534 



NA TURE 



[September 26, 1901 



It is of vital interest to trace the re-formation of the theory of 

 geography after its interruption in the Middle Ages. The frag- 

 ments of the old Greek lore were cemented together by new and 

 plastic thoughts, crudely enough by Apian, Gemma Frisius, and 

 Sebastian Munster in the sixteenth century, but with increasing 

 strength and completeness by Cluverius, Carpenter, and \'arenius 

 in the seventeenth. 



The First Osford Geographer. 



The names of Cluverius and Varenius are familiar to every 

 historian of geography, but that of Carpenter, I am afraid, is 

 now brought to the notice of many geographical students for the 

 first time. He was not so great as \'arenius, but he was the first 

 British geographer to write on theoretical geography as distin- 

 guished from mathematical treatises on navigation or the 

 repetition of narratives of travel, and I think that there is evidence 

 to show that his work had an influence on his great Dutch 

 ■contemporary. 



Nathanael Carpenter, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 

 published his book in 1625 under the title — 



" Geographie delineated forth in two Bookes. Containing the 

 Sphericall and Topicall parts thereof," and with the motto from 

 Ecclesiastes on its title-page — 



" One generation commeth, and another goeth, but the Earth 

 remayneth for ever." 



The great merits of Carpenter's treatise are his firm grasp of 

 the relation of one part of geography to another, his skilful 

 blending of the solid part of the work of Aristotle and Ptolemy 

 ■with that of the explorers and investigators of his own genera- 

 tion, and the wholesome common-sense that dominates his 

 reasoning. His definition is comprehensive and precise. 



"Geographie is a science which teacheth the description of 

 the whole Earth. The Nature of Geographie is well expressed 

 in the name : For Geographie resolved according to the Greeke 

 Etymologie signifieth as much as a description of the Earth ; so 

 that it differs from Cosmographie, as a part from the whole. 

 Forasmuch as Cosmographie according to the name is a de- 

 scription of the whole world, comprehending under it as well 

 Geographie as Aslrouomie. Ilowbeit, I confesse, that amongst 

 the ancient Writers, Cosmography has been taken for one and 

 the self-same science with Geographie as may appeare by sundry 

 treatises meerely Geographicall, yet intituled by the name of 

 Cosmographie.^^ 



The differences held by Ptolemy to distinguish geography 

 from chorography Carpenter shows to be merely accidental, not 

 essential, and as to geography he says " It is properly tearmed 

 a Siience, because it proposeth to it selfe no other end but 

 knowledge ; whereas those faculties are commonly tearmed 

 Arts, which are not contented with a bare knowledge or specu- 

 lation, but are directed to some farther work or action. But 

 here a doubt seems to arise, whether this Science be to be 

 esteemed Pliysicall or Mathematicain Wee answer, that in a 

 Science two things are to bee considered : first, the matter or 

 object whereabout it is conversant ; secondly, the manner of 

 handling and explication : For the former no doubt can bee 

 made but that the object in Geographie is for the most part 

 Physicall consisting of the parts whereof the Spheare is com- 

 posed ; but for the manner of Explication it is not pure but 

 mixt ; as in the former part Mathematical/, in the second rather 

 Historicail; whence the whole Science may be alike tearmed 

 both J\/athematica/i and Historical ; not in respect of the 

 snliject which we have said to be Physicall but in the manner of 

 Explication.'' 



Although somewhat diffuse in expression, the meaning of these 

 statements is clear and sound, and to the British public as new 

 now as it was in the days of King Charles. The book treats of 

 mathematical geography and cartography, of magnetism, 

 climates, the nature of places, of hydrography, including the 

 sea, rivers, lakes and fountains, of mountains, valleys and woods, 

 o( islands and continents, and at considerable length of people 

 and the way in which they are influenced by the land in which 

 they live. Whether Dr. Carpenter lectured on geography in 

 Oxford I do not know, but his book must have acquired a 

 •certain currency, for a second edition appeared in 1635, and it 

 seems probable that it was known to Varenius. 



Varenius and Nemton. 



Varenius, a young man who died at twenty-eight, produced in 



Latin asingle small volume published in 1650, which is a model 



of conciseness of expression and logical arrangement well worthy 



NO. 1665, VOL. 64] 



even now of literal translation into English. So highly was it 

 thought of at the time that Sir Isaac Newton brought out an 

 annotated Latin edition at Cambridge in 1672.' The opening 

 definition as rendered in the English translation of 1733 (a work 

 spoilt in most places by a parasitic growth of notes and inter- 

 polations) runs : — 



" Geogra])hy is that part of mixed mathematics which ex- 

 plains the state of the earth and of its parts, depending on quantity, 

 viz. its figure, place, magnitude and motion with the celestial 

 appearances, &c. By some it is taken in too limited a sense, 

 for a bare description of the several countries ; and by others 

 too extensively, who along with such a description would have 

 their political constitution." 



Varenius produced a framework of Physical Geography 

 capable of including new facts of discovery as they arose, and it 

 is no wonder that his work, although but a part, ruled unchal- 

 lenged as the standard text-book of pure geography for more 

 than a century. He laid stress on the causes and effects of 

 phenomena as well as the mere fact of their occurrence, and he 

 clearly recognised the vast importance upon diff'erent distribu- 

 tions of the vertical relief of the land. He did not treat of 

 human relations in geography, but, under protest, gave a scheme 

 for discussing them as a concession to popular demands. 



Kant. 



As Isaac Newton, the mathematician, had turned his attention 

 to geography at Cambridge in the earlier part of the eighteenth 

 century, so Immanuel Kant, the philosopher, lectured on the 

 same subject at Kcinigsberg in the later part. The fame of 

 Kant as a metaphysician has defrauded him of much of the 

 honour that is his due as a man of science. As Prof. Hastie 

 puts it : " His earlier scientific work, like an inner planet 

 merged in light, was thus almost entirely lost sight of in the 

 blaze of his later philosophical splendour." 



Kant, it will be remembered, considered that the communica- 

 tion of experience from one person to another fell into two 

 categories, the historical and the geographical : that is to say, 

 descriptions in order of time or in order of space. The science 

 of geography he considered to be fundamentally physical, but 

 physical geography formed the introduction and key to all other 

 possible geographies, of which he enumerated five : mathematical, 

 concerned with the form, size, and movements of the earth and 

 its place in the solar system ; moral, taking account of the 

 customs and characters of mankind according to their physical 

 surroundings ; political, concerning the divisions of the land into 

 the territories of organised governments ; mercantile, or, as we 

 now call it, commercial geography ; and theological, which took 

 account of the distribution of religions. It is not so much the 

 cleavage of geography into five branches, all springing from 

 physical geography like the fingers from a hand, which is 

 worthy of remark, but rather the recognition of the interaction 

 of the conditions of physical geography with all other geo- 

 graphical conditions. The scheme of geography thus acquired 

 a unity and a flexibility which it had not previously attained, 

 but Kant's views have never received wide recognition. If his 

 geographical lectures have been translated no English or French 

 edition has come under my notice, and such currency as they 

 obtained in Germany was checked by the more concrete and 

 brilliant work of Humboldt, and the teleological system 

 elaborated in overwhelming detail by Ritter. 



The teleological views of Ritter were substantially those of 

 Paley. The world, he found, fitted its inhabitants so well that 

 it was obviously made for them down to the minutest detail. 

 The theory was one peculiarly acceptable in the early decades 

 of the nineteenth century, and it had the immensely important 

 result of leading men to view the earth as a great unit with all 

 its parts coordinated to one end. It gave a philosophical, we 

 may even say a theological, character to the study of geography. 



Kant's views had pointed to such a unity, but from another 

 side, that of evolution. It was not till after Charles Darwin 

 had fully restored the doctrine of evolution to modern thought 

 that it was forced upon thinking men that the fitness of the 

 earth to its inhabitants might result, not from its being made for 

 them, but from their having been shaped by it. It is certain 

 that the influence of the terrestrial environment upon the life of 



1 Dugdale, in the introduction to the English translation published in 

 1733, states explicitly that Newton produced his version for the benefit of 

 the students attending his lectures "on the same subject" from the 

 chair ; but we have been unable to find any more satisfactory 

 that Newton actually lectured on geography at Cambridge. 



