The earth and man: lectures on comparative physical geography, in its relation to the history of mankind / By Arnold Guyot. Translated from the French, by C. C. Felton.

  • Guyot, A. (Arnold), 1807-1884.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The earth and man: lectures on comparative physical geography, in its relation to the history of mankind / By Arnold Guyot. Translated from the French, by C. C. Felton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in my power to render that sacrifice less irksome; and I shall always he desirous of giving to those who will do me the favor to ask it, all the explanations which they can require. The subject to which I propose to call your attention, is Comparative Physical Geography, considered in its rela- tions to the history and the destinies of mankind. But the term geography has been applied to such different things, the use, the misuse to which it has been subjected, has rendered it so elastic and ill-defined, that, in order to pre- vent misconception, I must first of all explain to you what I understand by Geography. If, preserving the etymological sense of the word geog- raphy, we should, with many authors, undertake to limit this study to a simple description of the surface of the globe and of the beings which are found there, we must at once renounce the idea of calling it by the name of science, in the lofty sense of this word. To describe, without rising to the causes, or descending to the consequences, is no more science, than merely and simply to relate a fact of which one has been a witness. The geographer who thus understands his study, seems to make as little of geogra- phy as the chronicler of history. It would be easy to show that even the power of describing well ought to be denied him; for if he renounces the study of the laws which have presided over the creation, over the dispo- sition of the terrestrial individuals in their different orders ; if he will take no account of those which have given birth to the phenomena that he wishes to describe, soon, over- whelmed beneath the mass of details, of whose relative