geography, especially that of 

 its earlier stages, when these cognate subjects were still in .their 

 infancy, is fruitful in information relating to them." Still another 

 English geographer, Professor E. C. K. Gonner, in considering com- 

 mercial geography, describes geography as " a study of the environ- 

 ments of man." He holds that its function is to observe, arrange, and 

 describe the physical conditions under which man li\j£s, and to indi- 

 cate the part which these conditions play in determinftig the course of 

 his development and the nature of his occupation. i 



Finally, reference might be made to the writings of Powell, Richt- 

 hofen, and Davis, among the more prominent of the modern School 

 of so-called physical geographers, in which may be found conceptions 

 of geography in its special relation to geology and meteorology* or 

 to the writings of R£clus, who emphasizes the ethnologic side of 



