Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

GEOFFRIN, MARIE THERESE RODET (1699-1777), a Frenchwoman who played an interesting part in French literary and artistic life, was born in Paris in 1699. She married, on the 19th of July 1713, Pierre Francois Geoffrin, a rich manufacturer and lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard, who died in 1750. It was not till Mme Geoffrin was nearly fifty years of age that we begin to hear of her as a power in Parisian society. She had learned much from Mme de Tencin, and about 1748 began to gather round her a literary and artistic circle. She had every week two dinners, on Monday for artists, and on Wednesday for her friends the Encyclopaedists and other men of letters. She received many foreigners of distinction, Hume and Horace Walpole among others. Walpole spent much time in her society before he was finally attached to Mme du Deffand, and speaks of her in his letters as a model of common sense. She was indeed somewhat of a small tyrant in her circle. She had adopted the pose of an old woman earlier than necessary, and her coquetry, if such it can be called, took the form of being mother and mentor to her guests, many of whom were indebted to her generosity for substantial help. Although her aim appears to have been to have the _Encyclopedie_ in conversation and action around her, she was extremely displeased with any of her friends who were so rash as to incur open disgrace. Marmontel lost her favour after the official censure of _Belisaire_, and her advanced views did not prevent her from observing the forms of religion. A devoted Parisian, Mme Geoffrin rarely left the city, so that her journey to Poland in 1766 to visit the king, Stanislas Poniatowski, whom she had known in his early days in Paris, was a great event in her life. Her experiences induced a sensible gratitude that she had been born "_Francaise_" and "_particuliere_." In her last illness her daughter, Therese, marquise de la Ferte Imbault, excluded her mother's old friends so that she might die as a good Christian, a proceeding wittily described by the old lady: "My daughter is like Godfrey de Bouillon, she wished to defend my tomb from the infidels." Mme Geoffrin died in Paris on the 6th of October 1777.

See _Correspondance inedite du roi Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski et de
Madame Geoffrin_, edited by the comte de Mouy (1875); P. de Segur, _Le
Royaume de la rue Saint-Honore, Madame Geoffrin et sa fille_ (1897);
A. Tornezy, _Un Bureau d'esprit au XVIII^e siecle: le salon de Madame
Geoffrin_ (1895); and Janet Aldis, _Madame Geoffrin, her Salon and her
Times, 1750-1777_ (1905).

GEOFFROY, ETIENNE FRANCOIS (1672-1731), French chemist, born in Paris on the 13th of February 1672, was first an apothecary and then practised medicine. After studying at Montpellier he accompanied Marshal Tallard on his embassy to London in 1698 and thence travelled to Holland and Italy. Returning to Paris he became professor of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi and of pharmacy and medicine at the College de France, and dean of the faculty of medicine. He died in Paris on the 6th of January 1731. His name is best known in connexion with his tables of affinities (_tables des rapports_), which he presented to the French Academy in 1718 and 1720. These were lists, prepared by collating observations on the actions of substances one upon another, showing the varying degrees of affinity exhibited by analogous bodies for different reagents, and they retained their vogue for the rest of the century, until displaced by the profounder conceptions introduced by C.L. Berthollet. Another of his papers dealt with the delusions of the philosopher's stone, but nevertheless he believed that iron could be artificially formed in the combustion of vegetable matter. His _Tractatus de materia medica_, published posthumously in 1741, was long celebrated.

His brother CLAUDE JOSEPH, known as Geoffroy the younger (1685-1752), was also an apothecary and chemist who, having a considerable knowledge of botany, devoted himself especially to the study of the essential oils in plants.

GEOFFROY, JULIEN LOUIS (1743-1814), French critic, was born at Rennes in 1743. He studied in the school of his native town and at the College Louis le Grand in Paris. He took orders and fulfilled for some time the humble functions of an usher, eventually becoming professor of rhetoric at the _College Mazarin_. A bad tragedy, Caton, was accepted at the _Theatre Francais_, but was never acted. On the death of Elie Freron in 1776 the other collaborators in the _Annee litteraire_ asked Geoffroy to succeed him, and he conducted the journal until in 1792 it ceased to appear. Geoffroy was a bitter critic of Voltaire and his followers, and made for himself many enemies. An enthusiastic royalist, he published with Freron's brother-in-law, the abbe Thomas Royou (1741-1792), a journal, _L'Ami du roi_ (1790-1792), which possibly did more harm than good to the king's cause by its ill-advised partisanship. During the Terror Geoffroy hid in the neighbourhood of Paris, only returning in 1799. An attempt to revive the _Annee litteraire_ failed, and Geoffroy undertook the dramatic feuilleton of the _Journal des debats_. His scathing criticisms had a success of notoriety, but their popularity was ephemeral, and the publication of them (5 vols., 1819-1820) as _Cours de litterature dramatique_ proved a failure. He was also the author of a perfunctory _Commentaire_ on the works of Racine prefixed to Lenormant's edition (1808). He died in Paris on the 27th of February 1814.

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ETIENNE (1772-1844), French naturalist, was the son of Jean Gerard Geoffroy, procurator and magistrate of Etampes, Seine-et-Oise, where he was born on the 15th of April 1772. Destined for the church he entered the college of Navarre, in Paris, where he studied natural philosophy under M.J. Brisson; and in 1788 he obtained one of the canonicates of the chapter of Sainte Croix at Etampes, and also a benefice. Science, however, offered him a more congenial career, and he gained from his father permission to remain in Paris, and to attend the lectures at the College de France and the Jardin des Plantes, on the condition that he should also read law. He accordingly took up his residence at Cardinal Lemoine's college, and there became the pupil and soon the esteemed associate of Brisson's friend, the abbe Hauy, the mineralogist. Having, before the close of the year 1790, taken the degree of bachelor in law, he became a student of medicine, and attended the lectures of A.F. de Fourcroy at the Jardin des Plantes, and of L.J.M. Daubenton at the College de France. His studies at Paris were at length suddenly interrupted, for, in August 1792, Hauy and the other professors of Lemoine's college, as also those of the college of Navarre, were arrested by the revolutionists as priests, and confined in the prison of St Firmin. Through the influence of Daubenton and others Geoffroy on the 14th of August obtained an order for the release of Hauy in the name of the Academy; still the other professors of the two colleges, save C.F. Lhomond, who had been rescued by his pupil J.L. Tallien, remained in confinement. Geoffroy, foreseeing their certain destruction if they remained in the hands of the revolutionists, determined if possible to secure their liberty by stratagem. By bribing one of the officials at St Firmin, and disguising himself as a commissioner of prisons, he gained admission to his friends, and entreated them to effect their escape by following him. All, however, dreading lest their deliverance should render the doom of their fellow-captives the more certain, refused the offer, and one priest only, who was unknown to Geoffroy, left the prison. Already on the night of the 2nd of September the massacre of the proscribed had begun, when Geoffroy, yet intent on saving the life of his friends and teachers, repaired to St Firmin. At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 3rd of September, after eight hours' waiting, he by means of a ladder assisted the escape of twelve ecclesiastics, not of the number of his acquaintance, and then the approach of dawn and the discharge of a gun directed at him warned him, his chief purpose unaccomplished, to return to his lodgings. Leaving Paris he retired to Etampes, where, in consequence of the anxieties of which he had lately been the prey, and the horrors which he had witnessed, he was for some time seriously ill. At the beginning of the winter of 1792 he returned to his studies in Paris, and in March of the following year Daubenton, through the interest of Bernardin de Saint Pierre, procured him the office of sub-keeper and assistant demonstrator of the cabinet of natural history, vacant by the resignation of B.G.E. Lacepede. By a law passed in June 1793, Geoffroy was appointed one of the twelve professors of the newly constituted museum of natural history, being assigned the chair of zoology. In the same year he busied himself with the formation of a menagerie at that institution.

In 1794 through the introduction of A.H. Tessier he entered into correspondence with Georges Cuvier, to whom, after the perusal of some of his manuscripts, he wrote: "Venez jouer parmi nous le role de Linne, d'un autre legislateur de l'histoire naturelle." Shortly after the appointment of Cuvier as assistant at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, Geoffroy received him into his house. The two friends wrote together five memoirs on natural history, one of which, on the classification of mammals, puts forward the idea of the subordination of characters upon which Cuvier based his zoological system. It was in a paper entitled "Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar," written in 1795, that Geoffroy first gave expression to his views on "the unity of organic composition," the influence of which is perceptible in all his subsequent writings; nature, he observes, presents us with only one plan of construction, the same in principle, but varied in its accessory parts.

In 1798 Geoffroy was chosen a member of the great scientific expedition to Egypt, and on the capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801, he took part in resisting the claim made by the British general to the collections of the expedition, declaring that, were that demand persisted in, history would have to record that he also had burnt a library in Alexandria. Early in January 1802 Geoffroy returned to his accustomed labours in Paris. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences of that city in September 1807. In March of the following year the emperor, who had already recognized his national services by the award of the cross of the legion of honour, selected him to visit the museums of Portugal, for the purpose of procuring collections from them, and in the face of considerable opposition from the British he eventually was successful in retaining them as a permanent possession for his country. In 1809, the year after his return to France, he was made professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Paris, and from that period he devoted himself more exclusively than before to anatomical study. In 1818 he gave to the world the first part of his celebrated _Philosophie anatomique_, the second volume of which, published in 1822, and subsequent memoirs account for the formation of monstrosities on the principle of arrest of development, and of the attraction of similar parts. When, in 1830, Geoffroy proceeded to apply to the invertebrata his views as to the unity of animal composition, he found a vigorous opponent in Georges Cuvier, and the discussion between them, continued up to the time of the death of the latter, soon attracted the attention of the scientific throughout Europe. Geoffroy, a synthesist, contended, in accordance with his theory of unity of plan in organic composition, that all animals are formed of the same elements, in the same number, and with the same connexions: homologous parts, however they differ in form and size, must remain associated in the same invariable order. With Goethe he held that there is in nature a law of compensation or balancing of growth, so that if one organ take on an excess of development, it is at the expense of some other part; and he maintained that, since nature takes no sudden leaps, even organs which are superfluous in any given species, if they have played an important part in other species of the same family, are retained as rudiments, which testify to the permanence of the general plan of creation. It was his conviction that, owing to the conditions of life, the same forms had not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, although it was not his belief that existing species are becoming modified. Cuvier, who was an analytical observer of facts, admitted only the prevalence of "laws of co-existence" or "harmony" in animal organs, and maintained the absolute invariability of species, which he declared had been created with a regard to the circumstances in which they were placed, each organ contrived with a view to the function it had to fulfil, thus putting, in Geoffroy's considerations, the effect for the cause.

In July 1840 Geoffroy became blind, and some months later he had a paralytic attack. From that time his strength gradually failed him. He resigned his chair at the museum in 1841, and died at Paris on the 19th of June 1844.

Geoffroy wrote: _Catalogue des mammiferes du Museum National
d'Histoire Naturelle_ (1813), not quite completed; _Philosophie
anatomique_--t. i., _Des organes respiratoires_ (1818), and t. ii.,
_Des monstruosites humaines_ (1822); _Systeme dentaire des mammiferes
et des oiseaux_ (1st pt., 1824); _Sur le principe de l'unite de
composition organique_ (1828); _Cours de l'histoire naturelle des
mammiferes_ (1829); _Principes de philosophie zoologique_ (1830);
_Etudes progressives d'un naturaliste_ (1835); _Fragments
biographiques_ (1832); _Notions synthetiques, historiques et
physiologiques de philosophie naturelle_ (1838), and other works; also
part of the _Description de l'Egypte par la commission des sciences_
(1821-1830); and, with Frederic Cuvier (1773-1838), a younger brother
of G. Cuvier, _Histoire naturelle des mammiferes_ (4 vols.,
1820-1842); besides numerous papers on such subjects as the anatomy of
marsupials, ruminants and electrical fishes, the vertebrate theory of
the skull, the opercula of fishes, teratology, palaeontology and the
influence of surrounding conditions in modifying animal forms.

See _Vie, travaux, et doctrine scientifique d'Etienne Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire, par son fils M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_ (Paris
and Strasburg, 1847), to which is appended a list of Geoffroy's works;
and Joly, in _Biog. universelle_, t. xvi. (1856).

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ISIDORE (1805-1861), French zoologist, son of the preceding, was born at Paris on the 16th of December 1805. In his earlier years he showed an aptitude for mathematics, but eventually he devoted himself to the study of natural history and of medicine, and in 1824 he was appointed assistant naturalist to his father. On the occasion of his taking the degree of doctor of medicine in September 1829, he read a thesis entitled _Propositions sur la monstruosite, consideree chez l'homme et les animaux_; and in 1832-1837 was published his great teratological work, _Histoire generale et particuliere des anomalies de l'organisation chez l'homme et les animaux_, 3 vols. 8vo. with 20 plates. In 1829 he delivered for his father the second part of a course of lectures on ornithology, and during the three following years he taught zoology at the Athenee, and teratology at the Ecole pratique. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences at Paris in 1833, was in 1837 appointed to act as deputy for his father at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in the following year was sent to Bordeaux to organize a similar faculty there. He became successively inspector of the academy of Paris (1840), professor of the museum on the retirement of his father (1841), inspector-general of the university (1844), a member of the royal council for public instruction (1845), and on the death of H.M.D. de Blainville, professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences (1850). In 1854 he founded the Acclimatization Society of Paris, of which he was president. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1861.

Besides the above-mentioned works, he wrote: _Essais de zoologie
generale_ (1841); _Vie ... d'Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire_ (1847);
_Acclimatation et domestication des animaux utiles_ (1849; 4th ed.,
1861); _Lettres sur les substances alimentaires et particulierement
sur la viande de cheval_ (1856); and _Histoire naturelle generale des
regnes organiques_ (3 vols., 1854-1862), which was not quite
completed. He was the author also of various papers on zoology,
comparative anatomy and palaeontology.

GEOGRAPHY (Gr. [Greek: ge], earth, and [Greek: graphein], to write), the exact and organized knowledge of the distribution of phenomena on the surface of the earth. The fundamental basis of geography is the vertical relief of the earth's crust, which controls all mobile distributions. The grander features of the relief of the lithosphere or stony crust of the earth control the distribution of the hydrosphere or collected waters which gather into the hollows, filling them up to a height corresponding to the volume, and thus producing the important practical division of the surface into land and water. The distribution of the mass of the atmosphere over the surface of the earth is also controlled by the relief of the crust, its greater or lesser density at the surface corresponding to the lesser or greater elevation of the surface. The simplicity of the zonal distribution of solar energy on the earth's surface, which would characterize a uniform globe, is entirely destroyed by the dissimilar action of land and water with regard to radiant heat, and by the influence of crust-forms on the direction of the resulting circulation. The influence of physical environment becomes clearer and stronger when the distribution of plant and animal life is considered, and if it is less distinct in the case of man, the reason is found in the modifications of environment consciously produced by human effort. Geography is a synthetic science, dependent for the data with which it deals on the results of specialized sciences such as astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, biology and anthropology, as well as on topographical description. The physical and natural sciences are concerned in geography only so far as they deal with the forms of the earth's surface, or as regards the distribution of phenomena. The distinctive task of geography as a science is to investigate the control exercised by the crust-forms directly or indirectly upon the various mobile distributions. This gives to it unity and definiteness, and renders superfluous the attempts that have been made from time to time to define the limits which divide geography from geology on the one hand and from history on the other. It is essential to classify the subject-matter of geography in such a manner as to give prominence not only to facts, but to their mutual relations and their natural and inevitable order.

The fundamental conception of geography is form, including the figure of the earth and the varieties of crustal relief. Hence mathematical geography (see MAP), including cartography as a practical application, comes first. It merges into physical geography, which takes account of the forms of the lithosphere (geomorphology), and also of the distribution of the hydrosphere and the rearrangements resulting from the workings of solar energy throughout the hydrosphere and atmosphere (oceanography and climatology). Next follows the distribution of plants and animals (biogeography), and finally the distribution of mankind and the various artificial boundaries and redistributions (anthropogeography). The applications of anthropogeography to human uses give rise to political and commercial geography, in the elucidation of which all the earlier departments or stages have to be considered, together with historical and other purely human conditions. The evolutionary idea has revolutionized and unified geography as it did biology, breaking down the old hard-and-fast partitions between the various departments, and substituting the study of the nature and influence of actual terrestrial environments for the earlier motive, the discovery and exploration of new lands.

HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY

The earliest conceptions of the earth, like those held by the
primitive peoples of the present day, are difficult to discover and
almost impossible fully to grasp. Early generalizations, as far as
they were made from known facts, were usually expressed in symbolic
language, and for our present purpose it is not profitable to
speculate on the underlying truths which may sometimes be suspected in
the old mythological cosmogonies.

Early Greek ideas.

Flat earth of Homer.

Hecataeus.

Herodotus.

The idea of symmetry.

The first definite geographical theories to affect the western world
were those evolved, or at least first expressed, by the Greeks.[1] The
earliest theoretical problem of geography was the form of the earth.
The natural supposition that the earth is a flat disk, circular or
elliptical in outline, had in the time of Homer acquired a special
definiteness by the introduction of the idea of the ocean river
bounding the whole, an application of imperfectly understood
observations. Thales of Miletus is claimed as the first exponent of
the idea of a spherical earth; but, although this does not appear to
be warranted, his disciple Anaximander (c. 580 B.C.) put forward the
theory that the earth had the figure of a solid body hanging freely in
the centre of the hollow sphere of the starry heavens. The Pythagorean
school of philosophers adopted the theory of a spherical earth, but
from metaphysical rather than scientific reasons; their convincing
argument was that a sphere being the most perfect solid figure was the
only one worthy to circumscribe the dwelling-place of man. The
division of the sphere into parallel zones and some of the
consequences of this generalization seem to have presented themselves
to Parmenides (c. 450 B.C.); but these ideas did not influence the
Ionian school of philosophers, who in their treatment of geography
preferred to deal with facts demonstrable by travel rather than with
speculations. Thus Hecataeus, claimed by H.F. Tozer[2] as the father
of geography on account of his _Periodos_, or general treatise on the
earth, did not advance beyond the primitive conception of a circular
disk. He systematized the form of the land within the ring of
ocean--the [Greek: oikoumene], or habitable world--by recognizing two
continents: Europe to the north, and Asia to the south of the midland
sea. Herodotus, equally oblivious of the sphere, criticized and
ridiculed the circular outline of the _oekumene_, which he knew to be
longer from east to west than it was broad from north to south. He
also pointed out reasons for accepting a division of the land into
three continents--Europe, Asia and Africa. Beyond the limits of his
personal travels Herodotus applied the characteristically Greek theory
of symmetry to complete, in the unknown, outlines of lands and rivers
analogous to those which had been explored. Symmetry was in fact the
first geographical theory, and the effect of Herodotus's hypothesis
that the Nile must flow from west to east before turning north in
order to balance the Danube running from west to east before turning
south lingered in the maps of Africa down to the time of Mungo
Park.[3]

Aristotle and the sphere.

To Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) must be given the distinction of founding
scientific geography. He demonstrated the sphericity of the earth by
three arguments, two of which could be tested by observation. These
were: (1) that the earth must be spherical, because of the tendency of
matter to fall together towards a common centre; (2) that only a
sphere could always throw a circular shadow on the moon during an
eclipse; and (3) that the shifting of the horizon and the appearance
of new constellations, or the disappearance of familiar stars, as one
travelled from north to south, could only be explained on the
hypothesis that the earth was a sphere. Aristotle, too, gave greater
definiteness to the idea of zones conceived by Parmenides, who had
pictured a torrid zone uninhabitable by reason of heat, two frigid
zones uninhabitable by reason of cold, and two intermediate temperate
zones fit for human occupation. Aristotle defined the temperate zone
as extending from the tropic to the arctic circle, but there is some
uncertainty as to the precise meaning he gave to the term "arctic
circle." Soon after his time, however, this conception was clearly
established, and with so large a generalization the mental horizon was
widened to conceive of a geography which was a science. Aristotle had
himself shown that in the southern temperate zone winds similar to
those of the northern temperate zone should blow, but from the
opposite direction.

Fitting the oekumene to the sphere.

While the theory of the sphere was being elaborated the efforts of
practical geographers were steadily directed towards ascertaining the
outline and configuration of the _oekumene_, or habitable world, the
only portion of the terrestrial surface known to the ancients and to
the medieval peoples, and still retaining a shadow of its old monopoly
of geographical attention in its modern name of the "Old World." The
fitting of the _oekumene_ to the sphere was the second theoretical
problem. The circular outline had given way in geographical opinion to
the elliptical with the long axis lying east and west, and Aristotle
was inclined to view it as a very long and relatively narrow band
almost encircling the globe in the temperate zone. His argument as to
the narrowness of the sea between West Africa and East Asia, from the
occurrence of elephants at both extremities, is difficult to
understand, although it shows that he looked on the distribution of
animals as a problem of geography.

Problem of the Antipodes.

Pythagoras had speculated as to the existence of antipodes, but it was
not until the first approximately accurate measurements of the globe
and estimates of the length and breadth of the _oekumene_ were made by
Eratosthenes (c. 250 B.C.) that the fact that, as then known, it
occupied less than a quarter of the surface of the sphere was clearly
recognized. It was natural, if not strictly logical, that the ocean
river should be extended from a narrow stream to a world-embracing
sea, and here again Greek theory, or rather fancy, gave its modern
name to the greatest feature of the globe. The old instinctive idea of
symmetry must often have suggested other _oekumene_ balancing the
known world in the other quarters of the globe. The Stoic
philosophers, especially Crates of Mallus, arguing from the love of
nature for life, placed an _oekumene_ in each quarter of the sphere,
the three unknown world-islands being those of the Antoeci, Perioeci
and Antipodes. This was a theory not only attractive to the
philosophical mind, but eminently adapted to promote exploration. It
had its opponents, however, for Herodotus showed that sea-basins
existed cut off from the ocean, and it is still a matter of
controversy how far the pre-Ptolemaic geographers believed in a
water-connexion between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. It is quite
clear that Pomponius Mela (c. A.D. 40), following Strabo, held that
the southern temperate zone contained a habitable land, which he
designated by the name _Antichthones_.

Aristotle's geographical views.

Aristotle left no work on geography, so that it is impossible to know
what facts he associated with the science of the earth's surface. The
word geography did not appear before Aristotle, the first use of it
being in the [Greek: Peri kosmon], which is one of the writings
doubtfully ascribed to him, and H. Berger considers that the
expression was introduced by Eratosthenes.[4] Aristotle was certainly
conversant with many facts, such as the formation of deltas,
coast-erosion, and to a certain extent the dependence of plants and
animals on their physical surroundings. He formed a comprehensive
theory of the variations of climate with latitude and season, and was
convinced of the necessity of a circulation of water between the sea
and rivers, though, like Plato, he held that this took place by water
rising from the sea through crevices in the rocks, losing its
dissolved salts in the process. He speculated on the differences in
the character of races of mankind living in different climates, and
correlated the political forms of communities with their situation on
a seashore, or in the neighbourhood of natural strongholds.

Strabo.

Strabo (c. 50 B.C.-A.D. 24) followed Eratosthenes rather than
Aristotle, but with sympathies which went out more to the human
interests than the mathematical basis of geography. He compiled a very
remarkable work dealing, in large measure from personal travel, with
the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. He may be said to have
set the pattern which was followed in succeeding ages by the compilers
of "political geographies" dealing less with theories than with
facts, and illustrating rather than formulating the principles of the
science.

Ptolemy.

Claudius Ptolemaeus (c. A.D. 150) concentrated in his writings the
final outcome of all Greek geographical learning, and passed it across
the gulf of the middle ages by the hands of the Arabs, to form the
starting-point of the science in modern times. His geography was based
more immediately on the work of his predecessor, Marinus of Tyre, and
on that of Hipparchus, the follower and critic of Eratosthenes. It was
the ambition of Ptolemy to describe and represent accurately the
surface of the _oekumene_, for which purpose he took immense trouble
to collect all existing determinations of the latitude of places, all
estimates of longitude, and to make every possible rectification in
the estimates of distances by land or sea. His work was mainly
cartographical in its aim, and theory was as far as possible excluded.
The symmetrically placed hypothetical islands in the great continuous
ocean disappeared, and the _oekumene_ acquired a new form by the
representation of the Indian Ocean as a larger Mediterranean
completely cut off by land from the Atlantic. The _terra incognita_
uniting Africa and Farther Asia was an unfortunate hypothesis which
helped to retard exploration. Ptolemy used the word _geography_ to
signify the description of the whole _oekumene_ on mathematical
principles, while _chorography_ signified the fuller description of a
particular region, and _topography_ the very detailed description of a
smaller locality. He introduced the simile that geography represented
an artist's sketch of a whole portrait, while chorography corresponded
to the careful and detailed drawing of an eye or an ear.[5]

The Caliph al-Mam[ = u]n (c. A.D. 815), the son and successor of H[ =
a]r[ = u]n al-Rash[ = i]d, caused an Arabic version of Ptolemy's great
astronomical work ([Greek: Suntaxis megiste]) to be made, which is
known as the _Almagest_, the word being nothing more than the Gr.
[Greek: megiste] with the Arabic article _al_ prefixed. The geography
of Ptolemy was also known and is constantly referred to by Arab
writers. The Arab astronomers measured a degree on the plains of
Mesopotamia, thereby deducing a fair approximation to the size of the
earth. The caliph's librarian, Abu Jafar Muhammad Ben Musa, wrote a
geographical work, now unfortunately lost, entitled _Rasm el Arsi_ ("A
Description of the World"), which is often referred to by subsequent
writers as having been composed on the model of that of Ptolemy.

Geography in the middle ages.

The middle ages saw geographical knowledge die out in Christendom,
although it retained, through the Arabic translations of Ptolemy, a
certain vitality in Islam. The verbal interpretation of Scripture led
Lactantius (c. A.D. 320) and other ecclesiastics to denounce the
spherical theory of the earth as heretical. The wretched subterfuge of
Cosmas (c. A.D. 550) to explain the phenomena of the apparent
movements of the sun by means of an earth modelled on the plan of the
Jewish Tabernacle gave place ultimately to the wheel-maps--the T in an
O--which reverted to the primitive ignorance of the times of Homer and
Hecataeus.[6]

The journey of Marco Polo, the increasing trade to the East and the
voyages of the Arabs in the Indian Ocean prepared the way for the
reacceptance of Ptolemy's ideas when the sealed books of the Greek
original were translated into Latin by Angelus in 1410.

Revival of geography.

The old arguments of Aristotle and the old measurements of Ptolemy
were used by Toscanelli and Columbus in urging a westward voyage to
India; and mainly on this account did the crossing of the Atlantic
rank higher in the history of scientific geography than the laborious
feeling out of the coast-line of Africa. But not until the voyage of
Magellan shook the scales from the eyes of Europe did modern geography
begin to advance. Discovery had outrun theory; the rush of new facts
made Ptolemy practically obsolete in a generation, after having been
the fount and origin of all geography for a millennium.

Apianus.

The earliest evidence of the reincarnation of a sound theoretical
geography is to be found in the text-books by Peter Apian and
Sebastian Munster. Apian in his _Cosmographicus liber_, published in
1524, and subsequently edited and added to by Gemma Frisius under the
title of _Cosmographia_, based the whole science on mathematics and
measurement. He followed Ptolemy closely, enlarging on his distinction
between geography and chorography, and expressing the artistic analogy
in a rough diagram. This slender distinction was made much of by most
subsequent writers until Nathanael Carpenter in 1625 pointed out that
the difference between geography and chorography was simply one of
degree, not of kind.

Munster.

Sebastian Munster, on the other hand, in his _Cosmographia
universalis_ of 1544, paid no regard to the mathematical basis of
geography, but, following the model of Strabo, described the world
according to its different political divisions, and entered with great
zest into the question of the productions of countries, and into the
manners and costumes of the various peoples. Thus early commenced the
separation between what were long called mathematical and political
geography, the one subject appealing mainly to mathematicians, the
other to historians.

Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries the rapidly accumulating store
of facts as to the extent, outline and mountain and river systems of
the lands of the earth were put in order by the generation of
cartographers of which Mercator was the chief; but the writings of
Apian and Munster held the field for a hundred years without a serious
rival, unless the many annotated editions of Ptolemy might be so
considered. Meanwhile the new facts were the subject of original study
by philosophers and by practical men without reference to classical
traditions. Bacon argued keenly on geographical matters and was a
lover of maps, in which he observed and reasoned upon such
resemblances as that between the outlines of South America and Africa.

Cluverius.

Philip Cluver's _Introductio in geographiam universam tam veterem quam
novam_ was published in 1624. Geography he defined as "the description
of the whole earth, so far as it is known to us." It is distinguished
from cosmography by dealing with the earth alone, not with the
universe, and from chorography and topography by dealing with the
whole earth, not with a country or a place. The first book, of
fourteen short chapters, is concerned with the general properties of
the globe; the remaining six books treat in considerable detail of the
countries of Europe and of the other continents. Each country is
described with particular regard to its people as well as to its
surface, and the prominence given to the human element is of special
interest.

Carpenter.

A little-known book which appears to have escaped the attention of
most writers on the history of modern geography was published at
Oxford in 1625 by Nathanael Carpenter, fellow of Exeter College, with
the title _Geographie delineated forth in Two Bookes, containing the
Sphericall and Topicall parts thereof_. It is discursive in its style
and verbose; but, considering the period at which it appeared, it is
remarkable for the strong common sense displayed by the author, his
comparative freedom from prejudice, and his firm application of the
methods of scientific reasoning to the interpretation of phenomena.
Basing his work on the principles of Ptolemy, he brings together
illustrations from the most recent travellers, and does not hesitate
to take as illustrative examples the familiar city of Oxford and his
native county of Devon. He divides geography into _The Spherical
Part_, or that for the study of which mathematics alone is required,
and _The Topical Part_, or the description of the physical relations
of parts of the earth's surface, preferring this division to that
favoured by the ancient geographers--into general and special. It is
distinguished from other English geographical books of the period by
confining attention to the principles of geography, and not describing
the countries of the world.

Varenius.

A much more important work in the history of geographical method is
the _Geographia generalis_ of Bernhard Varenius, a German medical
doctor of Leiden, who died at the age of twenty-eight in 1650, the
year of the publication of his book. Although for a time it was lost
sight of on the continent, Sir Isaac Newton thought so highly of this
book that he prepared an annotated edition which was published in
Cambridge in 1672, with the addition of the plates which had been
planned by Varenius, but not produced by the original publishers. "The
reason why this great man took so much care in correcting and
publishing our author was, because he thought him necessary to be read
by his audience, the young gentlemen of Cambridge, while he was
delivering lectures on the same subject from the Lucasian Chair."[7]
The treatise of Varenius is a model of logical arrangement and terse
expression; it is a work of science and of genius; one of the few of
that age which can still be studied with profit. The English
translation renders the definition thus: "Geography is that part of
_mixed mathematics_ which explains the state of the earth and of its
parts, depending on quantity, viz. its figure, place, magnitude and
motion, with the celestial appearances, &c. By some it is taken in too
limited a sense, for a bare description of the several countries; and
by others too extensively, who along with such a description would
have their political constitution."

Varenius was reluctant to include the human side of geography in his
system, and only allowed it as a concession to custom, and in order to
attract readers by imparting interest to the sterner details of the
science. His division of geography was into two parts--(i.) General or
universal, dealing with the earth in general, and explaining its
properties without regard to particular countries; and (ii.) Special
or particular, dealing with each country in turn from the
chorographical or topographical point of view. General geography was
divided into--(1) the _Absolute_ part, dealing with the form,
dimensions, position and substance of the earth, the distribution of
land and water, mountains, woods and deserts, hydrography (including
all the waters of the earth) and the atmosphere; (2) the _Relative_
part, including the celestial properties, i.e. latitude, climate
zones, longitude, &c.; and (3) the _Comparative_ part, which
"considers the particulars arising from comparing one part with
another"; but under this head the questions discussed were longitude,
the situation and distances of places, and navigation. Varenius does
not treat of special geography, but gives a scheme for it under three
heads--(1) _Terrestrial_, including position, outline, boundaries,
mountains, mines, woods and deserts, waters, fertility and fruits, and
living creatures; (2) _Celestial_, including appearance of the heavens
and the climate; (3) _Human_, but this was added out of deference to
popular usage.

This system of geography founded a new epoch, and the book--translated
into English, Dutch and French--was the unchallenged standard for more
than a century. The framework was capable of accommodating itself to
new facts, and was indeed far in advance of the knowledge of the
period. The method included a recognition of the causes and effects of
phenomena as well as the mere fact of their occurrence, and for the
first time the importance of the vertical relief of the land was
fairly recognized.

The physical side of geography continued to be elaborated after
Varenius's methods, while the historical side was developed
separately. Both branches, although enriched by new facts, remained
stationary so far as method is concerned until nearly the end of the
18th century. The compilation of "geography books" by uninstructed
writers led to the pernicious habit, which is not yet wholly overcome,
of reducing the general or "physical" part to a few pages of
concentrated information, and expanding the particular or "political"
part by including unrevised travellers' stories and uncritical
descriptions of the various countries of the world. Such books were in
fact not geography, but merely compressed travel.

Bergman.

The next marked advance in the theory of geography may be taken as the
nearly simultaneous studies of the physical earth carried out by the
Swedish chemist, Torbern Bergman, acting under the impulse of
Linnaeus, and by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Bergman's
_Physical Description of the Earth_ was published in Swedish in 1766,
and translated into English in 1772 and into German in 1774. It is a
plain, straightforward description of the globe, and of the various
phenomena of the surface, dealing only with definitely ascertained
facts in the natural order of their relationships, but avoiding any
systematic classification or even definitions of terms.

Kant.

The problems of geography had been lightened by the destructive
criticism of the French cartographer D'Anville (who had purged the map
of the world of the last remnants of traditional fact unverified by
modern observations) and rendered richer by the dawn of the new era of
scientific travel, when Kant brought his logical powers to bear upon
them. Kant's lectures on physical geography were delivered in the
university of Konigsberg from 1765 onwards.[8] Geography appealed to
him as a valuable educational discipline, the joint foundation with
anthropology of that "knowledge of the world" which was the result of
reason and experience. In this connexion he divided the communication
of experience from one person to another into two categories--the
narrative or historical and the descriptive or geographical; both
history and geography being viewed as descriptions, the former a
description in order of time, the latter a description in order of
space.

Physical geography he viewed as a summary of nature, the basis not
only of history but also of "all the other possible geographies," of
which he enumerates five, viz. (1) _Mathematical geography_, which
deals with the form, size and movements of the earth and its place in
the solar system; (2) _Moral geography_, or an account of the
different customs and characters of mankind according to the region
they inhabit; (3) _Political geography_, the divisions according to
their organized governments; (4) _Mercantile geography_, dealing with
the trade in the surplus products of countries; (5) _Theological
geography_, or the distribution of religions. Here there is a clear
and formal statement of the interaction and causal relation of all the
phenomena of distribution on the earth's surface, including the
influence of physical geography upon the various activities of mankind
from the lowest to the highest. Notwithstanding the form of this
classification, Kant himself treats mathematical geography as
preliminary to, and therefore not dependent on, physical geography.
Physical geography itself is divided into two parts: a general, which
has to do with the earth and all that belongs to it--water, air and
land; and a particular, which deals with special products of the
earth--mankind, animals, plants and minerals. Particular importance is
given to the vertical relief of the land, on which the various
branches of human geography are shown to depend.

Humboldt.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the first modern geographer to
become a great traveller, and thus to acquire an extensive stock of
first-hand information on which an improved system of geography might
be founded. The impulse given to the study of natural history by the
example of Linnaeus; the results brought back by Sir Joseph Banks, Dr
Solander and the two Forsters, who accompanied Cook in his voyages of
discovery; the studies of De Saussure in the Alps, and the lists of
desiderata in physical geography drawn up by that investigator,
combined to prepare the way for Humboldt. The theory of geography was
advanced by Humboldt mainly by his insistence on the great principle
of the unity of nature. He brought all the "observable things," which
the eager collectors of the previous century had been heaping together
regardless of order or system, into relation with the vertical relief
and the horizontal forms of the earth's surface. Thus he demonstrated
that the forms of the land exercise a directive and determining
influence on climate, plant life, animal life and on man himself. This
was no new idea; it had been familiar for centuries in a less definite
form, deduced from a priori considerations, and so far as regards the
influence of surrounding circumstances upon man, Kant had already
given it full expression. Humboldt's concrete illustrations and the
remarkable power of his personality enabled him to enforce these
principles in a way that produced an immediate and lasting effect. The
treatises on physical geography by Mrs Mary Somerville and Sir John
Herschel (the latter written for the eighth edition of the
_Encyclopaedia Britannica_) showed the effect produced in Great
Britain by the stimulus of Humboldt's work.

Ritter.

Humboldt's contemporary, Carl Ritter (1779-1859), extended and
disseminated the same views, and in his interpretation of "Comparative
Geography" he laid stress on the importance of forming conclusions,
not from the study of one region by itself, but from the comparison of
the phenomena of many places. Impressed by the influence of
terrestrial relief and climate on human movements, Ritter was led
deeper and deeper into the study of history and archaeology. His
monumental _Vergleichende Geographie_, which was to have made the
whole world its theme, died out in a wilderness of detail in
twenty-one volumes before it had covered more of the earth's surface
than Asia and a portion of Africa. Some of his followers showed a
tendency to look on geography rather as an auxiliary to history than
as a study of intrinsic worth.

Geography as a natural science.

During the rapid development of physical geography many branches of
the study of nature, which had been included in the cosmography of the
early writers, the physiography of Linnaeus and even the _Erdkunde_ of
Ritter, had been so much advanced by the labours of specialists that
their connexion was apt to be forgotten. Thus geology, meteorology,
oceanography and anthropology developed into distinct sciences. The
absurd attempt was, and sometimes is still, made by geographers to
include all natural science in geography; but it is more common for
specialists in the various detailed sciences to think, and sometimes
to assert, that the ground of physical geography is now fully occupied
by these sciences. Political geography has been too often looked on
from both sides as a mere summary of guide-book knowledge, useful in
the schoolroom, a poor relation of physical geography that it was
rarely necessary to recognize.

The science of geography, passed on from antiquity by Ptolemy,
re-established by Varenius and Newton, and systematized by Kant,
included within itself definite aspects of all those terrestrial
phenomena which are now treated exhaustively under the heads of
geology, meteorology, oceanography and anthropology; and the inclusion
of the requisite portions of the perfected results of these sciences
in geography is simply the gathering in of fruit matured from the seed
scattered by geography itself.

The study of geography was advanced by improvements in cartography
(see MAP), not only in the methods of survey and projection, but in
the representation of the third dimension by means of contour lines
introduced by Philippe Buache in 1737, and the more remarkable because
less obvious invention of isotherms introduced by Humboldt in 1817.

The teleological argument in geography.

The "argument from design" had been a favourite form of reasoning
amongst Christian theologians, and, as worked out by Paley in his
_Natural Theology_, it served the useful purpose of emphasizing the
fitness which exists between all the inhabitants of the earth and
their physical environment. It was held that the earth had been
created so as to fit the wants of man in every particular. This
argument was tacitly accepted or explicitly avowed by almost every
writer on the theory of geography, and Carl Ritter distinctly
recognized and adopted it as the unifying principle of his system. As
a student of nature, however, he did not fail to see, and as professor
of geography he always taught, that man was in very large measure
conditioned by his physical environment. The apparent opposition of
the observed fact to the assigned theory he overcame by looking upon
the forms of the land and the arrangement of land and sea as
instruments of Divine Providence for guiding the destiny as well as
for supplying the requirements of man. This was the central theme of
Ritter's philosophy; his religion and his geography were one, and the
consequent fervour with which he pursued his mission goes far to
account for the immense influence he acquired in Germany.

The theory of evolution in geography.

The evolutionary theory, more than hinted at in Kant's "Physical
Geography," has, since the writings of Charles Darwin, become the
unifying principle in geography. The conception of the development of
the plan of the earth from the first cooling of the surface of the
planet throughout the long geological periods, the guiding power of
environment on the circulation of water and of air, on the
distribution of plants and animals, and finally on the movements of
man, give to geography a philosophical dignity and a scientific
completeness which it never previously possessed. The influence of
environment on the organism may not be quite so potent as it was once
believed to be, in the writings of Buckle, for instance,[9] and
certainly man, the ultimate term in the series, reacts upon and
greatly modifies his environment; yet the fact that environment does
influence all distributions is established beyond the possibility of
doubt. In this way also the position of geography, at the point where
physical science meets and mingles with mental science, is explained
and justified. The change which took place during the 19th century in
the substance and style of geography may be well seen by comparing the
eight volumes of Malte-Brun's _Geographie universelle_ (Paris,
1812-1829) with the twenty-one volumes of Reclus's _Geographie
universelle_ (Paris, 1876-1895).

In estimating the influence of recent writers on geography it is usual
to assign to Oscar Peschel (1826-1875) the credit of having corrected
the preponderance which Ritter gave to the historical element, and of
restoring physical geography to its old pre-eminence.[10] As a matter
of fact, each of the leading modern exponents of theoretical
geography--such as Ferdinand von Richthofen, Hermann Wagner, Friedrich
Ratzel, William M. Davis, A. Penck, A. de Lapparent and Elisee
Reclus--has his individual point of view, one devoting more attention
to the results of geological processes, another to anthropological
conditions, and the rest viewing the subject in various blendings of
the extreme lights.

The two conceptions which may now be said to animate the theory of
geography are the genetic, which depends upon processes of origin, and
the morphological, which depends on facts of form and distribution.

PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY

Exploration and geographical discovery must have started from more
than one centre, and to deal justly with the matter one ought to treat
of these separately in the early ages before the whole civilized world
was bound together by the bonds of modern intercommunication. At the
least there should be some consideration of four separate systems of
discovery--the Eastern, in which Chinese and Japanese explorers
acquired knowledge of the geography of Asia, and felt their way
towards Europe and America; the Western, in which the dominant races
of the Mexican and South American plateaus extended their knowledge of
the American continent before Columbus; the Polynesian, in which the
conquering races of the Pacific Islands found their way from group to
group; and the Mediterranean. For some of these we have no certain
information, and regarding others the tales narrated in the early
records are so hard to reconcile with present knowledge that they are
better fitted to be the battle-ground of scholars championing rival
theories than the basis of definite history. So it has come about that
the only practicable history of geographical exploration starts from
the Mediterranean centre, the first home of that civilization which
has come to be known as European, though its field of activity has
long since overspread the habitable land of both temperate zones,
eastern Asia alone in part excepted.

From all centres the leading motives of exploration were probably the
same--commercial intercourse, warlike operations, whether resulting in
conquest or in flight, religious zeal expressed in pilgrimages or
missionary journeys, or, from the other side, the avoidance of
persecution, and, more particularly in later years, the advancement of
knowledge for its own sake. At different times one or the other motive
predominated.

Before the 14th century B.C. the warrior kings of Egypt had carried
the power of their arms southward from the delta of the Nile well-nigh
to its source, and eastward to the confines of Assyria. The
hieroglyphic inscriptions of Egypt and the cuneiform inscriptions of
Assyria are rich in records of the movements and achievements of
armies, the conquest of towns and the subjugation of peoples; but
though many of the recorded sites have been identified, their
discovery by wandering armies was isolated from their subsequent
history and need not concern us here.

The Phoenicians.