Febkuakt 19, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



273 



"familiar with the whole earth," as de- 

 manded by Eatzel,*" not in detail, but 

 broadly familiar with causal principles and 

 their regional illustration. Then let him 

 know the methods and results of history, 

 or of sociology, or of anthropology, or of 

 some phase of one of these. Then he can 

 cooperate in that study of environmental 

 influence which must be common ground 

 for all. 



All this has its bearing on the higher edu- 

 cation, for every human geographer should 

 have his minor studies in some other sci- 

 ence of man, and no young historian should 

 be allowed to escape who is not grounded 

 in the principles of physical geography 

 and who has not looked through the geog- 

 rapher's eye at the impress made by nature 

 on man. 



Sociology is a science which equally with 

 geography has aroused skepticism concern- 

 ing its right to be called a science. Be that 

 as it may, its devotees occupy ground which 

 stretches into historical territory, on the 

 one hand, and geographical and anthro- 

 pological on the other. This is conceded 

 by Small. 



The comprehensive science has the task of or- 

 ganizing details which may already have been 

 studied separately by several varieties of 

 scholars.*! 



The same author sets forth the influence 

 of nature with an emphasis which if used 

 by the geographer might call down a charge 

 of excessive claim. 



Nature sets our tasks, and doles out our wages, 

 and prescribes our working hours and tells us 

 when and how much we may play or learn or fight 

 or pray. Life is an affair of adjusting ourselves 

 to material, matter-of-fact, inexorable nature.*^ 



Small does not think we yet have an ade- 

 quate story of the operation of cosmic laws 



40 ' ' Studies in Political Areas, ' ' Am. Jour. Soc, 

 3, 302. 



"■A. W. Smallj "General Sociology," 7. 

 i2lUd., 408. 



in determining the course of human devel- 

 opment. 



Mr. E. C. Hayes, in a paper in the 

 American Journal of Sociology, ^^ discusses 

 the relation of geography to sociology and 

 the definition and scope of geography. He 

 seems disposed to think that stating the 

 effects of geographic conditions on social 

 phenomena will be an integral part of 

 sociology, but thinks 



it will still remain true that no science but geog- 

 raphy describes the regions of the earth by bring- 

 ing together into one description all the various 

 facts separately studied by tlie different sciences.** 



It is fair to say that only the geographer 

 can know the physical conditions in a broad 

 and deep way. It is just as fair to expect 

 the sociologist to be superior in the strictly 

 human field. But neither can dismiss the 

 other, nor prescribe a legitimate boundary 

 line of research. And there is always the 

 possibility of a genius equally at home in 

 both fields, scorning all petty frontiers of 

 our so-called sciences, fusing and recreating 

 the data and conclusions of lesser men, and 

 recording for all time those large general- 

 izations of which we dream and for which 

 we strive. 



After all that can be said on the rela- 

 tions of geography to other subjects, I am 

 content to come back to a confessedly gen- 

 eral, but safe and truthful word by James 

 Bryee. 



Geography is the point of contact between the 

 sciences of nature taken all together and the 

 branches of inquiry which deal with man and his 

 institutions. 



I think it is a sociologist, Ward, who 

 likens the progress of science to the progress 

 of a prairie fire. No doubt he means that 

 it moves irregularly but surely. The figure 

 is not altogether good, as indeed no figure 

 is, for we do not move with a rush, neither 



*3Vol. 14, 371-407. 

 a Hid., 400. 



