cessary, therefor, to
work up certain important themes with a thoroughness commensurate with
their significance, to reduce the scale of others, and to fill up
certain gaps with original contributions to the science. Always it was
necessary to clarify the original statement, where that was adhered to,
and to throw it into the concrete form of expression demanded by the
Anglo-Saxon mind.

One point more. The organic theory of society and state permeates the
_Anthropo-geographie_, because Ratzel formulated his principles at a
time when Herbert Spencer exercised a wide influence upon European
thought. This theory, now generally abandoned by sociologists, had to be
eliminated from any restatement of Ratzel's system. Though it was
applied in the original often in great detail, it stood there
nevertheless rather as a scaffolding around the finished edifice; and
the stability of the structure, after this scaffolding is removed shows
how extraneous to the whole it was. The theory performed, however, a
great service in impressing Ratzel's mind with the life-giving
connection between land and people.

The writer's own method of research has been to compare typical peoples
of all races and all stages of cultural development, living under
similar geographic conditions. If these peoples of different ethnic
stocks but similar environments manifested similar or related social,
economic or historical development, it was reasonable to infer that such
similarities were due to environment and not to race. Thus, by extensive
comparison, the race factor in these problems of two unknown quantities
was eliminated for certain large classes of social and historical
phenomena.

The writer, moreover, has purposely avoided definitions, formulas, and
the enunciation of hard-and-fast rules; and has refrained from any
effort to delimit the field or define the relation of this new science
of anthropo-geography to the older sciences. It is unwise to put tight
clothes on a growing child. The eventual form and scope of the science,
the definition and organization of its material must evolve gradually,
after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field. The
eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns
against precipitate or rigid conclusions. But its laws are none the less
well founded because they do not lend themselves to mathematical
finality of statement. For this reason the writer speaks of geographic
factors and i