Read Ebook: The Theory of Environment An Outline of the History of the Idea of Milieu and Its Present Status part 1 by Koller Armin Hajman

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"There follows a lengthened description of the physical basis and conditions of history and civilisation. The chief features of the inhabited portions of the earth, its regions, principal seas, great rivers, climates, &c., are made the subjects of exposition. The seven climatic zones, and the ten sections of each, are delineated, and their inhabitants specified. The three climatic zones of moderate temperature are described in detail, and the distinctive features of the social condition and civilisation of their inhabitants dwelt upon. The influence of the atmosphere, heat, &c., on the physical and even mental and moral peculiarities of peoples is maintained to be great. Not only the darkness of skin of the negroes, but their characteristics of disposition and of mode of life, are traced to the influence of climate. A careful attempt is also made to show how differences of fertility of soil--how dearth and abundance--modify the bodily constitution and affect the minds of men, and so operate on society....

"The Second Section of the 'Prolegomena' treats of the civilisation of nomadic and half-savage peoples.

"In it Ibn Khald?n appears at his best, ... He begins by indicating how the different usages and institutions of peoples depend to a large extent on the ways in which they provide for their subsistence. He describes how peoples have at first contented themselves with simple necessities, and then gradually risen to refinement and luxury through a series of states or stages all of which are alike conformed to nature, in the sense of being adapted to its circumstances or environment."

Ibn Khald?n seems also to have had a clear idea of some aspects of the principle of relativity, an integral part and inevitable concomitant of the theory of milieu, since "As causes of historians erring as they have done, there are mentioned the overlooking of the differences of times and epochs, ..."

About the middle of the sixteenth century we find Michelangelo avowing to Vasari : "Any mental excellence I may possess, I have because I was born in the fine air of your Aretine district."

In "Measure for Measure" , a play first produced in 1604, Shakespeare affirms of man:

"... a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences That do this habitation where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict."

During the Renaissance, Greek thought on milieu is resurrected in France. Thence it spreads later, particularly in the eighteenth century, to England and Germany. Jean Bodin bridges the gap existent since the close of classical antiquity. He is the first among modern writers not only to revive the idea in Western Europe, but also to make it a subject for detailed investigation. Bodin thus first in French letters introduces and firmly establishes a line of study destined to be followed by a long list of authors among whom are to be found many illustrious French names.

Bodin also investigates the influence upon national character of geographical situation, of elevation, of the quality of the native soil, and of an east-west position. Nations and their civilizations differ according to the particular conditions of a given national existence.

"... It is altogether unfair," concludes Flint, "to put their general enunciations of the principle that physical circumstances originate and modify national characteristics, on a level with Bodin's serious, sustained, and elaborate attempt to apply it over a wide area and to a vast number of cases. Dividing nations into northern, middle, and southern, he investigates with wonderful fulness of knowledge how climatic and geographical conditions have affected the bodily strength, the courage, the intelligence, the humanity, the chastity, and, in short, the mind, morals, and manners of their inhabitants; what influence mountains, winds, diversities of soil, &c., have exerted on individuals and societies; and he elicits a vast number of general views...."

Bodin, "der gr?sste theoretische Politiker Frankreichs im 16. Jahrhundert," declares Renz, "besitzt ... das unbestreitbare Verdienst, wenn nicht die Grundgedanken und nicht ausschliesslich originale Gedanken, so doch die erste weitgehende wissenschaftliche Untersuchung ?ber den Zusammenhang zwischen umgebender Natur und Menschenwelt in neuerer Zeit auf dem Boden der Erfahrung und Wissenschaft des 16. Jahrhunderts angestellt zu haben."

Bodin, "writing in 1577 OF THE LAWES AND CUSTOMES OF A COMMON WEALTH , contains, as Professor J. L. Myres has pointed out , 'the whole pith and kernel of modern anthropo-geography....'" And Renz believes that "In der Bodinschen Behandlung der Theorie des Klimas finden sich die Anf?nge der Anthropogeographie und der Ethnographie..."

Turgot's sketch of a 'Political Geography' shows "that he had attained to a broader view of the relationship of human development to the features of the earth and to physical agencies in general than even Montesquieu. And he saw with perfect clearness not only that many of Montesquieu's inductions were premature and inadequate, but that there was a defect in the method by which he arrived at them.... The excellent criticism of Comte, in the fifth volume of the 'Philosophie Positive,' and in the fourth volume of the 'Politique Positive,' on this portion of Montesquieu's speculations, is only a more elaborate reproduction of that of Turgot, and is expressed in terms which show that it was directly suggested by that of Turgot."

Cuvier "had not hesitated to trace the close relation borne by philosophy and art to the underlying geological formations."

In the teaching of a number of great thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, man is "the product of environment and education" and, in their opinion, "all men were born equal and later became unequal through unequal opportunities."

One of the principal offices of an historian, according to August Wilhelm Schlegel, is "Die zeit- und kulturgeschichtliche Bedingtheit aller Erscheinungen aufzuzeigen." But the effect of physical milieu on history is not rated high in the philosophy of the romanticists.

Ingeniously, albeit not with his wonted acuteness, Hegel penned the concept "Volksgeist." The saying, which now seems trivial, that every nation and every man in the nation is "ein Kind seiner Zeit," is said to be Hegel's. Hegel, however, distinctly rejected the idea of explaining "die Geschichte und den Geist der verschiedenen V?lker aus dem Klima ihrer L?nder." The implication would be that one single factor might satisfactorily be held responsible for all progress in human history. As climate can not explain everything to Hegel, it seems not to explain anything at all to him. Hegel, then, is excessive in his denial of the power of environment. This is markedly shown by his thinking his position substantiated by the fact that the climate of Greece, although the same since classical antiquity, has not changed the Turks who now dwell in Greece into ancient Greeks.

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Translated into French by Baron Meg. F. de Slane .

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"Sogar das Temperament variiert nach dem Klima ...

"Wie das Temperament wird die Sprache von dem inneren physischen Bau abh?ngig gedacht ...

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