Guyot on Carl Bitter. 49 



him a shaping influence, in the time of his full growth and 

 manful activity, it becomes in his practised hands, and under 

 the guidance of his commanding mind, an instrumentality 

 for higher purposes and for the performance of that work of in- 

 tellectual and moral development to which mankind is called, 

 and which is the normal end of this earthly economy. Con- 

 sidered under this new aspect, every portion of our globe, 

 stamped by nature with a peculiar character, assumes a new 

 meaning and a new importance. As the body is made for the 

 soul, so is the physical globe made for mankind. In an or- 

 ganic body the disposition of the parts, the structure of the 

 organs, cannot be accounted for except by the functions which 

 they are destined to perform. So in the globe, the geographi- 

 cal forms, the size, the peculiarities of structure, of climate, the 

 natural associations of plants and animals which characterize 

 each of the continents, and of the well-defined physical re- 

 gions of our planet, have no intelligible meaning, no obvious 

 reason of existing in that particular shape, unless their final 

 object is revealed by their powerful influence in shaping the de- 

 velopment of the races and nations which live within their 

 bounds, and by the use that those nations made of them as in- 

 struments of their activity in the common life of mankind. 



This organic idea, if you will allow me the expression, is 

 the new principle which is to substitute order for confusion, in 

 that overwhelming mass of geographical, physical, and ethno- 

 graphical details of which Geography then consisted. To the 

 necessity of such a principle Bitter, doubtless, alludes, when 

 selecting for the epigraph of the " Erdkunde," this word of. the 

 reformer of modern science, Lord Bacon, " Citius emergit 

 Veritas ex errore quam ex confusione." This organic idea 

 substitutes beautiful, intelligible symmetry, for unmeaning, 

 casual arrangement ; law for accident ; relations of cause and 

 effect for disconnectedness ; unity for isolation. It gives us a 

 criterion for judging of the value of each detail, and of the rel- 

 ative importance of each order of facts, which can only be 

 determined by their relation to the whole. Fully carried out, 

 it would give us a clear picture, and the true measure of the 

 powerful influence of that constant factor of nature in the 

 ever-changing life and relations of human societies through all 

 historical ages. Nay, when casting a glance at that vast 

 scene prepared by Providence for the moving drama of his- 

 tory, and seeing so many compartments, admirably arranged 

 and ready, it seems, for any emergency, in which as yet no 

 performance has taken place, are we not justified in believing 



