104 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



speak, except to give it its place in relation to what has been already said. 

 Historical geography is essentially human geography in its evolutionary 

 aspects. It is concerned with the evolution of the relations of human 

 groups to their physical environment and with the development of inter- 

 regional relations as conditioned by geographical circumstances. It has 

 the same aspects and is permeated by the same concepts as human 

 geography. The primary object is not, as has been too often supposed, 

 to explain historical events as determined by geographical conditions, but, 

 on the other hand, historical geography is far more than history illustrated 

 by a few maps. It is the critical study of an interaction and adjustment, 

 whether exhibited in the history of settlements, land-utilisation, com- 

 mercial and cultural relations or in the evolution and relationship of 

 administrative units and states. As such, it is to human geography what 

 history in the accepted sense is to politics or, as it is often called, con- 

 temporary history, an explanation, so far as it can be given, of how the 

 existing position has been reached, the demonstration of the present as a 

 phase in the whole process of becoming. It demands, and this is at once 

 one of its most difficult and one of its most attractive aspects, the recon- 

 struction of the physical setting of the stage in the different phases of 

 development. It is, indeed, particularly concerned with tracing that 

 ' changing expression which the appearance of the earth assumes ' as 

 modified by human action in all its manifestations. No study can be more 

 truly illuminating, and without some knowledge of it as a background 

 the significance of many modern problems of human geography is indeed 

 hard to grasp. Between the ' time-line ' of history and the ' space- 

 circle ' of geography, to use Brunhes' expression, there can be no arbitrary 

 separation without grave loss to both, and there are welcome signs that 

 historians and geographers are beginning to understand the basis of their 

 co-operation. 



We may claim for human geography that, rightly studied, it is a vital 

 element in training for national and international citizenship. It can 

 enable us ' accurately to imagine the conditions of the great world stage ' 

 and the place of the different regions within it. It is a valuable mental 

 discipline, calling for an exact sense of proportion in appraising the value 

 of many factors and more specifically developing the great quality of 

 sympathetic understanding. The point of view and type of outlook which 

 it fosters were never more needed than in the present critical stage of human 

 development. Yet, not only through its value as an educational instru- 

 ment, but also through the programme of constructive work which it 

 advocates, can it contribute to the realisation of the ideal of ' unity in 

 diversity,' and that seems the only possible ideal for the life of humanity 

 on a planet, which, however small applied science may make it,* will 

 always retain its infinite variety. 



