Chapter XV Buckle and Geographic Social Thought
It has long been observed that climate, fertility of soil, rainfall, and similar factors have had a powerful influence upon human nature and upon the development of civilization. The chief founders of this line of thought were Buckle and Ratzel. In recent years Semple and Huntington have become well-known authorities. Many other thinkers have contributed to the present knowledge concerning the interactions between geographic factors and human development.
One of the first writers to elaborate a climatic theory of social evolution was Bodin (1530–1596). Hot climates, he observed, further the rise of all kinds of superstitious beliefs. Cold climates produce brute will-power. Temperate climates constitute an essential basis for the development of reason. In the ideal commonwealth which Bodin described, all three types of climate are represented.XV-1 The northern zone furnishes the fighters and the workers. The southern zone produces poets, priests, and artists. The temperate zone is the parent of legislative, judicial, and scholarly leaders.
In the Spirit of Laws to which reference was made in Chapter XI, Montesquieu accentuated the importance of environmental influences on social processes. He attempted to show the effects of climate upon social institutions. Montesquieu did important pioneer work in what is now known as the field of anthropo-geography.
By way of contrast, the attitude of Hume, whose contributions to social psychology have already been noted, stands out sharply. According to Hume, physical causes have no particular effect on the human mind. No geographic factors influence either the temperament, disposition, or ability of people. Hume was led to this extreme position by his staunch faith in the subjective and psychological factors of human nature.
The distinguished German scientist, Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), travelled extensively throughout the world, observing the physical geography of many lands in conjunction with the meteorological conditions of each. At the same time von Humboldt was a careful observer of the customs, manners, and standards of the various peoples with whom he came in contact. In these travels and studies, von Humboldt was careful to note relationships between soils and civilizations. His contributions to social thought were of this descriptive nature, based on first-hand observations in many parts of the world.
The writings of Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–1862) contain an extensive and detailed explanation of the ways in which geographic and natural factors modify human life. Buckle starts with a decidedly dualistic universe—a dualism which is disjunctive. The dualism consists of nature and mind, each subject more or less to its own laws. Rejecting both the doctrine of free will and of predestination, Buckle concludes that the actions of men are determined solely by their antecedents and that they have a character of uniformity.XV-2 Man modifies nature, and nature modifies man, but in the past in many parts of the world the thoughts and desires of men are more influenced by physical phenomena than they influence such phenomena. Because of this dominant activity of the physical forces, these should be studied as a basis for understanding the history of man.
The physical factors which have powerfully influenced men are four: climate, food, soil, and the general aspects of nature. By the fourth, Buckle refers to those appearances which are presented chiefly through the medium of sight and which produce their chief results by exciting the imagination and suggesting superstitions. The three first-mentioned factors do not operate on the mind directly.XV-3
The first effect of climate, food, and soil upon man that may be noted is that they lead man to accumulate wealth. These accumulations permit that degree of leisure from “making a living” which enables some members of society to acquire knowledge. Upon these acquisitions of knowledge, particularly of socialized knowledge, civilization depends. This progress in the early stages of civilization rests on two circumstances: “First, on the energy and regularity with which labor is conducted, and second, on the returns made to that labor by the bounty of nature.”XV-4 Both these causes are the results of physical antecedents. The returns which are made to labor are regulated by the fertility of the soil. Moreover, Buckle asserted, the energy and regularity with which labor is conducted will be entirely dependent on the influence of climate.XV-5 When heat is intense, men will be indisposed and partly unfitted for active industry. Climate also affects the regularity of the habits of laborers. In very cold climates, the weather interferes with regular habits and produces desultoriness. In southern countries regular labor is likewise prevented—this time by the heat. Thus, in the early stages of civilization the fundamental law may be stated: the soil regulates the returns made to any given amount of labor; the climate regulates the energy and constancy of labor itself.XV-6
Of the two primary causes of primitive societary growth, the fertility of the soil is more important than the climatic influences. It is only where soil fertility exists that civilization can arise at all.XV-7 But in Europe, climate has been more effective than soil fertility. In Europe a climate has existed which has stimulated human activities.
Since the mental powers of man are unlimited they are more important, once they get started, than the powers of nature, which are limited and stationary. Man has endless capacity, through his dynamic mental tendencies to develop the physical resources of the earth.
The birth rate depends on food supply. In hot countries, where less food per capita is required than in cold countries, and where an abundance of food exists, the birth rate is very high. In cold countries highly carbonized food is necessary, but this food is largely animal in origin and great risk is involved in procuring it. Hence the people of cold countries become adventuresome.XV-8
By the study of physical laws it is possible to determine what the national food of a country will be. In India, for example, the physical conditions are decidedly favorable to the growth of rice, which is the most nutritive of all cereals, and which, consequently, is a causal factor in a high birth rate.
But where there is a cheap national food, the increase in population becomes very great. As a result, there are multitudes of people who are able to keep just above the subsistence level. A few individuals who understand the operation of these physical laws are able to manipulate the multitudes in such a way as to make themselves immensely wealthy. Since wealth, after intellect, is the most permanent source of power, a great inequality of wealth has been accompanied by a corresponding inequality of social and political power.XV-9 It produces classes and even castes. Poverty provokes contempt. Class conflict results. The poor are ground low, murmur, and are again subjected to ignominy. Under such conditions democracy has a hard struggle. When physical conditions favor one class, that class will constitute itself the government and bitterly oppose the extension of government to all other classes. In Europe there was no cheap national food, no blind multiplication of population, and hence no such disparity between classes as in India. In Europe it has been easier for democratic movements to spread.
Early civilization developed in the Euphrates valley, the Nile valley, and in the exceedingly fertile regions of Peru, Central America, and Mexico. Modern civilization is found largely in fertile river valleys, such as the Thames, Seine, Rhine, Po, Danube, Hudson, Mississippi. But in the Amazon valley, the fertility of soil has not invited the growth of a large population. The trade winds have brought in a superabundance of moisture, producing torrential rains, and a luxuriance of plant life and a complexity of virile animal life which thus far have defied the skill of man to overcome.
The fourth physical factor which Buckle presents is the general aspects of nature. Of these the first class excites the imagination and the second stimulates the rational operations of the intellect.XV-10 In regard to natural phenomena it may be said that whatever inspires feelings of terror, of the vague and uncontrollable, and of great wonder tends to inflame the imagination and to cause it to dominate the intellectual processes. Where nature is continually exhibiting its power, man feels his inferiority. He assumes a helpless attitude. He ceases to inquire or to think. His imagination, rather than his reason, reigns. On the other hand, where nature works smoothly and quietly, man begins to assert his individuality. He even essays to dominate nature and other men. His cognition develops and his volition expresses itself vigorously.
All early civilizations were located in the tropics or sub-tropics. In these regions nature is dangerous to man. Earthquakes, tempests, hurricanes, pestilences prevail. Consequently, the imagination of man takes exaggerated forms. The judgment is overbalanced; thought is paralyzed. The mind is continually thrown into a frantic state. These reactions throw human life into feeling molds, into poetic rather than scientific forms. Religious feelings are promoted. The leading religions of the world originated in the sub-tropical and tropical regions of the earth.
East Indian literature and thought illustrate the effect of nature upon the feelings and the imagination. The works of the East Indians on grammar, law, history, medicine, even on mathematics, geography, and metaphysics are nearly all poems.XV-11 Prose writing is despised. The Sanscrit language boasts of more numerous and more complicated metres than can any European tongue. The East Indian literature is even calculated to set the reason of man at defiance.XV-12
The imagination, for example, in India has produced an exaggerated respect for the past; it is this situation which has led poets to describe a Golden Age in the remote past. In the literature of India there is recorded the statement that in ancient times the average length of life of common men was 80,000 years. There are instances of poets who lived to be half a million years old.
In Greece, on the other hand, nature is more quiet and the mind of man functioned in a reasoning way. In the North Temperate zone science developed. “The climate was more healthy; earthquakes were less frequent; hurricanes were less disastrous; wild beasts and noxious animals less abundant.”XV-13 Buckle, in other words, insists that everywhere the hand of nature is upon the mind of man.
The work of Buckle, the chief exponent of the influence of physical nature upon mental man, accentuates important phases of the growth of civilization. Buckle over-emphasized his anthropo-geographic observations. However, they constitute a part of the whole picture of human progress, and when seen in the light of modern mental growth and control of environment they shrink into proper proportions.
The field which Buckle opened has been developed extensively by Friedrich Ratzel (1844–1904). This German scholar, traveler, and geographer is generally credited with putting anthropo-geography on a scientific basis. Miss Ellen Semple attempted to translate his work on Anthropo-Geographie into English, but found the German constructions so difficult to handle accurately that it was necessary for her to put Ratzel’s observations into her own words. She also points out in Buckle a lack of system and an undue tendency to follow one generalization after another. Her own Influences of Geographic Environment has now become a standard work on the ways in which physical nature affects mankind.
Miss Semple, following but improving upon Ratzel, has shown in turn the influences of geographical location, area, and boundaries upon people. She indicates the various ways in which oceans, rivers, and coast lines have molded human minds; she distinguishes between mountain, steppe, and desert effects upon mankind. She describes man as a product of the earth’s surface. She stresses unduly the physical influences; she considers nature the dominating force. Even where civilized man has developed inventive powers and spiritual prowess, nature is given the credit.XV-14 Nevertheless, Miss Semple has marshalled facts in powerful array and increased their force by literary skill. No student or teacher can afford to neglect Miss Semple’s extensive survey of the interactions between physical nature and human progress.
Among the many other writers upon the relation of geographic factors to civilization the investigations of Ellsworth Huntington are significant.XV-15 He has described the climatic conditions that are most favorable to mental stimulation and growth, and then has classified all districts of the earth according to the degree in which they stimulate or arrest mental advance.
In this same connection William Z. Ripley has investigated the relation of climate to races.XV-16 After analyzing races and distinguishing between them and the geographic influences upon pigmentation, head, form, stature, and other traits, mainly structural, he classifies climatic elements in order of importance, as follows: humidity, heat, and monotony. A high humidity, excessive heat, and long series of sunshine or of cloudy weather produce mental enervation, stagnation, and retrogression.
Acclimatization of races is a very slow process, according to Ripley. It requires centuries. Perhaps the white race can never become truly acclimated in the tropics. Racial differences he shows are due to environmental factors far more than is ordinarily supposed.
In conclusion, it may be said that physical forces have operated strongly on man. But when man has developed modern mental tools, he has been able to escape a part of the enslaving environmental influences. The history of the relation of geographic factors to human progress indicates a fundamental but a proportionate decrease in those influences.
