R. Strachey

“ The needful protection against the foes of his constantly-increasing race—the legions of hunger and disease, infinite in number, ever changing their mode of attack or springing up in new shapes—could only be attained by some fresh adaptation of his organization to his wants, and this has taken the form of that development of intellect which has placed all other creatures at his feet and all the powers of Nature in his hand. ”

“ In the light of evolution, type is nothing more than the direction given to the actual development of life by the forces that controlled the course of the successive generations leading from the past to the present. ”

“ In the present state of knowledge such subjects are, I conceive, beyond the legitimate field of physical science, which is limited to discussions directly arising on facts within the reach of observation, or on reasonings based on such facts. It is a necessary condition of the progress of knowledge that the line between what properly is or is not within the reach of human intelligence is ill defined, and that opinions will vary as to where it should be drawn: for it is the avowed and successful aim of science to keep this line constantly shifting by pushing it forward ”

“ But sufficient is known to indicate, without possible doubt, that the primary causes of the great series of phenomena, included under the general term climate, are the action and reaction of the mechanical and chemical forces set in operation by the sun's heat, varied from time to time and from place to place, by the influence of the position of the earth in its orbit, of its revolution on its axis, of geographical position, elevation above the sea-level, and condition of the surface, and by the great mobility of the atmosphere and the ocean. ”

“ It is impossible not to recognize that the growth of civilization, by aid of its instruments, pastoral and agricultural industry, was the result of the unconscious adoption of defenses supplied by what was exterior to man, rather than of any truly intelligent steps taken with forethought to attain it; and in these respects man, in his struggle for existence, has not differed from the humbler animals or from plants. ”

“ But further, all that we see or know to have existed upon the earth has been controlled to its most minute details by the original constitution of the matter which was drawn together to form our planet. The actual character of all inorganic substances, as of all living creatures, is only consistent with the actual constitution and proportions of the various substances of which the earth is composed. Other proportions than the actual ones in the constituents of the atmosphere would have required an entirely different organization in all air-breathing animals, and probably in all plants. ”

“ We may liken it to a great complex living organism, having an inert substratum of inorganic matter on which are formed many separate organized centres of life, but all bound up together by a common law of existence, each individual part depending on those around it, and on the past condition of the whole. Science is the study of the relations of the several parts of this organism one to another, and of the parts to the whole. ”

“ In short, the standard of knowledge of travelers and writers on geography must be raised to meet the increased requirements of the time.
Other influences are at work tending to the same result. The great advance made in all branches of natural science limits more and more closely the facilities for original research, and drawls the observer of Nature into more and more special studies, while it renders the acquisition by any individual of the highest standard of knowledge in more than one or two special subjects comparatively difficult and rare. ”

“ These are the considerations which are held to prove that the inorganic structure of the globe through all its successive stages—the earth beneath our feet, with its varied surface of land and sea, mountain and plain, and with its atmosphere which distributes heat and moisture over that surface—has been evolved as the necessary result of the original aggregation of matter at some extremely remote period, and of the subsequent modification of that matter in condition and form under the exclusive operation of invariable physical forces. ”

“ How great is the value to science of the observations of travelers endowed with a share of scientific instruction is testified by the labors of many living naturalists. In our days this is especially true; and I appeal to all who desire to promote the progress of geographical science as explorers, to prepare themselves for doing so efficiently, while they yet possess the vigor and physical powers that so much conduce to success in such pursuits. ”

“ It is no more possible to say how originated or operates the tendency of some sorts of matter to take the form of vapors, or fluids, or solid bodies, in all their various shapes, or for the various sorts of matter to attract one another or combine, than it is to explain the origin in certain forms of matter of the property we call life, or the mode of its action. ”

“ For the social habits essential to his progress, which he possessed even in his most primitive state, man is without question dependent on his ancestors, as he is for his form and other physical peculiarities. In his advance to civilization he was insensibly forced, by the pressure of external circumstances, through the more savage condition, in which his life was that of the hunter, first to pastoral and then to agricultural occupations. ”

“ This inquiry, first directed to the present time, and thence carried backward as far as possible into the past, proves that there is one general system of life, vegetable and animal, which is coextensive with the earth as it now is, and as it has been in all the successive stages of which we obtain a knowledge by geological research. The phenomena of life, as thus ascertained, are included in the organization of living creatures, and their distribution in time and place. ”

“ The progress of knowledge has removed all doubt as to the relation in which the human race stands to this great stream of life. It is now established that man existed on the earth at a period vastly anterior to any of which we have records in history or otherwise. ”

“ They only serve to take us back to a very remote epoch, when the living creatures differed greatly in detail from those of the present time, but had such resemblances to them as to justify the conclusion that the essence of life then was the same as now; and through that epoch into an unknown anterior period, during which the possibility of life, as we understand it, began, and from which has emerged, in a way that we cannot comprehend, matter with its properties, bound together by what we call the elementary physical forces. ”

“ The forces developed by the changes of the temperature of the earth as a whole must be proportionate to its dimensions; and the results of their action on the surface in causing elevations, contortions, or disruptions of the strata, cannot be commensurable with those produced by forces having the intensities, or by strains in bodies of the dimensions, with which our ordinary experience is conversant.
The difficulty in respect to the vast extent of past time is perhaps less great, the conception being one with which most persons are now more or less familiar. ”

“ For these reasons it appears to me that the general progress of science will involve the study of geography in a more scientific spirit, and with a clearer conception of its true function, which is that of obtaining accurate notions of the manner in which the forces of Nature have brought about the varied conditions characterizing the surface of the planet which we inhabit. ”

“ With any considerable difference in the quantity of water either in the sea or distributed as vapor, vast changes in the constitution of living creatures must have been involved. Without oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, or carbon, what we term life would have been impossible. ”

“ At the same time the mutual interdependence of all natural phenomena daily becomes more apparent; and it is of ever-increasing importance that there shall be some among the cultivators of natural knowledge who specially direct their attention to the general relations existing among all the forces and phenomena of Nature. In some important branches of such subjects, it is only through study of the local physical conditions of various parts of the earth's surface and the complicated phenomena to which they give rise that sound conclusions can be established ”

“ The judicious character of that part of our organization which leads to yearly changes among those who preside over our meetings, and does not attempt authoritatively to prescribe the direction of our discussions, will no doubt be generally recognized. It has the obvious advantage, among others, of insuring that none of the multifarious claims to attention of the several branches of science shall be made unduly prominent, and of giving opportunity for viewing the subjects which from time to time come before the Association in fresh aspects by various minds. ”

“ On the one hand, therefore, while the proper prosecution of the study of physical geography requires a sound knowledge of the researches and conclusions of students in the special branches of science, on the other, success is not attainable in the special branches without suitable apprehension of geographical facts. ”

“ The close relation existing between the least specialized animals and plants, and between these and organic matter not having life, and even with inorganic matter, is indicated by the difficulty that arises in determining the nature of the distinctions between them. Among the more highly-developed members of the two great branches of living creatures, the well-known similarities of structure observed in the various groups indicate a connection between proximate forms which was long seen to be akin to that derived through descent from a common ancestor by ordinary generation. ”

“ Following, then, a somewhat different path from those who have gone before me in treating of geography, I propose to speak of the physical causes which have impressed on our planet the present outlines and forms of its surface, have brought about its present conditions of climate, and have led to the development and distribution of the living beings found upon it. ”

“ In its broadest sense science is organized knowledge, and its methods consist of the observation and classification of the phenomena of which we become conscious through our senses, and the investigation of the causes of which these are the effects. The first step in geography, as in all other sciences, is the observation and description of the phenomena with which it is concerned ”

“ Some otherwise unimportant difference in the constitution or sequence of the substrata at any locality might have determined the elevation of mountains where a hollow filled by the sea was actually formed, and thereby the whole of the climatal and other conditions of a large area would have been changed, and an entirely different impulse given to the development of life locally, which might have impressed a new character on the whole face of Nature. ”