256 WORK OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 
peoples come and go, tiuit cities are founded and sometimes 
abandoned, that nations arise and pass away, and the statistician 
records the facts as the early geographer described forms and posi- 
tions, while the historian records the successive stages as the 
medieval geogra[)her noted stages in the wandering of an over- 
loaded river ; but the descri{>tion, he it formal or historical, is de- 
scription merely, and too rarely reaches the plane of science. 
The one thing needful in modern geograph}’’ is suggested by the 
advance made through the new geology ; it is definite recognition of 
the causes and conditions by which human progress is shaped. When 
this fundamental })rinciple is grasped, dead statistics and musty 
history will he vivified, just as the dead earth-forms have been im- 
bued with living interest, and human geography will rise to the 
])lane of science. Now, the first requisite for improvement is 
recognition of need, and the common need of geography and 
anthropology is so keenly felt by a number of students as to sug- 
gest the future, and it may clearly be foreseen that future students 
will extend and apply our ever-increasing knowledge of cause 
and effect to Imman progress. Statistics and history recorded 
in monuments and letters, paintings and gravings furnish the 
re(piisite data of form and position and succession, and may be 
molded into attractive form, I)ut nothing less than definite recog- 
nition of tlie forces by which the successive stages grew will in- 
fuse the breath of life into this body of knowledge. 
So it may be predicted that the geogra|)hy of the future will 
be devoted primarily to research concerning the forces of the 
earth, including those affecting peoi)les and institutions as well 
as those shaping land-forms and molding faunas and floras, and 
that industries, arts, commerce, laws, governments, religions, even 
civilization itself, will eventually fall within the domain of defi- 
nitely organized science and become incorporated in geography. 
Tlie prediction is easy and safe because the geography of the 
l)resent is already on the higher plane with respect to the inor- 
ganic j)art of its object-matter, is well advanced toward this plane 
with respect to the evolution of organisms, and looks up to the 
same ])lane with respect to the courses and causes of human 
organization; the fulfillment of the prediction will be simply 
the consummation 'of present progress. 
THE PURPOSES AXD METHODS OF THE SOCIETY 
It is the purpose of the National Geographic Society to increase 
and diffuse geographic knowledge growing out of research as well 
