ENVIRONMENTAL SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGISTS 11$ 



ing the territory which a people is likely to occupy, and the 

 boundaries which shall separate them from their neighbors." l 



" The geographical environment of a people," she continues, 

 " may be such as to segregate them from others, and thereby to 

 preserve or even intensify their natural characteristics; or it may 

 expose them to extraneous influences, to an infusion of new blood 

 and new ideas, till their peculiarities are toned down, their dis- 

 tinctive features of dialect or national dress or provincial cus- 

 toms eliminated, and the people as a whole approach to the 

 composite type of civilized humanity. A land shut off by moun- 

 tains or sea from the rest of the world tends to develop a homo- 

 geneous people. . . . An easily accessible land is geographically 

 hospitable to all newcomers, facilitates the mingling of peoples, the 

 exchange of commodities and ideas. The amalgamation of races 

 in such regions depends upon the similarity or diversity of the 

 ethnic elements and the duration of the common occupation." 2 



The remainder of the book is largely an elaboration of the gen- 

 eral outline given in the first two chapters and indicates a breadth 

 of vision, a wealth of material gleaned from numerous authorities, 

 and a general grasp of all the factors that enter into social life and 

 social progress, that is highly satisfactory. However potent a 

 factor struggle and selection may be, even these, as Miss Semple 

 has so clearly shown, are largely determined by environmental 

 influences. 



William Z. Ripley (1867- ) 



Race and Environment 



Professor Ripley's Races in Europe forms a fitting conclusion to 

 this part of our discussion for it represents a synthesis of the views 

 of those emphasizing the all-sufficiency of selection to explain 

 race progress and those stressing the potency of physical environ- 

 ment. " Nature," he says, " sets the life lines for the savage in 

 climate; she determines his movements, stimulates or restrains 

 his advance in culture by providing or withholding the materials 

 necessary for such advance." 3 His investigations based on 



1 Influence of Geographic Environment, p. 44. 



2 Ibid., p. 45. 3 Races in Europe, p. 10. 



