TRACES ON THE RHODIAN SHORE

It is said of the Socratic philosopher, Aristippus, so Vitruvius

wrote in the preface to the sixth book of his De architectural
that being shipwrecked and cast on the shore of Rhodes and
seeing there geometrical figures on the sand, he cried out to his

companions, "Let us be of good hope, for indeed I see the

traces of men." After making his observation, Aristippus de-

parted for the city of Rhodes (another unique creation of

man) and there in its gymnasium talked philosophy.
 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

Frontispiece of David Gregory's edition of Euclid's Opera (Oxford, 1703)

illustrating the shipwreck of Aristippus as related by Vitruvius
in the Preface to Book VI of his De architectura.
 CLARENCE J. GLACKEN

Traces on the
Rhodian Shore
NATURE AND CULTURE IN WESTERN THOUGHT
FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE END OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Berkeley and Los Angeles
1967
 University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
Cambridge University Press
London, England
Copyright © 1967, by
The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 67-10970
Printed in the United States of America
my wife, Mildred, and my children, Karen and Michael
 Preface

Western thought, men have persistently asked three questions

In the history of
concerning the habitable earth and their relationships to it. Is the earth, which
is obviously a fit environment for man and other organic life, a purposefully
made creation? Have its climates, its relief, the configuration of its continents
influenced the moral and social nature of individuals, and have they had an
influence in molding the character and nature of human culture? In his long
tenure of the earth, in what manner has man changed it from its hypothetical
pristine condition?
From the time of the Greeks to our own, answers to these questions have
been and are being given so frequently and so continually that we may restate
them form of general ideas: the idea of a designed earth; the idea of en-
in the
vironmental influence; and the idea of man as a geographic agent. These ideas
have come from the general thought and experience of men, but the first owes
much to mythology, theology, and philosophy; the second, to pharmaceutical
lore, medicine, and weather observation; the third, to the plans, activities, and

skills of everyday life such as cultivation, carpentry, and weaving. The first

two ideas were expressed frequently in antiquity, the third less so, although
it was implicit in many discussions which recognized the obvious fact that

men through their arts, sciences, and techniques had changed the physical en-
vironment about them.
In the first idea, it is assumed that the planet is designed for man alone, as
the highest being of the creation, or for the hierarchy of life with man at the
apex. The conception presupposes the earth or certain known parts of it to be
a fit environment not only for Hfe but for high civihzation.
The second idea originated in medical theory. In essence, conclusions were
drawn by comparing various environmental factors such as atmospheric con-
ditions (most often temperature), waters, and geographical situation with the
different individuals and peoples characteristic of these environments, the
comparisons taking the form of correlations between environments and indi-
vidual and cultural characteristics. Strictly speaking, it is incorrect to refer to
these early speculations as theories of climatic influence, for there was no well-
developed theory of weather and climate; would be more correct to refer to
it

them and places

as theories of airs, waters, in the sense in which these terms are
used in the Hippocratic corpus. Although environmentalistic ideas arose in-
dependently of the argument of divine design, they have been used frequently
as part of the design argument in the sense that all life is seen as adapting itself

to the purposefully created harmonious conditions.

viii Preface

The third idea was less well formulated in antiquity than were the other
two; in fact, its full implications were not realized until Buff on wrote of them,
and they were not explored in detail until Marsh published Man and Nature
in 1864. Like the environmental theory, it could be accommodated within the
design argument, for man through his arts and inventions was seen as a partner
of God, improving upon and cultivating an earth created for him. Although
the idea of environmental influences and that of man as a geographic agent
may not be contradictory— many geographers in modern times have tried to
work out theories of reciprocal influences— the adoption by thinkers of one of
these ideas to the exclusion of the other has been characteristic of both ancient
and modern times; it was not perceived, however, until the nineteenth century
that the adoption of one in preference to the other led to entirely different
emphases. One and in modern ones as well,
finds therefore in ancient writers,
ideas both of geographic influence and of man's agency in widely scattered
parts of their work without any attempt at reconciling them; since Greek
times the two ideas have had a curious history, sometimes meeting, sometimes
being far apart.
The main theme of this work is that, in Western thought until the end of the
eighteenth century, concepts of the relationship of human culture to the natu-
ralenvironment were dominated— but not exclusively so— by these three ideas,
sometimes by only one of them, sometimes by two or even the three in com-
bination: Man, for example, lives on a divinely created earth harmoniously
devised for his needs; his physical qualities such as skin and hair, his physical
activity and mental stimulation are determined by climate; and he fulfills his
God-given mission of finishing the creation, bringing order into nature, which
God, in giving him mind, the eye, and the hand, had intended that he do. This
group of ideas and certain subsidiary ideas which gathered around them were
part of the matrix from which in modern times the social sciences have
emerged; the latter of course have deep roots as well in the history of theology,
ethics, political and social theory, and philosophy. In Western civilization
these three ideas have played an important role in the attempt to understand
man, his culture, and the natural environment in which he lives. From the
questions they have posed have come the modern study of the geography of
man.
One does not easily isolate ideas for study out of that mass of facts, lore,
musings, and speculations which we call the thought of an age or of a cultural
one literally tears and wrenches them out. There is nothing disem-
tradition;
bodied about them, and the cut is not clean. They are living small parts of
complex wholes; they are given prominence by the attention of the student.
These simple truths introduce a more difficult problem. Where and when
does one stop? Let me give some examples. Everyone recognizes that a striking
shift in the attitude toward nature occurred in the Latin Middle Ages during
 Preface ix

the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The designed world of that era was
more complex than was that of the early Church Fathers, and it bore a lighter
load of symbolism. More attention was given to everyday matters and to sec-
ondary But in exploring this theme one quickly becomes involved in
causes.
realism versus nominahsm, in modern ideas concerning the origins of science,
in changes in religious art such as the portrayal of the Crucifixion, the Ascen-
sion, and the Virgin and Child, in the role of the Franciscan order in nature
study, in the implications of Etienne Tempier's condemnation of 1277, and in
the more reahstic approaches to the study of botany— and indeed of the human
form. These subjects comprise another work; yet they are suggested by
themes in this one.
Galileo— to take a second illustration— pushed aside secondary qualities in
his methodology. It proved to be the correct way to make discoveries in theo-
retical science. This procedure, which could have cleared the way for a pur-
posive control over nature through applied science, contributed less to the
development of natural history, whose students found it hard to simplify the
variety and individuality of life which were clearly apparent to the senses.
Smells and colors were important. In the eighteenth century Buffon in his
criticism of Descartes realized the limitations of abstract thought. Natural his-
tory requires description, study of detail, of color, smell, environmental
changes, of the influence of man whether his acts are or are not purposive.
Modern ecology and conservation also need this kind of examination, for
many of their roots lie in the old natural history. So we have another book
contrasting the history of methodology in physics with that of natural history
and biology, noting the obvious fact that teleology continued as a working
scientific principle far longer in the latter than it did in physics. We should
contrast also the purposive control over nature through applied science with
the unlooked for, perhaps unconscious and unperceived, changes that men
perpetually make in their surroundings.
Large related bodies of thought thus appear, at first like distant riders stir-
ring up modest dust clouds, who, when they arrive, reproach one for his
slowness in recognizing their numbers, strength, and vitality. One thinks of
the history of ideas concerned with gardens, sacred landscapes, and nature
symbolism.
Only rarely can one look at a landscape modified in some way by man and
say with assurance that what one sees embodies and illustrates an attitude to-
ward nature and man's place in it. Landscape painting presents similar diffi-

culties. What indeed are we to make of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Fall of
Icarus'? An exception, in my opinion, is the history of the garden, whether it

is English, Chinese, or Itahan. In gardens, one can almost see the embodiment
of ideas in landscapes. Is art imitating nature, or is nature opposed to art.^ Is

the garden like a lesson in geometry, are its lawns well raked, or does it suggest
X Preface

soft rolling meadows? And what does it say about the attitudes men should
have not only to their surroundings but to themselves? But this theme would
require yet another book; one can see the possibilities in the writings of Siren
and in Clifford's A History of Garden Design.
In the world as a whole, there are few more inviting themes for the historian
of attitudes toward the earth than the role of the sacred. Today the best illus-
trations come from non-Western cultures, but the history of Western civiHza-
tion is rich in them too. One thinks of Scully's study of Greek sacred architec-
ture and its Roman centuriation in cosmic
landscapes, the possible origins of
speculation, the celestial cityand the heavenly Jerusalem, cathedral siting in
the Middle Ages, sacred groves, and nature symbolism. Indeed, gardens, sacred
landscapes, religious and esthetic attitudes toward environmental change by
man, entice one into studies with profound human meaning which are not
easily exhausted.
There are many illustrations in this work of that separation between man
and nature which occurs so frequently in Western thought, and conversely of
the union of the two as parts of live and indivisible wholes. The dichotomy
has plagued the history of geographical thought (for example, the distinction,
which many would now abandon, between the natural and the cultural land-
scape) and contemporary ecological discussions concerned with man's dis-
turbance of the balance of nature. Essays confidently begin with assertions
that man is part of nature— how could he be otherwise?— but their argument
makes sense and gains cogency only when human cultures are set off from the
rest of natural phenomena. I cannot claim to have clarified this difficult sub-
ject. In Western thought, it is too involved in other histories of ideas— in the

philosophy of man, in theology, in the problem of physical and moral evil.

Did the distinction between man and nature begin in primordial times when
man saw himself, so clearly like the animals in many respects, but able never-
theless to assert his will over some of them? Was it enshrined in Western
thought by the Jewish teaching that man, sinful and wicked as he is, is part of
the creation but distinct from it too because he is the one living being created
in the image of God? Was it in the ancient consciousness of artisanship that
men felt themselves superior to other living and nonliving matter? Prometheus
was considered to be a supreme craftsman and was worshipped as such, par-
ticularly in Attica.
Is another phase of the problem the distinction between the ways in which
men have lived their lives, some in the country, some in the town or the city,
the former closely identified with what is natural, the latter with the artificial,
the creation of man? Did not Varro say that "divine nature made the country,
but man's skill the towns," illustrating the old distinction between nature and
art? Did this deep-lying conviction gain added strength and incontrovertible
proof through the theoretical accomplishments of seventeenth century science
and the practical mastery to which they led, awarenesses so vividly expressed
 Preface xi

in the writings of Leibniz? What the Arab scientists, the medieval alchemists,
Bacon, Paracelsus, Descartes, Leibniz himself had hoped for was now being
realized: man had reached the point at which he could be confident of his
progressive ability to control nature.
My first awareness of the existence and importance of the history of ideas
came to me as a young Berkeley undergraduate when, over thirty years ago,
Itook Professor Teggart's course on the Idea of Progress. Today I still re-
member these lectures vividly and possess the classroom notes. Frederick J.
Teggart was a man of enormous learning and a superlative lecturer. The
Prolegomena to History, the Processes of History, the Theory of History, his
review of Spengler's Decline of the West, opened up fields of scholarship I
scarcely knew existed.
To the reader it must seem that the present work is exclusively a product of
the library. Actually, the early stimulus to study these ideas came also from
personal experience and from observations which pointed to the role of ideas
and values in understanding the relationships of culture to the environment.
During the depression years, as I worked with resident and transient families
on rehef, with migratory farm workers who had come from the Dust Bowl, I
became aware— as did countless thousands of others— of the interrelationships
existing between the Depression, soil erosion, and the vast migration to Cali-
fornia.
In 1937 I spent eleven months traveling in many parts of the world. The
yellow dust clouds high over Peking, the dredging of pond mud along the
Yangtze, the monkeys swinging from tree to tree at Angkor Vat, a primitive
water-Hfting apparatus near Cairo, the Mediterranean promenade, the goat
curd and the carob of Cyprus, the site of Athens and the dryness of Greece,

and the deforestation of the Eastern Medi-

the shrubs, the coves, the hamlets,
terranean, the shepherds of the Caucasus, the swinging swords of Central
Asians in the markets of Ordzhonikidze, the quiet farms of Swedish Skane—
these and many other observations made me realize as part of my being the
commonplace truth that there is a great diversity both of human cultures and
of the physical environments in which they live. It is the difference between
knowing about the midnight sun and spending a summer night on the Arctic
circle. One is continually asking questions about the circumstances which

stimulate human creativity, about the effect of religious belief, about the
custom and tradition which men have soaked into their soils. And although I
have used abstract words like "man" and "nature" as a convenience, it is
really human culture, natural history, the relief of the land that I mean.
Phrases like "man and nature" are useful as titles, as a shorthand to express far
more complex sets of ideas.
In 1 95 1, living in three small Okinawan villages and studying their way of
life, I could see the profound importance of the Chinese family system, altered

of course by the Japanese and the Okinawans themselves, and the influence of
xii Preface

the system of inheritance on the use and the appearance of the land. In such
circumstances, it seems natural to see differences in traditions concerning cul-
ture and the environment, to see the ideas developed in Western civilization
merely as a few of many possibilities.

Finally during a year spent in Norway in 1957, visiting its old towns, espe-
cially those of the Gudbrandsdal, its farms, an occasional seter, and reading
about the history of its forests, I saw more clearly and vividly how deep is the
European interest in the history of landscapes, the Norwegian interest in the
history of farms, the seter, place names— in all aspects of rural life. The water-
driven saws from the eighteenth century at the open-air museums at Bygd0y in
Oslo and at Elverum on the Glomma made me read the literature on environ-
mental change in the Middle Ages with new attentiveness because this im-
portant invention was first illustrated in the Albu?n of Villard de Honnecourt
in the thirteenth century.
In manyplaces one can see evidences of a relationship between religious
attitudes toward the earth and the appearance of a landscape, of limitations
imposed by a local environment, of the historical depth of changes made in
the physical environment by human culture.
When I started on this work in the mid-1950's, I had merely intended to
write an introduction to a work based on a doctoral thesis, "The Ideas of the
Habitable World," which covered the period from the eighteenth century
to the present. Later I decided to give fuller consideration to classical antiquity
and to the Middle Ages. Finally, what was originally intended to be a short
sally became a major expedition because I became convinced that the origins
and earlier histories of these ideas were important and made modern attitudes
toward the earth more meaningful; they could also suggest possible compara-
tive studies with Indian, Chinese, and Muslim thought.
I had intended, moreover, to bring the history down to the present, feeling

there was a great advantage in showing the sweep of these ideas over two
millennia. It was a bitter disappointment, therefore, to make the decision about
two years ago to stop at the end of the eighteenth century. The task I felt was
now beyond my individual powers. The thought of the nineteenth and twen-
tieth centuries requires a different kind of treatment and properly should be a
separate work. The volume of material is too great, but more than volume is
involved. The materials are more complex, they are more specialized, and they
are widely scattered through many disciplines. In another work I hope to write
on certain nineteenth and twentieth century themes in a way consistent with
the capacity of a single individual, for despite the indispensability of symposia
and other types of cooperative scholarship I still feel there is a place for indi-
vidual interpretation of broad trends in the history of thought.
Furthermore, I was convinced— allowing for the artificiality of dividing
thought by centuries or periods— that in the time span from classical antiquity
roughly to the end of the eighteenth century there was a coherent body of
 Preface xiii

thought gathered about these ideas. Buffon, Kant, or Montesquieu, I think,

would have found the classical world strange, but the gulf between their times
and classical times would have been less than that between 1800 and 1900.
A historian of ideas must go where his nose leads him, and it often leads
him into chilly but not inhospitable regions whose borders are patrolled by
men who know every square foot of it. Although I can lay no claim to being
a specialist in a particular century or in the classical or medieval periods, my
own specialization in the history of geographic thought has forced me to study
many periods because their contributions are so great they cannot be ignored.
Problems like this must be faced by anyone who wishes to go beyond the
narrowest limits. A historian of geographic ideas (especially in the earlier pe-
riods) who stays within the limits of his discipline sips a thin gruel because
these ideas almost invariably are derived from broader inquiries like the origin
and nature of life, the nature of man, the physical and biological characteristics
of the earth. Of necessity they are spread widely over many areas of thought.
Whenever possible I have read the original sources, and only in exceptional
cases have I referred to the huge volume of secondary literature. I intend here
no condescension to these secondary sources, because we often owe newer
insights to their scholarship. My general rule has been to cite those towhich
I am indebted and others which are of interest to, but somewhat peripheral to,
my themes. For the most part, therefore, I have made my own interpretations;
in some cases the aid of expert knowledge of the text, expositions of the mean-
ing of certain words at a particular time, and the Quellenuntersuchungen of
the classical period are indispensable; examples are Reinhardt on Posidonius
and Panaetius, Love joy and Armstrong on Plotinus, Klauk on the geography
of Albert the Great. In some cases, especially in chapter 7, 1 have quoted docu-
ments published in secondary works mainly because the originals— often in
French or German town and provincial archives, in rare books, or in charters
—were unavailable to me.
Because of the great number of thinkers who have discussed the ideas whose
history I am concerned with here, a few words should be said about the prob-
lem of selection. My general rule has been to select those works which
made an important contribution to the idea in question and those which, while
showing little or no originality, introduced the idea into other fields or re-
vealed either continuity in thought or the continuing importance of the idea.
The Airs^ Waters, Places of the Hippocratic corpus makes an original contri-
bution to environmental theory; Aristotle does not, but he used environmental
ideas in political and social theory. Failure to make a selection would have
made my work tedious beyond endurance, for in these fields there are many
repetitious scrolls written with different quills. I have also given generous
space to a significant thinker at the expense of lesser contemporaries. In the
Middle Ages the problem of selection in discussing the idea of design is par-
ticularly difficult because it is mentioned by virtually all thinkers; I am con-
xiv Preface

vinced thatmy emphasis on St. Basil, Origen, St. Augustine, Albert the Great,
St.Thomas, and Raymond Sibiude is reasonable. In the Renaissance, Bodin's
handling of environmental theories is far more thorough than that of any of
his contemporaries; in fact, he is often their source. In the eighteenth century
Buff on speaks with greatest authority on the agency of man in changing
nature, Hume and Kant on teleology in nature, Montesquieu on environmental
questions.
This work is concerned only with the development of these ideas in Western
civihzation; it is thus parochial in the sense that this civilization has furnished
unique molds for them. There is no ecumenical thought, although the litera-

ture on the method may be an exception. Various great traditions-

scientific
Indian, Chinese, Muslim among them— have flourished, often in isolation, often
interacting with and influencing one another. The Western tradition— its
science, technology, critical scholarship, its deep-seated interest in theology,
philosophy, political and social theory, and geography— is the most varied and
cosmopolitan, partly because it has received and absorbed so much from the
others.
A few remarks are in order concerning the frequent use of certain words.
"Nature," "physical environment," "design," "final causes," "climate," and
other words and expressions which appear in this work have a long history,
accumulating different and often vague meanings in the course of time. In the
one cannot find precision where it is not. Often the mean-
literature, therefore,
ing of words is assumed as being obvious and needing no explanation.
The word "nature," as everyone knows, has many meanings in Greek and
Latin and in modern languages. With all of its failings it is a grand old word.
When Huxley wrote Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863), he dis-
cussed man's place in the evolutionary scale of being. When Marsh wrote Man
and Nature in 1 864 he described the earth as modified by human action. Some-
times the word is synonymous with the physical or natural environment;
sometimes it has a more philosophic, religious, theological aura than these more
matter-of-fact terms express. Occasionally it attains grandeur as in Buffon's
reference to it as "le trone exterieur de la magnificence Divine."
In the literature, the words "natural" and "physical" environment have
often been used interchangeably. They correspond to Umwelt and milieu,
their use being confined to physical and biological phenomena. They are
general terms for the organic and inorganic realms of earth including those
changed by man. They are never used in the sense social scientists often use
the word "environment," that is, the cultural milieu (upper-class quarter,
slums, neighborhoods).
In general "man" is used as a word meaning "mankind"; "cul-
convenient
ture," "society," however, are the more exact terms. "Man" is so abstract
that it conceals the complexities and intricacies which the other words suggest.
For long periods, "climate," "clime," were used in the original Greek sense
 Preface XV

as a translation of /cXt/xa; Montesquieu in the Spirit of Laws uses it in this

sense. In his work on the climate and soil of the United States (English trans-
Count Volney remarks upon the shift in meaning of "climate"
lation, 1804),
which was then taking place. The literal meaning, he said somewhat inac-
curately, is a degree of latitude. Since, however, generally speaking, countries
are hot or cold according to latitude, the second idea became intimately as-
sociated with the first, and "the term climate is now synonymous with the
habitual temperature of the air."
Many terms lose precision because of long usage. Generally speaking,
"argument from design" has been used interchangeably with a theologically
based teleology and with the "doctrine of final causes," although such usages
are hard to defend. It has frequently been pointed out that the word "causes"
in "final causes" means something entirely different from the usual meaning
of "cause" as in "efficient cause." Similarly, physico-theology and natural
theology have often been used synonymously with the theologically based
teleological view of nature; both terms have also served to distinguish their
subject matter and concepts from those of revealed religion. Still others have
distinguished between physico-theology and natural theology, including in
the latter more discussion of man, leaving to the former illustrations of design
in the physical and biological world. WilHam Derham, however, contrasted
physico-theology with astro-theology, the former being concerned with
proofs of the divine wisdom based on earthly processes, and the latter, from
the cosmic order. Historically these expressions are closely related to formu-
lations of proofs for the existence of God by St. Thomas Aquinas, Kant, and
others.
It must be admitted that there is no escape from these terms; the confusion

exists in the literature. Over eighty years ago L. E. Hicks marched bravely
into the swamps; he disapproved of using the terms "argument from design"
and the "teleological view of nature" synonymously, because teleology was
not the only possible course open to the Creator; he could also establish an
order by design. Hicks did not claim that the older teleological view of nature
declined pari passu with the expansion of the newer scientific view, but he did
identify teleology with the older theology, and order with science. The dis-
tinction here one between teleology with emphasis on purpose (not only
is

of every entity in nature but of nature itself) and an order based on natural
law without considering the question of purpose. For the latter concept, he
proposed the term eutaxiology after the Greek word eurafta, meaning good
order and discipline. The teleological view led to an emphasis on end or
purpose, adaptation of means to ends; the eutaxiological, on order and plan.
So far as I know eutaxiology died in infancy for lack of care.
The expressions "web of life" and "balance" or "equilibrium in nature"
have often been used interchangeably. They are metaphors suggesting the
existence of intricate interrelationships in nature and delicate adjustment
XVI Preface

among its constituent parts. One with the spinners of webs, the
sees likenesses
other is derived from classical physics. Perhaps the "web" calls attention to
interrelationships more than does "balance" or "equilibrium," which places
the emphasis on delicacy of adjustment, but I have never seen such distinctions
expressed.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the introduction to Part I, which
may seem disproportionately long. It is intended to serve two purposes: to
provide the immediate background for the parallel histories of the three ideas
in the classical period and to make more inteUigible the thought of later pe-
riods which, with all the changes enforced by new conditions and circum-
stances, still rests sohdly, at least in part, on classical foundations.
 Acknowledgments

I wish to express my deep appreciation to the Institute of Social Sciences,

University of Cahfornia, Berkeley, for its long support of this work and to

acknowledge with particular gratitude the many kindnesses of its director.

Professor Herbert Blumer.
It has been my good fortune to be a member of a department during the
tenure of three chairmen, Carl Sauer, John Leighly, and James Parsons, whose
own commitments to and sympathies for humanistic studies have been a con-
tinuing encouragement to me; these remarks also apply to my colleague, Paul
Wheatley, who in addition has read parts of the manuscript and generously
helped me in the interpretation and translation of several passages from classical
and medieval Latin. Professor Lesley Simpson's translation of the Laws of
Burgos opened up new vistas to me; his deep knowledge of the writings of the
Conquest period made me realize how important many of the ideas discussed
in this work were in the post-Columbian New World, even if these themes
are too vast for exploration here. Since I first took undergraduate courses from
her over thirty years ago, I have enjoyed the warm friendship of Margaret
Hodgen; her incisiveness and her sensitivity to the history of ideas are once
more in evidence in her Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries, a masterly exposition of early modern conceptions of man and his
culture. Her courageous scholarly career has been an inspiration to many of
her students.
I am most grateful to my colleagues at the University, Professor John K.

Anderson of the Classics Department for reading and criticizing the draft
chapters on the classical period; Professor Bryce Lyon, formerly of the De-
partment of History at Berkeley and now at Brown University, for the me-
dieval period; Professor Kenneth Bock, Department of Sociology, for the
modern period; and also to Mr. John Elston for the medieval period. The
errors which remain are my own. The interest which Professor Clarence E.
Palmer, Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of Cali-
fornia at Los Angeles, showed in this work was a source of great encourage-
ment to me. I wish to acknowledge the helpful advice of Grace Buzaljko, of
the University of California Press, and the suggestions by Gladys Castor in
her careful copyediting of the text. For several years I have had the valuable
assistance of Florence Myer; I cannot speak too highly of the conscientious-
ness, skill, and patience she has shown in typing the drafts and final copy of
a long and difficult manuscript. My wife Mildred through the years has
xviii A cknowledgments
helped me in innumerable ways and has assisted in preparing the manuscript
for the Press.
Furthermore, I wish to express my appreciation to Mr. Steve Johnson for
doing the line drawings and for and patience in suggesting through
his skill
pictorial representation the abstract ideas with which the book is concerned.
The reader may also be interested in learning that many of the drawings are
broad adaptations of or have been suggested by the works of others. The draw-
ing for chap, i was suggested by Isabelle's reconstruction of the interior of the
Pantheon and reproduced in Rodenwaldt's Die Kunst der Ajjtike; chap. 3, by
Zeno Diemer's pictorial reconstruction of the intersection of five aqueducts
southeast of Rome; by a miniature from the Geroevangelistary, Darm-
chap. 4,
stadt Landesbibliotek, from Max Hauttmann, Die Kunst des friihen Mittelal-
ters; for the introduction to Part II, by the view of the minster of Ste-Foy in

Conques (Aveyron) from the same work; chap. 5, by a reproduction, "God

as architect of the universe," from a Bible moralisee, Vienna, in von Simson,
The Gothic Cathedral; chap. 6, by a figure in a pen drawing ca. 1200, depict-
ing the air as an element of cosmic harmony, reproduced in the same work;
chap. 7, by a drawing of a Benedictine, from R. P. Helyot, Histoire des ordres
religieux et militaires (1792), Vol. 5; for the right panel of the drawing for
the introduction to Part III, a detail from Theodor de Bry, Americae pars
quart a, 1594, reproduced in Albert Bettex's The Discovery of the World,
1 31-132; chap. 8, by Joseph Anton Koch's painting. Waterfalls near Subiaco,

Nationalgalerie, Berhn, reproduced in Marcel Brion, Ro77tantic Art; chap. 9,

from a diagram showing relationships of the four elements to the four quali-
ties (source unknown to me); for the introduction to Part IV, by an engrav-
ing showing Bernard de Jussieu returning from a voyage to England in 1734
and bringing back two cedars of Lebanon in his tri-cornered hat, from Cap,
Le Museu77t d'' histoire naturelle; chap. 1
1, by illustrations of microscopes and
telescopes in Singer's A
History of Technology^ Vol. 3, pp. 634-635; chap.
12, by a frequently reproduced portrait of Montesquieu; chap. 14, by a page
from the original edition of Buffon's Des Epoques de la Nature, 1778; con-
clusion, by a detail from the frontispiece.
Books and articles relating to specific periods are cited in the notes of the
appropriate chapter. I wish to acknowledge here, however, my indebtedness
to certain works which cover longer time periods. Zockler's two-volume
Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft mit
besondrer Rucksicht auf Schopfungsgeschichte (i 877-1 879) is a monumental
study. Sympathetic himself to theologico-teleology, Zockler's indefatigable
thoroughness places all students of this general field in his debt. Hicks's little

known and peppery work A Critique of Design-Argujnents (with many quo-

tations from original sources) reveals how lively, even in the eighties of the
last century, were the advocates and critics of design. Franklin Thomas's
Environmental Basis of Society (1925) I read many years ago, gaining from
 A cknowledgments xix

it my first insight into the sweep of environmental ideas from the classical
period to the early twenties of this century. A great deal of work has been
done in this century on the history of population theory, but it is largely con-
fined to specific periods. Stangeland's work, *Tre-Malthusian Doctrines of
Population" (1904), is still stimulating; he had many insights into the relation-
ships between population theory and political and social theory, theology, and
other disciplines. Lovejoy's Great Chain of Being (1948) has made an im-
portant segment of Western thought intelligible; especially valuable to me,
inter alia, are his discussions of a hierarchy in nature, interpretations of man's
place in and most of all, the principle of plenitude.
it,

Lastly, I wish to express my appreciation to the following publishers who

have granted permission to quote from works published by them. I am par-
ticularly grateful to the Harvard University Press and William Heinemann,
Ltd., for their generosity in permitting extensive quotation from authors whose
works are published in the Loeb Classical Library: Apollonius Rhodius,
Argonautica; Aristotle Animals Cicero, Academica,
; De fato, De
oratore, De deorum, De republica; Columella, De re rustica; Diodorus
natiira
of Sicily; Galen, O/z the Natural Faculties; Greek Bucolic Poets; Hesiod, The
Homeric Hymns and Homerica; Hippocrates, Vol. I, Airs, Waters, Places
and Ancient Medicine, Vol. IV, Nature of Man; Horace, The Odes and
Epodes, Satires and Epistles; Philo, On the Creation; Plato, Timaeus, Critias;
Phny, Natural History; Plutarch, Moralia, Vol. 4, "On the Fortune or the
Virtue of Alexander," and Vol. 12, "Concerning the Face Which Appears in
the Orb of the Moon"; Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos; Seneca, Epistolae Morales;
Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants; TibuUus, in Catullus, Tibullus, and Per-
vigilium Veneris; Xenophon, Memorabilia and Oeconomicus,
Selections from Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, copyright
1936 and 1964 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, and from
Arthur O. Lovejoy and George Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in An-
tiquity, are reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
Mass.
from Smile; or, Education by Jean Jacques Rousseau, translated
Selections
by Barbara Foxley, Everyman's Library, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York, and
Dent & Sons, Ltd., London, are reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Passages from The Critique of Judgment by Immanual Kant, translated
from the German by James Creed Meredith, and from Lucretius, De rerum
natura libri sex, translated from the Latin by Cyril Bailey, are reprinted with
permission of the publishers. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Selections from D. Winton Thomas, editor. Documents from Old Testa-
ment Times, Harper Torchbooks, The Cloister Library, New York, Harper
and Brothers, 1961, and originally published by Thomas Nelson and Sons,
Ltd., London, 1958, are reprinted with permission of the publishers.
Selections are reprinted with permission from the publishers from Saint
XX Acknowledgments

Benedict by Abbot Justin McCann, O.S.B., © 1958 Sheed & Ward, Inc., New
York.
Lines from Mediaeval Latin Lyrics translated by Helen Waddell, Penguin
Classics, Penguin Books, 1962, are reprinted by permission of Constable
Publishers, London.
Quotations from £tienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the
Middle Ages, ©1955 by £tienne Gilson, are reprinted with permission of
Random House, Inc., New York.
Lines from Leibniz, Selections, edited by Philip P. Wiener, 1951, are re-
printed with permission of Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
Selections from The Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean
de Meun, translated by Harry W. Robbins, copyright, ©, 1962, by Florence
L. Robbins, are reprinted by permission of E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
The Scripture quotations in this publication are from the Revised Standard
Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946 and 1952, and from the Apocrypha,
copyrighted 1957, by the Division of Christian Education of the National
Council of Churches, and are used by permission.

Clarence J. Glacken

Berkeley, California, 1966

 Contents

PREFACE vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii

ABBREVIATIONS xxv

PART ONE
The Ancient World
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 3

I. General Ideas, 5 2. The Hellenistic Age and Its Characteristic Atti-

tudes Toward Nature, 18

1 ORDER AND PURPOSE IN THE COSMOS AND ON EARTH 35

I.Theology and Geography, 55 2. Beginnings of the Teleological View
of Nature, 55? 3. Xenophon on Design, 42 4. The Artisanship of God
and of Nature, 44 5. Aristotle's Teleology of Nature, 46 6. Misgivings

of Theophrastus, 4p 7. Stoic Views of Nature, 5/ 8. On the Nature of

of the Gods, 9. The Development of Antiteleological Ideas in the Epi-
curean Philosophy, 62 10. Plutarch, the Hermetical Writings, and Ploti-
nus, J4

2 AIRS, WATERS, PLACES 80

I. Greek Sources of the Environmental Theory, 80 2. The Hippocratic
Treatise "Airs, Waters, Places," 82 3. Herodotus' Interest in Custom and
Environment, 88 4. Location Theories and Hippocratic Influences, (fi
5. The Problem of Cultural Diversity, 6. Ethnology and Environment
in Selected Roman Writings, 100 7. Strabo's Eclecticism, /05 8. Vitru-
vius on Architecture, 106 9. Critiques of Philo and Josephus, no
10. Environmental and Astrological Ethnology, /// 11. Servius on
Virgil, 114

3 CREATING A SECOND NATURE 116

I. OnArtisanship and Nature, n6 2. Antigone and Critias, 119 3. En-
vironmental Change in the Hellenistic Period, 122 4. General Descrip-
tions of Environmental Change, 727 5. Theophrastus on Domestication
and Climatic Change, i2p 6. Rural Life and the Golden Age, /50 7. Is
the Earth Mortal?, 1^4 8. Interpreting Environmental Changes Within a
Broader Philosophy of Civilization, 138 9. Conclusion, 14^

4 GOD, MAN, AND NATURE IN JUDEO-CHRISTIAN

THEOLOGY 150
I.Introduction, /50 2. The Creation, Sin, and Dominion, 75/ 3. Man in

the Order of Nature, iS4 4. Earthly Environment, i^S 5- Attitudes

xxii Contents

Toward Nature and the Wisdom Literature, 757 6. Romans 1:20, 161
7. Contemptus Mundi, 162 8. Key Ideas and the Nature of Their In-
fluence, 16s

PART TWO
The Christian Middle Ages

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 171

^ THE EARTH AS A PLANNED ABODE FOR MAN 176

I. The Early Patristic Period, i']6 2. Origen, 18 ^ 3. Philo and the Hex-
aemeral Literature, 18^ 4. St. Basil and the Hexaemeral Literature, 189
5. St. Augustine, 196 6. The Legacy of the Early Exegetical Writings,
202 7. Continuities from Boethius to the Theophany of John the Scot,
208 8. St. Bernard, St. Francis, and Alan of Lille, 2/5 9. Ferments from
the Mediterranean, 218 10. Averroes and Maimonides, 220 11. Freder-
ick II on Falcons, 224 12. Albert the Great, 227 13. St. Thomas Aqui-
nas, 22p 14. St. Bonaventura and Ramon Sibiude, 257 15. Secular Views
of Nature, 240 16. The Condemnations of 1277, 248 17. Conclusion, 250

6 ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES WITHIN A DIVINELY

CREATED WORLD 254
I. Introduction, 2^4 2. Classical Echoes, 257 3. Remarks Introducing a
More Systematic Thought, 262 4. Albert the Great, 26^ 5. The Ency-
clopedist, Bartholomew of England, 27/ 6. St. Thomas to the King of

Cyprus, 275 7. East and West: Otto of Freising and Giraldus Cambrensis,
275 8. Roger Bacon: Geography and Astrological Ethnology, 282
9. Gunther of Pairis, 28^ 10. Conclusion, 286

7 INTERPRETING PIETY AND ACTIVITY, AND THEIR

EFFECTS ON NATURE 288
I. Introduction, 288 2. The Christian Religion and the Modification of
Nature, 25^5 3. Interpreting Man's Dominion Over Nature, 25^5 4. Phi-
losophies of Work, 502 5. Animals— Wild and Domestic, 505? 6. Pur-
poseful Change, 5// 7. An Earth to Change, 5/5 8. Forest Clearance in

Northwest Europe, ^18 9. The Uses of the Forest, 520 10. Custom and
Use, 522 II. The Great Age of Forest Clearance, 550 12. Alpine Val-
leys, 5^/ 13. Soils, S45 H- Hunting, ^46 15. Lesser Themes of En-
vironmental Change, 5^7 16. Conclusion, ^48

PART THREE
Early Modern Times
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
I . Introduction, 555 2. The Age of Discovery, 557 3. Sebastian Miinster,
5(^5 4. Jose de Acosta, ^66 5. Giovanni Botero, ^68
 Contents xxiii

8 PHYSICO-THEOLOGY: DEEPER UNDERSTANDINGS OF

THE EARTH AS A HABITABLE PLANET
I. Introduction, 575 2. Final Causes and Their Critics, 3-] 6 3. Deteriora-
tion and Senescence in Nature, 575) 4. George Hakewill's Apologie, 382
5. Quarrels Over the Ancients and Moderns and the Mechanical View of
Nature, ^8p 6. The Cambridge Platonists, 7. Design and the Mul-
and Dispersion of Mankind,
tiplication 8. Fantasy, Cosmology, and

Geology and What They Led To, 406 9. Ray and Derham on the Wis-
dom of God, 41 J 10. Conclusion, 426

9 ENVIRONMENTAL THEORIES OF EARLY MODERN TIMES 429

I. Introduction, 429 2. On Leon Battista Alberti, 430 3. General Ques-
tionsRegarding Climate and Culture, 4^2 4. On Jean Bodin in General,
4S4 5. His Divisions of the Earth, 4^6 6. Bodin's Use of the Humors,

4^8 7. Other Problems, 441 8. Further Applications of Environmental

Theories, 44J 9. On National Character, 4^1 10. On Melancholy, 4^6

I I . Conclusion, 4^8

10 GROWING CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE CONTROL OF NATURE 461

I. Renaissance Philosophies of Technology, 462
Introduction, 461 2.

3. 4. Optimism of Seventeenth Century Writings,

Francis Bacon, ^7/
4JS 5. Silva and Fumifugium, 484 6. The French Forest Ordinance of
1669, 4pi 7. Conclusion, 4^4

PART FOUR
Culture and Environment in the Eighteenth Century

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 501

II FINAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF

PHYSICO-THEOLOGY 504
I. Introduction, ^04 On
Leibniz, $0$ 3. Natural History, $08 4.
2.
Population and Geography in the Divine Order, $12 5. On Final Causes
in Nature, 5/7 6. Tout Est Bien, 52/ 7. Hume, 8. Kant and Goethe,

550 9. Herder, 557 10. Humboldt, 5^5 11. Conclusion, $48

1 2 CLIMATE, THE MOEURS, RELIGION, AND GOVERNMENT 551

I. Introduction, 55/ 2. Fontenelle, Char din, and Du Bos, yj^ 3. Ar-
buthnot on the Effects of Air, $62 4. On Montesquieu in General, $6$
5. Chmatic Theory in the Esprit des Lois, s^8 6. Another Side of Mon-
tesquieu, ^16 7. Critics of Climatic Theory, $81 8. Climate and Na-
tural History, 5^7 9. Building on the Foundations of Montesquieu,
Buffon, and Hume, $92 10. On WiUiam Falconer, 601 11. Culti- New
vations: Robertson and America, 60$ 12. New Cultivations: The For-
sters and the South Seas, 610 13. Conclusion, 620

13 ENVIRONMENT, POPULATION, AND THE

PERFECTIBILITY OF MAN 623
I. Introduction, 62^ 2. On the Populousness of Ancient and Modern Na-
tions, 62^ 3. Progress and the Limitations of the Environment, 6^2
xxiv Contents

4. On the Malthusian Principle of Population in General, 6^1 5. Con-

ceptions of Progress, Theology, and the Nature of Man in the Mal-
thusian Doctrine, 644 7. Conclusion, 6^3

14 THE EPOCH OF MAN IN THE HISTORY OF NATURE 655

I. Introduction, 6s 5 2. Opportunities for Comparison, 6^6 3. Climatic
Change and the Industry of Man, 6^8 4. Count Buff on: On Nature, Man,
and the History of Nature, 663 5. Count Buffon: On Forests and Soils,
668 6. Count Buffon: On Domestications, 6'] 2 7. Count Buff on: On
Natural and Cultural Landscapes, 6"]^ 8. The American Pandora's Box,
681 9. "In a Sort, They Began the World a New," 68 s 10. Nature and
Reason Harmonized, 69s 11. The Torrents of the Var, 698 12. The So-
A
ciety Islands: Union of Nature and Art, 702 13. Conclusion, 70^

CONCLUSION 706

BIBLIOGRAPHY 715

INDEX 749
 Abbreviations

AAAG Annals of the Association of American Geographers

Act. SS. O. B, lohannes Mabillon, ed., Acta sanctorum Ordinis s.
Benedicti in saeculorum classes distributa. NA
Aen. Virgil, Aeneid
Agr, Tacitus, Agricola
AHR American Historical Review
Alsat. dip!. Schoepflin, Alsatia diplomatic a. NA
AMA Grand et Delatouche, VAgriculture au Moyen Age
ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Translations of the Writ-
ings of the Fathers douon to a.d. 525
Ann. Tacitus, Annals
Ant. Sophocles, Antigone
Anth. Stobaeus, Anthrologion
Arist. Aristotle
Ath. Athenaeus, The Deipno sophists
BDK Bibliothek der Kirchenvater
Ben. Seneca, On Benefits
Beuchot Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire, ed. Beuchot
Bus. Isocrates, Busiris
Cassiod. Cassiodorus
CEHE Cambridge Economic History of Europe
Cic. Cicero
Comm. in V erg. Aen. Grammatici Qui Feruntur
Servii in Vergilii
Carmina Commentarii
Conf. St. Augustine, Confessions
Cons, of Phil. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy
Contr. Cels. Origen, Contra Celsum
Cyr. Xenophon, Cyropaedia
De civ. dei St. Augustine, De civitate dei-, The City of God
De div. nat. John the Scot, De divisione naturae
De Maulde Etude sur la Condition Forestiere de VOrleanais au
Moyen Age et a la Renaissance
De oper. monach. St. Augustine, De opere monachorum; Of the Work
of Monks
De Princ. Origen, De Principiis
De prop, rerum Bartholomew of England, De proprietatibus rerum
De Trin. St. Augustine, De Trinitate; On the Holy Trinity
XXVI AbbreviatioJis

DNL Albert the Great, De natura locoruvi

Doc. Hist. Lovejoy and Boas, frimitivism and Related Ideas in
Antiquity. A Documentary History of Primitivism
and Related Ideas
DPE Albert the Great, De causis proprietatUDi elementorum
liber primus
Du Cange Du Cange, Gloss arium mediae et infimae latinitatis
EB Encyclopaedia Britannica
EL Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois; Esprit des Loix\ Spirit of
Laics
EN Buffon, "Des £poques de la Nature"
Enn. Plotinus, Enneads
Ep. vior. Seneca, Epistolae morales
Etyin. Etymologiarum libri xx
Isidore of Seville,
FGrH Jacoby, Die Fragmeiite der Griechischen Historiker
Ft. Fragment
Fragm. phil. Graec. Mullach, Fragme?2ta philosophorum graecorum
GAE Bailey,The Greek Atomists and Epicurus
Geo. Lore Wright, The Geographical Lore of the Time of the
Crusades
Germ. Tacitus,Germania
GR Geographical Review
HCPMA Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the
Middle Ages
Hdt. Herodotus
Hes. Hesiod
Hex. Lit. Frank E. Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature
Hippoc. Hippocrates
Hist. Lang. Paul the Deacon, History of the Langobards; De Gestis
Langobardorum
HN Buffon, Histoire Naturelle, Generale et Particuliere,
15 vols., 1 749-1 767
HNM Buffon, Historie Naturelle des Mineraux 5 vols., in-4°,
1783-1788
HNO Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux 9 vols., 1 770-1 783
HNS Buffon, Supple?ne?its d P Histoire Naturelle, 7 vols.,
1774-1789
HT Singer et al., A History of Technology
Huffel Econo7nie Forestiere
HW Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the
Hellenistic World
Isoc. Isocrates
JHI Journal of the History of Ideas
 Abbreviations xxvii

JWH Journal of World History

Lex. Man Maigne D'Arnis, Lexicon Manuale ad Scriptores,
Mediae et Inflmae Latinitatis
LP Montesquieu, Lettres Persanes-. Persia?! Letters
Lucr. Lucretius, De natura rei'um
Mem. Xenophon, Memorabilia
Met. Ovid, Metamorphoses
Metaph. Aristotle, Metaphysics
Mon. Ger. Hist. Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Mon. Ger. Hist.: Momimenta Germajiiae Historica: Capitularia
Capit. Reg. Franc. Regum Francorum
Mon. Germ. Dip. Pertz, ed., Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Diplomatum Imperii
Montal. Montalembert, The Monks of the West, from St.
Benedict to St. Bernard
MR William L. Thomas, ed., Man^s Role in Chajiging the
Face of the Earth
NA Cited but not available to the writer
Nat.D Cicero, De natura deorum
Nat. Fac. Galen, On the Natural Faculties
NH Pliny, Natural History
NPN A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
Church
of the Christian
Obs. Johann Reinhold Forster, Observations Made During
a Voyage Round the W
or Id
OCD The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1957 [1949])
OCSA Oeuvres Cojnpletes de St. Augustin (Latin and
French)
Oct. The Octavius of Minucius Felix
Oec. Xenophon, Oeconomicus
Oes. W. Oesterreichische Weisthmner
P. Cairo Zen. Edgar, Zenoji Papyri
PAPS Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
PG Miffne, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series Qraeca
Phys. Physics
PL Miffne, Patrologiae cursus coinpletus, Series latina
PMLA Publications of the Modern Laiiguage Association
Przy. Przy war a. An Augustine Synthesis
PSP Kirk and Raven, The Presocratic Philosophers
PW Paulys Real-Ency clopddie der classischen Altertums-
wissenschaft
Rep. Cicero, Republic
 Abbreviations

ivo y ivc uijcu oiu/iuur u y trdiu/L uj lijc Diuit

Thomas Aquinas, O72 the Truth of the Catholic Faith,
Swnmci Contra Gentiles
^r'nxx/ci r\T*'3 r» n Lrn /i^i n hfj
1 UflLlU LIL' IJ tit/ nv^f unn
n pv Ln Uiil- JiP7Jfc/*h—
crn CTP^/^J^i /*l^fp LJCi^Ljl/
Ullii J1 U^U^odC'rjlOrJLc
/I
fJ

lands
oeneca
Soph. oopnocics
r orsLci , ouifirniLicfje acurijicn
o±
J. IxL O
Tetrabib. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos
X iicuuiir. X llCUpill dbLUb
I rin /^\7'H 1 ri
X ilUC X iiucyuiucb
Tim. Plato, Timaeus
U. S. Dept. of Agriculture
V itr. V itruvius, ue arcijiteciura\ i tje i en dooks on rircioi-
tecture
Vorsokr. Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker
VRW Forster, A Voyage Round the World
Xen. Xenophon
 O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all;

the earth is full of thy creatures.

Psalm 104:24

I hold that Asia [Minor] differs very widely from Europe in

the nature of all its inhabitants and all of its vegetation. For
everything in Asia grows to far greater beauty and size; the
one region is less wild than the other, the character of the
inhabitants is milder and more gentle. The cause of this is the
temperate climate, because it lies towards the east midway be-
tween the risings of the sun, and farther away than is Europe
from the cold.
HIPPOCRATES,
Airs, Waters, Places, xii

We enjoy the fruits of the plains and of the mountains, the

rivers and the lakes are ours, we sow corn, we plant trees, we
fertilize the soil by irrigation, we confine the rivers and
straighten or divert their courses. In fine, by means of our
hands we essay to create as it were a second world within
the world of nature.
CICERO,
De Natura Deorum, II, 60
 PART ONE

The Ancient World

 Introductory Essay

I. General Ideas

What is most striking in conceptions of nature, even mythological ones, is

the yearning for purpose and order; perhaps these notions of order are, ba-
derived from
sically, analogies the orderliness and purposiveness in many out-
ward manifestations of human and purpose in the roads, in the
activity: order
grid of village streets and even winding lanes, in a garden or a pasture, in the
plan of a dweUing and its relation to another.
The Sumerian theologian, for example, assumed an order in the cosmos,
created and since maintained by a pantheon of "living beings, manhke in form
but superhuman and immortal," who, invisible to human eyes, govern the
cosmos according to law. Each of these superhuman living beings was thought
to be in charge of a particular component of the cosmos (heaven, the sun, the
sea, a star, and so forth). On earth these beings performed similar duties for

"natural entities such as river, mountain, and plain; cultural entities such as
city and state, dike and ditch, field and farm; even implements such as the
pickax, brickmold, and plow." This theology apparently was based on the
4 Part One: Introductory Essay

analogy of human society. Men had created cities, palaces, temples; without
their continuing care, they would fall in decay, and cultivated lands would
become like deserts. Therefore the cosmos must also be controlled by living
beings, but they are stronger and more effective because their tasks are far
more complex.^
Such an outlook may be in the background of the idea of a divinely de-
signed earth, that divine power is inseparable from an order of nature. Aristotle
said that our ancestors had handed down in mythical form traditions that the
celestial bodies are gods "and that the divine encompasses the whole of na-

ture."^ The earth may be created for man alone, or for all Hfe, even if (as for
Job) the purpose is neither apparent nor discoverable by him.
The idea that there is a continuous interaction between man and his en-
vironment—man changing it and being influenced by it— also has its mytho-
logical antecedents, but its fulldevelopment belongs basically, I think, to
rational thought, because such a conception requires a sense of history. The
Sumerian thought the civilization of which he was a part— its institutions,
cities, towns, farms, and so on— had been more or less the same from the

b^inning,

from the moment the gods had planned and decreed it to be so, following the
creation of the universe. That Sumer had once been desolate marshland with
but few scattered settlements, and had only gradually come to be what it was
after many generations of struggle and toil, marked by human will and deter-
mination, man-laid plans and experiment and diverse fortunate discoveries and
inventions— such thoughts probably never occurred even to the most learned
of the Sumerian sages.^

In such myths the gods often what humans do. In the myths of
are doing
Sumer there is Enki brings order to the earth and
activity, change, creativity.
arranges for its cultivation; he pours water into the beds of the Tigris and the
Euphrates; he stocks them with fish, setting up laws for the sea (the Persian
Gulf) and the wind; he creates cereals, he opens "the holy furrows," he en-
trusts the plow and yoke to the god of canals and ditches, the pickax and the
brickmold to Kabta, the god of bricks; he lays foundations of houses, stables,
sheepfolds, fills the valley with animals. Of this myth emphasizing the agri-
cultural character of the region and its dependence on water, Moscati says
"it is dominated by the specific conception of order as inseparably bound up
with existence, so that 'create' and 'set in order' are synonymous."^
This passage concerned with origins includes a description of a creative act
largely in terms of a sensible husbandman, describes natural phenomena which
*Based on Kramer, History Begins at Sumer, p. 78.
^Metaph., Bk. Lambda, 8, 1074b.
^Kramer, "Sumerian Historiography," Israel Exploration J. 3 (1953), pp. 217-232,
ref. on p. 217.
^ at Sumer, pp. 97-98, including quotations and analysis;
Kramer, History Begins
Moscati, Face of the Ancient Orient, p. 34.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 5

influence life, and the primordial ordering of the environment to make it use-
ful. Enki's acts suggest the theme of God's care for the world so dramatically
expressed in the Hymn to the Sun and in the 104th Psalm.
In the myths of many peoples environmental and natural forces affect men;
thev are personified and Enki. These notions of order and purpose,
as are Enlil

of divine activity in creating habitable places with their fields and canals for
man are the mythical antecedents, I think, from which there emerged in his-
torical time rational speculation about the relation of man to his environment,
just as Hippocratic medicine emerged from and was a rejection of an older
medicine based on the cult of Aesculapius, whose lore, derived from observa-
tion and experience, however, w^as a rich prelude to the Hippocratic practice
of medicine.^

These three ideas— of a designed earth, of the influence of the environment

on man, and of man as a modifier of the environment— were, however, often
TTTodified and enriched by other theories relating to culture growth and to the
nature of the earth. The most important of them were the principle of pleni-
tude, interpretations of cultural history, ideas regarding the effects of human
institutions (such as religionand government), and the organic analogy ap-
plied both to the growth and decline of nations and peoples and to the earth
itself. Let us examine each of these briefly.

The origin of the principle of plenitude— the term is Lovejoy's— has been
traced by him to the T'nnaeus of Plato. If one asks ''Hoiv many kinds of tem-
poral and imperfect beings must this world contain?'' the answer is "j// pos-
sible kinds. The 'best soul' could begrudge existence to nothing that could
conceivably possess it, and 'desired that all things should be as like himself
as they could be.' " Even if Plato in the Tiviaeiis is speaking only of living
things or of animals, "with respect to these, at least, he insists upon the neces-
sarily complete translation of all the ideal possibiHties into actuality.'' Plato's
"Demiurgus acted Hterally upon the principle that it takes . . . all kinds to
make a world.'' In stating the principle, Lovejoy says he makes

a wider range of inferences from premises identical with Plato's than he him-
self draws; i.e., not only the thesis that the universe is a plenuvi ^orinaruvi in
which the range of conceivable diversirv^ of kinds of living things is exhaustively
exemplified, but also any other deductions from the assumption that no genuine
potentiality' of being can remain unfulfilled, that the extent and abundance of
the creation must be as great as the possibility of existence and commensurate
with the productive capacirv of a "perfect" and inexhaustible Source, and that
the world is the better, the more things it contains.^

^ Sarton, A
History of Science. Ancient ScieJice through the Golden Age of Greece,
pp. 331-333, and the references there cited. Sarton discusses lustral bathing, incubation
and its accompanying dreams in the cult of Aesculapius, and the important role of the
herb collectors and the diggers.
^Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, pp. 50-52.
6 Part One: Introductory Essay

The principle of plenitude thus presupposes a richness, an expansiveness

of hfe, a tendency to fill up, so to speak, the empty niches of nature; imphcit
in it is the recognition of the great variety of and perhaps its tendency to
life

multiply. When the principle of plenitude was fused with the Aristotelian
idea of continuity, this richness and fecundity of all Hfe was seen as manifesting
itself in a scale of being from the lowest to the highest forms, and reveahng

itself in a visible order of nature/

In the course of this work, we shall frequently see evidence that this rich-
ness, diversity, and fullness of hfe was recognized as an important principle
in the interpretation of nature. In natural history, the principle reached its

perfection in Count Buffon's work; imphcit— with concepts of balance

it is

and harmony in nature— in early ecological theory. It seems to be fundamental

to Malthus' theory of population and his emphasis on fertihty. It is significant
also that— from premises remote indeed from Plato's or from those Lovejoy
derived from him— modern ecologists in stating the scientific case for conserva-
tion have said that the more rich and varied life is, the more stable is the
ecosystem.^
Even in antiquity some thinkers viewed cultural development in terms of a
series of stages from a presumed remote origin to the present, a view that im-
plied that cultures could be understood with only casual references to the
physical environment; the chief emphasis was on man, his mind, his senses,

his techniques, his inventiveness, which, in the acquisition of the arts and
sciences, led him from one stage to the next. Although the idea that all cul-
tures go through an ideal series of stages experienced its greatest development
after the age of discovery, one finds suggestive hints of the comparative or
historical method in Thucydides, Plato's Laivs, Dicaearchus, Varro, and Vi-
truvius. Proofs were adduced from observations of contemporary or historical
peoples representing various stages of development. In his ySto? 'EXXaSoc, Di-
caearchus, the pupil of Aristotle, had (according to Varro) first suggested the
idea of a cultural development from a pastoral to an agricultural stage.^ The
theory was unhistorical because stages were substituted for events; in postulat-
ing a conjectural history of the stages through which a people or an institution

^Lovejoy, op. cit., pp. 52-62, points out that Aristotle rejected the principle but that
the Aristotelian idea of continuity later was fused with it, that the principle becomes
coherent and organized with Neoplatonism. See the index sub nomine for the subsequent
history of the principle.
^See Elton, The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, pp. 143-153, 155; Fos-
berg, "The Island Ecosystem," Fosberg, ed., Man's Place in the Island Ecosystem, pp.
3-5; Bates, The Forest and the Sea, p. 201.
^Bock, The Acceptance of Histories, has a brief discussion of the idea in classical
times, pp. 43-55. See also, Teggart, Theory of History, pp. 87-93 and passim. Varro,
On Farmiijg, 11, i, 3-5. See also, Martini, "Dikaiarchos, 3," PW, Vol. 5, cols. 546-563, and
Warmington, "Dicaearchus," OCD, p. 275. For further discussion of D, see chap. 3,
sec. 7.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 7

evolved, it neglected the changes in the physical environment made by specific

people at specific times, and ignored the fact that different peoples have lived
in different physical environments.
In addition to these theories of culture growth, there were the all-embracing
theories of cyclical change and degeneration from a golden age. The idea of
a cyclical growth in the life of nations and states, following the analogy of the
life cycle of an organism, as well as the idea of eternal recurrence, was com-
mon in antiquity.^^ The organic analogy becomes important to our theme
when it is applied, as Lucretius applied it, to the earth itself: it would grow

weary with age and would die like any other mortal. The constancy of nature
throughout time was denied, and a decHne in the fertihty and bounty of nature
was to be expected as a matter of course. Echoes of this idea, and rebuttals of
it, are found well into the eighteenth century. The notion of a degeneration

from a golden age also had implications insofar as the earth as a habitable en-
vironment was concerned, for one characteristic of the golden age was the
fertility of its soils, which provided ample food spontaneously and without

human intervention— in sharp contrast with the toil required to glean a living
from the soils of the contemporary age.
Occasionally in the writings of the Greek and Roman thinkers, statements
were made regarding the effects of place and situation in forming the char-
acter of a people, ideas which were partly environmentalistic, partly cultural
in their emphasis: the effect of physical isolation in producing the bravery
and hardiness of rude and uncultivated peoples distant from the influences of
civilization; the harmful influences of a maritime location with the ease of entry
of undesirable foreign customs; the effects of government, of religion, of law,
and of social institutions.

The questions which the Greeks asked concerning man and the earth were
not isolated nor were they divorced from the problems of everyday life. They
were asked because they were from abstract the-
related to inquiries ranging
and of man to the practical techniques
ories regarding the origins of the earth
of farming. Greek theories of medicine and ethnology (itself a product of

i^The best source Lovejoy and Boas, Frhnithisjn and Related Ideas in Antiqidty.
is

The work, with from the classical writings, includes

pertinent excerpts and translations
a masterly analysis by Lovejoy on ideas of primitivism, social change, the golden age,
etc., in antiquity. The literature dealing with the idea of cycles in antiquity is extensive;
the following works will acquaint the reader with the leading advocates of these
theories: Apelt, Die Ansichten der griechischen Philosophen iiber den Anjang der
Cultur; Billeter, Griechische Anschauungen iiber die Urspriinge der Kultur; Gilbert,
Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums\ Seeliger, "Weltalter," in
Roscher, ed., Aiisfiihrliches Lexikon der griechischen und rojnischen Mythologie. VI,
cols. 375-430, and "Weltschopfung," ibid.^ cols. 430-505. Apelt deals primarily with the
cyclical theory. Billeter's is an excellent short analysis with many references to the
sources and to the older literature. Seeliger's articles are fundamental.
8 Part One: Introductory Essay

travel and exploration) found their earliest extensive exposition in the writings
of the Hippocratic school of medicine and in the histories of Herodotus. The
medical tradition, self-consciously shedding earher behefs in the divine origin
of disease, sought rational explanations for the existence of both health and
disease, explanations which called for consideration, among other factors, of
the nature and direction of winds, the effects of swamps and damp places,
the relation of sunlight and of the sun's position in the heavens to the proper
siting of houses and and which, by extension, encompassed investiga-
villages,

and places" on national character/^ Early

tion of the effects of "airs, waters,
Greek literature— both the works which have survived and those which have
been lost except for fragments— reveals a deep interest in the customs and
characteristics of peoples: the Greek dramatists, like Aeschylus and Aristoph-
anes, the histories of Herodotus, and even the Hippocratic corpus. Travel
and exploration, the early attempt by Anaximander to map the inhabited
world, the gathering of lore about behavior, food habits, cultural preferences
(so conspicuous in Herodotus)— these were the sources of knowledge and
observation from which abstract generalizations were derived. The classic
comparisons between the Egyptians living in a desert fertihzed by the Nile,
the nomadic Scythians on the bleak plains of southern Russia, and the main-
land Greeks and those of Ionia in the temperate chmate of summer drought
and winter rain of the Mediterranean shore, lent credence to the behef that
racial and cultural differences were caused by climate.

The speculations of the Ionian philosophers regarding the basic composition

of matter, the manner in which the present order of the cosmos had come into
being, the doctrine of the four elements and the humors also prepared the
way for wide-ranging speculations regarding the earth and man's relation to
it. An important step was taken by Anaximander (born ca. 6io or 609 B.C.),
who rejected the single-element theories (that fire, air, or water was the basic
element), postulating instead an eternal and unchanging substance, the
aneipov, "the boundless," or in Kahn's words, "a huge, inexhaustible mass,

On Greek medicine and the Hippocratic corpus, see Sarton, op. cit., (see n. 5,
above), pp. 331-383. These chapters contain exhaustive references to the classical sources
and to the modern literature on the subject,
^2 On the map: Agathemerus I, i, and Strabo, Bk. I, chap. I,
11; Herodotus IV, 36. In
Kirk and Raven, P5P, pp. 103-104 and discussion. See the chapters on traders and
craftsmen, citizens and foreigners, and slaves, in Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes,
pp. 113-191.
On Greek ethnology, cultural theories and similar matters, see Gary, The Geo-
graphic Background of Greek and Roman History (some references to theories in addi-
tion to geographical reconstruction); Glover, Herodotus (much more attention to
other writers than the title impHes); Myres, "Herodotus and Anthropology," in R. R.
Marett, ed., Anthropology and the Classics; Sikes, The Anthropology of the Greeks
(still a wise and impressive work); Triidinger, Stiidien zur Geschichte der griechisch-

romischen Ethnographie (short but excellent and with many references to the sources).
 Part One: Introductory Essay 9

stretchingaway endlessly in every direction."^* It was not identified with

any one of the commonly recognized elemental forms.^^ It had no origin, it
was indestructible, its motion was eternal. "A consequence of this motion is

the 'separation' of particular Order is characterized by a struggle

substances. "^^
of the opposites: "out of those things whence is the generation for existing
things, into these again does their destruction take place, according to what
must needs be; for they make amends and give reparation to one another for
their offense, according to the ordinance of time."^'' The interaction of op-
posites— the coldness of air or mist and the heat of fire, the dryness of earth
and the wetness of water— "provides the clue to the process whereby an or-
dered world comes into being out of the boundless unity."^^ Anaximander's
philosophy is an early attempt to understand the nature of— and to account
as well for— the diversity of substances of which the sensible world clearly is
composed. Anaximander's cosmology represents the structure of the universe
as being an order, a /cdo-jao?, a universe governed by law; it does not appear,
however, to be a teleological conception.^^
The formulation of the doctrine of the four elements by Empedocles (ca,

492-432 B.C.) ofAcragas (Agrigentum) in Sicily was of decisive importance

in many disciplines. The doctrine of the four roots (the word element being
of later usage) is one of the most influential physical theories ever formulated.^^
With some revisions (Hke Aristotle's addition of aether to make a fifth), it
Kahn, Anaximander a?id the Origins of Greek Cos?nology, p. 233. The true sense of
aireipo^ is "what cannot be passed over or traversed from end to end," p. 232.

Kahn, op. cit.^ p. 163, comments that it is an anachronism to apply the doctrine of
the four elements to Anaximander's times.
16 Zeller, OiitWies
of the History of Greek Philosophy, p. 44.
i^Simplicius Phys. 24, 13 = Diels Vorsokr. 12 A 9. See text and translation of the
fragment, Kahn, p. 166; another version in Kirk and Raven, PSP, p. 105; cf. 117.
1^ Cornford, Principium sapientiae, p. 163.
i^See Cornford, op. cit., on Anaximander's system, pp. 159-186. Cornford says the
older historians of philosophy thought the lonians were interested only in finding the
one substance of which all things consist. "But if we look at the systems themselves, the
question they answer is different: How did a manifold and ordered world arise out of
the primitive state of things? " p. 1 59. See also his discussion of Aristotle on Anaximander
(Phys. 204 b 27), p. 162. It should not be thought that the elements fire, water, air, earth
were discoveries of the philosophers; as Gilbert says, awareness of them was deeply
imbedded in folk behef. (Die meteorologischen Theorien des griechischen Altertums^
p. 17.) The question for the philosophers was the manner in which the existence of
these supposed elements could be reconciled with theories of the composition of the
universe and the order in it.
20 On the philosophical significance of the opposites in Greek thought, see Kahn, op.
cit.(see n. 14 above), pp. 126-133; on their origins in Greek thought, pp. 159-163.
5 above), p. 247; on his medical influence, p. 249. See also
21 Sarton, op. cit. (see n.

Gilbert, op. cit. (see n. 10 above), pp. 105-124, and on his biology, pp. 336-346. For

another side of E. see Cornford, op. cit.., pp. 1 21-124. See Kirk and Raven, P5P, esp. Fr.
6 (where Zeus stands for fire, Hera for earth. Hades for air, Nestis for water), p. 323,
and fragment 17, pp. 326-327. Empedocles calls them pL^wfxara. See also discussion
PP- 327-331-
lO Part One: Introductory Essay

was the basis of much of Greek science and of medieval interpretations of

nature (for example, St. Francis' Canticle of Brother Sun)-, in an applied form

itdominated much of the thinking in chemistry, soil theory, practical agri-

culture, and physical theory well into the eighteenth century.^^
Empedocles names four elements— earth, air, water, and fire— as the basic
substances upon which two other existences— love the unifying, hate the di-
visive—react, conceiving of these, like the elements themselves, as being cor-
poreal.^^ Every element of which the world is composed has its counterpart
in the human body. This is a hint of the theory of humors and of the doctrine
of correspondences between the elements of physical nature and those of the
human body, a doctrine later expanded enormous
literature concerned
in the
with the relation of the macrocosm of the universe to the microcosm of man.
was the idea of opposites (powers
Implicit in the doctrine of the elements
like hot, by which one element acted on another). In a
cold, wet, dry,
Mediterranean chmate, it would be natural to associate hot with dry and cold
with moist. In fact, to Aristotle the opposites were the true elements.^* The
elements were eternal and imperishable, change occurring from their mixing
and separation. Although the idea that the universe is composed of elements
isa very ancient one and had been much discussed in Miletus, Empedocles'
accomplishment was not that he discovered the four elements nor that he
replaced single-element theories with them, but that he confined the number
to four; his decisive role was "to crystallize attention on the four primary
forms, and thus to replace a fuller Milesian series by the canonical tetrad."^^
The Greek theory of elements, with the ideas of opposites, may well have been
based on observation: conflicts in daily life, the vigor of Hfe, and the dynamic
interplay of conflicting forces.^^

Since thehuman body is composed of the same elements as are all other
natural phenomena, the substances of which it is composed would be analogous
to water, air, fire, and earth, although obviously they, in the form of humors,
did not exist in the human body in their external forms. The humors of the

22Sarton, op. cit. (see n. 5 above), p, 247.

^^Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks, pp. 31-33; see also Bailey, GAE,
pp. 28-31.
Metaph. IV, i. On Aristotle and the elements, Kahn, op. cit. (see n. 14 above), p.
129; Kirk and Raven, P5P, pp. 330-331; Ross, Aristotle, pp. 105-107. Kahn's work is
of great interest to the history of geography, especially physical geography. The doxog-
raphy, bringing together many early theories of physical causation, is an illuminating
background to Aristotle's Meteorologica. Among many topics discussed by Kahn are
the classic doctrine of the four elements, pp. 1 21-126; the history of the idea of the ele-
ments, pp. 134-159, with illuminating histories of the Greek words drjp and alOrjp, particu-
larly in the period roughly from Homer and Hesiod to the flowering of the Milesian
school; the history of the word a-rrupov and Anaximander's concept of it. Of equal in-
terest is Sambursky's Physical World of the Greeks.
25 Kahn, op. cit. (see n. 14 above), p. 150; see also p. 155.
26 See Kahn, op. cit. (see n. 14 above), p. 133.
 Part One: Introductory Essay II

body correspond to the elements of which the macrocosm is composed: air,

consisting of the quahties of hot and moist, is represented in the body by the
blood; fire, a mixture of hot and dry, by bile; water, cold and moist, by
phlegm; and earth, a mixture of cold and dry, by black bile or melancholy.
The commonest complaints of the Greeks, chest troubles and malaria, gave
evidences of these humors: phlegm, blood (hemorrhaging in fevers), yellow
bile, and black bile (the vomiting in remittent malaria ).^^
The origin of the doctrine of the humors is unknown; perhaps it comes
from the theory of the four elements or has an independent origin in the his-
tory of Egyptian medicine.^^ Bodily counterparts of the elements are suggested
by Empedocles, humors are described in the Hippocratic writings, and
the
Galen later restated them in more sophisticated form as the correspondences.
The theory of health as a harmonious blending and balancing of powers, held
by Alcmaeon of Croton (ca. 500 b.c.) and the Hippocratic thinkers, made pos-
sible a theoretical development which could bridge the gulf between abstract
physiological theory and the variety of human cultures.

Alcmaeon maintains that the bond of health is the "equal balance" of the
powers, moist and dry, cold and hot, bitter and sweet, and the rest, while the
"supremacy" of one of them is the cause of disease; for the supremacy of either
is destructive. Illness comes about directly through excess of heat or cold, indi-

rectly through surfeit or deficiency of nourishment; and its centre is either the
blood or the marrow or the brain. It sometimes arises in these centres from
external causes, moisture of some sort or environment or exhaustion or hardship
or similar causes. Health on the other hand is the proportionate admixture of the
qualities.^^

The doctrine of the humors is clearly stated in the Hippocratic writings.

"The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile;
these make up the nature of his body, and through these he feels pain or enjoys
health. Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly
proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk,
and when they are perfectly mingled." This statement is preceded by criti-
cisms of former theories; an appeal is made for direct observation of bodily
processes, avoiding any analogy derived from the four elements in nature.^^

27 See Jones's discussion in the general introduction to his translation of Hippocrates

(Loeb Classical Library), Vol. I, p. xlviii.
p. 133, who suggests that Ionia had active
28 See Allbutt, Greek Medicine in Ro?ne,

trade relations with Egypt, seeing in Herodotus IV, 187 evidence already of the exis-
tence of the humoral pathology. See also Jones, ibid., pp. xlvi-li; and Sarton, op. cit. (see
n. 5 above), pp. 338-339, and idem, "Remarks on the Theory of Temperaments," Isis,

34 (1943). PP- 205-208.

29 Aetius, V. 30, I. Kirk and Raven, P5F,
p. 234. In this quotation, equal balance trans-
lates io-oro/xta (the same word is used in Airs, Waters, Places); supremacy, ^xovapxta, and
environment, x!^'pa .

Nature of Man, IV; and the criticism of other ideas I-III; on the authorship of the
treatise, p. xxvi. Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), Vol. IV. See Cornford's re-
marks, op. cit. (see n. 18 above), pp. 36-37, which have suggested my own.
12 Part One: Introductory Essay

Since good health consisted in a proper proportioning of the humors, some

aspect of the physical environment— most often temperature— was regarded as
bringing about the dominance of one humor over another; this dominance
would vary with different regional climates or within the seasons of a single
climate. The influence affected individuals and whole peoples, a fallacy finally
exposed by Herder in the eighteenth century in the course of criticizing
Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws.
It is far from my purpose to discuss the elements and the humors themselves;

this long story, with all its confusions, belongs to physical and medical history.
The important point is that the humoral doctrine also had along and exciting
life lasting well into the late eighteenth century and that it was the theoretical
basis of the older theories of climatic influence. The doctrine of the four
elements strongly influenced the history of soil theory, chemistry, and agri-
culture—hence ideas of the nature of the physical environment as a whole—
and the doctrine of the humors influenced theories of psychology and physi-
ology, making prominent the supposed changes brought about in both the
mind and the body by climate as a whole, sudden temperature change, and
the seasons.

Ideas concerning the relation of man to nature could not develop without a
feeHng for and an interpretation of nature. Since the path-breaking historical
chapters of Alexander von Humboldt's Cos77tos, an extensive literature on this
subject has shown the depth and range of feeling toward nature, among both
the Greeks and the Romans, in poetry, art, landscape painting, and philosophy,
a strong feehng for nature being conspicuous in the writings of the Stoic
philosophers, Panaetius and Posidonius.^^ One has the impression in reading
Greek and Roman descriptions of nature that their writers are thinking of a
domesticated nature, a pleasant commingling of nature and art: the villages
on the Mediterranean shore; the beauties of cultivated fields; vines or olive
groves on sometimes close to streams, or near a forest.
hillsides,

The importance of nature and of natural surroundings in the history of

Greek civilization has recently been emphasized by Vincent Scully. If his
interpretation is accepted by students of Greek architecture, the Greek land-
scape will be seen in an entirely new light.

All Greek sacred architecture explores and praises the character of a god or a
group of gods in a specific place. That place is itself holy and, before the temple
was built upon it, embodied the whole of the deity as a recognized natural force.

31 Soutar, Nature in Greek Poetry, pass'mi, and the works of Flelbig and Woermann
cited in note 65 of this intro. Humboldt had mixed feelings about the Greek and Roman
feeling for nature. Cosmos^ Vol. II, pp. 19-38. See also Biese, Die Entwicklung des
Naturgefiihls bei den Grieche?i und Romern. Biese refers also to pioneering investiga-
tions which revised earlier opinions regarding the lack of a feeling for nature among
the ancients; on Panaetius and Posidonius, see Pohlenz, Der Hellenische Mensch, pp.
279-299.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 13

With coming of the temple, housing its image within it and itself developed
the
as a sculpturalembodiment of the god's presence and character, the meaning
becomes double, both of the deity as in nature and the god as imagined by men.
Therefore, the formal elements of any Greek sanctuary are, first, the specifically
sacred landscape in which it is set and, second, the buildings that are placed
within it.

The
landscape and the temples together form the architectural whole, were
intended by the Greeks to do so, and must therefore be seen in relation to each
other.32

The most important generalization to be made about the attitudes

single
toward nature held by the peoples of the classical world is that these varied
greatly throughout the long span of ancient history. Earlier writers tended
either to minimize their existence or to content themselves with generalizations
about the period as a whole, citations in support of a thesis being taken from
writers who lived as much as a thousand years apart. Even Ruskin in his dis-
cussion of classical landscape thought it quite in order to confine himself to
Homer, whom he regarded as being representative of the whole period. Surely
Ruskin was wrong. Homer can stand as the example for the ancient world
only if Theocritus, Virgil, Lucretius, and Horace never lived. One should not
expect such cultural unity in the classical world with any more assurance than
one would for the medieval or the modern period; the time span from the
Homeric poems to Ausonius' Moseila is well over a millennium.
There is reason to believe, however, that the ideas of nature and the attitudes
toward it that matured mainly in the Hellenistic period are difiPerent from
those of the pre-Hellenistic era and indeed are important for an understanding
of all subsequent ideas about the subject. For this reason, the question is dis-
cussed in the second part of this introduction.
There was, however, more than appreciation of nature; there were curiosity
and inquiry manifest in an interest in mining, in the way peoples obtained
their food, in canals, in agricultural techniques. The Greek and Roman
treatises on agriculture, from the Oeconomicus of Xenophon, with his praises
of Persian agriculture, to the Natural History of Pliny, have the strong flavor
of nature study, of watching and observing nature to learn the arts of sowing,
tilling, and plant breeding, while the writers of the Roman period, like Varro,
Columella, and Pliny, were deeply interested in the improvement of soils,

methods of plowing, irrigation, drainage, removal of stones, clearing away of

winning of new lands for cultivation, manuring, and insect control.
thickets,
Neither should one forget the echoes of the primordial Mediterranean
world: its age-old veneration of Mother Earth, who acts literally like a mother,
an earth that must be inseminated. In myth and in rite, there is a preoccupation
with fertility— of man, of the earth. Agriculture, keeping cattle, herding goats

32 Vincent Scully, The Earth, The Temple, and the Gods. Greek Sacred Architecture,
pp. 1-2. See chapter i, "Landscape and Sanctuary," although the entire book is devoted
to exploring this theme.
14 Part One: Introductory Essay

and sheep— these kept men close to the tilled and untilled soil alike, reminding
them of the land's fertility. From their beliefs there gradually came rational
ideas of soil fertility, techniques of planting, and animal feeding.^^
Philo the Jew, living in the rich mixtures of Hellenistic Alexandria at the
beginning of the Christian Era, saw this already old conception clearly and
believed in it.

Nature has bestowed on every mother as a most essential endowment teeming

breasts, thus preparing in advance food for the child that is to be born. The
earth also, as we all know, is a mother, for which reason the earliest men thought
fit to call her "Demeter," combining the name of "mother" with that of "earth";

for, as Plato [Meiiexemis 238 A] says, earth does not imitate woman, but woman
earth. Poets quite rightly are in the habit of calling earth "All-mother," and
"Fruit-bearer" and "Pandora" or "Give-all," inasmuch as she is the originating
cause of existence and continuance in existence to all animals and plants alike.
Fitly therefore on earth also, most ancient and most fertile of mothers, did
Nature bestow, by way of breasts, streams of rivers and springs, to the end that
both the plants might be watered and all animals might have abundance to drink.^^

Finally there was the search for evidence of purpose in human life and in
the universe. This sense of purpose, this feeling that the earth and human life

existing on it were not without meaning and plan is particularly evident in

Plato and Aristotle, although neither was the first to introduce it. The belief
that there was a purpose, an end in nature and in natural processes, rested on
two main arguments: the unity and harmony of the cosmos and the artisan
analogy, the behef that a creator acts hke an individual craftsman— a carpenter
building a house— who has the end product he desires well in mind at the start;
the work (epyov) of creation is like the art (rex^rj) of an artisan.
Although it would require a separate work to trace adequately the idea of
unity in nature, we may at least hint at some of the elements which entered
into this belief. If there was a unity of the cosmos, it could be assumed for its

component parts, and thus for the earth, the life existent upon it, and for
mankind despite the diversity of peoples.
What were thought to be the evidences of this unity and harmony? First
there is regularity in the phenomena of the heavens, with the exception of
comets or showers of falHng stars, which could be interpreted as manifesta-
tions of divine interference with the natural order. Then, there are the phases
of the moon and sun and seasonal
their periodicity, the revolution of the
change, the movements of the planets, the twenty-four-hour period of day
and night. Possibly, as Cumont has suggested, Babylonian astronomers were
more interested in the moon than in the sun. Her phases measured time before
3^ See Guthrie, The Greeks and Their Gods, p. 59. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative
Religion, pp. 239-240.
3^ Philo, On the Creation,
133.
 Part 0?ie: Introductory Essay 15

the duration of the year was known, and the sacred calendars which regulated
religious and civil life were based on her course. Portents were seen in her
ecHpses, and to this divinity were ascribed many mysterious influences, in-
cluding effects on plants and the health of women.^^
The movements of the apparently eternal heavenly bodies in time led to
astrology, which also fostered a sense of unity in the cosmos. Cumont and
other scholars think it appeared rather late, the former dating the beginnings
of astral religion with the Chaldeans in the sixth century B.C. The rising and
setting of the sun brought with them not only heat and cold but light and
darkness. In Mediterranean lands especially, seasonal change could be as-
sociated with certain appearances in the sky. It could be concluded that the
stars had a connection with the natural phenomena on earth and with the
course of human life. "Everything in sky and earth alike is incessantly chang-
ing, and it was thought that there existed a correspondence between the move-
ments of the gods above and the alterations which occurred here below."^^
Astrology thus could become the science of cosmic environmentahsm as we
see it carefully worked out in the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy: The stars influence
all life on earth, while the natural environment on earth can account for dif-

ferences within fundamental similarities. In the later development of astral

religion in the Roman Empire, astrology became an all-embracing philosophy
bestowing a unity and harmony on the universe.

Astrological paganism deified the active principles which move all celestial and
terrestrial bodies.Water, fire, earth, the sea, and the blast of the winds, but
above all the luminous heavens of the fixed stars and planets revealed the bound-
less power of the God who filled all nature. But this pantheism no longer naively
regarded this nature as peopled by capicious spirits and unregulated powers.
Having become scientific, it conceived the gods as cosmic energies, the provi-
dential action of which is ordered in a harmonious system.^^

It would indeed be hard to exaggerate the importance of astrology in the

history of human thought, but it is equally hard to grasp its significance. It
appears and reappears constantly in the books which are the sources of the
ideas we areconcerned with. Somehow astrology has been pushed aside by
many general students of thought almost as an embarrassment or a thicket to
go around rather than to penetrate. It consistently appears in a role far more
exalted than its character of influencing the lives of an individual, the nativities.
Its historic role, however, has been much more profound than this. It was a
great unifying principle of nature, a cosmic environmentahsm. Lynn Thom-
asCumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Roviajis, p. 70. Cumont
maintained that in hot countries the sun is an enemy; the moon, gently illumining the
landscape, is friendly.
Ibid.^ pp. 11-12, 16.
37 Ibid.,
pp. 68-69.
1 6 Part One: Introductory Essay

dike has gone so far as to compare it with the Newtonian discoveries of the
principles of natural law.

The stars were not themselves affected by their movement and light, since
they were eternal and incorruptible. But their motion and rays had to have some
effect, and an outlet for this vast store of energy was found in our elemental
world, whose changes and fluctuations and variations paralleled the shifting
pattern of the eternal heavens and the varying projection of rays of light and
influence thence. Furthermore, the earth was thought of as the center and
bottom of the universe, and it was fitting that inferiors should be ruled and
governed by superiors— the heavenly bodies.

The Principia of Newton ehminated the distinction between superiors and

inferiors, but "during the long period of scientific development before Sir
Isaac Newton promulgated the universal law of gravitation, there had been
generally recognized and accepted another and different universal natural law,
which his supplanted. And that universal natural law was astrological."^^
Thorndike's interpretation illumines the thought of men such as Posidonius,
Ptolemy, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Jean Bodin, in whose
thought astrology of the natural law type was a basic assumption.
These evidences were the strongest and perhaps they were the oldest.
Analogies drawn from human affairs are also The Sumerian
very ancient.
theologians took "their cue from human and the divine pantheon
society,"
composed of living beings, in manlike form but superhuman and immortal,
superintended the universe according to established rules and regulations. The
me's (divine laws, rules, and regulations governing the universe) also were
derived from cultural elements.^^ The history of the Greek word K6crjjio<s
suggests that observation of order in human affairs may have inspired its wider
application to the organic world and then to the universe. In Homer and in
other early literature the word and words derived from it "denote in general
any arrangement or disposition of parts which is appropriate, well-disposed,
and effective. The primary idea is of something physically neat and trim rather
than morally or socially 'correct.' " The word then came to mean "finery,
rich adornment." It also referred to the order of an assembled army and to
the goatherds separating flocks which had mingled in pasture. The term de-
noted "a concrete arrangement of beauty or utihty, as well as the more ab-
moral and social 'order.' " Its "social overtones were particularly
stract idea of
important, and it may be that from the beginning, k-oct/io? was appHed to the
world of nature by conscious analogy with the good order of society." To
the Ionian philosophers, the cosmos meant an arrangement of all things in
which every natural power has its function and its hmits assigned. As in any

3^ Thorndike, "The True Place of Astrology in the History of Science," Isis^ 46

(1955), pp. 273-278. The first quotation is on p. 274, the second on p. 273.
3^ Kramer, History Begins at Sumer^
pp. 78-79, 99-100.
 Part One: Introductory Essay

good arrangement, the term imphes a systematic unity in which diverse ele-
ments are combined or composed.'^^ By the fifth century, the word not only
meant universal order; it was also applied to the structure, form, and function-
ing of the human body. The unity of the microcosm, the human body with
all its diversity, may well have inspired the idea of an all-embracing unity in
the macrocosm.^^
There was also the theory of the Pythagoreans, the harmonic analogy, the
connection between planetary movements, which were like vibrations, and
angular velocities, which were like harmonic ratios producing the music of
the spheres. In this conception, the universe is pervaded (says Kahn) by geo-
metric principles of harmony and equilibrium.^^
The biological analogy also had great force, the unity amidst diversity being
characteristic of Hfe; in were strong inducements toward a teleology. From
it

Anaximander to Plato "the origin of the universe is compared to the forma-

tion and birth of a living being. This ancient pairing of cosmogony and em-
bryology explains why the elemental bodies are referred to by Anaxagoras
and Empedocles as the 'seeds' or 'roots' of all things. "^^ Lucretius, as we shall
see later, applied the biological analogy to the earth.
It was ideas like these, I think, that made men was not
believe that diversity
an nor unity imaginary The idea that there is a unity and a harmony
illusion, .^^

in nature is probably the most important idea, in its effect on geographical

thought, that we have received from the Greeks, even if among them there
was no unanimity regarding the nature of this unity and harmony.
The idea of terrestrial unity of which human beings were a part called at-
tention to the fitness of the earth itself as an environment for human beings
and for the sustenance of all other forms of life; to the inequality of environ-
ments and the differences among them; and, by implication, to the unequal
distribution of peoples and to the boundaries that might divide off a densely
inhabited from a desolate region. The Greek concept of the oiKovfjiivy} is
part of this tradition; in antiquity it had at least six different meanings, but the
most common was the "inhabited world," the world known to be peopled and
to be capable of supporting life. The concept of the olKovfjievy} was a con-
crete one, and back of it was the reaHzation that peoples lived in different
environments, sometimes similar, more often differing from one another, and

^^Kahn, Anaximander and the Origms of Greek Cosmology, pp. 220-230; quotations
on pp. 220, 223.
"Nat. Horn." 7, Works of Hippocrates (Loeb Classical Library), Vol. IV. Cited by
Kahn, op. cit., p. 189.
^2 See Sambursky, The Physical World of the Greeks,
pp. 53-55; Kahn, op. cit., p.
206, and Spitzer, "Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony," Traditio, 2 (1944),
pp. 414-421.
^3 Kahn, op. cit., p. 213.
See Sambursky, op. cit., p. 129.
1 8 Part One: Introductory Essay

if the two
are considered together— the peoples and the environments— the re-
lationship might be a purely circumstantial one, or a theoretical one carrying
a heavy burden of dogmatism and deduction.^^

2. The Hellenistic Age and Its Characteristic

Attitudes Toward Nature

It is difficult in a few paragraphs to say anything meaningful about such a

long and complex period as the Hellenistic age; yet an attempt should be made
to show how crucial it was to the history of ideas being considered in this
work. In fact, it is more crucial than the times of Herodotus or even of Plato
and Aristotle, and one can sympathize with Tarn's statement that "so far as
modern civihsation is based on Greek it is primarily on Hellenism that it is
based."^^ There is agreement in general but not in detail in defining the age.
Droysen coined the term "Hellenistic," and the Hellenistic centuries are
usually defined as the period from the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. to the
founding of the Roman Empire by Augustus in 30 B.C.
Since this discussion is confined to those aspects of the age which throw
light on the ideas being studied, it does not demand the precision in defining
it which an independent work would demand. I will keep to the accepted

definition without, however, feeling the need to apologize for including ma-
terials outside the inclusive dates. It seems obvious, for example, that the nature
descriptions and bucoHc poetry of Virgil, Tibullus, and Horace have much in
common with those of Theocritus, Moschus, and Bion. Plutarch, who spans
the first and second centuries, seems at home in the culture of the Hellenistic
age (he is an important source of its history), while Varro and Columella, one
an Itahan, the other a Spaniard, write about plant introductions, plant and
animal breeding, and reactions to rural life, which were characteristic of the
Mediterranean world after Alexander's time.
The Hellenistic age is of unusual interest to a student of cultural geography.
I will resist the temptation to compare with the Renaissance or the age of
it

discovery^'' (the similarities are superficial, the differences profound), but it

is clearly one of those periods of extraordinary culture contact in the history
of Western civilization in which men became aware of new and different
environments and of the people living in them. Impressive as are the examples
in Herodotus, they cannot campare in this regard with the compilations of
Strabo, and the gulf would be greater if more works from the Hellenistic
period had survived.

On
ancient concepts of the olKovfxevrj, See Gisinger, "Oikumene," in PPF, Vol, 17:2,
cols. 2 23-2 1 74; Kaerst, Die antike Idee der Oikmnene; and Partsch, "Die Grenzen der
1

Menschheit. I Teil: Die antike Oikumene," Berichte iiber die Verhandlungen der Kdnigl.
Sachsisch. Ges. d. Wiss, zu Leipzig, Phil-hist. kl., 68 (1916), pp. 1-62.
Tarn, Hellenistic Civilization, 3rd ed., rev. by Tarn and Griffith, p. i.
*^For a discussion of this point, see HW^
Vol. i, pp. 127-129.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 19

One should not, however, dwell on differences alone. Comparisons were

important too. Much of what the Greeks participating in Alexander's con-
quests saw was indeed new; even the old or famihar appeared in a new light.
From long acquaintance with Egypt they knew well the contrast between
the fertility of the Nile Valley and the harsh, barren Libyan desert border-
ing it. The plant life of Persia, known from the March of the Ten Thousand,
was not too strange. The flora of Anatolia resembled that of the Mediter-
ranean; the sun-drenched plains of Mesopotamia were reminders of African
wastelands, and the Greeks had long been at home on the Pontus. The cam-
paign in India brought out striking parallels: in the west, the Nile; in the east,

the Punjab, partly in an evergreen tropical zone with its rich and abundant
vegetation. In the west on journeys to the oasis of Siwa in the Libyan desert
they had seen the luxurious vegetation of the great oasis of Ammon. But in the
east they traversed, in an excruciating campaign, the bare sea of sands of
Baluchistan. Entirely new, however, were the rich, forested, cool slopes of
the Himalaya and the mangrove forests of the northwest coast of the Arabian
Sea which reached from the Indus delta far into the Persian Gulf.^^ Theo-
phrastus' Enquiry into Plants is a product of this increased knowledge of the
world's vegetation. Who can read the fourth book, "Of the Trees and Plants
Special to Particular Districts and Positions," without being aware that such
knowledge was based on gatherings from the Mediterranean and Egypt to
the Indus? Theophrastus writes as if he had been on the islands near the
mouth of the Indus where the great mangrove trees, big as planes or the
tallest poplars, stood in the water; when the tide came in, all was covered but

the projecting branches of the tallest trees and to them were fastened the ships'
cables, as they were to the roots at ebb tide. Theophrastus has heard that, on
the east side of the island of Tylos in the Persian Gulf, the trees are so numer-
ous that they make a regular fence when the tide goes out, and that the island
also produces the wool-bearing tree (cotton) in abundance. One can agree
with Bretzl that plant geography starts with Theophrastus. And Theophrastus
starts with Alexander; he has before him observations of the scientific travelers

on the campaign reporting new ethnographic, geographic, geologic, and bo-

tanical facts.^^
There were not only the Himalayas and the mangroves; the Greeks of the
period had a far more thorough knowledge of the Mediterranean world than
had their forbears. The Near East, as Rostovtzeff has pointed out, appears in
the sixteenth and seventeenth books of Strabo's Geography as a well-known
and well-trodden land.^^ The campaigns of Alexander carried Hellenic culture
to the Indus and to Chinese Turkestan. Ptolemaic monarchs by the third cen-
tury B.C. had occupied Zanzibar, parts of the coasts of East Africa, and the

Based on Bretzl, Botajiische Forschungen des Alexanderzuges, pp. 1-3.

Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants^ IV, vii, 4-7; Bretzl, op. cit., pp. 4-5.
soHPK, Vol. 2, p. 1040.
20 Part One: Introductory Essay

Sudan. That the tropics were habitable was probably known long before
Eratosthenes said Dalion had gone south beyond Meroe. Eratosthenes
so, for

himself is an admirable exemplar of the period. In his work are the beginnings
of scientific geography. He includes not only the theories of his predecessors
but recent accumulations of knowledge as well. Strabo says of him that he
wished to revise the map of the earth (II, i, 2). Although he is most famous
for his brilliance in devising a method for measuring the circumference of
the earth with astonishing accuracy (if a certain value for the stade be ac-
cepted), he was also keenly interested in the contrast between the inhabited
world (oiKovuevv) and the terrestrial, wishing to set the former accurately
within the latter. In his cultural geography, he was capable, judging by a
passage on the deforestation of Cyprus, of seeing clearly the relation of gov-
ernmental poHcy to changes in the land.^^ (See chap. 3, sec. 4.)
The discovery of the seaway to India (i 17-1 16 B.C.), the Roman conquest
and colonization of Spain, North Africa, the Balkan peninsula, and Gaul en-
larged immeasurably the awareness of peoples and environments. A central
region of refined civilization (from Babylonia to Italy and Sicily), says Hei-
chelheim, "was surrounded by a larger, outer zone (from the Ganges to the At-
lantic) of assimilated barbarian kingdoms, Greek colonial states, and Roman
outer provinces and subject alHes, in which there were islands of polis economy
or Roman municipal settlements"; from them native villagers gradually ap-
propriated Hellenistic and Roman agricultural skills. In this Greco-Roman
development, over such a large area of the earth's surface, planned coloniza-
tion, economic planning, and investment, bills of
capital formation, transfer
exchange, and world currencies made changed appearance of the
possible "a
cities and even more of the countryside from Spain and Gaul to India and
Turkestan."^^
Fully as remarkable was the enlarged knowledge of primitive peoples. What
wonders the members of Alexander's party saw, who sailed from the mouth
of the Indus to the Shatt-al-Arab along the shores of Gedrosia and Carmania
(that is, along the shares of Baluchistan to the Persian shores of the Gulf of
Oman) They and later observers as well were in the lands of the fish eaters.
!

According to Diodorus on the authority of Agatharchides of Cnidos, the third

5^ Tarn, "The Date of lambulus: a Note," Classical Quarterly, Vol. 33 (1939), pp.
192-^193. On the habitabihty of the zones between the tropics, see Tittel, "Geminos, i,"
PW, Vol. 7:1, col. 1034; Gisinger, "Geographie (Eratosthenes)," PWSupp. Bd., 4, cols.
606-607. On E.'s measurements, see Sarton, Hellenistic Science and Culture in the Last
Three Centuries B.C., pp. 103-106; Bunbury, Vol. I, chap. 16; Thomson, History of
Ancient Geography, pp. 158-166.
^2 Heichelheim, "Effects of Classical Antiquity on the Land," MR,
pp. 168-169. This
is an admirable short statement on the Hellenistic period (upon which these remarks

are based), pp. 168-172. See also his article, "Monopole (hellenistisch)," PW, 16:1, esp.
cols. 157-192. I am indebted to Professor Heichelheim for stimulating discussions and
the suggestions he gave me at the Wenner-Gren symposium in 1955.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 21

Ptolemy, Euergetes I, who reigned from 246-22 1 B.C., sent one of his friends,
Simmias, to spy out the land, and he made an investigation of the peoples along
the Red Sea and presumably to the shores of Baluchistan [III, 18, 4]. Indeed
the third book of Diodorus, which contains only ethnological fragments,
mostly from Agatharchides (early second century B.C.), has some of the most
interesting descriptive ethnography ever written. Not the least interesting

is the account [III, 2-10] in part from Agatharchides, in part from other
sources, in which the confident Ethiopians are depicted as believing themselves
to be the first men, their civilization to be unique and creative, and the Egyp-
tian, in part at least, being derived from their own. The themes of the food

quest, habitation, death and burial customs, and cultural isolation appear fre-
quently in these remarkable passages. It is clear that the Greeks who studied
them were much impressed by food as a criterion of culture, for most of the
people are named according to the dominant item of their diet: the ichthyoph-
agi (the fish eaters), the chelonophagi (turtle eaters), the rhizophagi (root
hyolophagi (wood eaters), the spermatophagi (the seed eaters),
eaters), the
and so on in the descriptions of peoples bordering on the Red Sea and the
Indian Ocean and the interior lands of Ethiopia.
There are absorbing antiphonal themes— the persistence of the old native
cultures even with Hellenization, and the extension of Greek culture under
the aegis of new rulers in sympathy with it, with the help too of the new
common language, the Kocvrj, the language of the Septuagint and of the
Greek New Testament. These themes are so complex that they would require
a long monograph reinterpreting the ethnology of the ancient world. I must
content myself with mentioning these facts, with an illustration or two,

because they show that alternatives other than environmental explanations

were available to account for cultural differences.^^ The pattern is not one of
deep and broad Hellenization of the cultures comprising this world, but is
one in which non-Greek cultures persist, possibly with some Greek penetra-
tion, while the Greek enclaves, epitomes of that culture, all bear the stamp of
the typical Greek settlement. Students of the age thus have emphasized both
the unity of the Hellenistic world and the respect of its rulers for the customs
and religion of native peoples. The Ptolemies were "chary of modifying the
immemorial customs of the temples." They "were loathe to abandon the
existing traditions, to break with the deeply rooted habits and customs of the
country." A votive stele of Anubis of Attic type was found at Philadelphia in
the Fayum, an eloquent illustration of Greek respect for Egyptian religion.^^
Zenon (employed by the finance minister Apollonius, a pow-
In a letter to

^^For materials of great interest to Hellenistic cultural geography, see HW, Vol. 2,

pp. 1053-1 134, and Partsch, "Die Grenzen der Menschheit. I Teil: Die antike Oikumene,"
Berichte iiber die Verhafidl. der Kdnigl. Sdchsischen Ges. d. Wiss. zu Leipzig. Phil-
hist. ki, Vol. 68 (1916), 2 Heft.
5^HT^, Vol. I, p. 281, 291; the votive stele is shown in Plate 39, Vol. i, facing p. 319.
22 Part One: Introductory Essay

erful Greek estate-holder in the Egyptian Fayum) from the third century
B.C., two feeders of cats, who were attached to the cult of Boubastis in the
village of Sophthis, state that the king and Apollonius had ordered that persons
of their profession be exempted from compulsory labor throughout the
country. However, Leontiskos, the chief policeman, sent them to work at the
harvest; they complied with the order, not wishing to trouble Zenon. Leon-
tiskos then sent them off to make bricks, leaving in peace for their own ends
two professional brickmakers in the same village. The cat feeders appeal to
Zenon to conform to the order of the king and of the chief financial official

Among the decrees of Euergetes one defining the jurisdic-

II (b.c. 118) is

tion of courts; disputes involving contracts written in Greek between Greeks

and Egyptians go before the Greek judges (xp'i7/>taTto-Tai); those written in
Egyptian between Greeks and Egyptians go before native courts in accor-
dance with national laws, as do those between Egyptians.^^
On the other hand, the study of areas of Greek colonization such as the
Fayum and of Zenon's archives gives the impression, as we shall see in Chapter
3, of innovation, of dynamic Greek enclaves in a traditional Egyptian setting.

"But the Greek superstructure of Egypt, important as it was, was no more

than a superstructure."^^ The Greeks in Egypt were newcomers in a land of
ancient culture with long experience in hving and religious feehng.
The apparent persistence and unchanging nature of life in the Near East
probably also struck the Greeks because it was in such contrast with the
movement and change of their own. A particularly striking passage in Dio-
dorus throws some light on this contrast. He is discussing the antiquity of the
Chaldeans of Babylon. Since they are assigned to the service of the gods, their
lives are spent in study, "their greatest renown being in the field of astrology."
Using various methods, they are also occupied with soothsaying and divina-
tion. Their training is quite unhke that of Greeks engaged in the same en-
deavors. Among the Chaldeans the study goes from father (who is relieved
of all other duties to the state) to son. The parents are ungrudging teachers,
their sons trusting pupils, and training from early childhood allows them to
attain great skill. Among the Greeks, the student who takes up a large number
of subjects without preparation turns quite late to these higher studies; he
labors on them, gives them up, by the need to earn a livelihood.
distracted
Only afew go on to the higher and continue in them to make profits
studies
and they "are always trying to make innovations in connection with the most
important doctrines instead of following in the path of their predecessors."
The barbarians, "by sticking to the same things always, keep a firm hold on

^5 P. Cairo "Zen.,
59451. Apollonius' concern for religious cults, both Greek and
Egyptian, is frequently met up with in the Zenon papyri. No date is given.
The Tebtunis Papyri, 5, 207-220 = Vol. i, pp. 54-55.
^^HW^, Vol. I, pp. 265-266, quotation on p. 205; cf. p. 55.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 23

every detail," while the profit-seeking Greeks "keep founding new schools
and, wrangling with each other over the most important matters of specula-
tion, bring it about that their pupils hold conflicting views, and that their
minds, vacillating throughout their lives and able to believe anything at all

with firm conviction, simply wander in confusion."^^

The early Seleucids, like the Ptolemies, were careful not to offend the
rehgious feehngs of their subjects. Although there is considerable evidence for
this,one example will suffice: Uruk-Warka, the holy city of Babylonia,
became once more "in the times of the Seleucids an important centre of Baby-
lonian rehgion, learning, and science."^^
These illustrations show a cultural diversity which even the simplest ob-
server could see owed something to history and to tradition. This observation
can be stated in a different way: in the Hellenistic age there was a notable
broadening of the concept of the olKovyievr). In earlier times "the inhabited
world" was predominantly a geographic concept; in the Hellenistic world it
assumed also a cultural connotation.
Plutarch praises Alexander's accomphshments in educating other peoples
and on occasion in changing their customs. When Alexander was civilizing
Asia, "Homer was commonly read, and the children of the Persians, of the
Susianians, and of the Gedrosians learned to chant the tragedies of Sophocles
and Euripedes." Socrates, tried on a charge of introducing foreign deities, fell
victim to Athenian informers, while "through Alexander Bactria and the
Caucasus learned to revere the gods of the Greeks." Plutarch emphasizes more
than modern scholars would the uncivilized and brutish in the lands Alexander
conquered, and he ignores the long urban tradition of the Near East: Alexander
"estabhshed more than seventy cities among savage tribes and sowed all Asia
with Grecian magistracies, and thus overcame its uncivilized and brutish
manner of living. Although few of us read Plato's Laws, yet hundreds of
thousands have made use of Alexander's laws, and continue to use them." It
was better to have been vanquished by Alexander than to have escaped him,
for the vanquished could become civilized: "Egypt would not have its Alex-
andria, nor Mesopotamia its Seleuceia, nor Sogdiana its Prophthasia, nor India
its Bucephalia, nor the Caucasus a Greek city hard by.
."^^ This
broadened . .

concept is related to the effects of Alexander's conquests, to the KOivrj^ to the

Hellenization of this part of the world, and to Stoicism.
Plutarch paraphrases approvingly the thoughts expressed by Zeno, the
founder of the Stoic philosophy, whose main principle was "that all the in-
habitants of this world of ours should not live differentiated by their respec-
tive rules of justice into separate cities and communities, but that we should

58 Diodorus, II, 29, 3-6. See also Kaerst, Gesch. d. Hellenis?ims, Vol. 2, pp. 149-150,
to whom I owe the reference.
Vol. I, p. 435.
Plutarch, On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander, I 328D, 328D-E, 329A.
24 Part One: Introductory Essay

consider men to be of one community and one polity, and that we should
all

have a common life and an order common to us all, even as a herd that feeds
together and shares the pasturage of a common field." According to Plutarch,
Alexander sought always to bring men together, "uniting and mixing in one
great loving-cup as it were, men's lives, their characters, their marriages, their
very habits of life." Plutarch says he felt no envy in not having had the oppor-
tunity of seeing Alexander on the throne of Darius, but "methinks I would
gladly have been a witness of that fair and holy marriage-rite, when he brought
together in one golden-canopied tent an hundred Persian brides and an hundred
Macedonian and Greek bridegrooms, united at a common hearth and board."
Alexander desired that all men be subject to "one law of reason, and one form
of government and to reveal all men as one people, and to this purpose he
made himself conform." The deity recalled his soul too soon, else this unity
would have come about.^^ Stoicism too, with its emphasis on universal sym-
pathy, and on the interrelation of man and nature as part of a design, on God's
care for the world, and on the universal participation of men in the divine,
encouraged a cosmopolitanism in outlook already foreshadowed in the hopes
of Alexander.^^ There may indeed, therefore, have been a wide diffusion of
the idea of a cultural as well as a geographic olKovfievr), although admittedly
the documentation is not thorough. Poseidippus in the third century B.C. said,

"There are many cities, but they are one Hellas. "^^ Plutarch's remarks about
Alexander and his times, and his ideas about a man's home being the world,
which are expressed in On Exile, communicate some of this feeling as well-
in an age notable also for misery, slavery, cruelty in war.^^
There was not only a sharper awareness of the natural and the cultural
environment in the Hellenistic period, but, despite the scanty evidence for
such a long time, it would seem that there was a transformation as well in
esthetic, philosophical, poetic, toward nature. The feel-
and artistic attitudes

ing for nature in the ancient world— nature imagery, comparisons between
natural phenomena and human emotions, appreciation of individual aspects
of nature such as a flower or a breeze or of the ensemble of the individual com-
ponents that manifests itself in a landscape— needs reexamination in the light
of modern knowledge. It is not that the basic sources have changed much nor
that we it is doubtful whether additional epigraphic and
are lacking in studies;
numismatic materials, paintings on vases, and the like would seriously under-
mine the main trends apparent in the surviving written sources and the modern
monographic literature. To my knowledge, however, there is no thorough

^^Ibid.The quotations are from I, 329A-B, 329C, 329D-E, and 330D.

^^Kaerst, Die antike Idee der Oikumene, p. 13; Tarn, Hellenistic Civiliz., pp. 79-81.
Kock, ed., Coniicoru?n Atticorum Fragmenta^ Fr. 28, vol. 3, p. 345; quoted by Tarn,
op. cit.y p. 86.
^Plutarch, On the Fortune or the Virtue of Alexander, I 329A-D, On Exile, 600D-
602D. On human misery during this period see esp. HW, chaps. 4, 6; Tarn, op. cit.,
chap. 3.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 25

recent study of the subject; the most detailed ones were written in the nine-
teenth century, mainly by historians of literature and of art.

Bearing in mind, then, this need for reexamination of the sources and that
it is beyond the scope of this work to undertake it, there are substantial reasons
for believing that the roots of modern attitudes toward nature are to be found
in the Hellenistic age rather than in earlier periods. Admittedly these are dif-
ficult to substantiate both for the reasons already cited and because so much
has been lost. More so than in the past, the subject becomes widely diffused
in different fields: poetry, belles lettres, philosophy, religion, landscape paint-
ing, agricultural writing. Tentatively one might say that realistic and vivid
nature description is distinct from religious themes and certainly from the
polytheism of Homer. If it is rehgious it is likely to be nature description in
service of the design argument, as in the Stoic writings. The Epicurean philos-
ophy—its world was also a unity whose creator was not God but nature-
could inspire the vivid nature writings of Lucretius. The awareness of the
oriental garden in the Hellenistic period, the tree-lined promenade, the interest
in creating natural enclaves in cities, inspirations from cultures farther east,

played their role in making a feeling for nature far more prominent than it

had been in the earlier Greek world. No earlier period in the history of West-
ern civilization revealed such strong, self-consciously expressed contrasts be-
tween the urban and rural as did the Hellenistic, probably a result of unique
conditions of urban life of the age not only in city building but in the increased
size of cities. None of these observations are new; similar ones were made in
1 87 1 by Karl Woermann in his work on nature-feeling of the Greeks and
Romans and in 1873 by Wolfgang Helbig in his researches into the early his-
tory of landscaping painting.^^ Helbig argued that before the Hellenistic age
nature was an ever-present good— and never far removed. The alienation of
man from nature he attributed to the rise of the great Hellenistic cities. So
strong is man's dependence on nature, he further argued, that any artificial
divorcement from it leads to attempts to reestablish the communion, and then
to self-conscious sentiments about nature and a distinct method of artistic ex-
pression. Both Helbig and Woermann stressed the influence of the Oriental
garden when it became known; the growth in the size and splendor of cities
(culture becomes concentrated in them) created an awareness of the contrast
between city and country, engendering a literature on nature in this and in
the immediately following Roman period. Stimulating and vigorous as these
works still are, their confident conclusions are only interesting possibilities,
for the ideas in question probably apply only to the most self-conscious and

Woermann, Ueber de?i landschaftlichen Natiirsinn der Griechen und Romer, pp.
6s-66\ see also his Die Landschaft in der Kunst der alten Vdlker, esp. pp. 201-215; Helbig,
"Beitrage zur Erklarung der canipanischen Wandbilder, II," Rheinisches Museum, N. F.,
Vol. 24 (1869), pp. 497-523, esp. p. 514, and his Untersuchunge?i iiber die Campafiische
W andjnalerei, chap. 23. I am greatly indebted to these stimulating works; they are es-
pecially helpful in providing copious citations to the sources.
 .

26 Part One: Introductory Essay

articulate inhabitants; one may doubt that they are part of popular belief.
The scanty evidence can scarcely suggest any generalization. An idyll ascribed
to Theocritus, a few lines from Bion, cannot sum up a centuries-long period
any more than Homer can. Regardless, however, of the problem of representa-
tiveness, I would like to quote a few passages from the familiar Hellenistic and
Roman writers in order to show that significant attitudes toward nature found
expression at that time. In general, these were realistic even when dealing with
mythological subjects or with the activities of gods; they were more sustained
than short epithets or similes; they had verisimilitude, bearing the marks of
observation, of country walks, of conversations with shepherds.
The first of these works. The Argonaiitica of ApoUonius Rhodius (third
century B.C.) one of the oldest Greek sagas, the voyage on the
is a version of
"Argo" of Jason and his companions to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece.
We are concerned here not with the tale but with the incidental descriptions
of nature which appear from time to time during the progress of the voyage.
(1) Running past the Tisaean headland, the son of Oeagrus, touching his
lyre, "sang in rhythmical song of Artemis," and as he sang, "the fishes came
darting through the deep sea, great mixed with small, and followed gambolling
along the watery paths. And as when in the track of the shepherd, their master,
countless sheep follow to the fold that have fed to the full of grass, and he
goes before gaily piping a shepherd's strain on his shrill reed; so these fishes
followed; and a chasing breeze ever bore the ship onward" [I, 570-579].
(2) Jason, with the spear given him by Atalanta, "went on his way to the
city hke to a bright star, which maidens, pent up in new-built chambers, behold
as above their homes, and through the dark air it charms their eyes with
it rises

its fair red gleam and the maid rejoices, love-sick for the youth who is far

away amid strangers, for whom her parents are keeping her to be his bride;
like to that star the hero trod the way to the city" [I, 775-781 ]

(3) In the passage between Scylla and Charybdis, they have the assistance
of the Nereids (who circle the ships like dolphins) and of Thetis (who guides
the ship's course). "And the ship was raised aloft as the current smote her,
and all around the furious wave mounting up broke over the rocks, which at
one time touched the sky like towering crags, at another, down in the depths,
were fixed fast at the bottom of the sea and the fierce waves poured over them
in floods" [IV, 920-979; quotation is in lines 943-947].
(4) There are sensitive delineations of light, especially that of morning,
which enhance the beauty and add to the total impression of the landscape.
^'Now gleaming dawn with bright eyes beheld the lofty peaks of Pelion,
. . .

and the calm headlands were drenched as the sea was rufiled by the
. . .

winds .". [I, 519-521]. "But when the sun rising from far lands lighted up
.

the dewy hills and wakened the shepherds," they loosed their hawsers, put on
board their spoil, "and with a favouring wind they steered through the eddy-
ing Bosporus" [II, 164-168].
 Part One: Introductory Essay 27

(5) Hera and Athena visit Cypris, Eros' mother, to urge the boy to pierce
Medea, daughter of Aetes, with his arrow so that she might love Jason; they
act without delay and successfully. Eros then "fared forth through the
fruitful orchard of the palace of Zeus," he passed through the gates of Olympus
high in air, then in a downward path from heaven he turned toward earth.
"And beneath him there appeared now the life-giving earth and cities of men
and sacred streams of rivers, and now in turn mountain peaks and the ocean
all around, as he swept through the vast expanse of air" [III, 164-166].

(6) "Now dawn returning with her beams divine scattered the gloomy
night through the sky; and the island beaches laughed out and the paths over
the plains far off, drenched with dew, and there was a din in the streets; the
people were astir throughout the city, and far away the Colchians were astir
at the bounds of the isle of Maeris" [IV, 11 70-1 175].

(7) There are also comparisons between a state of mind and the appearance
of nature. Medea, in love with Jason and kept wakeful by her cares, dreads
his fate before the strength of the bulls. "And fast did her heart throb within
her breast,as a sunbeam quivers upon the walls of a house when flung up from

water, which is just poured forth in a caldron or a pail may be; and hither
and thither on the swift eddy does it dart and dance along; even so the maiden's
heart quivered in her breast" [III, 755-759].
In this period the most familiar examples of the feehng for nature are in
the writings of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus (or from those writings con-
ventionally attributed to them). In this bucolic poetry, especially that of
Theocritus, there are charming allusions to the details of Mediterranean rural
life: meadows. This freshness of de-
to goatherd's sticks, to bees, to grazing
scription is also evident in The Wovten at the Adonis
urban scenes, as in
Festival, which is set in Alexandria. Gorgo makes a morning call on Praxinoa
asking her to the festival of Adonis, which is being held at the Palace of
Ptolemy II. Going with difficulty through the crowded streets of Alexandria—
"How we're to get through this awful crush," says Gorgo on the way, "and
how long it's going to take us, I can't imagine. Talk of an antheap!"— they
arrive at the palace, where Gorgo insists that Praxinoa admire the delicate and
tasteful embroideries. Praxinoa replies "Huswife Athena!" Gorgo marvels
that the weavers and embroiderers are capable of such detailed work. "How
realistically the things all stand and move about in it! They're living! It is
wonderful what people can do." And the Holy Boy, Adonis, "how perfectly
beautiful he looks lying on his silver couch with the down of manhood just
showing on his cheeks .
!" [Theocritus, Idyll XV, 78-86].
. .

The wonderment has its rural parallels, set in country sounds and scenes.
"Something sweet is the whisper of the pine," says Thyrsis, "that makes her
music by yonder springs, and sweet no less, master Goatherd, the melody of
your pipe" [Id. I, 1-3]. Intimate touches sketch the life of the herdsman. "I
go a-courting of Amaryllis, and my goats they go browsing on along the hill
28 Part One: Introductory Essay

with Tityrus to drive them on. My well-beloved Tityrus, pray feed me my

goats; pray lead them to watering, good Tityrus, and beware or the buckgoat,
the yellow Libyan yonder, will be butting you" [Id. Ill, 1-5]. The goatherd
tells Thyrsis he is no apprentice country music. "So let's come and
at the art of
sit yonder beneath the elm, this way, over against Priapus and the fountain-

goddesses, where that shepherd's seat is and those oak-trees" [I, 19—23]. In
the fifth idyll, Lacon tells Comatas, "You'll sing better sitting under the
wild olive and this coppice. There's cool water faUing yonder, and here's grass
and a greenbed, and the locusts at their prattling" [V, 3 1-34] but Comatas's ;

tastes in natural surroundings are different: "Thither I will never come. Here
I have oaks and bedstraw, and bees humming bravely at the hives, here's

two springs of cool water to thy one, and birds, not locusts, a-babbling upon
the tree, and, for shade, thine 's not half so good; and what's more the pine
overhead is casting her nuts" [V, 45-49].
In The Harvest-Home, the poet and his companions set out from Cos to
the country to participate in the harvest festival. On the way they overtake the
goatherd, Lycidas of Cydonia, "which indeed any that saw him must have
known him for, seeing liker could not be. For upon his shoulders there hung,
rank of new rennet, a shag-haired buck-goat's tawny fleece, across his breast
a broad belt did gird an ancient shirt, and in's hand he held a crook of wild
olive" [VII, 10-20]. They left the goatherd to take another road; the three
of them,

Eucritus and I and pretty little Amyntas turned in at Phrasidamus's and in deep
greenbeds of fragrant reeds and fresh-cut vine-strippings laid us rejoicing down.
/ Many an aspen, many an elm bowed and rustled overhead, and hard by, the
hallowed water welled purling forth of a cave of the Nymphs, while the brown
cricket chirped busily amid the shady leafage, and the tree-frog murmured aloof
in the dense thornbrake. Lark and goldfinch sang and turtle moaned, and about
the spring the bees hummed and hovered to and fro. All nature smelt of the
opulent summer-time, smelt of the season of fruit. Pears lay at our feet, apples on
either side, rolling abundantly, and the young branches lay splayed upon the
ground because of the weight of their damsons [VII, 128-146].

In Theocritus' hymn and Polydeuces, the men of Jason's ship

to Castor
went down the ladders. Castor and Polydeuces wandering away from the rest
to see "the wild woodland of all manner of trees among the hills." Beneath a
slabby rock they found a freshet ever brimming with pure clear water. The
pebbles at the bottom were like silver and crystal, and there grew beside it
long and tall firs, poplars, planes, and spiry cypresses, "as all fragrant flowers
which abound in the meadows of outgoing spring to be loved and laboured of
the shag bee" [XXII, 34-43].
Both in Bion and in Moschus there are passages implying a communion of
man with nature, a sympathy within nature for the misfortunes of men, sug-
gesting the pathetic fallacy that Ruskin found so distasteful (Modern Painters,
Part IV, chap. 12). In Bion's Lament for Adonis (30-39), not only do the
 Part One: Introductory Essay 29

Nymphs and Aphrodite mourn but so also do the elements of nature— for him
and for Cypris, beautiful while Adonis lived, whose loveliness has now died
with him.

With all the Woe for Cypris and with the vales 'tis Woe for Adonis\
hills 'tis
the rivers weep the sorrows of Aphrodite, the wells of the mountains shed tears
for Adonis; the flowerets flush red for grief, and Cythera's isle over every foot-

hill and every glen of it sings pitifully Woe for Cytherea, the beauteous Adonis
is dead, and Echo ever cries her back again. The beauteous Adonis is dead.

Similarly, in The hainent for Bion (usually published in the works of

Moschus and probably the work of a pupil of Bion), the same sympathy comes
forth from nature.

Cry me waly upon him, you glades of the woods, and waly, sweet Dorian
water;you rivers, weep I pray you for the lovely and delightful Bion. Lament
you now, good orchards; gently groves, make you your moan; be your breathing
clusters, ye flowers, dishevelled for grief. Pray roses, now be your redness sor-
row, and yours sorrow, windflowers; speak now thy writing, dear flower-de-
luce, loud let thy blossoms babble ay; the beautiful musician is dead.^^

In a fragment attributed to Moschus, a fisherman muses about the elements

and how they affect him.

When the wind strikes gently upon a sea that is blue, this craven heart is roused
within me, and my love of the land leads to the desire of the great waters. But
when the deep waxes grey and loud, and the sea begins to swell and to foam and
the waves run long and wild, then look I unto the shore and its trees and depart
from the brine, then welcome is the land to me and pleasant the shady green-
wood, where, be the wind never so high, the pine-tree sings her song.

The fisherman prefers life on shore, to sleep beneath the plane "and the sound
hard by of a bubbling spring such as dehghts and not disturbs the rustic ear"
[Fr.4].
Among the Roman writers who were by Hellenistic
strongly influenced
tastes, descriptions, details of rural life, themes of communion with nature,
and comparisons between city and country were also expressed, often with
vigor and beauty or, as Columella did, with bitterness. One need only recall
the nature imagery of Lucretius.
(i) To Venus, the life-giver (alma Venus), mother of Aeneas and thus of
the Roman people, and the goddess of love, he says in the opening lines, "Thou,
goddess, thou dost turn to flight the winds and the clouds of heaven, thou at
thy coming; for thee earth, the quaint artificer (suava daedala tellus) puts
forth her sweet-scented flowers; for thee the levels of ocean smile, and the
sky, its anger past, gleams with spreading light." With spring and the coming
of the strong west wind, "first the birds in high heaven herald thee, goddess.

The Lament for Bion, 1-7. Bion's fragments 9 on the evening star and 12 on Galatea's
lover combine sentiments of communion with nature with love and unrequited love.
 .

30 Part One: Introductory Essay

and thine approach, their hearts thrilled with thy might. Then the tame beasts
grow wild and bound over the fat pastures, and swim the racing rivers; so
surely enchained by thy charm each follows thee in hot desire whither thou
goest before to lead him on." For Venus alone is "pilot to the nature of things,
and nothing without thine aid comes forth into the bright coasts of light, nor
waxes glad or lovely. I long that thou shouldest be my helper in writing these
verses. . .

(2) The body has modest needs— only that which gives delight and takes
away Nature does not need banquets in palaces, nor golden images of
pain.
youths about halls grasping fiery torches; nor need fretted and gilded rafters
reecho to the lute; men can "lie in friendly groups on the soft grass near some
stream of water under the branches of a tall tree, and at no great cost de-
lightfully refresh their bodies, above all when the weather smiles on them,
and the season of the year bestrews the green grass with flowers" [II, 20—33].
(3) "For often the fleecy flocks cropping the glad pasture on a hill creep
on whither each is called and tempted by the grass bejewelled with fresh dew,
and the lambs fed full gambol and butt playfully; yet all this seems blurred
to us from afar, and to He like a white mass on a green hill" [II, 31 7-322 ]
(4) "For often before the sculptured shrines of the gods a calf has fallen,
slaughtered hard by the altars smoking with incense, breathing out from its
breast the hot tide of blood. But the mother bereft wanders over the green
glades and seeks on the ground for the footprints marked by those cloven
hoofs, scanning every spot with her eyes, if only she might anywhere catch
sight of her lost young, and stopping fills the leafy grove with her lament. ..."
[II, 351-360.]
A practical and utilitarian attitude toward nature so conspicuous in Virgil's
Georgics might be counterbalanced by a lyrical and esthetic interpretation of
landscape so congenial to the Eclogues. Here, says Tityrus, after hearing
Melibaeus' complaints about the evils which have befallen him and his estate,
you can with me on the verdant leaves. There are ripe apples,
rest tonight
soft chestnuts,and plenty of pressed cheese for us. Now the distant house-
tops are smoking and the longer shadows fall from the high mountains [Ec. I,
80 ad fin]. Mossy fountains, grass softer than sleep, green arbutus covering
you with its thin shade, keep oflF the noon heat from the flock; already the
burning summer approaches and now the buds are swelling on the fruitful
vine [Ec. VII, 45-48]. Virgil expresses a desire for communion with nature,
assuming, no doubt, that a deeper understanding of life comes with divorce-
ment from the world of men. Let Pallas five, he says, in the cities she has
built; the woods above all please us [Ec. II, 62].

Lucr. I, 1-25. On the invocation to Venus and its possible inconsistency with Epi-
curean doctrine, see Bailey's ed. of Lucr. Vol. 2, pp. 588-591. See also Latham's very
graceful trans, of this passage in the Penquin Classics ed.
 1

Part One: Introductory Essay 3

Of the writers of antiquity whose writings have come down to us, however,
none has shown a preference for rural Hfe so clearly as has Horace. The joys
of the country are associated with the carefree existence of a pristine race of
mortals, free of anxiety in money matters, of war-making, of saiHng on the
angry sea, of life in the Forum and the "proud thresholds of more peaceful
citizens." The rural dweller may "wed his lofty poplar-trees to well-grown
vines"; look out upon "the ranging herds of lowing cattle"; prune away the
useless branches and graft on fruitful ones, store his honey, shear his sheep.
The modest wife and mother (in addition to her usual duties) piles high
"the sacred hearth with seasoned firewood," pens "the frisking flocks in
wattled fold," and milks the cows. Beloved are the scenes of homeward-com-
ing sheep, weary oxen dragging along "the upturned ploughshare on their
tired necks" [Epode 2]. Horace, "a lover of the country," sends greetings
to Fuscus, "lover of the city." "You keep the nest; I praise the lovely country's
brooks, its grove and moss-grown rocks." The contrast is really one between
art and nature. Like the slave in the priest's household who was fed to satiety
with so many sacrificial cakes that he ran away in order to get plain food,
he prefers bread to honeyed cake. He follows Stoic teaching when he asks, if
it is our duty to live agreeable to nature, what is to be preferred to the country.^

City advantages are unfavorably compared with country simpHcities and

even in the city nature is not avoided. "Why, amid your varied columns you
are nursing trees, and you praise the mansion which looks out on distant fields.
You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever hurry back,
and ere you know it, will burst through your foolish contempt in triumph."
"Is the grass poorer in fragrance or beauty than Libyan mosaics?" Is the water
in the leaden pipes of the city purer than the water which "dances and purls
down the sloping brook? " [Epistles, Bk. 1,10]. Similar themes appear in Tibul-
lus, a contemporary of Virgil and of Horace; his poetry, as does Horace's,

contrasts the urban with the rural, the life devoted to wealth, position, or
warfare with that associated with humility, desire for a modest fortune, quiet,
physical activity, and simplicity [I, i, 1-30]. "When the time is ripe, let me
plant the tender vines and the stout orchard trees with my own deft hands, a
countryman indeed" [I, i, 7]. Like Varro, he regards the country as the pri-
mordial teacher of man. "I sing the country and the country's gods" [II, i,
37]. "They were the guides when man first ceased to chase his hunger with
the acorns from the oak." They taught him to build, to train bulls to be his
slaves, and to use the wheel. These savage activities were replaced by the
planting of fruit trees and gardens, and the "golden grapes gave up their juices
to the trampling feet, and sober water was mixed with cheering wine. From
the country comes our harvest, when in heaven's glowing heat the earth is
yearly shorn of her shock of yellow hair" [II, i, 37-50]. The toils of country
life are realistically described [II, iii] ".
; . nor think it shame to grasp the hoe
.
32 Part Ojje: Introductory Essay

at times or chide the laggard oxen with the goad, nor a trouble to carry home-
wards in my arms a ewe lamb or youngling goat forgotten by its dam and
left alone" [I,i].
Among the agricultural prose writers, Varro and Columella were more
philosophical and stern; their belief in primordial rural strength only hardened
them was an unnatural creation. To Varro
in their conviction that the city
the farming Hfe was more ancient than that of the town by an astounding
number of years, "and small wonder, for divine nature made the country, but
man's skill the towns, and all the arts were discovered in Greece, 'tis said,
within the space of a thousand years, but there was never a time when there
were in the world no fields which could be cultivated. "^^ Columella was per-
haps the most bitter commentator in the ancient world about city and coun-
try. He lamented the abandonment "with shameful unanimity" of rural virtues
and rural discipline, recalHng that the Roman heroes and statesmen of old
defended their country in need, returning to the plow with peace. Echoing
complaints made by Varro "in the days of our grandfathers," Columella says
that heads of families have quit the sickle and the plow, have crept within
city walls; "we ply our hands [i.e., applaud] in the circuses and theatres rather
than in the grainfields and vineyards; and we gaze in astonished admiration at
the posturings of effeminate males, because they counterfeit with their woman-
ish motions a sex which nature has denied men. ." The city is a place of
to . .

excess, of gluttony and drunkenness, debauching the young into premature

ill health. In contrast is the life of the country, which is presumed to be closer

to ways which are most natural to man because they were gifts originally
given mankind by the gods.^^
The nature imagery of Homer is vivid, but it is closely related to the activi-
ties of the gods; in the Hellenistic age, the tendency was to see the aspects of
nature as they really were. The fuller knowledge of geography, the experi-
ences of trade, travel, and exploration are manifest in such literature, for
landscapes could be compared.^^ The nature poetry and landscape description
of the Hellenistic age cannot be matched in any previous period in the classical
world, and they may be compared with passages from Ausonius, St. Augus-
tine, theRomajice of the Rose, and with such writings in modern times.
The emboldened and intensified by inspirations from the
interest in nature,
East (such as the garden), combined with the enlargement of urban life,
brought about a sharpening of the distinction, if one can trust the evidence
from men like Horace, Varro, and Columella, between nature and art. This
generalization admittedly is difficult to establish, but there does seem ground
for belief in the emergence of a self-conscious awareness of the sharp contrast

68 Intro,to Bk. Ill; cf. intro. pref. to Bk. II.

6^ Columella, On Agriculture, Bk. I, pref. 13-21; see also Varro, Bk. II, pref. 3, which
is the passage to which C. refers.
^0 Helbig, Untersuchungen,
pp. 204-209.
 Part One: Introductory Essay 33

between rural and urban life/^ Indeed, it is probably one of the periods in
Western civilization in which the contrast between natural and cultural land-
scapes has been sharpest. This phenomenon does not first appear with the age
of forest clearance in the Middle Ages, the eighteenth century ordering of
nature, or the Industrial Revolution. The enlarged size of many Hellenistic
cities may well have increased awareness of this distinction, the presence of
gardens and tree-hned promenades suggesting a desire to create a small realm
of nature within the city.
This discussion brings us to the last point about the Hellenistic period: its

importance in the history of Western urbanism. Notwithstanding the dep-

recating remarks often made about the city, it is hard to deny the existence
of a strong urban tradition, an affection for the city as a superior creation of
man which existed in the Mediterranean world, and a sharing of this tradition
by the peoples of the Hellenistic world. It is hard to believe that Aristotle
could think the city an artificial rather than a natural creation; with his
strong conviction that man is would be a
a social animal, life in the polis
natural existence for man. For the present enough to say that urbanization
it is

in this period was of a special nature: it took place most conspicuously in Asia
Minor and for the most part in areas which had been urbanized since very
ancient times, and Alexandria became one of the greatest, most interesting,
and cosmopolitan cities of history.
In chapter 3 there will be more to say about the Hellenistic city because it
obviously engenders environmental change.

Ibid,, pp. 270 ff.

 Chapter i

Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

and on Earth

I. Theology and Geography

In ancient and modern times alike, theology and geography have often been
closely related studies because they meet at crucial points of human curiosity.
If we seek after the nature of God, we must consider the nature of man and
the earth, and if we look at the earth, questions of divine purpose in its creation

and of the role of mankind on it inevitably arise. The conception of a designed

world, in both classical and in Christian thought, has transcended personal
piety. In Western thought the idea of a deity and the idea of nature often
have had a parallel history; in Stoic pantheism they were one, and in Christian
theology they have supplemented and reinforced one another. Whether a
God or the gods had a share in the life of men spent in their beautiful, earthly
home, or whether, as the Epicureans believed, the order of nature was not to
be ascribed to divine causes, the interpretations which arose out of these argu-
ments have had a dominant place in molding the conception of the earth as a

environment for the support of life.

suitable
}6 Order a?id Purpose in the Cosmos
Living nature has been one of the important proofs used to demonstrate
the existence of a creator and of a purposeful creation; in the pursuit of this
proof there has been an intensification, a quickening, and a concentration of
interest in the processes of nature itself. Proof of the existence of divine pur-
pose involved consideration of the assumed orderliness of nature, and if this
orderliness were granted, the way was open for a conception of nature as a
balance and harmony to which all life was adapted.
The conception of the earth as an orderly harmonious whole, fashioned
either for man himself or, less anthropocentrically, for the sake of all life,

must be a very ancient one; probably we must seek its ultimate origin in earlier
behefs in the direct personal intervention of the gods in human affairs or in
the personification of natural processes in the naming of gods of the crops, and
in the old myth of the earth-mother so widespread in the ancient Mediter-
ranean world. There are hints that this conception was established long before
the Greeks.
Explaining the way in which knowledge of the Gods has been imparted to
men, Plutarch says men accepted heaven as the father, earth as the mother,
the father pouring forth spermlke water, the earth-mother receiving it and
producing [De placitis philo soph arum I, vi, 1 1]. Diodorus says the Chaldeans
thought the world was eternal, its disposition and orderly arrangement the
work of divine providence, its basis astrology [II, 30, 1-3]. Plutarch else-
where speaks of widely held belief of Greeks and barbarians alike that
a
the universe itself suspended aloft without sense or reason or guid-
is not of
ance. Wilson has called attention to an old Egyptian text, "interesting and
unusual in making the purposes of creation the interests of humans; normally
the myth recounts the steps of creation without indication of purpose." The
gods take care of men created in their image.
Well tended are men, the cattle of God. He made heaven and earth according
to their desire, and he repelled the water monster (at creation). He made the
breath (of) life (for) their nostrils. They are his images that have issued from his
body. He arises in heaven according to their desire. He made for them plants and
animals, fowl and fish in order to nourish them. He slew his enemies and
de-
stroyed (even) his (own) children when they plotted rebellion (against him).^

In the Memphite theology, whose original text belongs to the early Old
Kingdom, Wilson notes the emergence of the idea of a rational principle in
nature which appeared two millennia before the Greeks and Hebrews. Ptah,
the god of Memphis, was the heart (that is, the mind, will, and emotion) and
the tongue (the organ of expression and command) of the gods. "There was
an articulate intelligence behind the creation. Through the thought of the
heart and the expression of the tongue, Atum himself and all the other gods

^ Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 369C. John A. Wilson in Henri Frankfort, et al, Before
Philosophy , p. 64.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 37

came into being.'* This, Wilson believes, was the closest the Egyptians ever
came to the Logos doctrine; the search for a first principle "was inquisitive
and exploratory beyond the normal Egyptian placidity with the universe as
created."^
And in the hymn to Amun (written in the time of Amenhotep II, ca. 1436-
141 1 B.C.), the god Amon-Re creates pasture for beasts, fruit trees for man,
that on which the fish and the birds, gnats, worms, flies, may live, giving
breath to what is in the egg, sustaining the son of the slug. The concern of the
primeval creator-god Aten, here identified with Atum, is for all mankind re-
gardless of race or color:

Atum, who made the common folk.

Who varied their natures and made their life.
Who diversified their hues, one from the other.^

Even more striking is the famous hymn of Akh-en-Aton (i 369-1 353 B.C.)
to Aten, the sun god, a hymn which owes its fame to its beauty, to its place
in the history of monotheistic ideas, and to the speculation it has aroused be-
cause of the striking similarities between it and the 104th Psalm. One passage
from this hymn reveals the antiquity of the idea of the glory of the creator
being manifested in his works:

How manifold is that which thou hast made, hidden from view!
Thou sole god, there is no other like thee!
Thou didst create the earth according to thy will, being alone:
Mankind, cattle, all flocks,
Everything on earth which walks with (its) feet,
And what are on high, flying with their wings.^

2 Wilson, The Culture of Ancient Egypt, pp. 59-60; an excerpt relating to this ques-
tion is translated on p. 60. Wilson Old Kingdom from 2700 to
dates the period of the
2200 B.C. After remarking that this search for a first principle was only an approach to
abstract thinking, Wilson continues, "But we must remember that the Memphite Theol-
ogy lies two thousand years before the Greeks or Hebrews. Its insistence that there
was a creative and controlling intelligence, which fashioned the phenomena of nature and
which provided, from the beginning, rule and rationale, was a high peak of pre-Greek
thinking, a peak which was not surpassed in later Egyptian history." See also the extracts
from "The Theology of iMemphis," trans, by John A. Wilson in James B. Pritchard, ed..
Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 2nd ed., pp. 4-6. For another discussion, Rudolf Anthes,
"Mythology in Ancient Egypt," in Samuel Noah Kramer, ed., Mythologies of the An-
cient World, pp. 61-64; see also his discussion of the so-called "Credo of a Highpriest
of Thebes," p. 47. Anthes says "The Theology of Memphis" is a badly preserved in-
scription on a monolith erected about 700 b.c. copied on King Shabaka's orders from an
old papyrus roll. A
dating of 2500 b.c. appears possible and has been generally accepted
for the time being, p. 61 ; the hymn to Osiris was engraved on a tombstone of Amenmose,
ca. 1550 B.C., pp. 82-85.
3 Quoted in Williams, "The Hymn
to Aten," in D. Winton Thomas, ed.. Documents
from Old Testament Times, p. 150. On the hymn to Amun, see pp. 149-150.
* Strophe VI, lines 52-57, ibid., p. 147.
38 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

Like the hymn to Amun, that to Aten recognizes that there are differences
among peoples, and praises a creator who cares for all:

The foreign lands of Hurru and Nubia, the land of Egypt—

Thou dost set each man in his place and supply his needs;
Each one has his food, and his lifetime is reckoned.
Their tongues are diverse in speech and their natures likewise;
Their skins are varied, for thou dost vary the foreigners.^

This creator does not hesitate to make different environments for different
kinds of men. Long before Herodotus and Plato talked of the distinctive
sources of Egyptian water, the Hymn to Aten distinguishes between the
Egyptian Nile and the Nile of other countries. The creator makes a life for
foreign peoples, but they have been given their Nile in the sky that it may, like
the sea, flow down the sides of their mountains, watering "their fields amongst
their towns."

The Nile in the sky is for the foreign peoples,

For the flocks of every foreign land that walk with (their) feet.
While the (true) Nile comes forth from the underworld for Egypt.

It is perhaps the earliest mention of the distinction between a land owing its

water solely to an exotic stream and a land dependent upon rainfall.^

5 Strophe VII, lines 58-62, ibid.,

p. 147.
^Strophe VIII, lines 69-77. ^1^^ Deuteronomy 11:10-12. According to Williams,
the evidence indicates that the cult of Aten had developed "probably as early as the reign
of Thutmose IV {ca. 141 1-1397 b.c.)" p. 142; the evidence also is inconclusive that Akh-
en-Aton is the world's first monotheist, pp. 143-144. Of the often-noted parallel between
Psalm 104 and the hymn, he says that while Egyptian literary work influenced Hebrew
literature, "we may wonder how a Hebrew poet, more than half a millennium later,
could have become acquainted with the central document of a religion which later ages
execrated and sought to obliterate from their memory. Despite the complete eclipse of
Atenism after the death of Akhenaten, however, its influence remained in art and litera-
ture, and many of the ideas contained in the Aten Hymn, itself dependent on earlier
models . . found expression in later religious works. From sources such as these the
.

Psalmist may well have obtained his inspiration." Ibid., p. 149.

Wilson, The Cidture of Ajicient Egypt, pp. 225-229, also discusses the similarities be-
tween this hymn and Psalm 104. See the earlier discussions of Breasted, A History of
Egypt, pp. 371-374 ff., and The Daivn of Conscie?Jce, pp. 367-370, to which Wilson
refers. Breasted, Daivn of Conscience, p. 368, quotes Hugo Gressman's conclusion that
the mythological motif of the creation of the world probably originated in Babylonia
and that "The rnotif of the divine care of the world was a later idea, which made its
way into Palestinian Psalmody under the influence of Egypt." See also translations on
pp. 282-284. Wilson concludes that there is no direct relationship. "Hymns of this kind
were current long after the fall of Akh-en-Aton, so that when Hebrew religion had
reached a point where it needed a certain mode of expression it could find in another
literature phrases and thoughts which would meet the need." Of the positive qualities
of the hymn, he writes ". it expressed beautifully the concept of a god who was cre-
. .

ative, nurturing, and kindly and who gave his gifts to all mankind and to all living things
everywhere and not to the Egyptians alone," p. 229.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 39

2. Beginnings of the Teleological View of Nature

If the notion of God's care for the world existed— as apparently it did from
very ancient times— it could gradually be joined with the conception of a
unity and harmony in the universe, the two becoming the components of the
idea of purposefulness in the creation— that it was the result of intelligent,
planned, and well-thought-out acts of a creator. When, in fact, does the idea
of a teleology in nature emerge, one abstract and broad enough to be applied
to the life of an individual, to the earth as a planet, and to the cosmos?
Anaximander espoused the principle of a universe governed by law, but it

fell short of teleology.

In Anaxagoras, Diogenes of Apollonia, and Herodotus, however, there are
hints which ultimately lead to the teleology of Plato and Aristotle.
To Anaxagoras, Mind "is infinite and is mixed with nothing
and self-ruled,
but is all alone by itself." It is "the finest of all things and the purest, it has all
knowledge about everything and the greatest power; and Mind controls all
things, both the greater and the smaller, that have life." Mind controls the
rotation and its beginning; it knows when things are "mingled and separated
and divided off. ." Mind arranges the "rotation in which are now rotating
. .

the stars, the sun and moon, the air and the aither that are being separated
off." "And the dense is separated off from the rare, the hot from the cold, the
bright from the dark and the dry from the moist"; and "nothing is altogether
separated off nor divided one from the other except Mind" which is all ahke.
The argument for intelligent management is based largely on celestrial phe-
nomena, on the existence of mixtures and of opposites.^ If one agrees with
Socrates that Anaxagoras was "a man who made no use at all of Mind, nor
invoked any other real causes to arrange the world, but explained things by
airs and aithers and waters and many other absurdities,"^ one can see a more

active and a more spiritual principle at work in the thought of Diogenes of

Apollonia who, it has been said, is the first to have expressed an authentic
teleological view of nature.^
Intelligence is required, he said, for the underlying substance "so to be di-
vided up that it has measures of all things— of winter and summer and night
and day and rains and winds and fair weather" [Fr. 3 ] The argument is based .

on the weather and seasonal and diurnal change. May it not come also from
observing the characteristics of the Mediterranean climate with its rainy win-
ters and arid summers with bright cloudless skies, its famous winds blowing
from many directions?

^Fr. 12, Simplicius ?hys. 164, 24 and 156, 13. In Kirk and Raven, FSP, pp. 372-373.
8 Plato Phaedo, 98 B
7, text and translation being in Kirk and Raven, PSP, p. 384.
^See Theiler, Zur Geschichte der teleologischen N
aturbetrachtung bis auf Aristo-
teles^ p. 19.
40 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

Men and other living things breathe air live by it; for them it is "both
and
soul and intelligence" [Fr. 4]. Air is which men call intelligence; "all
that
men are steered by this and ... it has power over all things." It is divine, it
reaches everywhere, it disposes all things, it is in everything. Everything has
some of it, the amounts however varying. It is "many-fashioned, being hotter
and colder and drier and moister and more stationary and more swiftly mobile
and many other differentiations are in it both of taste and of colour, unlimited
in number" [Fr. 5]. All Hving things have the same soul; this air is warmer
than that outside, cooler than that near the sun. The bodily heat of all men
is not the same, but neither are the differences so great that they become un-
like. Differentiation thus is possible within a broader and basic similarity.
"Because, then, the differentiation is many-fashioned, living creatures are
many-fashioned and many in number, resembling each other neither in form
nor in way of life nor in intelligence, because of the number of differentiations.
Nevertheless they all live and see and hear by the same thing, and have the rest
of their intelligence from the same thing" [Fr. 5]. In this conception, it is the
meteorological and biological elements in the teleology which are most promi-
nent.^^
According Diogenes and Anaxagoras thought the world (/cdcr/xo?)
to Aetius,
"out of its own propensity" made an inchnation to the south, and that living
creatures then emerged. The inclination may have been owing to a wise
Providence so that thereby some parts of the world may be habitable, others
not, depending upon the rigorous cold, scorching heat, or temperate climate
of various regions.
And of the sense of purpose in the acts of creator-deities, Herodotus wrote:
"Of a truth, Divine Providence does appear to be, as indeed one might expect
beforehand, a wise contriver. For timid animals which are a prey to others
are all made to produce young abundantly, that so the species may not be
entirely eaten up and lost; while savage and noxious creatures are made very
unfruitful."^^

10 Fr. 3 — Simplicius Fhys. 152, 13; Fr. 4 = ibid., 152, 18; Fr. 5 = ibid., 152, 22; in Kirk
and Raven, PSP, pp. 433-435.
Fr. 67, Diels, Vorsokr. (6th ed., Berlin, 1952), Vol. II, p. 22. The source is Aetius
II, 8. I.
1.2 Hdt. Ill, 108. Herodotus has been talking about vast numbers of w^inged serpents
guarding trees bearing frankincense; the Arabians said the whole world would swarm
with them if their numbers were not kept in check. Herodotus then describes reasons
for the high fertility of hares, low fertility of lions, and the natural checks to viper and
winged serpent multipHcation. It is all fabulous, but the idea of differential rates in in-
crease of animal populations is certainly there (III, 107-109). For commentaries on this
passage, see Nestle, Herodots Verhdltnis zur Philosophie und Sophistik, pp. 16-18 and
How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus, Vol. I, pp. 290-291, cf. Plato, Protag-
oras, 321 B. Nestle thinks that Hdt. Ill, 108, and Plato, Protagoras, 321 B, have a com-
mon source in Protagoras' vepl tt}^ iv apxfj KaTaardaeoj^. See Diogenes Laertius, IX, 55.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 41

In this passage the purposeful creation is confined to the fertiUty of animals,

but it reveals the antiquity of the observation that there is a differential fertility
among animals, depending upon whether they prey or are preyed upon, and
that nature has great reproductive power.
In the myth which tell his audience, themes
Plato has the Sophist Protagoras
of creation, fertility, adaptation, are woven with the doctrine of the ele-
in
ments and the idea of design. The gods, already in existence before mankind,
fashioned living creatures out of earth and fire, and various mixtures of both,
and when they were on the verge of being created, Epimetheus and Prome-
theus were ordered by the gods "to equip them, and to distribute to them
severally their proper qualities." Epimetheus said to Prometheus, "Let me
distribute and do you inspect." In distributing attributes to animals, Epime-
theus was guided by the principle of preventing the extinction of any one
kind. Each animal found a niche and a refuge depending on its nature, like the
birds flying in the sky, or animals burrowing in the earth. After being pro-
vided with the means of protecting themselves against other animals, they
were then given protection against the elements: hair, thick skins, hoofs, hard,
callous skins under the feet. Their sources of food were also different: some
got herbs, fruit, roots; others, animals— a hint that there is a relationship be-
tween animal life and the kinds of plant life in a planned world. Predators had
few young, but those who were preyed upon avoided extinction by being
prolific.

When he came to inspect, Prometheus, noticing that Epimetheus had dis-

tributed all saw
the qualities he had to the animals, in his perplexity that other
endowments must be bestowed on man when he appeared; Prometheus stole
the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athena, and fire, without which they
could not practice these arts. With these gifts, for which Prometheus paid
such a heavy penalty, man "had the wisdom necessary to support life," though
he lacked political wisdom. Man thus possessed qualities and skills derived
from the gods; with them he invented language and names, learned construc-
tion and the handicrafts and how to get food from the soil. The arts of man
take the place of the natural protections and defenses granted the animals.
Can one interpret this myth to mean that man can survive and perpetuate him-
self only by applying his arts, his tools, and his inventions to nature, to manipu-

late and fashion it to his own ends? While being alert to the danger of reading
this passage with modern eyes, one can still discern the biological idea of a

natural control of animal populations through predation and environmental

conditions, contrasted with a social idea of the arts which are to man what
protective devices, dexterities, and adaptations are to the animals. This myth
may represent an early attempt to explain how man, a part of nature, has a
position with relation to it far different from that of other forms of life.
Although the order of nature and human art are of divine origin, man and
42 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

animals, both part of the same creation, have endowments of an entirely dif-
ferent order/^

3. Xenophon on Design

In a famous passage Xenophon puts arguments into the mouth of Socrates

which were used by virtually every writer sympathetic to the design argu-
ment through the middle of the nineteenth century, elaborated and illustrated,
to be sure, by the incomparably richer body of scientific knowledge of modern
times.
Three kinds of proof are used in demonstrating the existence of a divine
providence: the proof of physiology, of the cosmic order, and of the earth as
a fit environment. Socrates, anticipating Paley's Natural Theology and the

famous Bridgewater Treatises of the nineteenth century, points out that the
creator seems to have given men eyes, ears, nostrils, and the tongue for some
useful purpose; of what use would smells be, he asks, without nostrils? The
eyelids are compared to doors, opening for seeing, closing with sleep; other
illustrations from the human anatomy are given to the same purpose. The gods
have given erect carriage to man alone; he can see above him, ahead of him,
and he is less exposed to injury; and in addition man has been given a soul.
In this long history of the physiological argument, the eye— followed closely
by the hand— has been a classic proof of design.
From the hands came the arts; from the eyes, the abihty to see the divine
creation; from the erect carriage, the ability to look upward to the stars, instead
of bending like the animals toward the earth. The old astronomers, says
Cumont, "marvelled power of the eye, and the ancients expressed their
at the
astonishment at the range of vision which reached the remotest constellations.
They give it the preeminence over all the other senses, for the eyes are to them
the intermediaries between the sidereal gods and human reason."^^
The second, the argument based on cosmic order— the forerunner of the
astro-theology of the eighteenth century and a basic argument of all natural
theologies— may be passed over to consider the third, which is of chief interest
—the evidence of design apparent on the earth itself. Socrates asks Euthydemus
whether he has ever considered how carefully the gods have provided for
the requirements of man, and, when Euthydemus repHes that he has not, he

^2 Plato, Protagoras, 320 d-322 d (trans, by Jowett). This famous myth has been in-

terpreted in many ways, perhaps most often as an ideahzed account of the development
of civilization. Guthrie sees Protagoras (the Sophist, not the Platonic dialogue) as the
first thinker who advanced a kind of social-contract theory of the origin of law, The
Greeks and Their Gods, pp. 340-341. For an interpretation by a modern authority on
the Sophists, see Untersteiner, Mario, The Sophists (trans, by Kathleen Freeman), pp.
58-64, and for references to the literature on the myth, pp. 72-73, esp. fn. 24.
Xen., Mem. I. iv. 4-15; see 8-9 on the elements, the mind, and chance.
1^ Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans,
p. 57.
 Order mid Purpose in the Cosmos 43

and Socrates together point out in detail the nature of divine foresight: light
is provided for man, but night is also necessary for a period of rest, and if

some tasks, like sailing, must be done at night, there are the stars to guide us
while the moon marks off the divisions of the night and of the month. The
gods have made the earth yield food and they have devised the seasons. Water,
aiding earth and the seasons, is supplied in great abundance; and fire, another
evidence of divine foresight, not only protects man from the cold and dark,
but is needed in everything of any importance which men prepare for their
use. After the winter solstice, the sun approaches to mature some crops and to
dry up others already matured. Even its northward turning is gradual and
gentle— here the design fits in admirably with the temperate climates— for it
does not retreat far enough to freeze man and it returns to be again in that
part of the heavens of most advantage to us. Euthydemus then says, begin
to doubt whether after all the gods are occupied in any other work than the
service of man. The one difficulty I feel is that the lower animals also enjoy
these blessings." Socrates replies that the animals are produced and nourished
for the sake of man, who gains more advantages from the animals than from
the fruits of the earth. "... A large portion of mankind," he adds, with eyes
clearly on the sheep and goats of the eastern Mediterranean, "does not use
the products of the earth for food, but lives on the milk and cheese and flesh
they get from live stock. Moreover, all men tame and domesticate the useful
kinds of animals, and make them their fellow-workers in war and many other
undertakings." They are stronger than man, but he can put them to whatever
use he chooses. The gods gave man his senses in order that he might take
advantage of the innumerable beautiful and useful objects in the world. "Yes,
and you," says Socrates, "will realise the truth of what I say if, instead of
waiting for the gods to appear to you in bodily presence, you are content to
praise and worship them because you see their works."^^ This statement in the
Memorabilia, along with the arguments of the Stoic Balbus in Cicero's De
natura deorwin became the prototype of all subsequent writings. No basically
new idea, despite its use over two millennia, was ever added to it, although the
illustrations became more sophisticated and more plentiful.
Xenophon's Memorabilia^'^ was much admired by the early Stoics, and his
works and Cicero's were influential in the seventeenth century attempt to
interpret the earth and the living nature on it as evidence of purpose. The
characteristics of the arguments presented by Socrates and Euthydemus in
the Memorabilia are as important as the ideas themselves. These characteristics
have reappeared countless times in the modern literature of natural theology,
biology, geography, and demography, and therefore should be recapitulated
here. There is the strong sense of wonderment at the works of nature, a won-

*^Xen., Mem. IV. iii. 2-14.

For the sources of Xenophon's ideas, see Theiler, 2.ur Gesch. d. teleolog. Natur-
betrachtung bis auf Aristoteles, pp. 19-54.
44 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

derment heightened in modern times under the influence of Christianity. It

often replaces curiosity, for in it there is little exhortation to study and to in-
vestigate nature, although this objection is not true of the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth century students of natural history. It is as if the two men
are looking out over the pleasing landscape of the Mediterranean shore with
its blue skies, its vines, and its cultivated fields, and are seeing there living proofs
of a reasoned and purposive creation. Natural theology never lost this won-
derment, nor a feeling for the wholeness and the unity of all nature.
The strong utilitarian and practical bias of the ideas is equally striking,
whether all manifestations of nature are considered as creations for the welfare
and comfort of man alone, or whether— in modern restatements— the design
is viewed less anthropocentrically and becomes the means of interpreting and

explaining the existence of all life. The emphasis on favorable conditions for
food production, for navigation, for human comfort, for the discovery and
application of the arts and sciences— all made possible by divine arrangements
—so strongly expressed in these passages, has characterized the vast majority
of conceptions of the earth written from this point of view. Finally, the order
and beauty of nature described here, including the advantages of seasonal
change, can be argued more persuasively for the temperate zones.

4. The Artisanship of God and of Nature

Even more important in the history of these ideas is the concept of the arti-
san deity which Plato advanced in the Timaeus. This concept is the sophisti-
cated expression of earlier mythological themes of God as a needleworker,
a potter, a weaver, a smith. "Almost everywhere the primordial creation is
burdened with the earthly weight of a lowly handicraft, with the tool of
physical demiurgy." The world-creator of the Timaeus "is a subHmation of
the mythical artisan-god."
In his exposition Timaeus makes between the ideal and the
a distinction
eternal (that which is and has no becoming) and the real and
existent always
the transitory (that which is beco?mng always and is never existent)-^ the first
is apprehended by thought aided by reasoning, the second is merely the object

of opinion aided by unreasoning sensation. Anything, like the cosmos, which

has- a becoming must have a cause of this becoming. If the divine artisan uses

the eternal as his model, his creation will be beautiful, but if he takes the
created model (or the becoming) as his own model, his creation will not be
beautiful. The whole cosmos has been created: it is visible, tangible, and has
a body, and thus becoming apprehended by behef and sensation. Upon
is a
which model did the architect-creator make the cosmos? Timaeus answers
that it was made in the model of the eternal, for it is too beautiful not to have
been so modeled, and it would be impious to suppose it to be patterned on a
created model. "But it is clear to everyone that his gaze was on the Eternal;
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 45

for the Cosmos is the fairest of all that has come into existence, and He is the
best of all The creator "was good, and in
the Causes." him that is good no
envy concerning anything; and being devoid of envy He desired
ariseth ever
that all should be, so far as possible, like unto Himself," desiring that **so far
as possible, all things should be good and nothing evil." God finding every-
thing "in a state of discordant and disorderly motion" brought it to a state
of order. The cosmos was intentionally made the most beautiful and the best;
it has come into being through God's providence. Since it is made after the
eternal model, one can assume that only one such has been created, that it is
a living creature with soul and reason. The cosmos, as a living creature, con-
tains within it "all of the living creatures which are by nature akin to itself."
In the beginning God made this body of the universe of fire and earth, later
inserting water between them. All of the elements were used up in
and air

order to make it perfect and whole; since they were used up, another such
living body could not be made. The living whole, made in the shape of a
sphere, was secure from both old age and disease ;^^ the creator-artisan not
only acts for the best but he acts like a human artisan in having in his mind's
eye the model or plan of the kind of universe he is creating.
Plato was not the first to advance teleological ideas regarding the creation
of the cosmos but he seems to be the first to see itas the work of an intelligent,
good, reasoning, and divine artisan. It was this idea— especially the short pas-
sages from 27D to 3 oD— which influenced the theology of the early Church
God, however, is clearly not the Christian God, though many
fathers; Plato's
attempts have been made to find strong similarities between them.^°
The soul is the cause of individual life, and purposefully ordered life reveals
itself in regular movements. By analogy the world soul is the first and oldest
creation of the Demiurgus; it is the principle of order and of orderly move-
ment in the skies. In the cosmos, the four elements are bound together by
friendship, associations ordained by God.^^
The Platonic artisan is mind imposing itself on reluctant matter. "Plato

^^This discussion based on Plato's Timaeus (Loeb Classical Library), 2 7-3 3 C.

is

The argument is in 69B, ff., followed by a detailed description of the cre-

summarized
ation of the various parts of the body from the teleological point of view. See also R. G.
Bury's comments, in the intro. to his trans, of Timaeus in the Loeb Classical Library,
pp. 14-15, and Bluck, Plato^s Life and Thought, pp. 137-140. The first quotation on the
nature of the artisan-god is from Robert Eisler, W
eltemnantel und Hi?ji??telszelt, p. 235
as translated in Ernst R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, pp.
545-546. After mentioning that the Timaeus is a sublimation of the mythical artisan-god,
Curtius continues, "Both elements then fuse with the potter, weaver, and smith god of
the Old Testament in the medieval topos of the Deus artifex," p. 546.
Theiler, op. cit., has made a thorough study of this idea, including exhaustive refer-
ences to the teleological principle in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.
^^Bultmann, Frirnitive Christianity, pp. 15-18, discusses this point.
21 Spitzer, "Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony," Traditio, Vol. 2
(1944),
pp. 417-419.
46, Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

bases his physical doctrine on the principle that Reason [ vov<;] and Life
['^vxn] are prior in nature to Body [o-w/^a] and to blind physical cau-
sation [oLvdyKT] ]."^^
What is most revealing in Plato's conception, from the point of view of our
history, is the relationship of artisanship to art, the hr)fXLovpy6^ to rexvrj. The
Greeks' respect for the artisan and for the beauty and order produced by
intelligence and manual skill lies deep in their history. "Even in the dis-
tant age of bronze the inhabitants of Greece and the islands held the skilled
w^orker in metal in very high regard. His art was both a mystery and a
delight, and he was thought to owe his gifts to supernatural beings around
whom many legends grew." Hephaestus is a divine artificer because he is so
great an artist in metal and ivory and precious stones. "The mortal smith
worked, as he thought his god worked, with his delicate moulds engraved
by his own hand, and employed drills, chisels, punches, and flats. There is
no lack of evidence from the prehistoric bronze age of the fineness of such
work."^^ In a period which lacked precision measurements and instruments,
high skill was achieved in carving, chasing, and engraving on gold, silver,
bronze, ivory, and gems and in the construction of monuments and buildings
which required plans. The respect for artisanship could lead to two general
ideas: (i) the creator as artisan, and (2) man as a who can create order
being
and beauty out of brute material, or more broadly, who can control natural
phenomena with a combination of intelligence and skill.
In the Timaeus, the idea is expressed that we live in a world full of the
richness, fullness, and variety of life owing to the non-envying nature of the
divine artisan. (See the discussion of the "principle of plenitude," pp. 5-6.)
Over two thousand years before Voltaire was making fun of Pope and
Leibniz, Plato had declared that this was the best of all possible worlds, that
the arrangements observable in the cosmos and on the earth itself were a
result of the work of a generous and unstinting divine artisan, and that the
fullness and variety of life was inherent in the very making of the cosmos as
a living being. These ideas, together with those derived from Christian thought,
go far toward explaining attitudes toward the earth which persisted until the
publication of the Origin of Species.

5. Aristotle's Teleology of Nature

Unlike Plato, Aristotle apparently had no need for an artisan deity, but the
evidence is inconsistent and uncertain whether he beheved the structure and
history of the cosmos to be the fulfillment of divine planning, to be due to

Laws 899b. 9; the quote is from Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of Greek
Cosmology, p. 206; see also pp. 206-207. On the artisan, see also Sambursky, The Physical
World of the Greeks, p. 67.
23 Seltman, Approach to Greek Art, pp. 12-13.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosjnos 47

individual beings consciously working toward ends, or that nature itself un-
consciously strives toward ends. Ross believes it is the third "which prevails
in Aristotle's mind."
Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes and his belief that nature does nothing
in vaingave further support to the teleological argument in philosophy and
biology and its application to the earth. The final cause is the rational end
impHcit in the formative process, the final cause being responsible for the
character of the course which the Logos follows. The final cause is the cru-
cial one; it is "the logos of the thing— its rational ground, and the logos is al-

ways the beginning for products of nature as well as for those of Art." The
works of nature can be understood on the analogy of processes observed in
the making of machines and contrivances by man, for it is impossible to con-
ceive of such a machine or such a contrivance being made without a precon-
ceived pattern existing in the mind of the artificer. In his healing the physician
thinks of health, and in his construction the builder thinks of a completed
house, and once they have these goals in mind, "each of them can tell you
the causes and rational grounds for everything he does, and why it must be
done as he does it."^^ Aristotle explains that this purposeful activity, so clear
in the plans of the doctor or the builder, is even more true of nature, but "the
final cause, or the Good, is more fully present in the works of Nature than
in the works of Art." Nature, like man, is a craftsman, but an infinitely more
powerful one.
In applying his method to the study of animals, Aristotle says that we
should investigate all of them, even those that are mean and insignificant, for
when we study animals we know that "in not one of them is Nature or
Beauty lacking. add 'Beauty,' because in the works of Nature purpose and
I

not accident is predominant; and the purpose or end for the sake of which
those works have been constructed or formed has its place among what is
beautiful." It is the figure and form, not merely the bricks, mortar, and
timber, that concerns us in a house; "so in Natural science, it is the composite
thing, the thing as a whole, which primarily concerns us, not the materials
of it, which are not found apart from the thing itself whose materials they
are."2^
In the Politics Aristotle expresses clearly but in disappointingly crude fashion
the idea of purpose in nature, including the relation of plants and animals to
the needs of man. Variety in the kinds of animals corresponds to that in
the kinds of food, for food habits make differences in their ways of life.
Nature has determined their habits in order that they can obtain their choice
of foods with greater ease. Plants must be intended for the use of animals;
animals, we can infer, exist for man; the tame for use and food, the wild—

2^ Arist., Parts of Animals (Loeb Classical Library), I. i. (639b 15-22). See W. D. Ross,
Aristotle, on alternative interpretations of teleology and the role of God, pp. 1 81-182.
Ibid., I. V. (645a 24-37).
48 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

ifnot all— for food, clothing, and various instruments. "Now if Nature makes
nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain, the inference must be that she has
made all animals for the sake of man."^^ In this anthropocentric conception
of interrelationships in nature, the distribution of plants and animals is directly-
related to the needs and uses of man; the idea has been repeated countlessly
in modern many writers on natural theology in the seven-
times, although
teenth and eighteenth centuries protested against it as being incompatible with
the Christian religion, maintaining that it was but another example of man's
pride. No doubt man owed his existence to such providential arrangements in
nature, but these did not exist for him alone.
Aristotle says that if men, living luxuriously in well-planned houses under
the earth— and who had heard by rumor of the existence of deities or divine
powers— should suddenly behold, if the jaws of the earth were opened up, the
earth, the seas, the sky, the clouds, the winds, the sun, moon, and stars and
the heavenly bodies fixed in their eternal courses, "surely they would think
that the gods exist and that these mighty marvels are their handiwork. "^^
What, then, are the general characteristics of Aristotle's teleology of which
these illustrations are a part? Everything is done for an end; the cosmos, al-

though eternal, is the result of planning. Recurrences in the cosmic order

are evidences of plan and purpose— and thus of artisanship, for one studies
nature as one studies an object made by a man: What is it made of? How is
it made and by what techniques? What are the functions of each constituent

part? What is its purpose ?^^

Aristotle often describes nature anthropomorphically as if it were a tidy
and frugal householder, so well-ordered is it. Not everything, however, can
be explained by final causes; for some phenomena material and efficient causes
are sufficient: the eye as a whole may be explained by final causes, but not its
color, for that serves no useful purpose.^^
Of particular interest is Aristotle's application of teleological ideas to biol-
ogy, because of his contributions to that field. It is an immanent teleology.
"The end of each species is internal to the species; its end is simply to be that
kind of thing, or, more definitely, to grow and reproduce its kind, to have
sensation, and to move, as freely and efficiently as the conditions of its exis-
tence—its habitat, for instance— allow." A characteristic of one species is not
designed for another; nature gives an organ only to an animal that can make
use of it.

For whose ends does this purposiveness exist in nature? Aristotle does not
suggest that the individual animal acts out his life purposefully. "It is generally

26 Arist., Politica,
I. 8. (1256^ 18-30, 1256^ 10-25.)

In Cic, Nat. D. (Loeb Classical Library ), II, 37. 94-95. See Hume, Dialogues Con-
27

cerning Natural Religion, Part XI.

28 On Aristotle's teleology in physics, see Sambursky, The Physical World of the

Greeks, pp. 103-112.

29 W. D. Ross, Aristotle, pp. 81-82.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 49
nature that is described as acting for a purpose, but nature is not a conscious
agent; it is the vital force present in all living things." . . Aristotle appears
to rest content, as many thinkers have done since, with the surely unsatis-
factory notion of purpose which is not the purpose of any mind."^° If the
purpose is an unconscious one, how can it be a purpose? "But Aristotle's lan-
guage suggests that he (hke many modern thinkers) did not feel this
dif-
ficulty, and that, for the most part, he was content to work with the notion
of an unconscious purpose in nature itself."^^
If Aristotle's teleology of nature is unsatisfactory, if there is uncertainty
regarding purpose and the role of mind, these flaws did not affect its adoption
with necessary changes by Christian thinkers whose Christian God could
supply purpose and the design in full measure.

6. Misgivings of Theophrastus

By the death of Aristotle in 322 B.C., several important ideas concerning the
relationship of man to the earth had already been well established: the hidden
divine force could be discerned in the works of the creation; a creator-artisan,
a demiurge, had, like a craftsman, made order out of the disorderly matter
of the universe; there was a purpose or a final cause inherent in natural pro-
cesses; there was a fullness and richness of life in nature; and plants existed for
animals and animals for man.
Could all of these ideas have been inspired by such commonplace observa-
tions as the variety and richness of plant life, the role of the plan in crafts
like the carpenter's, the heavy reliance of man on domestic animals and they
on man, the necessity of plant life to the survival of these animals? In these
earlier writings,however, references to the terrestrial order were not elabo-
rated upon although it was conceived of as a balanced and harmonious cre-
ation of which man was a part; it is in this conception that we should seek the
origins of the modern idea of a balance in nature, so important in the history
of biology and ecology, with the significant difference that in the modern
idea human activities have often been regarded as interferences— often de-
structive—in this balance.
Theophrastus (372/369-288/285 B.C.), Aristotle's pupil who took over
the school when Aristotle left Athens, saw difficulties in the teleological view

Ibid., p. 125.
Ross cites a possible exception to Aristotle's denial that a characteristic
Ibid., p. 182.
of one species may be designed for the benefit of another: "Sharks have their mouth on
their under surface in order that, while they turn to bite, their prey may escape— but
also to save them from over-eating!" p. 125. This discussion is based on Ross, pp. 125,
1 81-182; on teleology applied to the state, see p. 230. On Aristotle's teleology see also
Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, pp. 197-198. For full documenta-
tion, see Zeller's Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung,
II Tl., II Abt., 4th Aufl., pp. 421-428; see also Theiler, op. cit. (see n. 17 above),
83-101.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

of nature so forcefully expressed by both Plato and Aristotle, pointing out

the shortcomings of final causes and the shakiness of the assumption of plan-
fulness and purposiveness in nature. His examples are taken from cosmic and
terrestrial phenomena and from the plant and animal kingdoms. It is dif-
ficult, he says, to find plans in each class of things, to Hnk them up with a

final cause, difficult "both in animals and in plants and in the very bubble."

This linking may be possible "by reason of the order and change of other
things," such as seasonal change "on which depends the generation both of
animals and of plants and fruits, the sun being, as it were, the begetter." Theo-
phrastus obviously thinks teleological explanations are rough approximations,
to be used with caution; difficulties in them call for an inquiry to determine
the "extent to which order prevails, and an account of the reason why more
of it is impossible or the change it would produce would be for the worse."^^
The finding of ends in nature, he says, is not so easy as is claimed. In a
sentence suggesting an objection Kant later made in his illustration of the
pine tree growing on the sand (see below, p. 530), Theophrastus asks, "Where
should we begin and with what sort of things should we finish?" Is this di-
rected against the fault which Ross noted in Aristotle's teleology that his
notion of purpose was unsatisfactory because it was not the purpose of any
mind? Many things occur, he adds, not for the sake of an end but by coin-
cidence or necessity; celestial and terrestrial phenomena are in this category.
"For to what end are the incursions and refluxes of the sea, or droughts and
humidities, and, in general, changes, now in this direction and now in that,
and ceasings-to-be and comings-to-be, and not a few other things, too, that
are like these? "^^ Theophrastus finds similar failures of teleological explana-
tion in animals possessing useless parts, in the nutrition and in the birth of
animals, phases of which are owing to necessity and coincidence. Fie warns
against assuming uncritically "that nature in all things should desire the best
and when it is possible give things a share in the eternal and orderly. ."^^
. .

His attitude differs from that later expressed by Lucretius: Theophrastus,

speaking primarily from a biological point of view, advocates a skepticism
regarding the validity of final causes in interpreting the nature of nature;
Lucretius condemns them entirely, although he has his own private teleology.
Theophrastus points out that what does not obey or receive the good greatly
predominates, the animate being a small part, the inanimate infinite in the
universe, "and of animate things themselves there is only a minute part whose
existence is actually better than its non-existence would be." Again in calling
attention to the narrow range of appHcabihty of the doctrine of final causes,
Theophrastus questions its validity as a satisfactory explanation for whatever
order may exist. Obviously Theophrastus thinks that there is physical dis-

Metaphysics, IV, 15.

^3Metaphysics, IX, 29.
^^Metaphysics, IX, 31.
 Order ajid Purpose in the Cosmos 51

order in nature, that order must be proved, not assumed: . . We must try-

to find a certain limit, both in nature and in the reahty of the universe, both
to final causation and to the impulse to the better. For this is the beginning
of the inquiry about the universe, i.e. of the effort to determine the condi-
tions on which real things depend and the relations in which they stand to
one another."^^
In the De natura deormn, Velleius, the Epicurean spokesman, has nothing
complimentary to say of either Theophrastus or his pupil Strato. Theophrastus
is "intolerably inconsistent; at one moment he assigns divine pre-eminence

to mind, at another to the heavens, and then again to the constellations and
stars in the heavens." Nor is Strato, surnamed the natural philosopher, worthy

of attention: "In his view the sole repository of divine power is nature, which
contains in itself the causes of birth, growth and decay, but is entirely devoid
of sensation and of form." Cicero himself says Strato wants to exempt the
deity from exertion on any extensive scale: "He declares that he does not
make use of divine activity for constructing the world." All existing phe-
nomena have been produced by natural causes— he has no patience with
Democritus' atomic theory— teaching that "whatever is or comes into being
is or has been caused by natural forces of gravitation and motion."^^

7. Stoic Views of Nature

Although the idea that the earth is a designed and fit environment for life
was formulated in all its essentials by the fourth century B.C., it was further
cultivated and enriched by the Stoics, a crucial change in emphasis apparently
being taken by Panaetius and his pupil Posidonius.
Panaetius, a Rhodian born about 185 B.C., had traveled widely throughout
the Mediterranean world, including Egypt and Syria; at Athens he studied
under the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon,^^ himself a pupil of Chrysippus.
Panaetius lived in Rome where Polybius inspired him with interests in his-
tory, especially that of Rome's triumphal and inexorable march to world
power, interests which made him fully conscious of the importance of his-
torical development to a deeper understanding of the present.^^ Panaetius
gave a deeper meaning to the old Stoic belief that the beauty and purposeful-
ness of the world is to be ascribed to a creative primeval force, less by new
ideas than through appreciation of the visible aspects of nature. Through him
the feeling for nature in Hellenistic poesy and painting was brought to bear
on a philosophical world view: not only is there a splendor in the cosmic

^^Metaphysics, IX, 32, 34.

I, 13, 35, Cicero's in Academica, II, 38, 121.
26 Velleius' speech is in Nat. D.,
37 D. Ross, "Diogenes (3)," OCD, p. 285.
W.
38 This discussion of Panaetius is based on Pohlenz, "Panaitios, 5," PW, 18:3, col.
421, and on his Die Stoa, Vol. I, pp. 191-207.
52 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

order, but there is joy in the beauty of the earth— of the Greek landscape
with its and sea, its innumerable islands, its contrasts be-
alternation of land
tween the lovely shores and the steep mountains and the rough cHffs, and
the variety of plant and animal life existing in this landscape. It not only has
beauty; it also has a perfection. Do we not recognize the work of a purpose-
fully creative nature as the Nile and the Euphrates fertilize the fields, in the
winds, in day and night, summer and winter everywhere, for these make life
and growth possible? The most wonderful fact of all is that nature not only
has created its beings once but has provided for their perpetuation. The apex
of the creation is man, his erect carriage being his decisively differentiating
characteristic. He need not, like the animals, look at the ground in searching
for food, but can see the creation as one viewing a panorama from an eminence,
seeing there the external world which he can make use of with the help of his
intelligence. Panaetius however does not share the old Stoic anthropocentric
belief that the earth has been created for human needs alone; man is here
and he makes use of its beauties and resources.
These ideas, many of which reappear in Cicero's De natura deorum, show
the early fusion of esthetic and utilitarian attitudes toward the earth. It is
beautiful and it is useful; these two simple characterizations of the earth explain
much of the subsequent history of attitudes toward it: it is beautiful to look
upon and its beauty should be preserved; it is useful because it possesses the
materials for the exercise of the mind of man, whose creations, tools, and
machines change and improve it to meet his ever-recurring and increasing
demands.^^ Panaetius also made one of the earliest attempts to use ideas of
environmental influence within a framework of the design argument. Re-
jecting Stoic behefs in astrology, he accepts Hippocratic ideas, finding in
man a distinctive characteristic— that he belongs to a community whose char-
acter is determined by climate and landscape.^^
One thought— which has come down to us only in
senses in Posidonius'
the works of others— a profound sense of the importance of geography and
of the biological interrelationships existing in the terrestrial harmony.'*^ Both
Panaetius and Posidonius seem to be set apart from the pre-Socratic philos-

Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I, pp. 195-197. This paragraph is based on Pohlenz's analysis
of Panaetius and the characteristics which distinguished him from the older Stoics. See
also Cic, Nat. D. II, 52-53, and Pohlenz, Vol. II, pp. 98-99. His sources, says Pohlenz,
were mostly Xenophon, Aristotle, and the teleological physiology of Erasistratus. "Aber
ihm selbst [Panaetius] gehort die Grundstimmung, die iiberall in der Welt das Wirken
eines zweckbewusst schaffenden Logos spiirt, und die 'natiirliche Theologie'; die in
diesem die Gottheit erkennt." Vol. I, p. 197. See also p. 193.
40 Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I,
p. 218.
Because of the extraordinary difficulty of Posidonian scholarship (largely a question
of Quellenuntersuchungen) and because of the controversial nature of many of the in-
terpretations, I have used the following secondary sources: Reinhardt, K., "Poseidonios
von Apameia," FW, 22:1, cols. 558-826 (an article giving impressive evidence of the
depth of Posidonian scholarship, its controversies, and its difficulties) and the same
author's Foseidonios, and Pohlenz's discussion as already cited.
 .

Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 53

ophers, from Plato, Aristotle, and the earlier Stoics, in their greater use of
ethnological, geographical, and biological materials. The emphasis shifts from
the cosmos as a whole, from physical theory such as the doctrine of the ele-
ments, from theories of origins and of cosmogony, to an investigation of
visible phenomena on earth. With the inspiration of Panaetius, Posidonius
found in the Stoic teleological teachings a way of unifying— and then of under-
standing—separate fields of knowledge; Posidonius has been called the greatest
scientific traveler of antiquity .^^ One has the impression of a profoundly
curious man travehng throughout Gaul, Spain— where he studied the
Italy,

tides at Gades— in order to observe the diversity of peoples and of environ-

ments in which they lived.^^ Posidonius had a sense of the significance of
history; both writers were impressed with the theme of Polybius who set down
the events which in a period of fifty years had led Rome from a position as a
peninsular power to world hegemony .^^ The sense of history, the sense of
life and growth in nature, of natural phenomena such as the tides, gave his

thinking a dynamic force which the older Stoic conceptions lacked, for to
them the unity and harmony of nature seems to be more like a fixed and hard-
set mosaic. What lay behind his behef that the world is perfect, that its pro-
cesses are based on purpose, that being and life belong together, that life
permeates the entire cosmos, that it is a vital force found everywhere? Posi-
donius accepted astrology; his teacher Panaetius had rejected it. But it clearly
is the astrology of which Thorndike wrote, the great cosmic influences exerted

as a natural law on the sublunary world.

To Posidonius, Panaetius' theories of environmental causality were not car-
rying things back far enough. Climate and landscape themselves were deter-
mined by the position of the sun under the influence of the other stars. This
way of thinking led him to postulate the direct influences of the stars on a
people, and the indirect influences on the characteristics of individuals. All
parts of the cosmos are bound together by sympathy: the moon and the tides,
the sun and vegetation, the influence of the stars on individuals and on a
people. The influence of the sun and the moon on earthly life are plain enough.
Could one not go beyond this and speak of the influences of the farther planets
and constellations? One must go beyond the climatic theories of Panaetius,
for climate and landscape were the result of the position of the sun and the
influence of other stars.^^

Man is very much a part of nature; he grows in his environment and is

affected by it— here theories of environmental influence, such as the preem-

Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I, p. 209.

Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 209-210: on his personal experiences with the Celts, his study in
Spain, the influence of the sea on coastal formations, of mining, inventions, his revulsion
at the inhuman treatment of slaves in the mines, and his school in Rhodes in which Cicero
was a student.
Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 2 1
1
-2 1 2
« Ibid., I, p. 218.
54 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

inent qualities of temperate climates, are introduced. These relationships,

however, can only be understood by conceding the existence of harmonies
in the whole cosmos. The sun, an example of divine foresight, is created for
the benefit of all life; it makes possible the existence of plants and animals,
the alternation of day and night, the climate, the pigmentation of man; it

makes the earth wet or dry, fruitful or barren. Human arts are imitations of

nature, for only human thought could invent the ship's rudder by observing
a fish's tail, the invention being possible because the same Logos, the same
rational plan, is at work in human thinking as is manifest in nature. Human
art, as distinguished from that of the animals, is manifested in its manifold in-
ventions devoted not only to the satisfaction of needs but to the making of a
more beautiful life. It is the creativity of the Logos, and not necessity, which
has brought about the development of human culture; man with his intelli-

gence, his innumerable accomplishments and his inventions, is part of nature,

and his powers, derived from nature, enable him to succeed in a wide variety
of undertakings, powers, and abilities which are denied the plants and the
animals. The earth is created by the gods not only for their own sakes but
for man and the lower orders of plant and animal life.^*^ The central thought
of Posidonius' philosophy, Reinhardt has said, is that of development reaching

its goal through differentiation. How

one to explain multipHcity from unity,
is

the complex from the simple? From the poets and from history he gathered
his materials to show the original unity of all the highest human activities and
their gradual development into the now dominant complexity
.^^

Posidonius' thought is derived from ideas in biology, history, astronomy,

geography, and ethnology. It seems ecological too, and the emphasis on
esthetics and the beauties of nature as convincing evidence of a purposefully
made earth and cosmos makes one understand both the reverence in which
he was held in antiquity and his influence, through writers hke Cicero, Seneca,
Strabo, and Vitruvius, on the thought of modern times, an influence which is
all the greater if it is true, as has been suggested, that the second book of

Cicero's De natura deorum is derived in large part from Posidonius.^^

8. On the Nature of the Gods

Cicero's dialogue, De natura deorum, with its contrasting views of the Epi-
cureans, the Academics, and the Stoics, became an important repository of
religious ideas, including the design argument; it became— with similar writ-

222-224; 227-228.
Ibid., pp.
Reinhardt, Poseidonios, p. 75.
^'^

^8 Posidonius will be discussed later with relation to environmental theories. His ideas

of nature were closely tied up with old Stoic ideas that fire was the most vigorous and
most active element and therefore would gradually get the upper hand. (Pohlenz, Die
Stoa, I, p. 219.) On his ideas of sympathy and the cosmos as an organic whole, see idemy
Kosmos und Sympathie, pp. 1 17-1 19. On the earth as a home for men, idejji, "Poseidonios
von Apamea," PW, 22:1, cols. 809-810.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 55

ings of Seneca and the Timaeus of Plato— a vehicle for the reintroduction of
the classical designargument in the Renaissance and in the influential natural
theologies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.^^
The four interlocutors of the dialogue are Balbus, a Stoic, Velleius, an
Epicurean, and Cotta and Cicero, Academics and disciples of Plato. Cicero
introduces the dialogue by reviewing which are held
the principal attitudes
concerning the nature of the gods: the view that the gods take no cognizance
of human affairs, which Cicero impatiently dismisses; the view of those men
"of eminence and note," meaning the Stoics, who conceive of the world as
directed by divine intelligence and reason, the products of the earth, and
atmospheric and seasonal changes being their gifts to man. Even Carneades'
sharp criticism of this point of view is done "in such a manner as to arouse
"^^
in persons of active mind a keen desire to discover the truth.
Velleius, the representative of Epicureanism, ridicules both Plato's artisan-
deity, who does not create but who makes order out of chaos, and the Stoic
idea of providence.

I am not going to expound to you doctrines that are mere baseless figments of
the imagination, such as the artisian deity and world-builder of Plato's Timaeus^
or that old hag of a fortune-teller, the Pronoia (which we may render "Provi-
dence") of the Stoics; nor yet a world endowed with a mind and senses of its
own, a spherical, rotary god of burning fire; these are the marvels and monstrosi-
ties of philosophers who do not reason but dream. What power of mental vision
enabled your master Plato to descry the vast and elaborate architectural process
which, as he makes out, the deity adopted in building the structure of the uni-
verse? What method of engineering was employed? What tools and levers and
derricks? What agents carried out so vast an undertaking? And how were air,
fire, water and earth enabled to obey and execute the will of the architect?

It isnoteworthy that this criticism employs technological figures of speech,

but with Plato the analogy of the human artisan supports, while with Velleius
it denies, the planned creation.
Later Balbus retorts that Velleius has a very limited understanding of the
Stoic vocabulary; he and others of hke behef are too enamored of their own
ideas to inform themselves of others'. Pronoia is not a hag, not a special kind
of deity. Velleius apparently does not understand ellipsis: if the words under-
stood and therefore omitted are supplied, the meaning of pronoia is not an

^^The literature on the sources of Cicero's Nat. D. is enormous. Book II has been
especially studied for the influence of Panaetius and Posidonius. See the magistral study
of Arthur Stanley Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis de natiira deormri, 2 vols.. Vol. i being
a commentary on Bk. I of Nat. D.; Vol. 2, on Bks. II and III. This work includes the
text of Nat. D. and an illuminating introduction.
^^Cic, Nat. D., I, 1-2. On Carneades, see Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I, p. 176. Carneades
objected to the Stoic belief in the divinity of the world: the purposefulness of nature
could be explained by natural causes without assuming a purposively creating intel-
ligence. Animals could not be created for man alone; every being had in itself a naturally
directed end or purpose.
siCic, Nat. D., I, 8, 18-20.
56 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

"old hag" but a world "governed by the providence of the Gods" (providentia
deorum mimdi adininistrari) [Nat. D., II, 29, 73-74].
Although Cotta rebuts at length the Epicurean view, he is reluctant to ad-
vance any of his own, and the main burden of refutation is left to Balbus,
who says that the Stoics consider the question of the immortal gods from four
points of view: proof of their existence, their nature, their governance of the
universe, and their concern with human affairs.^^ Balbus cites approvingly
the reasons the old Stoic Cleanthes gave for the formation in the minds of
men of ideas of the existence of gods: foreknowledge of future events through
divination; "the magnitude of the benefits which we derive from our tem-
perate climate, from the earth's fertility, and from a vast abundance of other
blessings"; the awe instilled into the mind by the violence in nature, such as
storms, earthquakes, pestilence, and blazing meteors; and the strongest of all,
the observed regularity and order in the heavens.^^
Like human creations, the cosmos is presumed to have a builder. An en-
vironmental explanation is then introduced in a position subordinate to the
main idea: man lives on earth, the lowest region of the cosmos and therefore
of the densest air. What one observes of certain citiesand districts whose
inhabitants are more dull-witted than average, owing to the dense air, is true
of all men because they live on earth, but even human intelhgence may infer
the existence of a mind of surpassing ability and divine in the universe.^^ The
earth however, is cosmic harmony, the richness of vegetation
but a part of the
followed by barrenness, the changes of the sun's course at the solstices, the
rising and setting of the moon, and a musical harmony maintained by a divine
spirit.^^

Balbus argues that nature "progresses on a certain path of her own to her
goal of full development" (as in the life cycle of vines and cattle) unless she
is interfered with. Painting, architecture, the arts and crafts, have within them
an ideal of perfect workmanship; tendency
even greater in nature. There
this is

might be interferences with individual natures but nothing "can frustrate na-
ture as a whole, since she embraces and contains within herself all modes of
being."^^ This use of human art and the planfulness of human technical under-
takings to explain the processes of nature, followed then by a disparagement of
human compared with the divine artisanship, is common to the design argu-
ments of both ancient and modern times. In fact a similar argument was used
by Darwin in the Origiji of Species when he wrote that the power of man
through artificial selection to affect plant and animal hfe was dwarfed by the
power of natural selection in the world of nature.^^
Balbus quotes the Stoic Chrysippus as saying that "just as a shield-case is

^2 Cic, Nat. D., II, I, 3-4. For Cotta's statement, see I. 21-44, 57~i24.
^^Ibid., 5, 13-15.
^^Ibid., 6, 17-18.
Ibid., 7, 19-20.
^^Ibid., 13, 35.
5^ Darwin, The Origin of Species, Modern Library ed., pp. 29, 52, 6s-66.
 .

Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 57

made for the sake of a shield and a sheath for the sake of a sword, so everything
else except the world was created for the sake of some other thing. . .
." The
grain and fruits produced by the earth were made for animals, and animals
for man, for he rides the horse, plows with the ox, hunts with the dog. And
man with all his imperfections was made and imitate the world.
to contemplate
It has been said that Chrysippus was the "great champion" if not the originator

of this idea. The basic assumption is that of a hierarchy of being in which,

typically, plants exist for the sake of animals, animals for man, and man in
order to contemplate God [Nat. D., II, 14, 37-39]. Man's intelligence must
mind of surpassing abihty in the uni-
lead us to infer the existence of a divine
verse [Nat. D., II, 6, 18]. The sympathy is at work here; there
Stoic idea of
are interconnections and affinities among things in the whole creation, strong
bonds between the macrocosm and the microcosm that is man. If we grant
man's unique position as a reasoning and intelligent being, see him as part,
albeit a small one, of the great mind of the universe, then it is reasonable to
say that all things in this world which man uses have been created and pro-
vided for him, that the world was created for both gods and man, that the
things in it are for the enjoyment of man [Nat. D., II, 61-62, 154].
This kind of thinking has spawned comparisons of the world {mundus)
with a house or a city, even with Athens and Sparta. The revolutions of the
sun and moon are spectacles for man. An earth producing for wild beasts alone
would be meaningless. Things are made for the sake of those who can use
them. The utilitarian argument for domestication, especially of the dog, sheep,
and oxen, in nicely with this thinking. The neck of the ox is "born to the
fits

yoke," back unsuited for burdens; with their aid the earth was brought
his
under tillage [II, 63, 159]. The birds give "so much pleasure that our Stoic
Providence appears to have been at times a disciple of Epicurus" [II, 64, 160]
From such arguments emerges the idea of divine care for humanity, not only
as a whole but for subgroups of men and for individuals [II, 65, 164].

Here somebody will ask, for whose sake was all this vast system contrived?
For the sake of the trees and plants, for these, though without sensation have
their sustenance from nature? But this at any rate is absurd. Then for the sake
of the animals? It is no more likely that the gods took all this trouble for the
sake of dumb, irrational creatures. For whose sake then shall one pronounce
the world to have been created? Doubtless for the sake of those living beings
which have the use of reason; these are the gods and mankind, who assuredly
surpass all other things in excellence, since the most excellent of all things is
reason [ratio]. Thus we are led to believe that the world and all the things that
it contains were made for the sake of gods and men [II, 53, 133].

In such a world the beasts may be cast in the role of thieves.^^ This
argument, obviously like Xenophon's, has had exceedingly important con-
sequences in the history of thought regarding nature and natural history:

On Chrysippus' anthropocentric views, De Lacy, "Lucretius and the History of

Epicureanism," Trans, and Proc. of the Amer. Philolog. Assn. 79 (1948), p. 16, basing
58 Order a?id Purpose in the Cosmos

itgave a strong utilitarian bias in interpreting the meaning of all natural phe-
nomena, a bias that persisted in natural theologies until the middle of the
nineteenth century, even if they rejected the idea that all nature existed for
man alone. Even with this rejection, however, the products of nature were
studied and interpreted in the light of their usefulness to man. An equally im-
portant corollary of the utiHtarian interpretation is the attitude toward do-
mesticated plants and animals: domestications are a result of the order of
nature, not interferences with Domesticated plants and animals are the ex-
it.

pected consequences of man's activities on an earth designed for him, his arts
and inventions and techniques arising not out of necessity but out of the
opportunities offered by a rich, full, fertile nature. It is in the design argument
that we should seek early theories of plant and animal domestication; the
historical reasons for domesticationwere confused with the observed con-
temporary uses of domesticated plants and animals. It was not until Eduard
Hahn's time that the age-old conception of animal domestication as a result
of utility was broken down, for Hahn emphasized the nonutilitarian and cere-
monial origins of domestication. In the Stoic conception, represented here by
Chrysippus, the dominant idea, later diffused far out of the range of Stoicism,
is that the horse is made for transport, the ox for ploughing, and the dog for
hunting and protection.
According to Balbus, all life owes its existence to its inherent heat, and this
element "possesses in itself a vital force that pervades the whole world." The
heat principle is closely related to generation and fertility; all parts of the world
are and have been sustained by heat, for the hot and fiery principle diffused
throughout nature has within it the power of generation: "the necessary cause
of both the birth and the growth of all living creatures, whether animals or
those whose roots are planted in the earth. "^^ It is not animated nature alone
but the whole universe that possesses this generative principle and hence an
organic character. Balbus quotes Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, who
defined nature as "a craftsmanlike fire, proceeding methodically to the work
of generation"; the craftsmanlike fire of nature, which, like the hand of a
human artisan but with much greater skill, teaches other arts and with fore-
sight plans out its work in detail. Universal nature is the creator of individual
nature; it is the world-mind, correctly called prudence or providence, chiefly
concentrated upon securing for the world, "first the structure best suited for

his opinion on the fragments of C. in von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta^ Vol. 2,
pp. 332-334. On
comparisons of the world with a house or city, see Pease's comments
under doinus aut urbs utrorumque^ Nat. D., Vol. 2, pp. 950-951, with many citations
from other writers. On the position of beasts, ibid., under mutarum Vol. 2, p. 895, Nat.
D., II, 63, 157-158. The idea that the purpose of one life form was to serve another
[Nat. D., II, 14, 37] was not held as we have seen by Aristotle; on the immanent tele-
ology of Aristotle, see Ross, Aristotle, p. 125, but see also notes 26 and 31 above.
59 Cic, Nat. D., II,
9, 24; 10, 28.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 59

survival; next, absolute completeness; but chiefly, consummate beauty and

embellishment of every kind."^^
This theory of the purposiveness of universal nature is combined with the
theory of the four elements to explain visible nature. The art of universal
nature, through the four elements, nourishes the earth and impregnates it with
seeds, the earth in turn not only nourishing the plants but through its exhala-
tions sustaining the air, the ether, and the heavenly bodies. The four elements
in various combinations and supervised by an intelligent and designing nature
are the components of an ordered universe. Nature, responsible for the growth
and continuity of plant life, by extension governs the whole universe, and
since she does nothing in a faulty way she has produced the best possible effect
from the materials at her disposal; she has produced, like the artisan-creator
of the Thnaeus, the best of all possible worlds. *'Now the government of the
world contains nothing that could possibly be censured; given the existing
elements, the best that could be produced from them has been produced. Let
some one therefore prove that it could have been better."^^
In his exposition of the proofs for the existence of gods, Balbus, following
possibly the biological, esthetic, and geographic tradition of Panaetius and
Posidonius, calls attention to the convincing proofs afforded by earthly scenes.
Situated in the middle of the universe, the earth
is clothed with flowers, grass,

trees, and "forms of vegetation all of them incredibly numerous and in-
grain,
exhaustively varied and diverse." Intermingling qualities which are both
natural and the product of human art, Balbus speaks of the springs, rivers,
the verdure of the river valleys, the caverns, caves, crags, mountains and
plains, the veins of gold and silver and marble.

Think of all the various species of animals, both tame and wild! think of the

flights and songs of birds! of the pastures filled with cattle, and the teeming
life of the woodlands! Then why need I speak of the race of men? who are as

it were the appointed tillers of the soil, and who suffer it not to become a savage

haunt of monstrous beasts of prey nor a barren waste of thickets and brambles,
and whose industry diversifies and adorns the lands and islands and coasts with
houses and cities. Could we but behold these things with our eyes as we can
picture them in our minds, no one taking in the whole earth at one view could
doubt divine reason.^^

On the surface this passage seems little more than a poetic description of
everyday scenes of Mediterranean life. Actually it is an important statement
of the position that man's changes of the earth are consistent with the teleo-
logical view of nature. Man becomes a kind of caretaker of the earth; his culti-
vation combats disease, and his struggles with the wild animals exercise a

^^Ibid., 22, 57-58.

Ibid., 23. The quotation is from 34, 86-87. "World," as usual, translates mundus,
the cosmos.
^2 Ihid., 98-99.
39,
6o Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

control over excesses which might occur without his superintendence. His
own creations have unmistakably added to the beauty; even his dispersion on
the islands scattered throughout the seas or along the coasts has contributed
to this beauty.
In this glowing appreciation, there is no distinction between domesticated
and pristine nature. The thought expressed in this passage has inspired many-
modern times, for the De natura deorum was widely read
similar statements in
and highly prized by thinkers of the Renaissance and of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
Evidences of an intelligent and divine nature are apparent on earth. The air
by the sea, different by day and night, rises upward, condenses into clouds
whose rain enriches the earth. The agitations of the air produce winds and
seasonal change; the air is the medium of the flight of birds, and it nourishes
men and animals when it is inhaled.^^ Vegetation draws nourishing moisture
from the and transport for the nourishing
earth, the stocks providing stability
sap. Like the animals, the plants have protective covering to resist heat and

cold. Animals, provided with appetite and sense to distinguish between pal-
atable and poisonous foods, divide up and create boundaries for themselves in
nature, so to speak, in the way they get their food: by walking, crawhng, fly-
ing, swimming, by seizing with their mouths and teeth or their claws and
beaks, or by sucking, bolting the food whole, or chewing; some are adapted
to getting food on the ground, while others with long necks have a wider
range. The predatory beasts are strong or swift; others, like the spider, possess
artifice and cunning, and among others there is a symbiotic relationship.^*
The correlation of animals with their habitats is worked in with other ideas
of natural history: Nature takes care in providing for the propagation of plants
and animals, creating in the aggregate the beauty one sees on the earth, even
though certain types of plants and animals must depend on man for their
preservation and improvement.^^ And it is absurd to think that this mighty
fabric of nature— the abundance and variety of food, the winds moderating
the intemperate heat, the utility of rivers, tides, forested mountains, salt beds,
and medicines and the diurnal change from day to night— was designed for
plants and animals; it is more credible that the universe, including the earth,
was made for the gods and man.^^ Unlike the rest of the creation, man has
been given a mind to understand, his senses to observe and feel, and a hand to
do things; he is part of nature but his endowments allow him more freedom
in his physical environment, a more wide-ranging experience, and greater
opportunities to assist in the improvement of nature and to profit by its use.

^^Ibid., 39, loi.

^^Ibid., 47-48, 120-124. See comment on the mussel or pina and its symbiotic rela-
tionship with the tiny shrimp, II, 48, 123.
^^Ibid., 52, 130.
^^Ibid., 53, 133.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 6i

The human hand— as a manipulator of tools and as an instrument in its own

right— becomes the great agency of human art and change, an observation
countlessly repeated in modern times, for with his hands man made possible
agriculture, fishing, animal domestication, mining, forest clearing, carpentry,
navigation, irrigation, and river diversion; with them man had changed the
earth, making it more responsive to his own ends.^^
The importance of the Stoic portion of this dialogue lies in the range of its

ideas, in the clear exposition of the conception of harmony in the creation

as a whole, and a harmonious ordering of physical and biological phenomena
on earth, including the recognition of man as a modifier of the natural en-
vironment (to be discussed more fully later).
The Stoic statement also is the best exposition in classical antiquity of the
application of the design argument to the earth as a habitable planet. Few note-
worthy additions were made to it by later writers in antiquity. The geogra-
pher, Strabo, a Stoic, says that the region around the modern
Toulouse city of
is so harmoniously arranged and its people are so industriously engaged in their

various ways of life that one might well credit the workings of a Providence,
"such a disposition of these regions not resulting from chance, but from the
thought of some [intelligence]."^^ Providence is a "broiderer and an artificer
of countless works" who has created all life for the gods and for man. Provi-
dence has given the heavens to the gods, earth to man, fashioning it for his
use.^^ Seneca, also a Stoic, argued that Providence supplied men not only with

necessities but with the luxuries of nature: so pampered are we by the products
of the earth that even the slothful can find sustenance in the chance produce
of the earth. The birds, fish, the land animals, all pay tribute to man. The
utilitarian view of nature shows itself in the praise of rivers which encircle the
meadows, make navigation possible, and provide even in their flooding water
for the parched earth. Seneca was probably the first thinker to apply the design
argument to mining and the distribution of minerals, a favorite theme of some
nineteenth century EngHsh geologists who saw a divine planning in the fault-
ing of strata, thus making the English coal measures more accessible. The mines
are deep in the earth; though silver, copper, and iron have been concealed from
him, man has been endowed with the ability to discover them. Seneca also
believes that transhumance is an evidence of divine care: God furnishes food
for flocks wherever they are, and he "has ordained the alternation of summer

Ibid., 60, 150-152. Balbus's argument in II, 52-53 is an admirable summary of the
^"^

arguments for a designed earth based on its beauty and utility, its design for the uses of
man, and the characteristics of man which enable him to take advantage of these op-
portunities.
68Strabo, IV, i. 14.
69Strabo, XVII, i. 36. Strabo continues that man is a land animal; that Providence
provided cavities for the water which encompasses the earth, and eminences for man's
habitation (including the necessary waters for his use), and that the relationship between
land and sea is constantly changing.
62 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

and winter pasturage"; man cannot even take credit for his inventions, for
God has given us the power through our intellects to make them/^ Like
Xenophon and Cicero, Seneca became an important authority in the modern
history of the design argument; these three names occur frequently in support
of Christian interpretations of the nature of the earth, especially in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries/^

9. The Development of Antiteleological

Ideas in the Epicurean Philosophy

By the beginning of the Hellenistic period, teleological arguments still had

the weight of great authority behind them. Plato had postulated an artisan-
deity who planned with care and attention, personally seeing to it that the
cosmos would never decay; it was eternal and divine. There was the concord
of the elements within, and none on the outside, for they had all been used
up. [Tim. 31B4-32C4]. Aristotle's teleology also was strong, especially in
biology, although there were demurrers, as we have seen, from Theophrastus
and his pupil Strato.
The Hellenistic period is notable both for an intense and continuing inter-
est in teleological explanation especially among the Stoics and for a dogged
resistance to it by Epicurus and his disciples, as is amply clear in the poem of
Lucretius. Both points of view (especially in the second and first centuries
B.C.) have in common a broadened concept of the unity and harmony of
nature. They are often based on observations of natural processes, such as the
hydrologic cycle, interrelationships and regularities in nature as seen among
plants and animals, and of physical geography, reflecting probably the direct
or indirect inspiration of Aristotle's biology and his Meteorologica. This
emphasis on process moreover is congenial to both sides: in one case nature is
creatrix, in the other divine planning has been at work.
Since we have already discussed the early history of teleological ideas, let
us now do the same for the opposing ones, beginning with the pre-Epicurean
times, continuing on to Epicurus, then to the Epicurean spokesman, Velleius,
in De natura deoriim, and finally to Lucretius, and try to suggest what was
distinctly Roman about the poet that went into his interpretations and illus-
trations and set him apart from Epicurus.
The preludes leading up to the philosophy of Epicurus (342/ 1-2 7 1/70
B.C.) may be summarized around the following themes: (i) the consequences

70 Sen.,
Ben., IV, 5-6.
This was particularly true of the "great Tully." For a good example, see the tribute
to and criticism of Cicero from this point of view in Francesco Petrarca, "On His Own
Ignorance and That of Many Others," in The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, Cas-
sirer, Kristeller, and Randall, eds., pp. 79-90, 97-100. The passage from Aristotle in
Nat. D., II, 37, 95, is also quoted, p. 83.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosinos 63

of the failure of Parmenides' monism, (2) interest in efficient causes, (3) op-
portunities offered by Empedocles' theory of the four elements, (4) Leucip-
pus' contribution to atomic theory, followed by that of Democritus. It will
be necessary in this exposition, however, to discuss broader questions bearing
on cosmology as a whole in order to place the ideas applicable to the earth in
their proper setting.
Let us begin, then, with Parmenides' behef that a conception of the
world (/cocr/xo?) cannot be attained by the evidence of the senses but only
by way of the mind. He believed the world to be a "solid body, pure mat-
ter, a corporeal pleniun.'" It is "a finite, eternal, indivisible, immovable, spher-
ical, corporeal mass: motion, change, variety, birth, and death, all that we
know by the experiences of our senses are mere delusions." The way of truth
is reached only by the mind, not by the senses, for Parmenides "expelled the
senses from the way of Truth." "The strict following out of this principle,"
says Bailey, "could only lead to a view of Unity, which was wholly divorced
from experience, and seemed to be entirely devoid of fruitful results." Bailey
further argues that Parmenides' theory was "the death-blow of Monism." The
expedients of the later lonians to preserve the unchangeable One and to rec-
oncile it with the ever-changing many failed because they involved the aban-
donment of
."^^
the principle of unity
Since Parmenides' theory "had made it impossible any longer to maintain
the single homogeneous substance as the primary basis of the world," and
since such a theory could not account for variety and complexity, there was
opportunity for a thinker to be "a mediator between the system of Parmenides
and the evidence of the senses." Empedocles seemed to regard himself as
being philosophically equipped for this role.^^ The four elements certainly
were plain enough to the senses. The concept of an element implies a unity, a
homogeneity of the matter making up the particle, while combinations of
elements can account for variety and complexity. The concept also suggests
the impossibihty of further breakdown or divisibility beyond the element,
while the variety and complexity of what is apprehended by the senses sug-
gest opportunities in combinations of a finite number of elements. The four-
element theory with accompanying love and strife (which were equally corpo-
real) was therefore of great importance to the atomic theory because each
element is "absolutely homogeneous with itself, indestructible, unchange-

able."^^ The way is now open for the atomists who see unity— not in a single
ultimate homogeneous "nature," "but by postulating an absolute homogeneity

^2 In preparing this section, I am

indebted (as can readily be seen) to Bailey's The
Greek Atomists and Epicurus (henceforth GAE), to his great ed. of Lucretius, and
to Pease's equally impressive ed. of Cicero's Nat, D. Bailey, GAE^ pp. 25, 26; Parmenides,
Vorsokr A
22, Vol. i, p. 221.
'^^GAE, pp. 27-28.
'^^Ibid., pp. 29-31, 50-51, quotation on p. 29; Vorsokr B 17, lines 19-20, Vol. i, p. 316.
64 Order a?id Purpose in the Cosmos

of substance in the infinite particles and referring variety to difference in

shape and combinations."^^
Such attempts to explain unity and observed diversities encourage inquiry
into the mechanisms by which such diversities occur; that is, they encourage
looking into efficient causes, which then attain a dignity denied them when
they play ancillary roles in doctrines of final causes. Historically the latter

have had with religious ideas and religious interpretations of

a close affinity
nature; the quest for causes within the phenomena themselves, without super-
natural interventions, leads into concepts of natural law and, if these are not in
turn tied in with doctrines of final causes, into a concept of nature and the
natural order in which the unity and harmony which is postulated comes about
because nature herself is a creatrix.^^
The four-element theory of Empedocles, as well as the atomic theory which
came later, called attention to the importance of division, for, said Leucippus,
ultimately a point is reached at which further division is impossible; ultimate
particles of matter are thus indivisible The importance of
and are atoms."^^

division and of the ultimate indivisible particle Hes in the concept of a "least
possible for existence," the atom being the stopping point for destruction, the
starting point for creation, as, for example, in the disintegration of an organic
substance on death, and the subsequent growth of new life from a new be-
ginning. "Thus a discrete infinity is reconciled with permanence: there are
infinite particles, but thanks to their very essential character, the world can
never be frittered away into nothingness."^^ "Necessity" is the cause of atomic
motion, the term probably signifying that everything is in motion for a
reason, probably also, as with Democritus, that "atoms in moving obeyed the
law of their own being."^^ Thus Leucippus strove for a concept of all-pervad-
ing natural law. Our world is not unique— it only one of an infinite number.
is

The concept of a plurality of worlds is very clearly stated by Leucippus;

whether Anaximander had the idea before him is a matter of controversy.^*^
Leucippus is probably the originator of the atomist theory which later became
such a powerful support to the antiteleological and antitheological philosophy
of Epicurus and his followers.^^
Democritus (fl. 420 b.c.) made further contributions to the atomic theory,
among them the idea that "nothing is created out of the non-existent or is de-
75 GAE, p. 43.
76 For an illuminating discussion of the efficient cause, see GAE, pp. 46-52.
p. 73.
78/Z;iJ., p. 74.
'^^Ibid., p. 85, cf. p. 93.
On worlds, see the doxography in Kahn, Anaximander and the Origins of
infinite
Greek Cosmology and the discussion of Zeller's, Cornford's, and Burnet's views, pp.
46-53. Kahn believes "there is no good evidence of such a doctrine for any other thinker
earlier than Leucippus," p. 50.
GAE, p. 93; on Leucippus as founder of atomism, pp. 106-108.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 65

stroyed into the non-existent."^^ Later Lucretius used the same idea to combat
irrational fear,and to argue against the existence of capricious behavior and
arbitrary creation by divine beings on earth and in the sky— "nullam rem e
nilo gigni divinitus umquam."^^ More boldly than Leucippus, Democritus
postulates wider applicability of the idea of necessity in order to be rid of
mysterious semireligious forces like love and strife and mind, and of the
religious tradition and its dependence on ideas of a final cause. The universe
is not ruled by design or purpose. To Democritus "creation is the undesigned

result of inevitable natural processes." His was more than a physical theory,

for he had "an eye from the first for the metaphysical implications of the new
conception of the Atoms did not form themselves into a whirl
universe. "^^
so that a cosmos would be created; there is no design within nor by an ex-
ternal power, but while they fall into the whirl "accidentally," once it is
formed "the result by a process of strict necessity is a world." One of Democ-
ritus' purposes in asserting the claims of "necessity" as a kind of natural law

was apparently to combat teleological explanation.^^

In view of its subsequent importance, and of its prominence in Lucretius'
poem, a word should be said here about the senescence of nature, an idea
which is adumbrated in Democritus. There are stages of growth in the
worlds, which are infinite in number and which are in varying stages of com-
pletion, some increasing, others decaying. The idea that a world might be
growing in one part, decaying in another "is a httle difficult to understand on
atomic principles," but it is a striking way of sorting out differences among
worlds in an infinity of them. "A world grows towards its prime until it can
no longer take in any addition from without."^^
In the physical world Democritus asserts the supremacy of "necessity" in
order to establish natural law, to eliminate theological conceptions of the
world, and the idea of chance, but the idea of "necessity" is not extended to

the moral sphere, the precepts here being naive; it is assumed that man acts
with a free will.^^

We are now in a position to discuss the antiteleological ideas in the Epicu-

rean philosophy whose key assumption is that gods have no part in the gov-
ernment of the world.^^ The creation has its marvels, the heavenly bodies

Ibid., pp. 1 19-120; Vorsokr A i, Vol. i, p. 81, a doctrine enunciated before by

Melissus, Vorsokr Fr. B i, Vol. 2, p. 268; Epicurus, Epistle i, 38 (to Herodotus).
GAE, p. 120; Lucr. I, 150.
Ibid., pp. 122, 123.
Ibid., p. 141; Nat. D., I, 24, 66; Lucr. I, 1021-28.
^^GAE, p. 147. Democritus, Vorsokr A 40, Vol. 2, p. 94. See Lucr. 11, 1105 ad fin.
The passage from D. is quoted by Bailey on p. 146, who suggests that the general idea
may have been inspired by the stages in Empedocles' world caused by the interaction
of strife and love, p. 147.
87G^E, pp. 186-188.
^^Prin. Doctrines, i. Bailey ed. of Epicurus, p. 95.
66 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

their majesty, and there is order in their movement, but these observations do
not constitute evidence that the heavenly bodies are divine beings. In Epicurus,
at least in the fragments that have come down to us, the argument seems based
mostly on the orderliness of the cosmos rather than on an order of nature on
earth.^^ Neither are the heavenly bodies evidence of the creation and the gov-
ernment of the world by the will of gods nor are such conceptions of creation
derived from sensation.^^
Apparently Epicurus is combatting two other ideas, the artisan-deity or
SrjfjiLovpy6<; of Plato's Timaeiis, and the Fronoia of the Stoics, that is, the
conception of continuing divine care for the progress of events in the world.®^
Epicurus not only wishes to exclude the gods from the world "but even any
notion of the unconscious forethought of Nature itself, which might seem
to give colour to a theological view of phenomena. "^^
What are some of the ramifications of the antiteleological ideas of the Epi-
curean philosophy as they appear, chiefly in Cicero's De natura deorum and
Lucretius' De natura rermn} Although it is an argument ex silentio (because
so many of Epicurus' writings have been lost), it might be that later Epicu-
reanism, as represented by Gains Velleius, the Epicurean protagonist in De
natura deorum^ and by Lucretius' De natura rerum.^ is much less concerned
with the cosmos, much more with natural processes observable on earth. The
same observation apphes to their Stoic opponents of the Hellenistic period,
probably to Panaetius (if more were known of his nature philosophy), Posi-
donius, Balbus, the Stoic protagonist in De natura deorum, to the Stoic geog-
rapher Strabo, and indeed also to Cicero. The interest in nature, discussed
in the Introductory Essay, lends credence to this speculation.
Cicero thinks the principal question in the dispute about the nature of the
gods is whether or not they take an active part in the governance of the world;
similar questions also arise about their activities in the creation. Velleius is

cast in the role of a cocksure partisan who

communication with the
is in easy
assembly of the gods in Epicurus' intermundane spaces, but Cotta, the Aca-
demic, nevertheless praises his quahfications as an expert.^^ Velleius attacks,
as we have seen, Plato's artisan-deity, using the deprecating words opifex and
aedificator (noji opificein aedificatoreinque mundi, Platonis de Tmtaeo deum).
Opifex was used chiefly of the banaustic occupations, bearing somewhat the
same relation to artifex as artisan or mechanic does to artist.^^ He also attacks,
as we have seen, "that old hag of a fortune teller, the Pronoia of the Stoics."
To God is overworked, having none of the repose es-
Velleius, the Stoic
sential for godhood. "If the world [cosmos] itself is god [deus] what can be

Epistle I (to Herodotus), 76-77; 2 (to Pyth.), 97; Lucr. V, 1 14-145.

^^Lucr. V, 122-125; Epistle 3 (to Menoecus), 12^; GAE, p. 441.
91 GAE,
p. 474; Lucr. V, 165-186.
92 GAE, p. 476.
^^Nat. D., I, I, 2; I, 8, 18; I, 21, 57-60.
94 Pease's ed. of Nat. D., Vol. i, p. 175, under opificem.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 67

less restful than to revolve at incredible speed round the axis of the heavens
[circum axevi caeli] without a single moment of respite? but repose is an
essential condition of happiness. "^^ In opposition to the Stoic idea of an
artificer and of the divine nature of the creative act, Velleius says that the act
is "so easy, that nature will create, is creating and has created worlds without

number."^^ The concept of nature as continually creating has curious resem-

blances to the Christian idea of the creatio continua, but in the latter con-
ception God is continually creating as evidence of his care for the world.
was opposed to the teleol-
Velleius sketched a conception of the earth that
ogy of the Stoics, the idea of a divine artisan, and to the "world-builder of
Plato's Tijnaeusy Velleius asks how it can be that the world was created for
men when so many are fools, so few wise; certainly the beauties of the earth
were not made for a god's own pleasure. He ridicules the idea that since the
earth is part of the universe it is also part of god: are the uninhabitable deserts,
either hot or cold, to be regarded as the limbs of god suffering the extremes
of temperature? [Nat. D., I, 9-10, 21-25]. There is no more illuminating
comparison to be made regarding man's place in nature as seen in the Epicu-
rean and the Stoic philosophies than by setting this thought against the speech
of Balbus in which precisely the opposite argument is used. To Velleius there
is not enough human intelligence and wisdom in the world to make the cre-
ation worthwhile; to Balbus, a creation for the sake of plants or dumb animals
without a reasoning being like man to behold it is unthinkable [Nat. D., II,

53. 133]-
What now of the Lucretian aspects of Epicureanism?^^ All students of
Lucretius have taken it for granted that the attacks on final causes, on design,
on conceptions of the gods as participating in the governance of the cosmos
are expositions of the fundamental ideas of Epicurus, the assumption being
that Lucretius showed a scrupulous faithfulness to his teachings. Lucretius,
however, is also interested in concrete illustration: "He is never happy with-
out the visible demonstration of the parallel from the world of sense. "^^ He is

familiar with many aspects of nature. Seashore and inland scenes as well attract
him, and his observations on husbandry show perhaps a greater interest in
rural than in urban life. "One great charm of the work is that it breathes of
the open air more than of the library." Any reader of the poem, especially
one interested in physical and cultural geography, rural life, and natural his-

tory,would agree with Sellar's observation.^^

^^Nat D., I, 20, 52; see Pease's commentary, Nat. D., Vol. i, pp. 331-332 on this and
the strong Epicurean emphasis on repose as a necessary condition of godhood.
^^Nat. D., I, 20, 53 and Pease's note under effectiira, Nat. D., Vol. i, p. 334.
97 See De Lacy, "Lucretius and the History of Epicureanism," Trans, and Froc. of

the Amer. Philog. Assoc., Vol. 79 (1948), pp. 12-23, which sums up the scholarly ac-
tivity in this field since the publication of Bailey's The Greek Atomists and Epicurus
in 1928.
9^ Bailey's ed. and commentary on Lucr. Vol. i, pp. 15-16.
99Sellar, The Roman Poets of the Republic, pp. 292-294; quotation is on p. 294.
68 Oriicr ivni Purpose in the Cosmos

The I'^.piciircan doctrines are there but the ilhistnitions are earthy ones.
There are tlie processes of nature observable on eartli; there are also the sub-
jective attitudes toward nature. These cliaracteristics set him apart from the
older Epicurean thinkers (bearing in mind of course that much of what they
wrote has not survived), and the ideas of beauty in nature, of city-country
contrasts, of conununion with nature, are shared w^ith other poets of the Hel-
lenistic period. (Sec the discussion of attitudes toward nature in the Hellenistic
period in the Introduction.)
In this antiteleological view with its nature imagery, what becomes of

nature as a concept? It acquires an unwonted independence; nature is "quit

of her proud rulers, doing all things of her (nvn accord alone, without control
of gods." She is a creatrix, she is likened to a helmsman, the earth to a quaint
artiricer.^^^^ Figures of speech often come from the language of tillage; all

things coming from seeds require care, and tilled lands arc better for them than
are the untilled. The necessit\- of toil in order to survive proves the falsity of
the notion that something can come ixom nothing. The truth of the corollary,
also from I'picurus, that nothing can be annihilated is based primarily on
biology, in essence a description of the cycle oi life in its environment, each
element playing its role: the sky, the rain from the sky, the earth, the crops,
the green branches, the fruit-bearing trees for food, the glad towns with their
children, the woods with browsing over glad pastures,
their birds, the cattle
yielding their milk, and new torthcomini^ broods I, 250-264). Frequently [

Lucretius expresses an interest in processes, in natural sequences, interrelation-

ships between the physical and the cultural world, as that between the heavens
and the rains, and the fields and the glad cities.
What are his criticisms o{ the design argument- In the first place it cannot
explain origins 1, 1021; 1 419-32]. Neither can it explain the uses of the
various body organs; with a gusto that, had they read him, must have dis-
mayed the authors of the nineteenth century Bridfjewater treatises, to say
nothing of William Paley, Lucretius says, "Nothing at all was born in the
body that we might be able to use it, but what is born creates its own use"
834-835]. Skilltully he shows the fallacy of comparing these organs
(like the hand, the eye, the nose) w ith human inventions (like darts, beds,
cups). Such artifacts which may well have been dis-
satisfy the needs of life

covered for the purpose of using them 851-854]. Artifacts come out of
the' human world; their purposes are not to be confused with parts of the
body which have developed specialized skills. Long before W^ltaire ridiculed
believers in final causes who thought that noses were designed for spectacles,
Lucretius saw the pitfalls in having an artisan-deity behave as if necessity
were the mother of invention. Neither can the design argument explain the
existence of heavenly bodies, for here too nature is not a product of design,

^^<>Lucr. II, 1090-92; natura creatrix, I, 629; II, 11 17; V, 1362; as artilicer (siiavis
dacJala tcllus), I, 7. See Bailey's commentary on Lucr. 7, advermmique tinan. Vol. 2,
p. 593.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 69

but a helmsman, natiira giibernans, steering with her own power "the courses
of the sun and the wanderings of the moon" [V, 76-81]. Lucretius quickly
makes it clear that it is not necessary to use his theory of the atoms to rebut
the belief that the eartharranged by divine plan, that the sun and moon rotate
is

according to the same plan or for the purpose of promoting the growth of
crops or of animals; one need only point to the imperfections of the cosmos
and of the earth, the role of beasts in relation to man, the weakness and help-
lessness of the infant compared with the self-reliance of the young of animals.
It is physical evil, the imperfections of the earth, seen in terms of its fitness
as an environment for man, that Lucretius considers evidences against the
design argument: large parts of the earth are either useless or hostile to man,
an inconceivable arrangement were it the product of design. There are too
many flaw^s. Too much area is taken up by mountains, the forests with their
wild beasts, rocks, waste pools, and by the sea "which holds apart the shores
of the lands." This attitude toward the seas is inmarked contrast with that of
the teleologists, to whom the seas are purposefully made highways for trade,
navigation, and intercourse among peoples. Almost two-thirds of the earth's
area, Lucretius says, by places with burning heat or ceaseless frost.
is taken up
Even the small amount of arable land is available to man only after his inces-
sant struggle to keep it free from the natural vegetation which covers it. The
soil of the earth in its present condition (Lucretius recounts elsewhere the
theme of the spontaneous fertility of soils of the golden age) is little suited to
man, who must work it hard, condition it, watch over it. It is man's way "ever
wont for his livehhood to groan over the strong mattock and to furrow the
earth with the deep-pressed plough. But that by turning the fertile clods
with the share, and subduing the soil of the earth we summon them to birth,
of their own accord the crops could not spring up into the liquid air." Man
must remake the earth to his own needs and purposes in a constant struggle
against weeds, inclement weather, and plant disease. Even if he has succeeded
in tilling the small amount of arable soil, when his crops mature they may be
ruined by heat, rain, frost, or wind, while the changing seasons bring disease
and pestilence with them. Lucretius finds no place in the design argument for
the beasts, for they are menaces to the human race. Furthermore, there are
unforeseen changes in weather, and each seasonal change brings with it its
own diseases. Human hfe is uncertain. Nature may be a creator, but to Lucre-
tius, when she created, her eye obviously was not on man. This enumeration

of the flaws of the earth as evidence of lack of design is based on more general
ideas. The environment for human life, and
imperfection of the earth as a fit

the principle of plenitude, are assumed; the combination of the two ideas is
the basis for believing in the struggle for existence. Organic matter can
quickly fill up even an imperfect earth. Since agriculture was the dominant
way of life and the chief source of production in the ancient world, the
struggle understandably is described in terms of the difficulties of making the
soil yield a living. It would seem that to Lucretius the earth is a fitter environ-
yo Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

ment for plant and animal life (as in the ease with which young animals adapt
to their environment) than for humans. Lucretius' interpretation of hfe as a
laborious fight against nature obviously is not in the tradition of the golden
age when men were happy and comfortable with untilled soils; indeed they
did not have to till them, for nature abounded in untilled riches. But is he also
thinking of the Italy of his own day, of the bare rocks, the eroded mountains,
the swamps, the poverty?
Although Lucretius is an enemy of design arguments, of the idea of an arti-
san-deity, and doctrines of final causes, he himself is not free of teleological
assumptions.^^^ Furthermore, the idea of senescence in nature is obviously
teleological. This teleology, however, is of a lower order of metaphysical im-
portance; it operates within the general concept of the chance creation of an
infinity of worlds and is used to explain differences among them. The idea of
senescence in nature which Lucretius puts so forcefully is apparently an
elaboration of the original idea of Democritus. It is applied to conditions on
earth and literally to the earth itself; as a teleological process independent of
human agency, becomes an explanation (false, as Columella saw) of
it also
environmental change. If the earth no longer yields so much as it did in yester-
year, its failures could be due to old age.
In Lucretius, the apphcation of the idea of senescence to the earth is of
special interest because of its importance as a geographical concept. The
general idea is also in Epicurus, who applies it to worlds (Kocr/iot), but the
process with him seems to be of a physical rather than a biological nature.
It cannot be said that the demonstration is successful even by the presupposi-
tions of ancient science, although it is interesting to see what Lucretius regards
as evidence and how he used it. Today it would largely be stated in the vocabu-
lary of geomorphology, such as physical weathering, erosion, and deposition.
Although Lucretius did not accept the four-element theory, he nevertheless
wrote of these mighty members and parts of the world {maxima mundi
membra) in a popular sense to illustrate his argument. Only those well disposed
to the idea that the earth is mortal would be won over by Lucretius' evidence,
though it is far better than that offered in modern times and against which
George Hakewill in the seventeenth century inveighed so tirelessly and elo-
quently.'^^
Lucretius' argument element by element is as follows: The earth [V, i^-j-

Lucr. V, 155-165, 195-234; on primitive man, V, 925-987. Bailey, Lucr., Vol. 3, pp.
1350-1351- Of these arguments (V, 195-234) along popular rather than philosophical
lines, Giussani says L. "ceases to be Epicurus and becomes Lucretius." Quoted in Bailey
Lucr.^ Vol. 3, p. 1350.
See Patin, Etudes sur la poesie latine, ch. vii, "Fantilucrece." See V, 1204-17 and
Bailey's comments Lucr. Vol. i, p. 17.
'^^^
{to Herodotus)^ 73.
Epistle
I

See chap. 8, sect. 4. See also Bailey's comment on V, 237 citing Giussani on L.'s
popular use of the four-element theory, Lucr. Vol. 3, p. 1356.
 1

Order mid Purpose in the Cos?nos 7

260] is carried off as dust by swamps by the rain, and by

the winds, into
stream erosion; in other words, moved by processes of physical weather-
it is

ing. What is described is not so much a tale of mortahty as a cycle: the earth
causes plant and animal Hfe to grow, but on their passing away, what remains
is restored to the earth as dust in proportion to what the earth has given [V,
257-260]. It is like a parent and like a tomb.^^^
Neither is the case for water [V, 261-272] convincing, but here too the
argument is interesting because it is based on processes of physical geography.
It is the cycle of water running downhill ultimately reaching the sea, and

water in the atmosphere evaporated mostly from the sea by the sun and wind.
What is shown, however, is not mortality but circulation, metamorphosis of
forms of water and a constancy in the bulk of the earth's water, else the seas
would grow larger and larger.^^^
The Hke that for earth and water, is based on
case for air [V, 273-280],
the observation that it, notably in the form of wind, does not permanently
retain its gains. Here again Lucretius seems to prove convincingly that the
elements, despite their transformations and circulation, remain about the same
in quantity, that one does not gain at the expense of another. If the air re-
tained these gains, everything would be dissolved in it; since observation does
not confirm is in equilibrium. Air is created by an efflux
this condition, the air

from things,renewing them, however, by ultimately surrendering its acquisi-

tions. Is this argument, I wonder, based on anything more complex than the
experience of seeing a gust of wind picking up dust from one place and de-
positing it in another, or the sporting of a breeze with a dried leaf?
The fourth element in Lucretius' discussion is light [V, 281-305], not
fire as one would expect. Since hght, however, is composed of fire particles,
what true of it can be extended to apply to all forms of fire. Here the con-
is

ception is not cychcal, because hght is not involved with other elements.
Consistent with the atomic theory, "it is not a continuous stream, but a suc-
cession of discrete particles," whose flow any obstacle, like a cloud, can cut
off, but if the flow is unobstructed "the particles succeed each other so

quickly that the light appears to be continuous." These flowing particles of

light in fact do perish, but there are constant renewals from the sun's cease-
less flooding of the sky with fresh brightness [V, 281-283].

Lucretius finds further evidences of senescence in everyday observation.

Stones are vanquished by time, high towers fall in ruins, rocks crumble away.
Natural objects and artifacts betray evidences of mortality. He shrewdly
deprecates "shrines and images of the gods grown weary and worn, while the

Bailey points out that in V, 251-256 the earth (terra) means soil, and in the last
four lines it has a wider meaning, Lucr. Vol. 3, p. 1357, comment under V, 247.
106 Yor a discussion of the elements in the senescence argument, see Bailey, Lucr. Vol.

3»PP- 1357-1366.
^^^Lucr. VI, 608-638 on a form of the hydrologic cycle.
72 Order ajid Purpose in the Cosmos

sacred presence cannot prolong the boundaries of fate nor struggle against
the laws of nature." The monuments of men fall into bits, and stones rushing
headlong would not have fallen had they resisted time and "held out against
all the siege of age without breaking."^^^

Another evidence of mortality is the apparent infancy of civilization; cer-

tain arts are being perfected and are growing, the improvement of ships and
the newness of music being illustrations. If past catastrophes have obliterated
the traces of men, their civilizations and cities, then they show how close
the world can be brought to destruction. If you believe in these, "all the more
must you be vanquished and confess that there will come to pass a perishing
of earth and sky as well" [V, 324-344].
Earth history tells a similar story. The birth of plant Hfe, described sensu-
ously and subjectively as "bright verdure," "flowering fields" gleaming "in
their green hue," was followed by living creatures, the earth producing ani-
mals formed by rain and sun.^^^ Possibly there were more and larger animals in
the earth's youth. Life is associated with heat and moisture, earth with food,
warmth with raiment, grass as a couch for young animals. This periodization
of earth history is also associated with climatic change, in the early period
there being no extremes of heat.
The earth is a mother and like a mother will with age no longer be able
to bear children: the life-giving earth fluids are compared with a mother's
milk. This interpretation of earth history explains declining soil fertility and,
indirectly, poverty and the hardness of Hfe [V, 782-836].
I have considered at some length this conception of senescence in nature
as it appears in Lucretius, even though it is a subsidiary theme; it is important
because it form of environmental change, teleological in char-
postulates a
acter, which proceeds independent of the agency of man and which has in-
fluenced subsequent conceptions of civilization and of the nature of life. If
we can credit Columella's sweeping statement, the conception was strong
among the "leading men of our state" at the time he was writing, probably
around a.d. 60.^^^
Lucretius expresses a philosophy of the "niggardliness of nature," to use a
favorite expression of eighteenth century population theorists like Robert
Wallace and Thomas Malthus. There between the Stoics and Lucretius an
is

ancient counterpart of the modern cleavage between the natural theologians,

who conceive of nature as benevolent because it is a product of beneficent
and all-knowing design, and the iMalthusians and the Darwinians, who em-
phasize the contrast between the reproductive power in nature and the lim-

^^^Lucr. V, 308-309, 315-317.

^°^Cf. II, 1150-74 where the world is considered old; there L. seems to have nature
in mind, here civilization. Bailey, Lucr. Vol. 3, p. 1370.
Columella, On Agriculture, Bk. I, Pref. i. See chap. 3, sec. 7.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 73

ited ability of the earth to support life. Lucretius thus attacks the design
argument, not on scientific grounds but on the basis of observations that might
be made by a farmer or a parent. To him the earth is a being subject to the
same processes as is the organic matter growing upon it; it will grow, mature,
die.

Pliny expressed both the Stoic and Epicurean viewpoints. Of the four ele-
ments, earth is kindest to man; hence we have called her Mother Earth, for
she belongs to man
sky belongs to God. It is a beneficent earth, in life
as the
and in the shelter of death. Earth, kindand indulgent, produces for man,
either voluntarily or under compulsion, a great profusion of natural products.
She is fertile for the sake of man, her herbs provide his medicines, and even
the poisons she produces enable man to escape life when it is too hard to bear.
The beauty and bounty of earth are set against the imperfections of man, who
is constantly abusing her, but this criticism is not that of the conservationist

but of the moralist. Earth is thrown into the sea, excavated to make channels,
disturbed with water, iron, wood, fire, stone, and in tillage. Her insides are
probed for metals and stones. Pliny wonders if wild animals, so hostile to man,
were not intended to be the guardians of the earth, protecting her from his
sacrilegious hands.^^^
Seemingly, nature has created all things for man "though she asks a cruel
price for all her generous gifts, making it hardly possible to judge whether she
has been more a kind parent to man or more a harsh stepmother." Like Lu-
cretius, Pliny makes an unfavorable comparison between the animals— with
all endowments which allow them self-reliance from the be-
their protective
ginning—and the helplessness of human infancy. However, he is no believer
in the senescence of the earth and, in a passage reminiscent of Columella, he
says that the earth does not grow old as does a mortal; its fertility can be main-
tained by good husbandry.^^^
care and
It is possible now to reach some conclusions about the teleological and anti-

teleological thinking in the Hellenistic period. Both show a feeling for nature
—its beauties and utilities. Passages in the De natura deorum (some possibly
based on Panaetius and Posidonius) and from Lucretius illustrate this truth.
Both recognize the harmony and interconnectedness of things, the Stoics for
obvious reasons, the Epicurean school because nature has the role of creatrix,
of gubernans. In both the activity of man is important, as is his power to
control or change the environment. The Stoics recognize it because man
participates in divine reason, a participation which enables him to use the
earth's resources, created in large part for him, to his advantage. Lucretius
recognizes it because it isa consequence of human development from primi-
tive life to civilization; men's achievements are the product of necessity and

iiiPUny, NH, II, 63.

112 Pliny, NH, VII, i; XVII, 3, 35-36.
74 Order and Purpose i?i the Cosmos

imitation. Through discovery and invention (see chap. 3, sec. 7), especially
the discovery of metallurgy, man has been able to create the countrysides
which Lucretius describes with vigor and affection.

10. Plutarch, the Hermetical A^'ritings. and Plotinus

That was still current in the latter part of the first

teleological explanation
century a.d. from the writings of Plutarch. In the dialogue, Coucerii-
is clear
ivg the Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon (according to Cherniss,
the dramatic date of the dialogue is later than a.d. 75), Theon. the hterar}'
authority among the interlocutors, raises the question of teleological explana-
tion in connection with the possibilirv' that the moon can support life. If life

is not possible there, then the assertion that the moon is an earth is absurd,
there being no apparent purpose in its existence— it neither brings forth fruit
nor provides "for men of some kind an origin, an abode, and a means of life,

the purposes for which this earth of ours came into being, as we say with Plato,
'our nurse, strict guardian and artificer of day and night' " (93 -D). Theon
then introduces difiiculties (largely environmental, like excessive heat or
aridity) standing in the way of life existing on the moon (938A-B).
In a lengthy reply, Lamprias asks if it is necessary to say that the moon
is made in vain if men cannot live there; this propositionhe denies (93 8D).
If the moon is not inhabited by men, and thus exists in vain and without pur-
pose, the same objection could be made of the earth (here are reminders of
Lucretius), for only a small part of it is productive in animal and plant life,

large parts being wasteland with winter storms or summer droughts, or under
the sea.
The implication is that such characterizations and divisions of the earth's
surface are false. The uninhabited or uninhabitable parts of the earth are in-
dispensable to the well-being of the inhabited world, for "it is by no means
for nothing that these parts come to be." "The sea gives off gentle exhalations,
and the most pleasant winds when summer is at its height are released and
dispersed from the uninhabited and frozen region by the snows that are
gradually melting there. "^^"^ This argument resembles that used by Ray. Keill,
and HaUey in the seventeenth century as part of the justification for waste-
lands and the vast expanse of sea. It is the kind of argument which a defender
of design must be prepared to make.
Even though the moon may be destitute of life, it still performs useful func-
tions such as providing reflections from the hght diffused about it. or being a
point of confluence for the rays of the stars, or digesting exhalations from the
earth (92 8C), and tempering excessive heat and harshness of the sun. Citing

Plutarch, Concernmg tke Face Which Appears in the Orb of the Moon, 938D-E.
Cherniss (Loeb ed.) calls attention here to Theophrastus' De ventis, ii, § 11, and Aristotle's
Meteorology, 364 a 5-13; on the date of the dialogue see p. 12. Reinhardt, Kosinos iind
Sympathie, hnds here strong influences of Poseidonian cosmology- (p. 171).
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 15

ancient belief, he says the moon was held to be Artemis, a virgin and sterile,

and helpful to females (93 8F). Pointing to plant life on earth that requires
little rain or snow and which is adapted to summer and rarefied air, he asks
whether similarly adapted plants might grow on the moon. In these extremely
interesting hnes about the characteristics of plants and their adaptabihty to
differing environmental conditions (especially of aridity), Plutarch is making
use of the knowledge which came from Alexander's conquests and which is
enshrined in the works of Theophrastus/^^
Furthermore, environments can be deceptive in appearance. Who would
guess the richness and diversity of life in the sea from looking at it? Living
beings on the moon need not have the same characteristics they possess on
earth for purposes of generation, nourishment, livehhood. Such ideas ignore
the diversities of nature (940B). Life on earth need not be the model for life
in the cosmos. If men exist on the moon, they might be light in body, "capable
of being nourished by whatever comes their way"; they might well be amazed
at the earth, continuing here the theme of deceptive appearances, "when they
look out at the sediment and dregs of the universe, as it were, obscurely visible
in moisture, mists, and clouds, as a lightless, low, and motionless spot, to think
that it engenders and nourishes animate beings which partake of motion,
"^^^
breath, and warmth.
The ideas of Xenophon, Plato, and Aristotle, elaborated upon and enriched
by Panaetius and Posidonius, thoroughly explored in turn by Cicero, and com-
mented upon by Plutarch, reappear in a group of writings, the Hermetica (as-
sociated more frequently with astrology as a religious conception of the
world), ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus and probably written in the third
century a.d., according to their most recent English editor and translator. Men
were created in order to contemplate heaven; God bade them to increase and
multiply and to "have dominion over all things under heaven, and that they
might come to know God's power, and witness nature's workings, and that
they might mark what things are good, and discern the diverse natures of
things good and bad, and invent all manner of cunning arts."^^^
It is God's glory that he makes all things "and the making of things is, so to

ii^939C-F. See Bretzl, Botanische Forschimgen des Alexajiderziiges, passim and the
Cherniss cd. in the Loeb Library where references to Theophrastus are given.
See also Lamprias' discussion of providence and Zeus and the meaning of a natural
condition or a natural position, 927D-928C; Sulla's myth, esp. the relation of body, soul,
and mind to earth, moon, and sun; the purpose of the moon in the cosmos and its role in
the life cycle of souls, 940F ad fin., and Cherniss' remarks, pp. 20-26. In "Whether Fire or
Water is More Useful," 956F-957A, the sea is extolled, the water providing from its
own self a fifth element; the sea is given great credit for human progress, plant inter-
changes, etc., because it encourages commerce, cooperation, and friendship; the piece,
however, is not now regarded as a genuine work of P. See Cherniss' intro. in the Loeb
ed. of the Aloralia, Vol. 12, pp. 288-289.
116 Hermetica, Lib. Ill 3b. The workings of the cosmos are likened to the activities of a

good husbandman. Lib. ix, 6-8, and to a father who has received his supply of good
from God. Lib. x, 3.
76 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

speak, God's very being."^^^ Nothing is to be considered evil in relation to

the maker himself; evil and fullness are by-products, accidents of the creation,
and they are compared to rust on metal, to on the body. In this idea the
dirt

principle of the fullness of nature is explained, and the nature of evil is ac-
counted for: It is not God that creates evil, but the "lasting on" of things
causes "evil to break out on them"; hence God inspired change in the world
to purge it of its evil/^^
Often behevers in an all-embracing and interrelated nature were embar-
rassed, as many modern natural theologians have been, by the existence— and
the utiHty— of insects and other lower forms of life. How did they fit into the
web of existence that this harmonious order of nature demanded? A feeble
answer given by one of the Hermetic writers was that some organisms, like
flies and worms, are produced only to be destroyed. Or, the insects are part

of the order of nature even if man does not know their uses. Even in the

theologies of modern times the insects and other smaller kinds of creatures
were designed to annoy man, to keep his pride within reason, and to remind
him of his fall from grace; like the modern manufacturers of insecticides, these
thinkers capitaHzed on the obviously great powers of insects as annoyances
to the human race, and they concluded that insects must be considered some-
what differently, since like other arrangements of nature, they did not have
clear and demonstrable utility.
we must consider the vivid, often dramatic, conceptions of Plotinus.
Finally,
Although the earth is but a part of the cosmos permeated with life, it is itself
replete with every possible gradation of living matter; it is a colorful earth
of struggle and conflict with its own pecuhar and striking beauties. The cosmos
—including the earth within it— is eternal but it is neither a product of chance
nor of the motions of the atoms nor of an artisan working according to a
preconceived plan.^^^
Of the three Plotinian hypostases, the highest, the transcendent first prin-
ciple, the One or the Good, is beyond human comprehension, "He is a very
positive Reality, of infinite power and content and superabundant excellence."
The One is formless because it is infinite but it is "not a God 'outside' the
world," for all gradations of being have some of it within them.^^^ The Nous
is an emanation of while the universal soul, an emanation of
this first principle,
Nous, is good and and forms and rules the material universe. There
divine,
are two levels of soul, a higher level "where it acts as a transcendent principle
of form, order, and intelligent direction, and the lower where it operates as an

Hermetic a. Lib. xiv, 7.

^^^Ibid.
Ill, 2, i. Plodnus also discusses the question of the existence of an
Plotinus, Ejin.^
evil creatorand the possibility that there is no creator at all. For Plotinus I am indebted
to Armstrong, Plotinus, pp. 11-42, and Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, pp. 63-66.
120 Armstrong, Plotinus,
pp. 31, 32.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 11

immanent principle of life and growth." This lower form of the soul is called
nature. The universe is an organic whole, full of life, and all gradations of be-
ing. To Plotinus, the material universe is "a living organic whole, the best pos-
sible image of the living unity-in-diversity of the World of Forms in Nous.'"'^^^
The great fullness and diversity of life is derived ultimately from the tran-
scendent first principle: it is perfect, and being so, it cannot endure to remain
in itself; it generates and produces some other thing— and this is true of beings
with and without the power of choice and even of inanimate things: thus "fire
warms, snow chills, drugs have their own outgoing efficacy. "^^^ It is not pos-
sible for the Perfect Being to remain unto itself— as if jealous or impotent-
something must be begotten of it. "And this generation of the Many from the
One cannot come to an end so long as any possible variety of being in the
descending series is left unreaHzed."^^^
Such a philosophy, with its emphasis on life, its fullness and diversity, pro-
duces a vivid and rich view of the earth. In reading Plotinus, moreover, one
feels that strong personal predilections and appreciations are interwoven with
the abstract ideas: an appreciation of nature, an interest in the theatre, in war-
fare, in practical everyday affairs. It is true, he says, that there is constant
warfare in nature: the animals devour one another, men attack one another;
but to him animals that prey and those that are preyed upon are equally neces-
sary to the diversity and abundance of life characteristic of the whole cosmos.
The struggle is subordinated to a higher concept, for life returns in another
form; it is murder of actors in a play. They are not really killed but
like the
change their makeup and assume a new role. Life goes on even if there is
individual suffering and death; there would be a "bleak quenching of life"
were this not so, for "as the plan holds, life is poured copiously throughout a
Universe, engendering the universal things and weaving variety into their
being, never at rest from producing an endless sequence of comeliness and
shapehness, a living pastime. "^^^ All hfe, no matter how lowly, "is an activity
and not a blind activity like that of a flame"; it aims like "the pantomimic
dancer with his set movements" at a pattern. Strongly asserting the human
feeling for beauty and nature, Plotinus criticizes the view that the soul made
the creation after a decline in its powers;
could not do, for the creative
this it

act of the soul is proof that it connection with the divine. The
has not lost its

soul could not, like a sculptor on earth, have been planning for its own glory;
it its own nature and it cannot be held that it has
created out of the need of
repented of work; the soul "must be already accustomed to the world, must
its

be growing more tender toward it with the passing of time." There is no war-

^^'^
Ibid., the two quotations being on pp. 37 and 39, respectively.
122 Plotinus, Enn., V, 4, i. Quoted in Lovejoy, op. cit., p. 62. See also V, i, 6 and V, 2, i.

Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, p. 62.

124 £7272., Ill,
2, 15.
78 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos

rant for believing this world to be of unhappy origin because there are many
disturbing things in it, for to so believe would be to think the world to be the
same with the intelligible realm and not merely its reflection. And even though
it is only a reflection, what a marvelous one it is!

And yet—what reflection of that world could be conceived more beautiful than
this of ours? What fire could be a nobler reflection of the fire there than the
fire we know here? Or what other earth than this could have been modelled
after that earth? And what globe more minutely perfect than this, or more
admirably ordered in its course, could have been conceived in the image of
the self-centered circling of the World of Intelligibles?^^^

The order of the universe is compared to the work of a general who plans
the campaigns and provisioning of his troops, working out beforehand his
complex plans to insure success. The earthly general must plan without the
knowledge of his opponent, but where there is the mighty general of Provi-
dence "whose power extends over all that is, what can pass unordered, what
can fail to fit into the plan?"^^^ Our earth takes part in this nobihty of the
universe. "This earth of ours is full of varied life-forms and of immortal
beings; to the very heavens it is crowded."^^^
Even if there is no divine and within it the
artisan here, the ordered cosmos,
ordered earth, is emanation of the nature of perfection which
a product, an
must be active, the emanation from one to the other taking place without any
diminution of its essence.^^^
There is not only beauty but reasonableness in the ordering of all natural
phenomena, including those observable on earth. Not only this, but the earth
is full and rich with all varieties of life; one feels that in its very profusion life

is becoming dense almost to the point of overcrowding. The cosmos as a whole

and the earth within it, made after a perfect model, is the best of all possible
worlds.^^^
Plotinus' ideas were one of the inspirations of the Cambridge Platonists
whose concept of plastic nature^^^ was influential in providing the philosophical
background for probably the best physico-theology written in the western
world, John Ray's Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation,

^^^Ibid., 2, 16; II, 9, 4.

126//,;^., 111,3,2.
127 Ibid., II,
9, 8.
On
the praise of beauty and order in the visible world see (in addition to II, 9, 8)
128'

II, 16-17; III, 2, 3.("The world, we must reflect, is a product of Necessity, not of
deliberate purpose: it is due to a higher Kind engendering in its own likeness by a

natural process.") See also Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I, pp. 390-393. "Ganz in der Tonart
der Stoa preist darum Plotin die Schonheit und Ordnung der sichtbaren Welt, die selbst
in den kleinsten Lebewesen und in der Blumenpracht der Pflanzenwelt zutage tritt,"
p. 393.
^29Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, pp. 64-65.
130 See f Qj. example Raven's discussion of Ralph Cudworth, Science and Religion,
pp.
 Order and Purpose in the Cosmos 79

a book which will be discussed in greater detail in a subsequent chapter. The

principle of plenitude, outlined by Plato and developed here by Plotinus,
shows the striking preoccupation of Western thinkers with the fertility of
nature, so easily observed in the multiplication of plant life, insects, and the
smaller animals. The principle of plenitude later could provide a basis for
pessimistic conclusions regarding the ability of the earth to support an in-
definite multipHcation of life, an observation which introduced ideas of natural
or artificial checks to natural fertility, such as war, infanticide, disease, and
plague. Its optimistic side is revealed in the exaltation with which the richness,
variety, and fullness of the life principle is asserted as a manifestation of cosmic
order.
The speculations of the ancient thinkers regarding the nature of the cosmos
and of the earth as part of it, the role of a demiurge, gods, or of Providence—
however the guiding principle or agent was defined— produced a conception
of the earth, based on philosophical speculation and everyday observation,
which had lasting effects on Western geographic thought. Whether the earth
was conceived of as a product of a divine artisan with a plan, or, as with
Plotinus, as an emanation from Nous, itself an emanation of the One, the
principle of balance, harmony, and order in nature was not only acknowl-
edged but enshrined, even before the reinforcements of Judeo-Christian the-
ology, as one of the great interpretations of the role of the earth in human
destiny.
 chapter 2

Airs, Waters, Places

I. Greek Sources of the Environmental Theory

The sources of the environmental theory are both in the philosophical and
scientific theory of the Greeks and in conclusions drawn from practical life

and common observation. There is some evidence for the behef that the Greeks
ascribed to the climate— or perhaps to temperature— the distinctive character-
istics of their civihzation. From early times there have been two types of en-
vironmental theory, one based on physiology (such as the theory of the
humors) and one on geographical position; both are in the Hippocratic corpus.
In general, the environmental theories based on physiology have evolved from
the notion of health and disease as indicating a balance or imbalance respec-
tively of the humors,^ and from empirical observations such as the advantages

^ Hippoc, Nature of Man. He criticizes the single-element theory of the composition

of the human body. I-II. "The body of man has in itself blood, phlegm, yellow bile
and black bile; these make up the nature of his body, and through these he feels pain
or enjoys health. Now he enjoys the most perfect health when these elements are duly
 Airs, Waters, Places 8i

of certain town or house sites, situation with relation to altitude (possibly be-
cause high places were above malarial swamps) or nearness to water, and to
certain prevaihng winds. Since Greek times, these theories have shown the
effects of their origin; to very recent times they have been based on a psycho-
physiological theory (the mental and physical stimulation of invigorating cli-

mate) or on geographical position, the latter types often being associated with
the literature of poHtical and economic theory.
The history of environmental theories is distinct from that of the idea of
design because the main stimulus of the former came originally from medicine,
although it is true that adaptation of life to the physical environment is im-
phcit in the idea of an orderly and harmonious nature. Theories based on a
physiological doctrine were the dominant ones in antiquity and in modern
times to about the time of Carl Ritter, although both Montesquieu and Herder
had broader views. The humor theory made possible a greater degree of
generalization than did ideas of influence of situation, relief, or the quality of
soils, because these influences were appHed to local situations (as Thucydides
applied them in his discussion of the effects of the poor soils on the history
and civilization of Attica). Later the siting of the city of Rome was a favorite
illustration.

The importance of the humor theory from a geographic point of view, as

we have seen, was that the dominance of one or another humor in the human
body might be was thus called
ascribed to environmental conditions. Attention
to the problem of mixtures of the humors in their effects both on the body and
on peoples as a whole. This of course is an important theme in the Hippocratic
writings and in many of the questions posed in the Problems of Aristotle, a
work thoroughly Hippocratic in tone, which, if not that of Aristotle, is be-
from him.
lieved to contain materials derived
The humor theory also presupposes a sympathy between body and mind,
the good or bad humors of the body working on the mind, the passions and
disturbances of the mind influencing the body. The humors— with the mind-
body relationships— in combination with the influences of airs, waters, and
places, thus could explain not only physical and mental health, but the phys-
ical and cultural characteristics of peoples as a whole.
Virtually all the familiar assertions of modern times, even if we charitably
stop with Montesquieu, are found in a cruder form in antiquity: warm cli-
mates produce passionate natures; cold, bodily strength and endurance; tem-
perate cHmates, intellectual superiority; and among the nonphysiological
theories, a fertile soil produces soft people, a barren one makes them brave.
Although the second part of the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places (chaps.

proportioned to one another in respect of compounding, power and bulk, and when
they are perfectly mingled" (IV). See also Hippoc, Ancient Medicine, xix.
82 Airs, Waters, Places

12-24) is the earliest systematic treatise concerned with environmental in-

fluences on human culture, fragments of the writings of Heraclitus and Di-
ogenes of Apollonia reveal the antiquity of the belief that moisture is unfavor-
able to thinking, a behef possibly suggested by the state of drunkenness. "A
dry soul is wisest and best," says Heraclitus (fl. ca. 500 B.C.) and, "A man
when he is drunk is led by an unfledged boy, stumbling and not knowing where
he goes, having his soul moist."^
According to Theophrastus, Diogenes {fl. 440-430 b.c.) attributed think-
ing, the senses, and life to air. Thought is caused by pure dry air; "for a moist
emanation inhibits the intelligence; for this reason thought is diminished in
sleep,drunkenness and surfeit." Other Hving creatures have inferior intellects
because they breathe moisture-laden air from the earth; birds breathe pure air,
but owing to their constitution, like that of fishes, air permeates the body only
around the abdomen; plants lack intelHgence; they are not hollow and receive
no air within.^

2. The Hippocratic Treatise "Airs, Waters, Places"

Throughout this work I have used the name of Hippocrates as if it were self-

evident that he is the author of Ancient Medicine and Airs, Waters, Places,
but there is little but custom to warrant such a practice. Through the eigh-
teenth century there was general agreement that the works traditionally
ascribed tohim were indeed his; only in the nineteenth century was this view
challenged, were the problems of authenticity examined, but no agreed-upon
solution was found. No one knows if Hippocrates is the author of any of these
works. Anciejit Medicine may date from the end of the fifth century, possibly
being composed by an early disciple of Hippocrates. Airs, Waters, Places
apparently is genuine in the sense that with very few demurrers it has been
included in the ancient so-called Hippocratic corpus. Editors of Hippocrates'
works have included both in the corpus, a practice followed by Littre and
Jones. It is reasonable to suppose that the essay was composed early enough
to influence men like Aristotle, and some have seen its influence in the con-
cluding chapter of Herodotus' histories. These uncertainties regarding dating
and authenticity should not obscure the fact that rightly or wrongly Hip-
pocrates through the ages has been regarded as a very real physician, as the
author of the work, and that Airs, Waters, Places has been one of the most
popular of his treatises.^

Kirk and Raven, PSP, #233, 234, p. 205. The first is Fr. 118, Stobaeus, Anth. Ill, 5, 8;
2

the second Fr. 117, ibid.. Ill, 5, 7. These authors think Heraclitus' main philosophical
activity ended by 480, p. 183. The floruit follows the OCD.
p. 441. Source: Theophr. de sensu 39-44 = Diels,
3 Kirk and Raven, ?5P, #615,

Vorsokr. 6th ed., 64 A 19, Vol. 2, pp. S5~5^'

^ For a discussion of the Hippocratic corpus, see W. H. S. Jones's "General Introduc-
tion" in Vol. of the Loeb ed. of Hippocrates, and Sarton, Ancient Science
I Through
the Golden Age of Greece, chaps. 13-14.
 AirSy Waters, Places 83

The reader of Airs, Waters, Places, however, quickly notices that it lacks
unity, that in fact there are two different essays, one medical, the other
ethnographical and geographical. In 1889, Fredrich pointed out this fact, argu-
ing that it had two different and independent parts, chapters i— 1 1, and 1 2—24.
Subsequent textual study confirmed Fredrich's views, without, however,
achieving agreement concerning the relationship between the two parts and
the authorship.^
In his very interesting reexamination of the question, Edelstein argues that
the purpose of the first eleven chapters is to provide a physician coming to a
strange city with the opportunity of acquainting himself, without having to
inquire of anyone, with all important factors likely to be involved in treat-
ment before he starts it. It is intended to be a prognostic book acquainting the
physician with environmental conditions, the usual diseases, and the seasonal
occurrence of various diseases.^
In the second part on Europe and Asia and the differences among their
peoples, some of the difficulties are owing to lacunae in the text, such as the
loss of the descriptions of Egypt and Libya. Edelstein is of the opinion that
the transmission of the two parts as if they constituted a unified work, even
though they have no relation to one another, occurred because someone had
a personal interest in the two different fields and preserved the work as a unit.
In this way one can account for the inclusion of chapters 12-24 ^ medical
corpus because they could just as well have been written by a geographer.^
Edelstein also proposed a new hypothesis regarding the origin of the Hip-
pocratic corpus; one of its most interesting aspects is the history of opinion
regarding it and its authorship.^ If one relies on the earlier sources, one cannot
go beyond the claim that Hippocrates in his own time was regarded as a
distinguished and famous physician; he was not the physician, nor was he a
demigod. An important turning point in attitudes toward him occurred when
Celsus made greater claims for him, describing him as the first of all physicians
worthy of being remembered ("primus ex omnibus memoria dignis").^
To Celsus, Hippocrates, unlike later physicians, is active in all fields of
medicine, and he is a figure of heroic dimensions; to Erotian, he is a writer
who ranks with Homer; to Galen, he is the ideal doctor. The history of
Hippocratic glossology and commentary shows that the so-called works as a
whole were gathered late, the earhest that can be established dating from the
time of Hadrian.^^ All known sources, however, are silent on the authenticity

5 For a short history of this criticism, see Edelstein, Peri aerdn und die Sammlung der

Hippokratischeji Schriften, pp. 1-4 in which the contributions of Fredrich, Wilamowitz,

Jacoby, Heiberg, and Triidinger are briefly discussed.
^Ibid., pp. 5-6, 8, 31-32.
^ Ibid.,
p. 59; see chap, i for a detailedreview of the textual problems.
8 Ibid.,chap. 4, "Die Hippokratische Frage."
9 The reference is to Celsus, De Medicina, I, 18, 12-13. Edelstein, pp. 126-127.

Ibid., pp. 128-129, on Celsus, Erotian (compiler of a glossary to H., prob. fl. in the
'^^

times of Nero), Galen; on early commentaries, p. 150.

84 Airs, Waters, Places

of the writings. Edelstein's admittedly hypothetical conclusion is that the

works of Hippocrates did not come to Alexandria (at least their presence can-
not be proved), but that a body of ancient and anonymous medical writings
did. The opinion of history had so enhanced the reputation of Hippocrates
even though no works of had survived, that men were interested in him
his

and wanted to read him. The corpus of anonymous literature, possibly from
his period, deposited in the Alexandrian library posed for grammarians or
doctors the question whether among them there might be the works of Hip-
pocrates. At first the attributions were few, gradually increasing because of
the high regard in which his memory was held. Finally the dominant view
emerged. The fifth century physician had obliterated by his fame the work of
lesser men, the great name had attracted to it the entire corpus of anonymous
authorship. Traditionally, Airs, Waters, Places is among the Hippocratic writ-
ings,but Edelstein thinks the author is one of the old physicians whose name
was forgotten, whose work with many other anonymous writings had been
brought to Alexandria.^^
To the end of the eighteenth century, however, Hippocrates was a real
man, and Airs, Waters, Places one of his authentic masterpieces. Perhaps with
Jones one can think of Hippocrates, not as a physician, but as the spirit of
medical trends in the late fifth century B.C.
So much has been written on Hippocrates' essay that it is almost impossible
to say anything fresh about it; its value to our theme is that it reveals how
closely interrelated are the early histories of medicine, geography, and anthro-
pology.
The fundamental philosophy of the second part of the essay is derived from
a comparison of three physical environments, one of extreme cold, another of
extreme heat, the third temperate and intermediate between the extremes. The
first, the northern region of extreme cold, is inhabited by the Scythians and
the Longheads (fiaKpoKecjydXoi) (in Eastern Europe roughly equivalent to
the southern half of the Ukrainian S.S.R.) and the people of the Phasis River
region (the Phasis, famous for its association with the expedition of the
Argonauts, is the modern Rioni flowing through western Georgia into the
eastern shore of the Black Sea); the environment of the southern hot extreme
is represented by Egypt and Libya (this part is lost), and the temperate by
Ionia. The contrast of Asia with Europe, with which the essay is also con-
cerned, is of a different character; the division is an east-west instead of a
north-south one (hence longitudinal rather than latitudinal), but the Scythians
are the only example of a European people given.
In Airs, Waters, Places, Hippocrates discusses several important themes,
among them the proper siting of houses with relation to the sun, the good and
bad qualities of waters, the seasonal distribution of disease, and— of greatest

Edelstein, op. cit., pp. 1 79-1 81.

 AirSy Waters, Places 85

interest, concerns peoples, not individuals— comparisons between

because it

Europe and Asia "to show how they differ in every respect, and how the
nations of the one differ entirely in physique from those of the other/'^^
The temperate climate of Asia— meaning in this passage the Mediterranean
climate of the coast of Asia Minor— is responsible for the greater beauty and
size of both its inhabitants and its vegetation. "Growth and freedom from
wildness are most fostered when nothing is forcibly predominant, but equality
in every respect prevails."^^ Another region in Asia— with its woods, its

rain and spring water, with the bountiful plant life enabhng man to domesti-
cate the wild plants, and with its desirable breeds of cattle— produces tall men
of fine physique, differing little from one another. The climate of the region
is likened to spring, but one must not expect of these people courage, endur-

ance, industry, or high spirits whether they are native born or immigrants.
Hippocrates says he is not concerned with peoples ( edvoi) that are simi-
lar but with those that differ, either through nature or custom from one

another. This matter-of-fact statement may reveal the reason for the interest
in differing physical environments in antiquity. Although Hippocrates was
interested in differences, not similarities, among peoples, his was basically a
medical, not an ethnographic, interest. Climatic variations, seasonal change,
different types of landscapes, could explain at least in part— for Hippocrates
is not a strict determinist— the reasons for these differences. If Hippocrates

had shown an interest in accounting for similarities rather than differences,

the history of environmental theories would have been entirely different.
In his first example, differences are explained by cultural reasons. The
Longheads (/xaKpo/cet^aXot), whose ethnic affiliation and provenance are not
made clear, are an example of the inheritance of acquired characteristics,
for through their custom of elongating the head from earliest infancy, the

process becomes natural with continuous practice through the generations.

Cultural contact, however, had caused some decline in the practice. "At the
present time longheadedness is less common than it was, for owing to inter-
course with other men the custom is less Custom, the inheritance
prevalent."^^
of acquired characteristics, and cultural contact, not climate, account for the
present condition of these people.
Asia, however, is not uniform nor are all people of Asia like those of its

Mediterranean shore, for those dwelling on the Phasis in Colchis live in hot,
wooded marshes with heavy year-round rains. The water, including that of

^2 Hippoc,
Airs, Waters, Places, xii.
Hippocrates continues (xiii) to make correlations between physical types,
Ibid., xii.
types of land, and seasonal change. The greatest climatic variation is correlated with
wild and uneven land, while small seasonal variation is correlated with level land. Types
of human physiques are correlated also with wooded, well-watered mountains, light dry
land, marshy meadows, and plains of bare, parched earth. The correlations made in this
passage are physical, not mental.
14 Ibid., xiv.
86 Airs, Waters, Places

the Phasis, is stagnant. Excess of water and fog growth; the inhabi-
inhibits
tants, tall and gross, have yellowish complexions, and deep voices because they
breathe moist and turbid air/^
The asiatics lack spirit and courage and are less warlike than the Europeans
because they are subject neither to mental shocks nor to violent physical
change, "which are more likely to steel the temper and impart to it a fierce
passion than is a monotonous sameness." Hippocrates, however, recognizes
that the institutions of the Asiatic peoples also contribute to their character:
despotism and forced military service to further the ends of rulers rather than
theirown (their rewards being danger and death) might even succeed in
changing naturally brave and spirited men. Here the contrast is between the
people of Asia who live under despots and those— whether Greek or non-
Greek— who do not and who consequently live independently, work for their
own advantage, and exhibit greater bravery and belligerance.^^
Both climatic and cultural causes are given for the behavior of the Scyth-
ians, ahomogeneous people who represent the cold extreme as the Egyptians
represent the hot and who are as affected by the monotony of the cold as
the latter are by the heat. The lack of violent seasonal change induces in
them a similarity in mental and physical qualities. The people, however, are
noted for the sterility of the men, a condition which is explained by cHmatic
effects acting on the human body, and by their riding, the affliction being
characteristic of the rich Scythians, for those too poor to ride horses are less
susceptible to becoming sterile. Using this example, Hippocrates argues that
disease is not a divine visitation, but a natural outcome of specific conditions
and activities.
Equally illuminating is the discussion of steriUty in women, caused, says
Hippocrates, by the fatness and moistness of their flesh which prevents the
womb from absorbing the seed, by menstrual difficulties, and by the closing
with fat of the mouth of the womb. As proof Hippocrates contrasts the fat
and lazy Scythian women with the Scythian slave girls. "These, because of
their activity and leanness of body, no sooner go to a man than they are with
child." Here also is the famous description of the Anaries, the Scythian men
who because of their sterihty became effeminate, dressing and acting like
women and doing women's work.^^
Speaking of the Europeans, Hippocrates attempts several correlations be-
tween the characteristics of the people and those of the environment, such
as humidity, altitude, and terrain. Peoples hving in mountainous regions-
rugged, high, and watered, and with sharp seasonal changes— will be likely

^^Ibid.^ XV.
^^Ibid.y xvi.
See also Herodotus, I, 105; IV, 67, who calls them Enarees. Sarton
Ibid., xxi-xxii.
thinks this name might be the Scythian word for androgyne or homosexual. Hist, of
Science. Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, p. 369, fn. 65.
 Airs, Waters, Places 87

to have large physiques, possess endurance and courage, and tend to wildness
and ferocity. Peoples living in meadow-hke stifling hollows where hot winds
prevail more than cold will be "inclined to be broad, fleshy, dark haired;
they themselves are dark rather than fair, less subject to phlegm than to bile.
Similar bravery and endurance are not by nature part of their character, but
the imposition of law (voixos) can produce them artificially." Again, Hip-
pocrates qualifies the determinism by noting the force of social institutions.
Peoples living on high level land, windy and watered, will be tall, will re-
semble one another, but will be "rather unmanly and tame in character."
Those living on thin, dry and bare soil, with sharp seasonal contrasts, will
be hard, fair, stubborn, and independent. And peoples living in rich, soft,
well-watered lands and where the water is near the surface (becoming hot
in summer, cold in winter) with favorable seasonal change are

fleshy, ill-articulated, moist, lazy,and generally cowardly in character. Slack-

ness and sleepiness can be observed in them, and as far as the arts are concerned
they are thick-witted, and neither subtle nor sharp. But where the land is bare,
waterless, rough, oppressed by winter's storms and burnt by the sun, there you
will sec men who are hard, lean, well-articulated, well-braced, and hairy; such
natures will be found energetic, vigilant, stubborn and independent in character
and in temper, wild rather than tame, of more than average sharpness and in-
telligence in the arts, and in war of more than average courage.

These contrasts between hard and soft environments have often been com-
pared with the celebrated passage with which Herodotus ends his histories.
(See below, pp. 90-91.) Indeed, it would be difficult to overestimate the
amount of speculation about the influence of mountains, valleys, swamps,
hard and soft environments that this essay has inspired.
Although Airs, Waters, Places has several leading ideas (the close relation-
ship between culture and environment, the inheritance of acquired charac-
teristics, the prevalence of occupational disease, the influences of institutions
such as government), it owes its influence to the first of these, the eflfects of
airs, waters, and places. The essay presents the first formulation of the en-
vironmental idea, but in its ethnological part there is a far more eclectic ap-
proach to the study of culture than would appear from the more dogmatic
statements, although these were the ones that were copied by succeeding
generations.
It is significant too that only the Airs, Waters, Places has been referred to
by humanistic thinkers interested in the history of cultural anthropology and
geography. Ajicient Medicine is based on entirely diflferent presuppositions
regarding human culture: man, spurred on by necessity and his dissatisfac-
tions, conquers his environment; through the domestication of plants and
animals and the invention of cooking, he has attained his present high Stan-

ly
Hippoc, op. cit., xxiv.
88 Airs, Waters, Places

men to the study of medicine, because

dards of civilization. Necessity drove
sick men did not profit by the same way of living and the same regimen as
did healthy men. Present foods would not have been discovered had man
been satisfied with "the same food and drink as satisfy an ox, a horse, and
every animal save man ," for in the beginning they had similar nourish-
. . .

ment. Even the men of antiquity suffered from crude foods; the majority
died because their constitutions were too weak. "For this reason the ancients
too seem to me to have sought for nourishment that harmonised [sic] with
their constitution, and to have discovered that which we use now." Bread
was produced from wheat, cake from barley; they experimented with boiled
and baked foods, mixing them in various combinations to suit the human con-
stitution. This experimentation is in essence medicine, for it was carried on
for the purpose of insuring good health and providing nourishment; it is a
study that constantly goes on, for students of gymnastics and exercises are
continually discovering foods and drinks that are easily assimilated and which
make a man grow stronger.
Since, however, it was Airs, Waters, Places that influenced subsequent
theorists in history, ethnology, and geography, it is the nature of its legacy
that is of most interest. It is responsible for the fallacy that, if environmental
influences on the physical and mental qualities of individuals can be shown,
they can by extension be appHed to whole peoples. If Hippocrates had made

it clear that environment, medicine,and ethnology are three different studies,

that the influence of climate on the individual was a proper study of medicine
and that ethnology required other methods— as indeed his own descriptions
prove— the rigorous correlations derived from Hippocrates would not have
been pressed so ardently over a period lasting at least 2,300 years, nor would
it have been necessary for Arnold Toynbee in our own day to have refuted

Hippocrates' ideas in his discussion of the genesis of civilizations.^^

3. Herodotus' Interest in Custom and Environment

The contrasts in the cultural and environmental materials used by Herodotus

and Hippocrates (or an unknown author) show the different worlds in which
the two men lived, the latter being mainly interested in medicine and its re-
lated fields, the former in history, travel, customs, and differing environ-
ments. The ideas of Herodotus must to some degree be interpreted by the
reader; they are seldom stated by the historian. Among them, there seems to
be a general pessimistic attitude toward the life both of individuals and of
cities; chance plays a strong role; there are reversals of power and neither

Hippoc, Ancient Medicine, iii.

20 Toynbee, A Study of History, Vol.
I, pp. 249-271, more compactly in the Somervell

abridgement of Vols. I-VI, pp. 55-59. Toynbee himself translated parts of Airs, Waters,
Places in Greek Historical Thought, pp. 143-146 (Mentor Books).
 Airs, Waters, Places 89

weakness nor happiness is long in one place; the power of custom and the
change are characteristic emphases, but there is also
resistance to cultural
a lively interest in cultural borrowings.
Herodotus is and occa-
sensitive to contrasts in physical environments,
sionally, as in the famous passage (IX, 122) discussed below, reminiscent of
the Airs, Waters, Places, and in his descriptions of Scythia he attempts to
make correlations between environment and culture.^^
The combination of their way of life and the nature of the land, he says,
makes the Scythians virtually unconquerable, even unassailable. Attackers
of the Scythians invite their own destruction, for these nomadic peoples carry
their dwellings with them, shoot from horseback, live on their cattle and
in their wagons. The nature of the country and its rivers help them greatly
in resisting attacks. "For the land is level, well watered, and abounding in
pasture; while the rivers which traverse it are almost equal in number to
the canals of Egypt.
But for the most part environments are simply described. The air and cli-
mate of the Ionian cities are depicted as being the most beautiful in the world;
other countries are cold or damp, or hot and subject to drought.^^ The Egyp-
tians, except the Libyans, on the other hand, he believes to be the healthiest

people of the world because their chmate has no sudden changes.^^

The Greeks, as both Herodotus and Plato make amply clear, were inter-
ested in the uniqueness of the Egyptian environment (as well as in its culture
and history) and in environmental contrasts between the two countries, an
interest observable in the history of Herodotus and in the Critias, the Laws,
and the Timaeus of Plato, reverberations of which appear in the writings of
Josephus in the first century a.d. The fundamental contrast is in the water
sources of the two countries, the Egyptians obtaining theirs from the river,
the Greeks from rain. (We have already seen that a distinction is made in
the eighth strophe of The Hymn to Aten [fourteenth century B.C.] by the
Egyptians between themselves, who have the true Nile which comes forth
from the underworld, and the foreign peoples whose Nile is in the sky. See
P-38.)
The Egyptians had to do littlework, with so much ready water, while the
Greeks, dependent on rainfall, could expect both drought and inundations.

21 For Heinimann, Nomos und Physis, pp. 172-180.

a discussion of this relationship, see
The view is that Herodotus and Hippocrates had a common source in
traditional
Hecataeus; Pohlenz thought Herodotus to be the source of the Hippocratic writing,
Nestle, that Herodotus derived it from Hippocrates. Heinimann concludes that both
medicine and ethnography had a considerable prior development and that there are no
direct connections between the two which can lead to any firm dating of Airs, Waters,
Places.
22 Hdt. IV, 46-47. Quotation in chap. 47.
^^Ibid., I, 142.
^Ubid., II, 77.
90 Airs, Waters, Places

Great from periodic torrential rainfall, play an important

floods, apparently
role in the supposed history of Greek civihzation before Atlantis was destroyed
by submergence. In his conversations with the Egyptian priests, Herodotus
theorizes that continual deposition of the waters of the Nile is building up lands
so rapidly that in the future it may no longer perform its old role. Tlie priests
told him, "When Moeris was king, the Nile overflowed all Egypt below
Memphis, as soon as it rose so Httle as eight cubits"; now it requires at the very
least fifteen cubits before the land is flooded. "It seems to me, therefore, that
if the land goes on rising and growing at this rate, the Egyptians who dwell
below Lake Moeris, in the Delta (as it is called) and elsewhere, will one day,
by the stoppage of the inundations, suflFer permanently the fate which they
told me they expected would some time or other befall the Greeks." On hear-
ing that the only source of water for the Greeks was rain, the priests said,

"Some day the Greeks will be disappointed of their grand hope, and then they
will be wretchedly hungry."^^
The Egyptians on flooded lands need not break the ground with
living
the plough or the hoe; where farmers elsewhere have to work hard, the hus-
bandman inEgypt "waits till the river has of its own accord spread itself over
the fields and withdrawn again to its bed, and then sows his plot of ground,
and after sowing turns his swine into it— the swine tread in the corn— after
which he has only to await the harvest."^^
Herodotus also distinguishes between the grain and the marsh lands of
Egypt: the marsh peoples have the same customs as the rest of the Egyptians,
but they differ in resources available to them, for they make use of the lotus,
a rosehke hly, the byblus (papyrus), and some of them live entirely on fish.^^
Herodotus reveals throughout his work, as Glover and Myres have pointed
out, a keen interest in the location of mines, minerals, and food sources and
in questions of environment, economics, and social institutions, althoughhe
does interpret cultures as combinations of these elements.^^
The only instance of environmental theory in Herodotus is at the end of
the work where the speech of Cyrus resembles Hippocratic teachings. Cyrus
is urged by his countrymen newly conquered regions
to assent to living in the
where life is easier than in the remote harsh regions in which the Persians
dwell. Cyrus replies that it would be far preferable to live in the harsh environ-
ment in which they now dwell as free men, than to live in luxury as slaves in
the fertile captured valleys. It has been suggested that Herodotus may have
inserted this passage as a warning that the Persian threat still existed and that

^^Ibid., 13.
26 /^/W., 14.
27 Ibid., 92.
28 Glover, Herodotus,
pp. 1 15-1 19; Myres, "Herodotus and Anthropology," in Marett,
Anthro. and the Classics, pp. 152-157, 160-163.
 Airs, Waters, Places 91

the Greeks might learn the lesson of Cyrus, whose famous speech has interest-
ing with Toynbee's ideas of the stimulus of a hard environment in the
affinities

genesis of civiHzations. A similar thought is expressed by Xenophon, who de-

scribes the Chaldeans as a most warlike and poor people, serving for hire, who
live in mountain country, httle of which is either fertile or productive.^^

4. Location Theories and Hippocratic Influences

Thucydides continued a type of geographical explanation already discernible

in Hippocrates, although the theory of balance in health and the humors are
the cornerstones of the latter's thinking. Geographical factors such as soil,

location, siting, isolation, or maritime location, however, need not be based

on medical theory. Thus, Thucydides describes early Hellas as a place in
which migrations were very frequent, the peoples, under pressure of over-
population, moving from one place to another; these migrations affected the
fertile areas of Hellas most, such as Thessaly, Boeotia, large parts of the Pelo-
ponnesus, excepting rugged central portion, Arcadia, because they en-
its

couraged covetousness and invasion. Attica, on the other hand, enjoyed sta-
bihty; its inhabitants remained the same, for the soils were so infertile that they
offered little inducement to an invader. The stability of the Athenian cultural
tradition permitted the growth of Attica, which prospered not only because
of its own people but because of the number of refugees entering the region
until the Athenian population grew to the point that colonies had to be sent
to Ionia. The Greek colonization of Asia Minor became an indirect conse-
quence of Attica's infertile soils, providing the necessary conditions of peace
and stabiHty that led to population growth and colonization.^^
Even more perceptive of the complex cultural, economic, and environ-
mental elements making up a civilization is a short pamphlet, dating perhaps
from the early Peloponnesian War and preserved in the works of Xenophon,
commenting on land-sea relationships and the significance of the geographical
distribution of resources. The subject peoples of a land power are more likely
than those of a sea power to unite in a war of liberation, for the latter is able
to control its peoples, divided by on their own re-
the seas, who cannot live
sources, but must depend on exports and imports. Athens owes her prosperity
to her ability to draw upon the resources of various lands through her control
of the sea, and owes her civilization to the mixture of ideas coming about
through trade: "The Athenians rejoice in a cosmopolitan civilization for which
the entire Hellenic and non-Hellenic worlds have been laid under contribu-
tion " Control of the sea is important because the geographical distribution

29Hdt., IX, 122. See How and Wells, Commentary on Herod., under this passage,
and Xen., Cyr. Ill, ii, 7.
30Thuc., I, 1-2.
92 Airs, Waters, Places

of resources has enforced an interdependence among peoples. Neither timber

nor flax is produced, nor are copper and iron found in the same country, "nor
any other two or three materials in a single country, but always one here and
the other there." A
country which controls the sea prospers by using the
resources of land-based countries, dependent on one or two favorable re-
sources, which, however, are insufficient for their prosperity.^^
Isolated comments in the dialogues of Plato reveal that ideas concerning the
influence of the natural environment were current in his time also. Two pas-
sages, one in the Phaedo, the other in the Timaeus, are free of environmental
determinism. In the former, Socrates makes his famous remark about the vast-
ness of the earth, saying that we who dwell in the region extending from the
river Phasis to the Pillars of Hercules (i.e., the limits of the inhabited world),
along the borders of the sea, are just like ants or frogs by a pond and inhabit
only a small portion of it, and that many others dwell elsewhere in many similar
places.^^There is a related idea in the Timaeus that "in every place where there
isno excessive heat or cold to prevent it there always exists some human stock,
now more, now less in number."^^ Later the Egyptian priest says that the god-
dess Athena had given first to the Greeks, then to the Egyptians, an order on
earth based on the cosmic order and "she established your State, choosing the
spot wherein you [Solon] were born since she perceived therein a climate duly
blended, and how that it would bring forth men of supreme wisdom. So it was
that the Goddess, being herself both a lover of war and a lover of wisdom,
chose the spot which was likely to bring forth men most like unto herself,
and this first she established."^^ In the Lauos, Plato saw a relationship between
virtue and geographical location— similar ideas appeared later in Cicero and
Caesar— the dangers to morals being greatest with a maritime location and its
opportunities for foreign influences;^^ but his is really an attack on the evils
of culture contact, the maritime situation merely offering more convenient
opportunities for this to occur. Ideas in the Hippocratic tradition also appear
here. Districts are well or poorly endowed because of characteristics such as
climate, waters, and soils. The best district has a heavenly breeze and portions
of its land are under the care of daemons. The lawgiver should examine these
physical characteristics of districts as best he can in order to frame his laws
accordingly and he should pursue the same policy in colonizing a country .^^

Pseudo-Xenophon, Athenian Institutions^ ed. by E. Kalinka, 1913. Teubner edition,

31

2. 2-8, 11-16. Trans, in Toynbee, Greek Historical Thought, pp. 162-164, under the
title, "Tlie Influence of Sea Power on History."

Phaedo, 109b.
32 Plat,

Tim. 22E-23A. This is part of the speech of the old Egyptian priest to Solon
33 Plat,

regarding the youth of Greek civilization and the physical causes of the destruction of
civilization.
^^Ibid., 24C-D.
35 Plato, Laws, IV, 704D-705D.
36/^/^/., V, 747D-E.
 AirSy Waters, Places 93

This theme that the ruler should know his own land thoroughly in order to
frame just laws was repeated by St. Thomas Aquinas, Jean Bodin, Giovanni
Botero, and by Montesquieu.
There is no profit in attempting to reconcile these views with one another
or with Plato's idea of the divine artisan in the Timaeus, for there is no sys-
tematic body of theory here. The most is that the Timaeus
that can be said
outlines an all-embracing conception of creation and its creator and that these
ideas relating to terrestrial environments gathered from observation, common
belief, and directly or indirectly from the Hippocratic writings (with no

thought of reconciling one with the other) describes influences of a lower

order working within the grand harmony of the whole. Plato's remarks, how-
ever, like those of Hippocrates, Herodotus, and Aristotle, do give substance
to the assertion made by some modern scholars that the Greeks thought they
owed a great deal of their civilization to the advantages of a temperate Mediter-
ranean climate. Aristotle's theory is, for example, a simplified version of Hip-
pocrates' with a political interpretation. The peoples of the cold regions,
including those living in Europe, are spirited but deficient in skill and in-
telligence. They preserve their Hberty but they lack poHtical organization and
are incapable of governing others. The peoples of Asia are the opposite; they
are intelligent and inventive, but lack spirit and are in subjection and servitude.
The Greeks, living in a region intermediate between these extremes of hot and
cold, enjoy the advantages of both; they are high-spirited and intelligent. Only
the lack of unity among the Greeks prevented the formation of a universal
empire which their climate would have made possible.^^ Like Hippocrates,
Aristotle falls short of a strict determinism, for to him the Greek failure is

human and its causes are not to be sought in the physical environment.
To Aristotle the golden-mean position of Greece had the captivating quality
of being a combination of the best, not the worst, of the two extremes. With
him, the correlation between cHmate and peoples without any inter- is direct,
mediary physiological explanation; the golden mean applies to both the en-
vironment and the culture. This has been one of the most influential state-
ments ever made regarding the relation of cHmate to peoples, not because of
its originality— it could make httle claim to this— but because of the prestige of
Aristotle and his writings. To my knowledge,
has been quoted more widely
it

than any other statement by on this subject, excepting pos-

a classical writer
sibly Airs, Waters, Places, and the speech of Cyrus in Herodotus. Its his-
torical importance is that it carried the environmental theory over from medi-
cine to political and social thought, diffusing the self-flattering conclusion that
the most advanced nations are in the temperate climates.
Of more technical interest than this short variant of the Hippocratic doc-
trine in the Politics are the materials in the Problems of Aristotle, compiled

Arist., Politics, IV, 7, 1327^.

94 Airs, Waters, Places

possibly not earlier than the fifth or sixth century a.d. "The Froblevis, though
resting in the main on AristoteUan presuppositions, show considerable traces
of a materialism which was characteristic of the later Peripatetic school." The
work apparently was compiled from the Theophrastean corpus, from the
writings of the Hippocratic school, and in a few cases from the extant works
of Aristotle. "It affords interesting evidence of the variety of the studies to
which Aristotle stimulated his pupils."^^
The approach to the problems related to medicine (Book
I) and to those

relating to the effect of localityon temperament (Book XIV) is similar, and

the work demonstrates the strong and continuous influence of the Hippocratic
corpus on medical, ethnological, and geographical thinking. These problems,
often stated in the form of questions, contain within them assertions which
in modern scientific inquiry would be considered the subjects for investiga-
tion. The dominant idea in both books is that excesses of any kind produce
aberrations and distortions, and that the proper blending of qualities produces
the temperate, the mean between the extremes; like the Hippocratic treatises
to which they undoubtedly owe their inspiration, they stress the influence of
seasonal change, prevailing wind, rain, dampness, excesses of heat and cold,
and the ill effects of marshes, owing no doubt to the prevalence of malaria.
Why do those living in hollows or marshes age quickly? W\rv do we become
drowsier in marshy districts? Why do people on shipboard, even though on
the water, have a healthier color than those living in marshes?

Why are those who

under conditions of excessive cold or heat brutish
live
in character and aspect? Is For the best mix-
the cause the same in both cases?
ture of conditions benefits the mind as well as the body, but excesses of all
kinds cause disturbance, and, as they distort the body, so do they pervert the
mental temperament.'*'^
Why are the inhabitants of warm regions cowardly, and those who dwell in
cold districts courageous? Is it because there is a natural tendency which counter-
acts the effects of locality and season, since if both had the same effect mankind
would inevitably be soon destroyed by heat or cold? Now
those who are hot by
nature are courageous, and those who are cold are cowardly. But the effect of
hot regions upon those ^^'ho dwell in them is that they are cooled, while cold
regions engender a natural state of heat in their inhabitants.
Why are those \\iio live in warm regions wiser than those who dwell in cold
districts? Is it for the same reason as that for which the old are wiser than the
young? For those who live in cold regions are much hotter, because their nature
recoils owing to the coldness of the region in which they live, so that they are
very like the drunken and are not of an inquisitive turn of mind, but are coura-
geous and sanguine; but those who live in hot regions are sober because they
are cool. Now
everywhere those who feel fear make more attempt to inquire
into things than do the self-confident, and therefore they discover more. Or is

3^ Ross, Aristotle, 19.

39 Arist., Frobkmata, XIV, 7, 909^^ 1-3; 11, 909^ 38-40; 12, 910^ 1-3.
^^Ibid., I, 909^ 13-17.
 Airs, Waters, Places 95

it because the race of those who live in warm regions is more ancient, the in-
habitants of the cold regions having perished in the Flood, so that the latter stand
in the same relation to the former as do the young to the old?^^

The Proble?m are probably representative of the types of questions which

were asked and which interested men for centuries— not only the medical
practitioners but those who used these medical speculations as a means of un-
derstanding peoples and their environments.

5. The Problem of Cultural Diversity

Polybius made a more original contribution to the environmental theory than

Aristotle had made; to him the cultural miheu also exists. Hippocrates had
said that institutions could alter qualities induced by the physical environment.
Polybius carries this thought much further, describing in detail a striking
example from his native Arcadia to illustrate the force of environmental and
cultural influences. The Greek historian, a hostage of the Romans and the
chronicler of Rome's rapid rise to world dominion from the fall of Greece
to the fall of Carthage, described the differences, in Arcadia in the Pelopon-
nesus (he was born in Megalopolis), between the Cynaetheans, who had a
reputation for cruelty, lawlessness, and savagery, and the other Arcadians who
had "a certain reputation among all the Greeks for virtue, not only because of
their friendhness to strangers and kindhness in life and deeds but above all
because of their religious piety. ." The Cynaetheans owed their unpleasant
. .

qualities and their misfortunes at the hands of the Aetolians to their abandon-
ment of institutions created by the Arcadians in accordance with nature. These
institutions were centered around music, for it lay at the very core of their
existence as a people. The children sang the hymns and paeans glorifying the
gods and heroes of the country; they competed with one another in flute
festivals, in games, or, in their youth, in manly competitions. The musical
education, starting with infancy, never left them throughout life: military
marches, elaborate dances, theatricals, continued the early emphasis on the
value of music to the people. The Arcadians of old did not introduce music
out of frivolity but out of necessity: life was hard in Arcadia, the austere man-
ners of whose people were a consequence of the chilly and gloomy climate.
"To our climate all of us become adapted by necessity." Character, form, com-
plexions, and customs owe their nature to climate. The Arcadians, in order
to alleviate the strictures of a hard climate, introduced music, common as-
semblies, choruses of boys and girls together, and "in short devised all manner
of measures to tame and soften the hardness of the soul through education."
The Cynaetheans, most in need of the softening because of the special rigors
of their cHmate, did nothing, engaging merely in warfare and internecine strife.

^^Ibid., 8, gog^ 8-25; 15, 910^ 26-35.

96 Airs, Waters, Places

Polybius asks his readers to bear in mind that the Arcadians do not practice
music for the sake of luxury, and in an apostrophe, he expresses the hope that
God may allow the Cynaetheans to civilize themselves by education, espe-
cially by music, and free themselves from their savagery.^^
This is the first full exposition known to me of the idea that an environment
produces a certain kind of ethnic character, which by conscious, purposive,
and hard work, can be counteracted by cultural institutions (such as music)
which are all-pervasive. Here the transition from a primordial state (probably
of barbarism, induced by the environment) to civihzation is made by the con-
scious decision of a body of culture-heroes or elders. The conception is similar
to a dominant idea in modern historiography that the history of civilization is
the story of man from a time when nature controlled him until he controlled
nature, the difference between the two being that in modern histories the
divorcement from environmental control is ascribed, not to conscious efforts
of culture-heroes, but to the increase of knowledge, technical skill, and in-
vention.
It might be well introduce two passages from Diodorus, both
at this point to
of which may be work on the Red Sea by Agatharchides, who
fragments of a
about 16 B.C. became guardian to a young Ptolemy. They reflect contempo-
1

rary interest in the ethnology of Africa and of the shores of the Red Sea. The
first,which may come, however, from several sources, is concerned with the
origin of the human race. According to Diodorus' account, historians say the
Ethiopians were the first of all men. They were not immigrants but were
autochthonous, and the physical environment there favored the generation of
men. Men dweUing beneath the noonday sun were generated first by the earth
because the sun's heat at the generation of the universe "dried up the earth
when it was still wet and impregnated it with life" [III, 2,1]. Alas! time and the
Leakeys have dealt harshly with Diodorus, the Ethiopians, and the historians.
Olduvai gorge is far to the south where the noonday sun is also high in the
heavens, but it now seems certain they were right in claiming Africa to be
the homeland of man.
The second, which is ascribed to Agatharchides, is an interesting variant
of the usual correlations; hke Polybius, he emphasizes the hold of custom
on a people. Agatharchides contrasts countries of climatic extremes, cold
Scythia and hot upper Egypt and the troglodytic country. The inhabitants
of each of these inhospitable countries love their own so much that they would
sacrifice their lives to avoid being taken from it, for countries hold a spell over
men who have become accustomed to them, and the time spent from infancy
allows them to overcome the hardships caused by the cHmate. In twenty-four
days, he says, one could go from the coldest north to the warmest part of the
inhabited earth in the south; with such marked climatic differences "it is

^2 Polybius, IV, 20. This selection is also translated in Lovejoy and Boas, Primitivism
and Related Ideas in Antiquity^ pp. 345-347.
 Airs, Waters, Places 97

nothing surprising that both the fare and the manner of hfe as well as the
bodies of the inhabitants should be very different from such as prevail among
us" [III, 34, 8].

We have already mentioned Posidonius' contributions to the idea of a de-

signed world and his conception of the earth— influenced by the sun, the stars,

and the moon— as a habitat of the human race.

The problem of the diversity of peoples on earth, however, remained as a
perennial puzzle: the unity of the human race living in its earthly environment,
the diversity of its from one another, and living in widely
peoples, diflFering
varying environments. Posidonius seems (we cannot be sure) to have been one
of the earliest thinkers to have considered these two aspects of the problem
of unity and diversity. Earher writers like Plato and Aristotle were concerned
with teleology and design and climatic influence, but their ideas were too
casual; they did not relate environmental ideas closely to the idea of design.
It is by no means certain that Posidonius did either, but it is likely. Posidonius
borrowed ideas from the Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places, and seems
to have been one of the intermediaries who kept the Hippocratic ideas alive
for later thinkers.^^ Too Httle is known in detail about Posidonius' writings as
a coherent whole, but he apparently had more to say on environmental ques-
tions relating to human beings than any writer before him, perhaps including
Hippocrates and Aristotle. Posidonius was also deeply involved in the meaning
of history and in the ethnology of primitive peoples. He continued the histories
of Polybius, inspired by his predecessor's theme: "The providence of God had
imposed on Rome the task of building an empire, and this empire was actually
working out to the material and moral benefit of its subjects." To Posidonius
"apparently, the commonwealth of God was reflected in the world-wide
Roman republic, and the unity of history was realized in the unity of the
Roman Empire."^^ Posidonius was also a student of the ethnology of the Gauls
and the Germans, whom he probably "did not distinguish from the Celts,"
and he has a place in the history of the comparative method because of his
behef that primitive peoples now existing represent early conditions in the
history of mankind.^^
Only fragments of Posidonius' works have survived, but these show clearly
his intense interest in ethnology and justify the belief that he was profoundly
interested in studying cultures and that he made many firsthand investigations
of their customs, especially in Gaul and Spain. (Caesar used Posidonius as a
source for his description of the Celts.)
The works of Strabo and Athenaeus are notably rich in illustrations of this

Berger, Gesch. d. wiss. Erdkunde der Griechen, p. 545.

Piero Treves, "Historiography, Greek," in OCD, p. 433.
^^Piero Treves, "Posidonius (2)," in OCD, p. 722. In my opinion, this short article
is the best statement of Posidonius' leading ideas, the most objective assessment of his

significance; it is refreshing to read it after the long, speculative, and polemical writings
of the Germans.
98 Airs, Waters, Places

interest.^^ Most of their citations of Posidonius, however, are to customs, eco-

nomic activities, techniques (such as the mining operations of Spain), straight-
forward descriptions without causal explanation. Posidonius is a source of
facts; one can see this in Strabo's dependence on him for much of the Spanish
and Celtic materials. It is known too from the works of Strabo, Galen, and
Vitruvius, that Posidonius was very interested in the causal relationship be-
tween environment and culture, perhaps pursuing this interest even more in-
tensely than is suggested in the surviving fragments. Strabo has criticized his
fellow Stoic for being "much too fond of imitating Aristotle's propensity for
diving into causes, a subject which we [Stoics] scrupulously avoid, simply
because of the extreme darkness in which all causes are enveloped."^^
Posidonius divided the earth regionally in two distinct ways: into the
klimata and into zones. (These caused much confusion in later commentaries.)
The klimata have nothing to do with modern concepts of climate. In antiquity
the seven klimata were divisions of the habitable earth extending from the
parallel at the mouth of the Borysthenes (the Dnieper) in the north to that
of theMeroe in the south. The kHmata were marked off, one from the other,
by half-hour differences in the length of the longest day; they were not
climatic zones, but regions of significant latitudinal differences.^^
Posidonius apparently was one of the first to investigate more closely the
influence of solar radiation on temperature in each of the klimata; he did not,
however, make correlations between the khmata and the characteristics of
peoples, but between the latter and the five zones.^^ Two of them, the Arctic
and the Equatorial regions, being too cold or too hot, could be excluded as
uninhabitable, leaving three in the temperate part of the earth. The zones were
not set off by imaginary lines, as is the Arctic circle; their boundaries varied
with the country. The northern part of this temperate zone bordered on the
cold Arctic, the southern, on the hot equatorial regions. Since only the north-
ern hemisphere was inhabited, these three zones in the temperate regions of the
earth were of concern to peoples of the habitable world.
Posidonius made which Strabo also criti-
a further division of zones (for
cized him) which had nothing to do with the latitude. These were narrow
bands, bordering on each tropic, which were divided into east and west zones,
probably acknowledging here that differences among peoples could not be
explained by latitude alone; there might be differences among peoples living
in the eastern and western portions of the same zone. This division possibly
owes its existence to the known contrast between the Indians and the
^^Ninck, Die Entdeckung von Europa durch die Griechen, pp. 8, 193-200, 241-245.
There are many passing references to Posidonius in Athenaeus, but see especially Deip-
nosophistae IV, 151^-153^, 154^ for quotations from Posidonius on the Celts and the
Parthians. These are straight ethnological accounts. For further interesting descriptions
see IV, 210K
^7 Strabo, II, iii, 8. Hamilton trans.

Honigman, Die Sieben Klimata, pp. 4-9, 25-30.

Strabo, II, iii, 7. Honigman, op. cit., p. 25.
 Airs, Waters, Places 99

Ethiopians, both of whom, if we follow Eratosthenes, were supposed to dwell

in about the same latitude, the Indians, however, being more hardy and less

dried out by the sun's heat than the Ethiopians.^^

Like Hippocrates, Posidonius regarded the climate as an important cause
affecting the nature of a people. According to Galen, Posidonius thought that
mixtures of airs influenced the activity of the body, which in turn excited
the activity of the mind, and that the environmental conditions could explain
why men were cowardly or courageous and why they loved pleasure or
worked hard.^^ There is similar evidence from Strabo, whose indignation at
Posidonius for carrying these correlations too far prompted the famous pas-
sage, to be discussed shortly, in which he criticizes the determinism of en-
vironmental theories.
Indeed, Strabo has preserved an interesting discussion of the problems of
mental, linguistic, and cultural causation in ethnology and history. He ap-
proves of Posidonius' method in looking for the etymology of names "in
nations of one stock and community; thus between the Armenians, Syrians,
and Arabians, there is a strong affinity both in regard to dialect, mode of life,

peculiarities of physical conformation, and above all in the contiguity of the

countries. Mesopotamia, which is a motley of the three nations, is a proof of
this; for the similarity amongst these three is very remarkable." Strabo adds—

and it is not certain here whether he is expressing his own views or those of
Posidonius— that although the same characteristics are dominant in all, there
may be differences owing to latitude between the Armenians of the north, the
Arabs of the south, and the Syrians between them.^^
Strabo also quotes Posidonius' ideas regarding life in two narrow zones,
lying beneath the tropics and divided in two by them, which have the sun
directly overhead for about half a month each year. The wastes of the hot
and arid and sandy regions are proof of the power of the burning sun.
Silphium and parched grains resembhng wheat are the only plants that can
grow there. There are no mountains to attract the clouds, and no rivers. "The
consequence is that the various species are born with woolly hair, crumpled
horns, protruding lips, and wide nostrils; their extremities being as it were
"^^
gnarled. Within these zones also dwell the Ichthyophagi [the fish eaters].
This passage apparently groups both human and animal qualities together.
It is a great loss that the thought of Posidonius as a coherent whole must be

50 See Strabo, II, iii, 7-8.

5^ For the fragments of Posidonius, see Jacoby, FGrH, II A, pp. 222-317, and com-
mentary lie, pp. 154-220. On differences among peoples. Fragment 28 (= Strabo II,
2, 1-3, 8); Fr. 80 (= Strabo XVII 3, 10); Fr. 102 (= Galen, de plac. Hipp, et Flat. 5);
Fr. 120 (= Manilius IV, 7i5ff); Fr. 121 Vitruvius VI, i); Fr. 122 {= Pliny, II, NH
80 [189-190]). The ethnography of Posidonius, with references, is reviewed thoroughly
by Triidinger, Studien zur Gesch. der griechisch-rojiiischen Ethnogr., pp. 80-126, who
objects to the identification of the passage in Manilius with Posidonius' writings.
^2 See Strabo I, ii,
34.
5^ Strabo, II, ii,
3.
lOO Airs, Waters, Places

derived from the work of others. Strabo's geography has survived almost in-
tact; reinforcing his fame is the added prestige of survival, but despite the
painstaking researches of modern times and the impressive works of Reinhardt,
Posidonius is still a controversial figure. It is not known what
precisely and to
degree, for example, his environmental ideas are related to astrological eth-
nology. Posidonius believed in the unity of the cosmos and in the reality of
cosmic influences on the earth. Reinhardt thinks his astrology and astrological
ethnology to be rational, free of the later excesses of astrology in the Roman
Empire; these ideas are rational because they involve the study of the influence
of the sun on terrestrial hfe, of the moon on the tides, and thus interpret the
earth as part of the cosmos under the influence of cosmic forces. Boll, on the
other hand, believes Posidonius to be the chief means by which astrology
entered the Roman Republic. It is known that he was different in this respect

from his teacher, Panaetius, who had no patience with astrology. Boll's view,
moreover, has been disputed by Triidinger.^^
It may be that Posidonius' fundamental position was that the heavenly
bodies, reflecting the sympathy which, like law, rules the cosmos, determine
the general influences affecting hfe on this planet, and the influences having
local and specific apphcation might be sought for in the environmental con-
ditions existing on earth, although astrology could also be used for such de-
tails as well. There seems to be little doubt (as Cicero's protests, to be discussed

shortly, reveal) that astrology had a strong hold on thought regarding man's
place in the cosmos, that theories of environmental influence were more sub-
ject to criticism, analysis, revision, and qualification owing to evidences from
everyday observation than were general theories about the influence of the
heavenly bodies. One distinguishes also between cosmic sympathy and the
crude nativities of popular astrology. Galen, in the second century a.d., a be-
hever in teleology and in a designed world, a worshipper of Hippocrates and
a believer in environmental ideas in the tradition of both Hippocrates and
Posidonius, was hounded by a Roman populace dominated by the crudest
forms of astrology.

6. Ethnology and Environment in Selected Roman Writings

No doubt the ancient theories of environmental causation cluster around Hip-
pocrates and Posidonius. In the secondary hterature, however, especially the
German, Posidonius is everywhere, writing and thinking everything, and

^*On Posidonius and astrology see Boll-Bezold, Sternglaube und Sterndeutung, p. 23,
"Im Anfang des I. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. aber steht in Poseidonios, dem grossen Stoiker,
die Astrologie auf der Hohe der damaligen griechischen Wissenschaft"
) , p. 23. See also

pp. 26, 99-100. Cumont, Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans, pp.
40, 46-48. See, however, Triidinger, op. cit., pp. 117, 1 19-126, where the more environ-
mental ideas of Posidonius are stressed, together with the importance of the sun and
the khmata. He was not a Stub enethno graph'' like Timaeus or Agatharchides, p. 119.
 Airs, Waters, Places lOI

everyone is copying from him. A considerable literature tries to identify his

work in the work of others; Cicero, Vitruvius, Ptolemy, and Caesar im-
mediately come to mind. I have preferred, however, to discuss many of these
passages as they appear in each work, even though it may be true that many
of the ideas are derived from Posidonius.
Neither is any doubt that the effects of cHmate are in the minds of
there
many Roman writers. We need not list them all for they have corroboratory,
not theoretical, significance. Choerilus of Issus, in Horace's opinion a wretched
poet but a favorite bard of Alexander the Great, was paid in Philip's royal
coin "for his uncouth and ill-formed verses." Alexander, whose taste in painters
and brass molders was good, had so little in poetry that Horace says one
would think him born in the heavy air of Boeotia.
Both Seneca and Florus later mention the harshness and severity of the
frozen north, both believing the men living there possess characters as savage
as their climate. Athenaeus (fl. about a.d. 200), following Polybius, also sees
a correlation between the hardness and austerity of a people and a cold and
gloomy climate.
Furthermore, Lucretius closes his poem on the theme of environmental
biology. Epidemics of external origin come in Hke clouds and mists or they
arise from an earth rotted by drenching rain or by the pelting of sunbeams.
He is impressed by the effect on people of climates to which they are not

accustomed, with the difficulties of acclimatization, noting climatic contrasts

between England and Egypt, the climate of the Crimea, of Cadiz southward
toward places where men with black skins live. These four regions are dis-
tinguished by the four winds and quarters of the sky, and their inhabitants
differ in complexion, features, and susceptibility to disease. Lucretius is only
incidentally concerned with psychological and cultural effects, but he is very
interested in the distribution and etiology of disease. He notes the incidence of
elephantiasis in Egypt, gout of the feet in Attica, eye diseases in Achaia. Dif-
ferences in the air make other regions unfit for other bodily members or
organs. With these remarks, Lucretius introduces the long description of the
plague at Athens with which the poem ends. The air creeps in like a mist or
cloud, it contaminates a region, settling on the grain or on other human or
animal plant food, or men inhale the suspended elements. The same deadly
results are achieved if men move to bad air or if moves to them.
the bad air
Accordingly, Lucretius traces the course of the Athenian plague from the
heart of Egypt—where he thinks it originated— and the poem ends with a
description of its miseries.^^
Cicero had learned much from his teacher Posidonius and had used many
of the latter's writings as a basis for his own works, but he lacks Posidonius'

^5 Horace, Epistles II, i, 244. Seneca, De ira, II, 15, De consolatione ad Helviam, 7;
Florus III, 3; Ath. XIV, 626. Lucr., De reriim natura, VI, 1 138-1286 (based on the Latham

translation). See also Bailey's commentary Lucr., Vol. 3, pp. 1723-1744.

I02 Airs, Waters, Places

interest in geographical matters and subjects. The distrust of a maritime site

for cities, already manifest in Plato, reappears in the writings of Cicero. If port
cities participate in the advantages of international trade, they also import
foreign ideas, which contribute to an unsettling of life, drawing people away
from their ancient customs and traditions. A maritime location causes men's
minds to go wandering; they have hopes, dreams, temptations, desires for
luxury, incited by the commerce of the sea. Fear of culture contact was a
recurring theme in ancient writings; it appears among writers so widely spaced
in time as Herodotus, Plato, Cicero, and Strabo. Cicero blamed the overthrow
of Carthage and Corinth (and indeed of all Greece) on these disadvantages
peculiar to maritime cities.

How could Romulus have acted "with a wisdom more divine" in selecting
a river site for Rome near the sea, which had none of the drawbacks of a
maritime location? He must have had a "divine intimation that the city would
one day be the seat and hearthstone of a mighty empire; for scarcely could a
city placed upon any other site in Italy have more easily maintained our present
widespread dominion." Though in the midst of a pestilential region [i.e., the
Pontine Marshes] Rome is healthful, for it has its springs and its hills "which
not only enjoy the breezes but at the same time give shade to the valleys
below."^^ Similar sentiments were expressed later by Strabo.
In an arresting passage, Cicero shows his awareness of environmental the-
ories based on the humors, and his impatience with an exaggerated applica-
tion of them to particular situations, his criticism, however, showing even
greater impatience with the fatalism and astrology of the Stoics Chrysippus
and Posidonius. The passage also reveals the hardiness of the idea that moist-
ness is associated with lack of mental vigor.

We see the wide difference between the natural characters of different locali-
ties: we notice that some are healthy, others unhealthy, that the inhabitants of
some it were overcharged with moisture, those of others
are phlegmatic and as
parched and dried up; and there are a number of other very wide differences
between one place and another. Athens has a rarefied climate, which is thought
also to cause sharpness of wit above the average in the population; at Thebes
the climate is dense, and so the Thebans are stout and sturdy. All the same the
rarefied air of Athens will not enable a student to choose between the lectures
of Zeno, Arcesilas and Theophrastus, and the dense air of Thebes will not make a
man try to win a race at Nemea rather than at Corinth. Carry the distinction
further: tell me, can the nature of the locality cause us to take our walk in
Pompey's Porch rather than in the Campus? in your company sooner than in
someone else's? on the 15th of the month rather than on the ist?

It is not environmental but astrological theory that Cicero is ridiculing here;

if these environmental influences cannot be used to explain individual deci-
sions and personal predilections, neither can astrological influences be used

56 Cic, Rep. II, 4-6.

 AirSy Waters, Places

for like purposes. The condition of the heavenly bodies "may influence some
"^^
things, but it certainly will not influence everything.
One must not, however, give the impression that classical ethnology was
always concerned with finding or criticizing causal explanations of a physical
nature. Much of it was descriptive. In Caesar's ethnology, for example (some
of which thought to be derived from Posidonius), sharp contrasts are made
is

among such peoples as the Gauls, the Romans, and the Helvetii, but the ex-
planations of these differences are cultural, not environmental: the isolation
and lack of contact of the Belgae insure continuing qualities of bravery and
hardness among them; cultural contact, as has happened with the contempo-
rary Gauls compared to those of former days, brings about a softness and
a diminution in the old hardness and belHgerency. Caesar shows also a marked
distrust of a maritime life and maritime situation in degrading and softening
a people through the adoption of foreign customs.
Tacitus' ethnology is like Caesar's: in general it is straightforward descrip-
tion without theoretical emphasis. In Agricola, however, Tacitus discusses
possible resemblances between the and those
original inhabitants of Britain
of the continent, especially resemblances of the people of southeastern England
to the Gauls. Did they share a common origin {durante originis vi)? Was
it the similar cHmates (positio caeli) of the two lands, Gaul and England,

which extend outward in opposite directions? Tacitus rejects the cHmatic

hypothesis, finding more credible the idea that the Gauls themselves occupied
the neighboring island of England.
But there is neither philosophy nor bias here, for elsewhere Tacitus says
that the Mattiaci closely resemble the Batavi, but differ from them in that
their spirit is invigorated by the soil and air of their country.^^

7. Strabo's Eclecticism

Strabo was a more eclectic thinker on cultural geography than his predeces-
sors. The earth he seems to regard somewhat as a stage, its relief being the
background and setting in which historical events take place. Adopting the
Greek idea of the olKovfievr] Strabo says that the geographer should con-
,

cern himself only with the inhabited earth; his is an early and vigorous claim
for the consideration of cultural and human geography and for the study of
those parts of the earth where human beings Hve and use their environment.^^
In a famous passage on the habitability of Europe, Strabo says that good man-
agement can make wintry and mountainous areas habitable, the Greeks owing

57 Cic, De fato, IV, 7-8.

58 Caesar, The Gallic Wars, Bk. I; A. Handford's translation, The
Bk. VI, 1 1-20. In S.
Conquest of Gaul (Penguin from Books I and VI
Classics), the ethnological materials
are placed at the beginning of the work. Tac, Agr., XI, 2; Germ., 29.
59 Strabo, II, v, 34.
 Airs, Waters, Places

their success in this to economy in government, their arts, and their tech-
niques. The Romans also had taught commerce to many who were in total
ignorance of it.

There are echoes of Hippocrates and of Herodotus in his discussion of a

hard environment. "Where the chmate is equable and mild, nature herself

does much towards the production of these advantages. As in such favoured

which are sterile generate bravery
regions everything inclines to peace, so those
and however, did not apply the idea without
a disposition to war."^^ Strabo,
qualification to all cases. Speaking of the tribes in northern Spain, he says
that their rough and savage manners are the result of their wars and their
isolation, but these characteristics have been softened because they are at
peace and because of their contact with the Romans. "Wherever these [in-
fluences] are not so much experienced people are harsher and more savage.
It is probable that this ruggedness of character is increased by the barrenness

of the mountains and some of the places which they inhabit."^^ Augustus had
put a stop to their wars and Tiberius had introduced among them a cultural
polity. The combination of environmental and cultural influences is reminis-
cent of Hippocrates and Polybius, but Strabo applied these explanations to
wider and to different cultural situations.
vistas
Strabo discusses at some length the environmental conditions of Italy and
their influence on Roman ascendancy: it is island-like with its seas and its
northern frontier mountains; its harbors, while few, are good; its situation
enables it "to possess many advantages of atmosphere and temperature of
climate, in which both animals and plants, and in fact all things available for
sustaining life, may be accommodated with every variety both of mild and
severe temperature. ." Owing to the Apennines the whole land is provided
. .

with "the advantages of the best productions both of hill and plain." "Italy,
likewise, being situated in the very midst of the greatest nations, I allude to
Greece and the best provinces of Asia, is naturally in a position to gain the
ascendency, since she excels the circumjacent countries both in the valour
of her population and in extent of territory, and by being in proximity to
them seems to have been ordained to bring them into subjection without
difliculty."^^
Like Posidonius, Strabo was a Stoic and there were hints of this influence
in his writings,but he resisted what to him were the dogmatic correlations
of Posidonius. In one of the most famous of the ancient theoretical statements
about culture and the environment, Strabo criticizes the idea of design and
causal relationships between peoples and their environment:

In fact, the various arrangements [of a country] are not the result of pre-
meditation, any more than the diversities of nations or languages; they all depend
on circumstances and chance. Arts, forms of government, and modes of life,

60 Strabo, II, v, 26.

61 Strabo, III, iii, 8.
62 Strabo, VI, iv, i.
 .

AirSy Waters, Places 105

arising from certain [internal] springs, flourish under whatever climate they may
be situated; climate, however, has its influence, and therefore while some pecu-
liarities are due to the nature of the country, others are the result of institutions
and education. It is not owing to the nature of the country, but rather to their
education, that the Athenians cultivate eloquence, while the Lacedaemonians do
not; nor yet the Thebans, who are nearer still. Neither are the Babylonians and
Egyptians philosophers by nature, but by reason of their institutions and educa-
tion. In like manner, the excellence of horses, oxen, and other animals, results not
alone from the places where they dwell, but also from their breeding. Posidonius
confounds all these distinctions.^^

Strabo was born in Amasia, the capital of the Pontic kingdom (southwest
of the of Samsun in Turkey) about 64 B.C. and he died about
modern port
mature years were spent in the reigns of Augustus and of Tiberius.
A.D. 24; his
His geography was written purposely as a contribution to government and
administration, at a time when Augustus was encouraging the trade of the
Empire.^^ The geography are the culmination
descriptions of peoples in his
of fact gathering which had gone on for four hundred years and was to con-
tinue, after Strabo's death, in less impressive form, notably in the works
of Pliny. Something happened to Strabo which must have also happened as
an aftermath of Alexander's invasions and discoveries and certainly happened
after the age of discovery and at the end of the nineteenth century: the accu-
mulation of knowledge regarding the world's peoples and their remarkable
diversity put great strains on simpler causal explanations that had been satis-
factory in the past. That is the reason for the wavering— and even the incon-
sistency—of Strabo. Some of the ideas are traditional, some are based on
contemporary observation. Causal explanations had to be more eclectic than
they had been before, as differences in language and ways of life became ap-
parent on a vaster scale, just as geographers at the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury, with all its discoveries, became impatient with the explanations of their
immediate predecessors. Strabo's geography is the high point of classical
cultural-geographical theory; after it there is little, either in PHny, in Ptolemy,
or in Vitruvius which is as satisfactory or as stimulating. In his pages, so full
of human activity, exploration, and techniques, dogmatic explanations have
an uneasy tenure, and there is a solid reason (even with the confusion of his
sources) for the admiration of Strabo by modern geographers.^^

^3 Strabo, II, iii, 7.

®* On
Augustus' encouragement of empire trade, see Charlesworth, Trade-Routes and
Commerce of the Roman Empire, pp. 9-13; see also Charlesworth's appreciation of
Strabo, pp. xiv-xv, 1 3

See Bunbury's fine chapters on Strabo in Vol. II of A History of Ancient Geography.

On Strabo's neglect of Latin writers in his geography, see Vol. II, p. 216. The neglect
itself teaches a lesson in the consequences of physical or other barriers to the inter-
change of knowledge and ideas. "But we cannot wonder if Strabo, writing at Amasia,
was ignorant of literary works that were well known at Rome, when we find that his
own great work, notwithstanding its importance and its great merits, remained for a
long period comparatively unknown, and is not even once cited by Pliny in the vast
array of authorities which he has brought together."
io6 Airs, Waters, Places

8. ViTRuvius ON Architecture

In Vitruvius' work on architecture there is the most extensive discussion of

culture and environment since the time of Hippocrates with the possible ex-
ceptions of Posidonius and Strabo. Modern scholars have emphasized, how-
ever, that the environmental theories and the theory of cultural development
of Vitruvius are derived from Posidonius. Nevertheless, let us discuss them as
they appear in Vitruvius for they are pertinent to his tasks as well. Four ideas
are of interest. The first three are well developed, the last is mentioned inci-
dentally: the relation of chmate ( i ) to the problems of architecture and (2) to
the nature of peoples; the development of the house; and the effects of cul-
tural contact.
Vitruvius' discussion of climate and architecture reminds one of the similar
discussion in the first part of Airs, Waters, Places: fortified towns should be
located on a high site, without mist or frost, and in a temperate climate away
from marshes; summer heat has a weakening effect on both healthful and un-
healthful places, while in winter even unhealthful districts are much more
healthful. Hot winds should be avoided, for bodies are composed of the four
elements and ifone of them, like heat, predominates "it destroys and dissolves
all the others with violence." The human constitution is much better adapted

to cold than to heat, for those removed from cold to heat waste away, while
those going from a hot to a cold climate of the north even become more
healthy. A temperate climate is best for balance and healthfulness, a conclu-
sion drawn from the theory of the mixing of the humors.
Marshes and heat— malaria and hot weather— seem to have been the main
fears of the ancient physicians and architects. The emphasis on heat (that
is, fire), if those who stress Vitruvius' dependence on Posidonius are correct,

follows from the significance of fire in the Stoic philosophy.^^

Later Vitruvius makes correlations between zones and cultural and biolog-
ical types. This portion of Vitruvius' work presumably has been derived
entirely from Posidonius; certainly Vitruvius has forgotten the refinements
of zonation just as Strabo claims Posidonius forgot them, in the sweeping con-
trastsbetween the north and the south.
His reasons, however, for discussing these questions are the practical ones
of the architect: houses should be adapted to climatic conditions so that "we
may amend by art what nature, if left to herself, would mar." The moist at-
mosphere of the extreme northern cold does not draw out moisture from the

6^ On Vitruvius' dependence on Posidonius, see Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I,

p. 360,
and Reinhardt, Poseidonios, pp. 43, 79-83, 402. Vitr., I, iv, i, 4-6, 8. The element theory
is used to explain the adaptability of birds, fishes, and land animals to their environment,

I, iv, 7. Vitruvius also discusses pasturage and food of cattle as indicators of healthful

qualities, I, iv, 10; like Hippocrates, he is very sensitive to the dangers of marshes, I,
iv, 11-12. Earlier Vitruvius stresses the necessity of the architect's studying medicine
because of the /cAt/xara, air, healthful siting, and waters. I, i, 10.
 Airs, Waters, Places 107

body, and the people have a large blood supply, which accounts for their
bravery in war. The tall, fair people with straight red hair, the Germans or
the Gauls, are helpless before fever. The cold damp air also gives a heavy
pitch to the voice, and the the mind, chilled by a dense, moist at-
body and
mosphere, are sluggish, proved by observing the activity of snakes in
as is

warm and in cold weather. The peoples of the north are courageous, but they
are likely to lose the advantage of this quality through lack of judgment.
Contrary conditions exist in the south, whose peoples are exposed to the
direct rays of the sun; there too much water is drawn out from the bodies,
leaving little blood, and although they endure fever and heat easily, they are
timid in battle because they lack the strong blood of the northern peoples.
The southern peoples are short and swarthy, their hair is curly, their eyes
black, their legs strong. Their voices, unlike those of the northern peoples,
are shrill, a combination of the warm and dry elements, and the heat and
rarity of the atmosphere do not oppress the body nor the mind as the dense
atmosphere of the north does, and they are keenly inteUigent, although they
lack courage because it is sucked out of them by the heat of the sun. Pos-
sibly Vitruvius drawing here on personal knowledge of the ethnology of
is

North Africa, for hewas in the African war of 47-46 B.C., landing with
Caesar at Hadrumentum, the modern Sousse in Tunisia, and it is the desert
peoples of these regions he seems to be describing; the observations of the
Germanic were probably derived from Posidonius. His explanation of
tribes
the contrast between the people of the warm desert and those of the colder
regions of northwestern Europe is the familiar physiological explanation based
on the theory of the humors.^'' Like Aristotle on the Greeks, Vitruvius, with
becoming modesty, declares "the truly perfect territory," located between
the extremes, "is that which is occupied by the Roman people." Combining an
idea of providential design with the environmental theory and adding a pinch
of astrology, Vitruvius concludes that Italy by her preeminence breaks "the
courageous onsets of the barbarians, and by her strength of hand thwarts the
desires of the southerners. Hence, it was the divine intelligence that set the
city of the Roman people in a peerless and temperate country, in order that
it might acquire the right to command the whole world." With this avowal,

so modern in its identification of divine purpose with national pohcy, Vitru-

vius returns to the task at hand: to make houses "suitable in plan to the
peculiarities of nations and races, since we have the expert guidance of nature
herself to our hand."^^
One however an entirely different side of Vitruvius in the theory of
sees
cultural development derived from the theory of the origin and development
of the house. This too, it has been said, comes from Posidonius. All mankind
lived like beasts in a simple state of savagery until the accidental discovery of

67 Vitr. VI, i, 2-9.

^^Ibid., 10-12.
io8 Airs, Waters, Places

fire made possible the establishment of society; the sounds made by individuals
around the fire led to speech and language, later to the deliberative assembly
and to social intercourse, and these conditions were favorable to the con-
struction of shelters. Improvements in shelters were made through imitation
and the application of intelligence and industry, leading to further advances
in carpenters' skills, later to other arts and techniques, making possible the
transition from a rude culture to a civilization. The simple huts of olden times
had developed into houses with symmetry, built on foundations. In the con-
temporary thatched or oak-shingled roofs of the houses of Gaul, Spain,
Lusitania, Aquitania, the Caucasus, Colchis (between the Black Sea and the
Caucasus), regions where carpenters could draw on a plentiful supply of
trees, and even in the Phrygian houses (in Asia Minor) where wood was
scarce, Vitruvius notes house types which reveal both the steps in the develop-
ment of the house and regional adaptations and inventions owing to ingenuity
in using available local materials. Nature had given men senses, as she had
the beasts, but she also gave them the power of thought and understanding,
through which they had conquered the animals and advanced from building
to other arts and sciences, passing in this way "from a rude and barbarous
mode of life to cultivation and refinement. "^^ It was a theory of independent
invention. The theoretical history is similar to the developmental theories of
modern times, using the comparative or the historical method, in which the
psychic unity of man is assumed, similar inventions taking place at various
unrelated places throughout time, in response to environmental conditions
which, granting similar intellectual endowment among all peoples, call forth
similar answers to similar problems. In these two divergent approaches of
Vitruvius, there is moreover, a suggestion of the differences in approach,
already described, between the Airs, Waters, Places and the Ancient Medicine
of Hippocrates.
Vitruvius says of a spring at the hill summit of HaHcarnassus, that it had
an evil reputation for inducing an unnatural lewdness among those who drank
itswaters; but the waters were not at fault, for a Greek colonist had set up a
shop near the spring and the water attracted the barbarians (whom the colonists
previously had driven off to the mountains), who in their meetings with the
Greeks gave up their own customs. "Hence this water acquired its peculiar
reputation, not because it really induced unchastity, but because those barbar-
ians were softened by the charm of civilization."^^
Two ideas of Vitruvius, the influence of climate, and cultural development
through a series of stages, reveal the antiquity of two different approaches
which have strongly influenced much of the modern study of culture itself
and of culture in relation to environment. Each has different presuppositions,
and consequently different kinds of results are to be expected of them.
^^Vitr. II, i, 1-7; quotation in par. 6.
"^^Ibid., viii, 11-12; quotation in par. 12.
 Airs, Waters, Places

Historically, the environmental theory has been essentially a static theory.

Peoples and cultures are as they are because of environmental conditions,
although it is true that these can be modified by human institutions. The cul-
ture is often considered to be a response to the environment, reinforcing or
counteracting its influences, but in actual fact neither cultures nor environ-

ments are studied as a whole. Neither does the environmental theory fit in well
with cultural change that is not caused by environmental change, and it is
inhospitable to the consequences of cultural contact.
In ancient and modern times, the history of the influence of the environ-
mental theory has been disappointing; the correlations so slavishly copied re-
placed study and independent thought. The old theory served a useful purpose
in calling attention to the diversity of peoples and environments; but the next
study of the spread of human cultures over different environments
step, the
and the consequent differences among them in the way they made use of
their resources was not taken. But this point of view, engulfed by the tediously
repeated influences, was not clearly and systematically formulated until the
nineteenth century.
In the idea of the development of a culture through an ideal series of stages,
the physical environment plays only a generalized role; it is the inventiveness
and the psychic unity of man that count, for men spurred on by environ-
ments remote from one another will arrive at the same or similar techniques,
arts, inventions. Once this initial environmental stimulus is acknowledged, the

subsequent emphasis is on the cultural evolution and the stages which char-
acterize it; the universal phenomenon is the development itself, although
there may be minor deviations owing to local environmental differences. The
changes which a culture makes in its environment are almost completely
ignored in both approaches; since ancient times the environmental changes
made by man, and environmental influences on him, have had an independent
history, they were never reconciled with one another, and their different pre-
suppositions were not examined until the nineteenth century.
Pliny's environmental theory is of interest chiefly because it shows the con-
tinuing influence of Hippocratic ideas, and perhaps also of Posidonius (who
is one of the authorities listed generally by Pliny in the second book of his

Natural History), and because Pliny applies the climatic theory to the origin
of racial differences. He contrasts the Ethiopians "burnt by the heat of the
heavenly body near them" and the peoples of the cold north with their
white skins and straight, blond hair: "The latter are fierce owing to the
rigidity of their climate but the former wise because of the mobility of
theirs." Men are tall in both regions owing to the "pressure of the fires" in
the one and to "the nourishing effect of the damp" in the other. The middle
part of the earth, a blending of extremes, has "tracts that are fertile for all

sorts of produce," men are of medium height, are also a blending even in
complexion; "customs are gentle, senses clear, intellects fertile and able to
I lO Airs, Waters, Places

grasp the whole of nature; and they also have governments, which the outer
races never have possessed, any more than they have ever been subject to
the central races, being quite detached and solitary on account of the sav-
agery of the nature that broods over those regions."'^^ This passage also shows
the tenacity of the idea that temperate climates are suited for civilization and
that nature in the temperate regions lacks the wildness and the savagery of
the extremes; it also illustrates how climatic explanations were used to account
for differences among peoples which might have been explained by racial
or cultural intermixture.

9. Critiques of Philo and Josephus

Critiques of the role of environmental influence in Greek civilization were

made both by (30 b.c.-a.d. 45) and by Josephus (born a.d.
Philo the Jew
37/38). Philo compares the cosmos to a great city {megalopolis) with one
constitution and one law, "the law (logos) of nature, commanding what
should be done and forbidding what should not be done." Cities on earth,
variously located and unhmited in number, have different constitutions and
laws, "for individually they have invented and added new customs and laws.
The cause of this is the unwiUingness not only of Greeks to mingle and asso-
ciate with barbarians, and of barbarians with Greeks, but also that of each
race in regard to its own stock." Philo criticizes the Greek explanations of
this variety in constitutions and laws; environmental explanations, "unfavor-
able seasons, sterility,poor soil, the site, that it is maritime or inland or in-
sular or on the mainland or suchlike things," are not the true causes, which
are covetousness and mistrust of one another. It is thus the cultural milieu;
covetousness and mistrust make them dissatisfied with the decrees of nature;
"they call laws the things which seem to communities of like-thinking people
to have general utility." Individual constitutions are an addition to the natural
constitution, particular laws, additions to the natural.^^
And Josephus' defense of the Jews against various slanders leveled at them
by Apion becomes methods of the Greek historians:
in fact a criticism of the
he adroitly argues that past natural catastrophes have affected Greek ideas
about themselves; Hke Philo, he sees the importance of culture and tradition
(for example in the meticulously accurate record-keeping) in molding a
people's history. Josephus is astonished that the Greek historians have dealt
so httle with Jewish history; he criticizes them for their ignorance, their in-
accuracies, their failure to agree among themselves, and their arrogant atti-

Pliny, NH, II, 80. This passage has been identified with a fragment of Posidonius.
Note 51, supra.
'^^
De Josepho, VI, 28-31, in Boas, Friviitivisvi and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages,
p. 8; see also Boas' discussion of Stoic ideas in this passage, pp. 7-8, and the discussion
of Philo, pp. 1-14.
 Airs, Waters, Places III

tudes toward non-Hellenic historians. Hellenic civilization is recent, but not

only do the older civilizations of Egypt, Chaldea, and Phoenicia have his-

torical records, but the records were preserved; these nations are located
in places which have not suffered catastrophes that have destroyed the records
of the past. The Greeks' territory has suffered countless natural catastrophes
that have wiped out the memory of the past; their records have been de-
stroyed, and their people have had to begin life over and in this renewal have
falsely thought that each new beginning for them was a new beginning of
everything. The Greeks therefore are mere pretenders as experts in history,
and unHke other nations, including the Jews, they neglected to keep public
registries and to record events; hence their inaccuracy, their false sense of
the antiquity of their way of life.'^^

10. Environmental and Astrological Ethnology

There is little of substance to record of environmental theories in the early

Roman Empire after the time of Strabo, Diodorus, Vitruvius, and Pliny. If
many of their ideas were scattered and fragmentary, repetitious, and often
dogmatic, theirs nevertheless was an age of enlightment compared with what
was to come. In the second century Galen, repeating the ideas of Hippocrates,
was a voice in a wilderness of Roman medical charlatanry; more typical was
the Tetrabiblos of Ptolemy, an incredible melange indicative of the force and
widespread acceptance of astrology. From these times well into the sixteenth
century a cosmic environmentalism, an "astrological ethnology," competed
with and often displaced much of the older thought.
In his short historical essay on the genesis of the humors, Galen said little

could be added to what the ancients (among whom he named Hippocrates,

Aristotle, Praxagoras, Philotimus) had contributed: "Of occupations also,

localities and seasons, and above all, of natures themselves [living organisms],
the colder are more phlegmatic, and the warmer more bilious." In Galen,
medical theory is bound up with teleology, for there is art and design in the

parts of the body as there is in nature.^^

We are in another world, however, in the second-century work of Claudius
Ptolemy. Elements of familiar environmental theory and astrological ethnol-
ogy are both present, although one can detect an independent treatment of
each in comparing Tetrabiblos II, 2, with II, 3; the two represent different

historic traditions, one environmental, the other astrological. The work is im-
portant in showing linkages between environmental and astrological theories.

Josephus, Against Apion, Bk. I, 1-59, esp. 6-14. A selection also in Toynbee, Greek
Historical Thought, pp. 63-69.
Gal. Nat. Fac. II, viii (117-118). Other typical passages showing this teleological
idea in nature: xiv (46); II, iii (87-88); II, iv (88-89). The
I, argument is developed in
even more detail in De usu partium, I, 1-4; III, 10; XI, 14.
112 AirSy Waters, Places

Ptolemy's method can only be outlined, for his argument is so involved and

his correlations so intricate and numerous that the reader must be referred to
the text itself/^
Ptolemy divides astronomical prognostication into two great parts: the
universal and general relating to whole races, countries, and cities, and the
individual and specific relating to individuals. General inquiries are further
subdivided into countries, cities, and "greater and more periodic conditions"
(wars, famines, pestilences, earthquakes, deluges, etc.) and the "lesser and
more occasional" (seasonal changes in temperature, variations in the intensity
of storms, heat, winds, crop production).
Ptolemy then describes the characteristics of the inhabitants of the klimata,
dividing peoples into a southerly, a northerly, and an intermediate region;
these discussions are reminiscent of Vitruvius and Pliny. The Ethiopians living
in the region from the equator to the summer tropic, like the plants and ani-
mals, are burned by the overhead sun; they "have black skins and thick, woolly
hair, are contracted in form and shrunken in nature, are sanguine of nature,

and in habits are for the most part savage because their homes are continually
oppressed by the heat."
The Scythians, removed from the sun and the zodiac (i.e., in more northern
latitudes), are cooled, but they are nourished by more moisture and are not
exhausted by the heat; their complexions are white, they are straight-haired,
"tall and well-nourished, and somewhat cold by nature; these too are savage
in their habits because their dwelling places are continually cold."
The peoples dweUing between these two extremes share in the equable
temperature of the air which varies "but has no violent changes from heat to
cold. They are therefore medium in colouring, of moderate stature, in nature
"'^^
equable, live close together, and are civilized in their habits.
Ptolemy recognizes that within these general divisions finer distinctions can
be made, that special local characteristics because of "situation, height, low-
ness, or adjacency" may modify the general ones: "And again, as some peoples
are more inclined to horsemanship because theirs is a plain country, or to sea-
manship because they live close to the sea, or to civilization because of the
richness of their soil, so also would one discover special traits in each arising
from the natural famiharity of their particular climes [i.e., the klimata] with
"^^
the stars in the zodiac.
At this point Ptolemy elaborates a purer form of astrological ethnology.
Briefly the method is this: the inhabited world (olKovfjLevrj) is divided into

75 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos.W, 1-3 (53-75).

Ibid., 2 (56-58). Robbins, the translator of the Tetrabiblos (see also his references)
believes the astrological ethnology is derived from Posidonius. See also Berger, Gesch.
der iviss. Erdkunde der Griechen, pp. SS^SS^- For a strong dissent see Triidinger,
Studien zur Gesch. der griechisch-rdmischen Ethnogr., pp. 81-89.
77 Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, II, 2
(58).
 Airs, Waters, Places "3
four quarters which are correlated with the four triangles recognized in the
zodiac: a northwestern (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, governed by the occidental
aspect of Jupiter and Mars), a southeastern (Taurus, Virgo, Capricornus, and
the co-rulers Venus, Saturn, and Mercury), a northeastern (Gemini, Libra,
Aquarius, governed by Saturn and Jupiter in oriental aspect), and a south-
western (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, ruled by Mars and Venus in oriental aspect).
With main divisions, and with further refinements (e.g., the northwest
these
is chiefly dominated by Jupiter on account of the north wind, but Mars assists

because of the southwest wind) it is possible to divide up the inhabited world,

showing the astrological influences, not only in broad regions, but on individ-
ual peoples living within them. These influences Ptolemy correlates with the
characteristics of peoples as they were known in his day. They make interest-
ing and often racy reading. This is not the place, however, to follow this im-
portant and depressing literature any further; it is astonishing to see the
breadth and detail of the ethnological materials which are correlated with so
much precision, assurance, and finality.'^^
If one can judge by the later criticisms of Plotinus, a subtle blending of
astrological and environmental ideas took place. Plant growth and distribution
are under the control of the sun; there is a large body of lore concerning the
effect of the moon, especially on sowing; and it is but a step further to seek
similar influences in the stars. Human behavior could also be brought within
their purview. The sun affects men because of seasonal change and cHmatic
differences among regions; astral influences are superimposed on the solar
influences. Plotinus considers these theories and rejects them: their advocates
"have merely devised another shift to immolate to the heavenly bodies all that
is ours, our acts of will and our states, all the evil in us, our entire personality;

nothing is allowed to us; we are left to be stones set rolling, not men, not beings
whose nature impHes a task." Although these eloquent sentences are directed
at astrology and divination, he clearly meant the criticism to apply to theories
of the influence of the physical environment which are mentioned along with
the astrological ideas. "Place and cHmate, no doubt, produce constitutions
warmer or colder; and the parents tell on the offspring, as is seen in the resem-
blance between them. None the less, in spite of physical resemblance and
. . .

similar environment, we observe the greatest difference in temperament and in

ideas: this side of the human being, then, derives from some quite other Prin-

"^^Ibid., 3 (59-74). For the extension of the argument to explain certain alleged sexual
practices, see translator's note 4, p. 135, and the literature there referred to. On
astrology
in Ptolemy's time, see also translator's intro., pp. ix-x. On
astrological ethnology see
Triidinger, in footnote 76, supra, and Boll's footnote to Gisinger's article, "Geographie,"
in PW, Supp. Vol. 4, col. 656. According to Boll, Manilius (IV, 744ff.) and the Tetra-
biblos are our main sources indicating its importance in the ancient world. Boll cites
modern studies indicating the probability that Manilius IV, 711-743, and Tetrabib.^ II,
2, are derived from Posidonius. See the literature cited by Boll.
1
14 Airs, Waters, Places

ciple (than any external causation or destiny)." The principle of which Plo-
tinus is speaking and which causes him to reject these determinisms is based
on a central idea in his philosophy: "That to what is primarily ours, our per-
."^^
sonal holding, there is added some influx from the All. . .

1 1 . Servius on Virgil

Over eight hundred years after the early Greek speculations on the elements,
humors, and the effects of airs, waters, and places, Servius the Grammarian, in
the fourth century a.d., wrote his famous commentaries on the works of
Virgil; hiscommentary on the Aeneid VI, 724, brings together theology,
physical theory, and a theory of environmental influence into a consistent
whole that explains the unity and the diversity of life. Servius' commentary is
on the opening lines of the speech of Anchises, father of Aeneas: "The sky
and the lands, the watery plains, the moon's gleaming face, the Titanic Sun
and the stars are all strengthened by Spirit working within them, and by
Mind, which is blended into all the vast universe and pervades every part of it,
enlivening the whole mass."^^
On this, Servius says that what in Greek is the all, to irav, consists of the
four elements and God. God who brought forth the universe is a kind of divine
spirit permeating the elements. Since all things come from God and the ele-

ments, they have one origin; they partake of the same nature. What is it in us
that is from God, what from the four elements? Our soul is from God, our
body from the elements. In our body earth, moisture, vapor, heat are per-
ceptible as are the elements. Like them, too, the body is not capable of under-
standing; like God, the soul is. The elements change as body which
does the
derives its being from them. On the other hand, God does not pass away and
neither does the soul. A part always shares the characteristics of its class.

But if it be objected that imperishable beings do and have a single exist

origin, why do we not perceive all living creatures in a like manner? Dis-
similarities are not in the soul; they have their origin in the body. A lively or
sluggish body produces a vivacious or sluggish spirit. This can be shown in one
and the same body; in a healthy body there is a corresponding liveliness of
spirit, in sickness a sluggishness; in very severe cases, there may be a depriva-

tion of reason as in delirium. When the spirit has entered thus far into the
body, it does not express its own nature, but changes in quality. We observe
Greeks capricious, the Gauls of a more slug-
that the Africans are crafty, the
Ptolemy saw, by the nature
gish disposition; these characteristics are caused, as
of the region. (Presumably each region creates its own influences through the

^^Plotinus, Enneads, III, 1.5. The rest of this passage is devoted to an incisive and
devastating criticism of astrology. Plotinus may also be criticizing astrological ideas
which are frequently expressed in the ideas of the Hermetical thinkers.
Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 724. Trans, by W. J. Jackson Knight (Penguin Classics).
 AirSy Waters, Places

humors on the bodily, and consequently the mental, state.) Ptolemy also
from one region to another his nature will change
realized that if a person goes
to a degree but not entirely, because he receives from the beginning a bodily
predisposition which subsequent environmental changes cannot completely
alter.

The sentence on national character, "Inde Afros versipelles, Graecos leves,

Gallos pigrioris videmus ingenii: quod natura climatum facit, sicut Ptolomaeus
deprendit . .was copied by Isidore of Seville, and found its way into the
."

geography of Bartholomaeus AngKcus in the thirteenth century, the theory

now being removed from its more profound context of theology and physical
and medical theory.^^
These Greek and Roman notions of environmental influence— hardy Medi-
terranean perennials they were and gnarled like the olive— proved their power
and vitality in the medieval and modern world. Themes with so many varia-
tions could constantly be readapted by new composers to new situations.
Thinkers of the Middle Ages built on them, and the reports of the voyages
and travels following the age of discovery often even reinforced them. What
was a frugal and industrious European, living in his horrid, filthy cities, to
think when he beheld the easy, apparently carefree and happy life of the
peoples of the warm tropics? or of the tropical island paradises? The new
pages might be exotic, exciting, and baffling, but the spectacles of those who
read them were already old with fond and constant use.

Servii Grammatici Qui Feruntur in Vergilii Carmina Commentarii, ed. by Thilo,

Vol. 2 (Books VI-XI of the Aeneid), VI, 724. The sentence continues, "qui dicit
translatum ad ahud clima hominem naturam ex parte mutare; de toto enim non potest,
quia in principio accepit sortem corporis sui" (pp. 99-101).
 Chapter 3

Creating a Second Nature

I. On Artisanship and Nature

If the apparent unity and order of nature led men to a belief that behind it

was purpose in which human beings were deeply involved, if differ-

a plan, a
ences among peoples were perceived as a matter of everyday observation in
the Eastern Mediterranean, and if these were ascribed to custom (v6fio<;) or
to nature ((/)vo-t9), there was also an awareness of the novelty that men
could create in nature, of differences brought about by art and by the power
derived from the control over domestic animals. Man was a creator of order,
an agent of control, a possessor of the unique skill of the artisan. Long before
the Greeks there was impressive evidence of these skills in the metallurgy,
mining, and building of the older civiHzations, especially of Egypt. It has
been said by many that Greek science, unlike modern science, did not lead to
the control of nature^ but the occupations, crafts and the skills of everyday
life were evidences that changes were possible that either brought order, or

more anthropocentrically, produced more orderly accessibility to things men

^ Among them Sambursky, in Physical World of the Greeks, p. 17.

 Creating a Second Nature 117

needed. If by control over nature one means its modern sense, the application
of theoretical science to applied science and technology (granting that they
cannot be thus neatly separated), there was no such control in the ancient
world. Conscious change of the environment need not, however, rest on com-
plex theoretical science, as we well know from Roman centuriation. The
power of mind was acknowledged analogy of the creator-artisan and in
in the
its potentials for rearrangement of natural phenomena, such as in the establish-
ment of a village, the discipHne of animals by men, the indirect control over
wildlife with weapons, snares, and the like.

Finally there is the mythology of the celestial archetypes of territories and

temples, of which their worldly counterparts are copies. The world "in which
the presence and the work of man are felt— the mountains that he climbs,
populated and cultivated regions, navigable rivers, cities, sanctuaries— all these
have an extraterrestrial archetype, be it conceived as a plan, as a form, or purely
and simply on a higher cosmic level." Desert regions, un-
as a 'double' existing
cultivated lands, unknown seas, and similar areas strange to human occupation
lack a prototype of this kind; they "do not share with the city of Babylon, or
the Egyptian nome, the privilege of a differentiated prototype. They corre-
spond to a mythical model, but of another nature: all these wild, uncultivated
regions and the like are assimilated to chaos; they still participate in the un-
differentiated, formless modality of pre-Creation. This is why, when posses-
sion is taken of a territory— that is, when its exploitation begins— rites are per-
formed that symbolically repeat the act of Creation: the uncultivated zone is
first 'cosmicized,' then inhabited." Thus, "Settlement in a new, unknown, un-

cultivated country is equivalent to an act of Creation."^

Myths of this kind strongly suggest that man is an orderer of nature. In the
literature interpreting the changes that men make in their environment, in the
attempts to bestow meaning on these changes, there are, as we shall see, re-
current themes of man as a finisher of the creation, of man bringing order into
nature, and after the age of discovery, of European man discovering new
lands, which despite the presence of primitive peoples, are considered to be
unchanged since the creation and awaiting his transforming hand. Did men
become aware of themselves as modifiers of nature, as creators of a new en-
vironment because of the distinctions they made between themselves and the
animals— mainly, higher intelligence and upright carriage— because they had a
sense of creating a /cdcr/xo?, an order, because their artisanship enabled them
to bring about this cosmos, and because through their power over plants and
animals they were able to maintain and perpetuate it? Early Greek writings on
the subject, few as they are, suggest that these awarenesses did exist.

In reading the comments of the ancient authors regarding the changes

which man has made in the physical environment, one has two impressions:

^Eliade, Cosmos and History, pp. 9-10.

1 18 Creating a Second Nature

there was a recognition of man as an active, working, achieving being, despite

the seeming stabiHty that might be impHed from the dominance of environ-
mental influences (a contradiction arising, I think, out of the failure of system-
atic study, thus leaving the way open remarks with no attempt at
for isolated
reconcilations), and that the living nature that these men observed— and often
loved— was, as we now know, a nature already greatly altered by man.
In the ancient world, there was a lively interest in natural resources and how
man could exploit them: in mining, in ways of obtaining food, in agricultural
methods, in canals, in maintaining soil fertility, in drainage and grazing and
many other economic activities which— even if they produced only a partial
philosophy of man as a part of nature which he was engaged in changing— are
eloquent proof of his busyness, his incessant restlessness in changing the earth
about him. The preoccupation with technology is clear in the hterature re-
lated to primitivism, whether the individual thinkers looked back to a happier,
less compHcated period or approved of the amenities of their own civilization.
The golden age of the past was often an age of simplicity and one in which the
soil required no cultivation but supported life spontaneously rather than by

tillage and ordered plantings; if there had been a moral dechne to the hard

realities of the contemporary iron age, it owed much to the advances of the

arts and sciences and to applied technology. In Seneca's famous criticism of

Posidonius, to use but one example, he chides the Greek thinker for saying that
it was the wise men, the philosophers, who built cities and dwellings, who

made fish preserves, who invented tools, weaving, farming, and the potter's
wheel. "Was it philosophy," he asked, "that erected all these towering tene-
ments, so dangerous to the persons who dwell in them?" Seneca speaks here
with understandable feeling against city life, whose multi-
against builders
storied apartment houses were eternally falling down because they were too
carelessly thrown together and because their base was not substantial enough
for their height. No, these were products not of man's wisdom but of his in-
genuity: they were the work of practical men, artisans, men intent on the
everyday affairs of life, not of philosophers, for wisdom trains minds, not
hands, and the wise man in following nature had no need for the craftsman.
In this sharp disparagement of the artisan, there was ample suggestion of his
power and effectiveness, for it was his works— of no interest to the philosopher
or at. least to a philosopher like Seneca— which had brought about changes in
nature.^ Seneca's eloquent praise of the wise men who had nothing to do with
the inventions, improvements, and gadgets of the day describes vividly in
sharp and indignant words the evils of a civilization too dependent on its ma-
chines, its laborsaving devices, and its creature comforts. Seneca does not

^Sen., Ep. mor., 90, 7-13. On the flimsy apartment houses (insulae), the unscrupulous
and avaricious builders, and the dangers of falling buildings, see Jerome Carcopino, Daily
Life in Ancient Ro?ne (New Haven: Yale University Press, i960 [1940], pp. 23-33.
 Creating a Second Nature 1
19

even have patience with those whose sartorial tastes are more refined than
those of the Scythians. His primitivism could not have been shared by many,
considering the enthusiasm with which his artisans go about doing things.
Although many of these thinkers had traveled widely, the environment they
knew best and about which they wrote with greatest affection was that of the
Mediterranean basin. In the fifth century b.c, it was known that the history
of its settlement was already a long one. Hippocrates had said that the present
ways of living, unlike those— and the crude foods— of an earlier age, had been
discovered and elaborated over a long period of time.^ They were accustomed
to surroundings full of evidences of change and of human activity. It is an
irony that environmental theories should have had their origin in a region with
such a long record of human changes. It was not like von Humboldt traveling
in the tropics, which overwhelmed him with the lushness of their vegetation
and in which so Httle of man was to be seen, nor was it like the young Darwin
who saw in the luxuriant forests of Brazil the grand scale of natural wonders
compared with the insignificance of man and his doings.
One feels that to these writers— Greek and Roman alike— the vineyards, the
olive orchards, the irrigation ditches, the grazing goats on the rocky summits,
the villages, and the villas were inseparable from the landscape of the dry
parched hills of the Mediterranean summer, the winds for which there were
so many local names, the deep blueness of the sea, and the bright Mediterra-
nean skies. It was an altered landscape upon which they gazed and whose
beauties they loved.

2. Antigone and Critias

The observations, made in antiquity, concerning human modifications of

the earth maybe roughly divided into three different types: (i) general
descriptions which by their very nature indicate an awareness that throughout
history man does make changes in the physical geography of a locality, (2)
more specific but scattered comments which appear in the writings concerned
with plants, agriculture, estate management, stock raising, and grazing, and
(3) statements which are part of a broader body of belief such as the Epi-
curean and the Stoic philosophies.
Two passages, however, one from Sophocles' Antigone, the other from
Plato's Critias, are in a class by
themselves. In the famous lines of the chorus in
Antig072e, one is reminded of the exuberant twenty-fourth chapter of the
twenty-second book of St. Augustine's City of God, the enthusiastic praise of
science in the eighteenth century, and of contemporary enthusiasms about
man's control over nature. Man's power to navigate the seas and to use the

* Hippoc, Ancient Medicine, III.

120 Creating a Secofid Nature

plow, his success in hunting, in plant and animal domestication, in architec-

ture, and the protection his arts have given him have succeeded beyond all his
dreams, for he has conquered all but death.

Wonders are many, but none there be

So strange, so fell, as the Child of Man.

His navigation has mastered the seas, and the earth has felt his touch:

Oh, Earth is patient, and Earth is old.

And a mother of Gods, but he breaketh her,
To-ing, froing, with the plough-teams going.
Tearing the soil of her, year by year.

The birds, the wild animals of the woods, and the fish have not escaped him:

The nets of his weaving are cast afar.

And his Thought, in the midst of them circleth full.

He has forced the horse and the mountain bull to serve him. He has been able
through his speech, thought, and arts to build and protect himself from cold
and rain.

All-armed he: unarmed never

To meet new peril he journeyth;
Yea, his craft assuageth each pest that rageth.
And help he hath gotten against all save Death.
The chorus ends on the thought that "the craft of his engines has passed his
dream, / In haste to the good or the evil goal," contrasting the man who holds
law and the oath of God supreme
with the blindness of him who lacks these
qualities. The exaltation in the presence of man's works, the appreciation of
his tricks in hunting and fishing, of his skills in the domestication of animals
and in agriculture, are contrasted with the realization that man is his own
enemy, that his accompHshments are nothing without justice and righteous-
ness.^
The passage in the Critias concerns the legendary war between the peoples
of Atlantis and those, led by the people of Athens, Hving within the Pillars of
Hercules. In this former time, now existent in dim memory only, most men
were artisans, farmers, or warriors. Plato says of Attica that its soil surpassed
all others, and that it could at that time maintain large numbers exempt from

^ Soph., Ant., lines 332-375. Trans, by Gilbert Murray, in Toynbee, Greek Historical

Thought, pp. 128-129. On Sophocles' pessimism see Kitto, Greek Tragedy, pp. 122, 151,
154-155, and J. C. Opstelten, Sophocles and Greek Fessiniisin, pp. 143-145. In O.'s opinion,
this choric song was inspired in part bv the mood of the whole play, in part by Aeschylus'
Choephoroi (vv 583-596). The song describes two sides of man's Setvorvy?, his inventive-
ness and his shortcomings, especially in understanding; ". according to the poet, man
. .

has little or no reason to pride himself on the potentialities contained in the achievements
of his inventive mind" (p. 145).
 Creating a Second Nature 121

the tasks of husbandry. The proof of this is in the remnant of Athenian soils

—"What is now left of our soil rivals any other in being all-productive and
abundant in crops and rich in pasturage for all kinds of cattle; and at that
period, in addition to their fine quahty produced these things in vast quan-
it

tity." Why, Plato asks, should we call this present land a remnant of the land
of the past? Because the land is a promontory jutting out into the sea, and the
soil, in this 9,000-year period, has been washed down and deposited in the

depths of the sea. "And, just as happens in small islands, what now remains
compared with what then existed is like the skeleton of a sick man, all the fat
and soft earth having wasted away, and only the bare framework of the land
being left." Plato then describes the former arable hills, fertile valleys, and
forested mountains "of which there are visible signs even to this day. ." . .

Mountains which today have food only for bees could, not so long ago, grow
trees fit for the largest buildings, whose rafters are still sound. Cultivated trees
provided pasturage for flocks, and the soil was well watered and the rain was
"not lost to it, as now, by flowing from the bare land into the sea." Evidences
of tree growth, of the moisture-retentiveness of the soils, Plato finds in the
conditions around the sanctuaries of his day. In those old days the district
owed its excellence to its soils, the techniques of skilled husbandry, the gener-
ous water supply, and the temperate seasons.
It is evident that Plato is writing of a period so far in the past that his account
can be accepted neither as factual nor as evidence of the deterioration of the
Mediterranean landscape owing to natural and man-made catastrophes from
the remote past to Plato's time. There is, however, clear evidence here of the
recognition by Plato that natural erosion and human activities— such as de-
forestation—may in their cumulative effects change throughout
a landscape
time. Deforestation, in this case, seems to have assisted the normal erosional
processes of streams carrying soil in suspension from the mountaintops to the
sea.^

To my knowledge, this important passage had little influence on later

thought concerning culture and environment except for occasional quotations
during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it has been frequently referred
to, however, in twentieth century conservation literature. The Laws and the
Timaeus were far more influential in outlining a theory of cultural develop-
ment, the latter, furthermore, in introducing the notion of a demiurge who
creates an orderly universe. If Plato in the Lanjos had noted that men change
their environments through long settlement and that soil erosion and de-
forestation are parts of cultural history, he could have introduced at an early
time these vital ideas into cultural history and changed the course of specula-
tion regarding both man and environment.

^ Plato, Critias, iioC-iiiD.

122 Creating a Second Nature

3. Environmental Change in the Hellenistic Period

Although the notices from pre-Hellenistic times reveal an awareness of en-

vironmental change, they are isolated. In the ancient world as a whole, there
is no lack of evidence regarding change, but interpretations of it are few. One

learns of grafting, fertilizing, the laying-out of towns, but for the most part
the facts are stated, and that is all. Occasionally it is possible to infer an at-
titude from the spirit of the writing or the spirit behind the activities described.
Excellent illustrations come from Ptolemaic Egypt, such as The Tebtunis
Papyri, the correspondence of Apollonius and Zenon, the reclamation work of
Cleon and Theodorus in the Fayum (i.e.. Lake Moeris about fifty miles south-
west of Cairo) All of them suggest the fervor with which the Greek colonists
.

went about Egypt, implying a philosophy of activity, optimism

their tasks in
and improvement.
desire for land
When Hieron of Syracuse engages in shipbuilding and Archimedes super-
intends it, and boats are launched with the windlass he constructed [Ath.
2o6-d, 207-b], one receives as he does in the rest of Callixenus's famous de-
scription of Ptolemaic times, which Athenaeus has preserved, the impression
that men consciously seek to change their environment, whether by building
cities or ships or by introducing plants for their own purposes.
On February 16, 256 B.C., Apollonius, the minister and landholder, approves
of an order which Zenon had given that olive and laurel shoots should be
planted in the park at Philadelphia where Zenon had now gone or was going
to reside as superintendent of Apollonius's property.'' In a letter dated Decem-
ber 27, 256 B.C., Zenon is ordered to take from Apollonius's own garden and
from the palace grounds in Memphis pear shoots and young plants— as many as
possible— and to get some sweet-apple trees from Hermaphilos; all are to be
planted in orchards at Philadelphia. In another letter of the same date, Apollo-
nius orders Zenon to plant at least three hundred fir trees all over the park and
around the vineyard and the olive trees. "For the tree has a striking appear-
ance and will be of service to the king"; it will provide him timber for his
ships and be an ornament to his estate.^ On January 7, 255 b.c, Apollonius re-
minded Zenon that it was time to plant vines, ohves, and the other shoots;

7?. Cairo Zen., 59125; see also HW,

Vol. i, pp. 287-289. In the preparation of this
section on environmental change in the Hellenistic world, I am greatly indebted to
Rostovtzeff's great work; there is scarcely a reference which does not come from him. It
is impossible to consider in a work of this kind all the evidence he has brought to bear

on the problem; a summary of his findings alone would fill many pages. Particularly
important are his pages on the development of resources by the Hellenistic monarchs,
on the analysis of Hellenization, and on urbanization. I have tried here to give examples
which might make understandable the rich additions of this period to the ideas I am
discussing. I have profited also from the works of Heichelheim, Kaerst, Tarn, and
Pohlenz. On the Zenon papyri see Rostovtzeff, A Large Estate in Egypt in the Third
Century B. C, and Preaux, Les Grecs en Egypte d'apres les Archives de Zenon.
^P. Cairo Zen., 59156, 59157.
 Creating a Second Nature

Zenon should send to Memphis

them and give orders to begin planting.
for
Apollonius promises to send from the Alexandria district more vine shoots and
whatever other kinds of fruit trees may be useful.^ On October 8, 255 b.c,
Apollonius orders Zenon to take at least three thousand olive shoots from his
park and from the gardens at Memphis. Before the fruit is gathered, he is to
mark each tree from which he intends to take shoots. And he is to choose above
all the wild oHve and the laurel, for the Egyptian olive is suitable only for

parks and not for olive groves.

In one of the most famous documents in The Tebtunis Papyri, the instruc-
tions of a dioecetes to a subordinate, which dates from the late third century
B.C., the latter is responsible for inspecting the water-conduits to see if water
intakes have the prescribed depth and if there is sufficient room for them, and
it is the duty of an oeconomus of a nome to supervise the irrigation system
(29-40). He inspects the sowing, he obtains accurate impressions by observing
the crops sprouting, easily noticing lands which are sown badly or not at all

(49-57). One indispensable duty is to see that the nome is sown with the kinds
of crops prescribed by the sowing schedule (57-60). (This instruction ap-
parently applies to royal land.) He should plant mature local trees at the
right season: willows, mulberries, acacias, and tamarisks about the month of
Choiak. The oeconomi had general control over planting, guarding, and cut-
ting trees and bushes. The trees were planted in nurseries; when they were old
enough they were transplanted to the royal embankments, the special con-
tractors being responsible for guarding them against sheep or other dangers.*^
Again, the Hellenistic period most sweeping ideas, descrip-
is crucial; the
tions, and interpretations come, with few exceptions, out of this three-cen-
tury-long period or from others inspired by it. The striking statements (dis-
cussed below) of Eratosthenes, Theophrastus, the Stoic spokesman in T>e
natura deorum, of Lucretius in the Hellenized Roman period, and of those
who, like the Hermetic writers, come later but clearly have close affiliations
with the Hellenistic thinkers, make one wonder what would be revealed had
so much not been lost in transmission.
The prevailing mood of the Eastern Greeks in early Hellenistic times, says
RostovtzefT, was one of buoyant optimism; they had confidence and faith,
supported by the leading philosophical schools, "in the unhmited capabilities
of man and his reason. "^^ This observation would certainly apply to many of
the Stoics and, judging by Lucretius, to the Epicureans too. Agriculture and
related occupations such as cattle-breeding were the most important sources
of wealth in the ancient world. Intensification of such economic activity is
favorable to landscape changes visible to the eye. Canals appear, swamps van-

^ Ibid., 59159-
^^Ibid., 59184.
The Tebtunis Papyri 703 = Vol. 3, pp. 66-102.
12 HW^, Vol. 2, p. 1095.
124 Creat'mg a Secojid Nature

ish, river courses change.If, as seems probable from reading the classical

writers on agriculture, the judging of soils empirically was a primordial skill,

the good soils had long since been known and further improvement could
come only from the acquisition of new land. Land reclamation during this
period was based on the science of mechanics, and on practical experience with
canal-digging, irrigation, and swamp drainage. The purpose of one famous
scheme, the drainage of Lake Copais in Boeotia under the supervision of
Crates, a mining engineer in Alexander's army, apparently was to increase the
cultivated area of Greece. Similar projects were undertaken in the Eastern
Hellenistic monarchies and in Egypt.
The economic system of the Ptolemies, says Rostovtzeff, "was inspired by
one motive, the organization of production, with the main purpose of making
the State, in other words, the king, rich and powerful."^^ In the conscious de-
velopment of the natural resources of Ptolemaic Egypt, about which far more
is known than of the other large areas of the Hellenistic world, the purpose
was to make the country self-sufficient, and to create in modern terminology
a favorable balance of trade. Here, and in the quotation from Eratosthenes be-
low, environmental change is a product of conscious government policy. In
carrying out this policy, the solicitude of the Ptolemies for the Greek settlers

led to visible changes in the appearance of the land, an apt illustration of the
influence of national tastes and dietwhich are exported to another land. The
Egyptian drink was beer, but the Greeks hked wine, and soon there were ex-
tensive vine plantings in Ptolemaic Egypt. It was the same with the indispens-
able olive. So vineyards and olive groves became witnesses of the Greek
presence as did the fruit trees and the sheep. (It was not that such plantings
were unknown in Egypt before, but they were few and not very successful.)
A history of attempts at plant acclimatization, especially in Egypt, would
have in it a chapter on Greek taste in food and clothes. Experiments were not
confined to Egypt, for Harpalus attempted to acclimatize pines in Mesopo-
tamia. Theophrastus says Harpalus tried repeatedly to plant ivy in the gardens
of Babylon and failed. The Greeks liked wool for
and sheep
their clothing,
in Ptolemaic Egypt became important. Foreign sheep were imported and ef-
forts made to acclimatize them. In the great procession of Ptolemy Philadel-
phus, there were Arabian, Ethiopian, and Euboean sheep [Ath. 201c]. V
Plant and animal introductions and acclimatizations, however, were not unique
to the Hellenistic period; since Xenophon's time at least, the introduction and

^^Strabo IX, ii, 18, does not say this was the purpose; Crates in a letter to Alexander

said many places had already been drained.

^*See HW, Vol. i, pp. 351-380, for an extensive discussion of Egypt.
^^Ibid., p. 316.
le/i;/^;.,
pp. 351, 353.
^^On Harpalus'
attempts at acclimatization see Bretzl, Botanische Forschungen des
Alexanderzuges, pp. 234-236. Theophr., Enquiry into Plants^ IV, iv, i.
 Creating a Second Nautre 125

acclimatization of plants when necessary were familiar in the Greek world.^®

After the Hellenistic period, similar activities seem to prosper, as one can see
from Columella. Certain places are famous for certain kinds of vines, grains,
or animal breeds, and he even provides a list of common Greek and Latin
names for dogs.
If one could have taken a series of photographs of Ptolemaic Egypt at suit-

able intervals, one could probably see, at least through the earher period, the
different crops, the new devices, and the introductions that created a more
variegated landscape.^^
It is on the policy of the Hellenistic monarchs to-
tantalizing to speculate
ward deforestation, because this practice probably more than any other in a
preindustrial society changes the ecosystem and the appearance of the land.
The rulers of Egypt had given careful attention to tree planting and to cutting,
but it is not known if they were interested in conservation.^^
During the Hellenistic period, brilliant successes in the exact sciences con-
tributed to the improvement of methods of production and exchange by the
invention of new technical devices.^^ Rostovtzeff has emphasized the special
place of architects and engineers because of the immense amount of building,
especially in the principal islands and the great commercial cities along the
coasts of Asia Minor, the Straits, and the Propontis: remodeling harbors, re-
planning and rebuilding of such cities as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna, and lesser
cities of Asia Minor. New cities and new temples were built, and others al-

ready in existence were rebuilt to make life within them easier, through drain-
age and the construction of aqueducts. Building obviously was also closely
related to the exploitation of mines, quarries, and forests where they existed.
War and military construction played a vital part too. Rostovtzeff is also of
the opinion that Vitruvius in De architectura depicted not the ideal architect
but the conception of an architect he inherited from the Hellenistic period,
as shown by his insistence on a "harmonious co-operation" in the exercise of

the architect's functions, between science and learning on the one hand and
his practical craft on the other. If this is true, a comparison between the ideals
of an architect expressed by Vitruvius and by Alberti in the fifteenth century
(chap. IX, sec. 2) would seem a fruitful one; both were interested in har-
monies, philosophy, the relation of any building, whether a home or a city,
to its surroundings in the broad sense of the word.^^ There seemed to be

isSeeHPF, Vol. 2, p. 1162.

Ibid., Vol pp. 1167-1168.
2,
Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 1169-1170; note 113, pp. 1612-1613, and The Tebtunis Papyri 703,
191-211, already discussed, and 5, 200. On forest policy, Heichelheim, "Monopole," PW,
Vol. 16:1, col. 188; HW,
Vol. I, pp. 298-299.
^^HW, Vol. 2, p. 1 180; Heichelheim, "Effects of Classical Antiquity on the Land,"
MR, p. 169, and Sarton, Hellenistic Science, passi?72.
^^HW, Vol. 2, p. 1234. In the light of Rostovtzeff 's words, see the illuminating dis-
cussion by Vitruvius in Bk. I, ch. i, and Bk. VII, Pref.
126 Creating a Second Nature

closer alliance between building construction and military engineering, and

science and than between practice and theory in agriculture, in the ab-
art,

sence of scientifically conducted agricultural experiments. The technical in-

novation that occurred was not revolutionary; it was based partly on scientific
discoveries, partly on the interchange of long-established methods among the
constituent nations of the Hellenistic world.^^
A city too is a physical environment; it is characterized by an extremely
dense concentration of products of human purpose, perhaps including sug-
gestions of a natural landscape in trees, promenades, gardens, parks. It may
be all houses and streets with an occasional tree; it may be full of gardens,
promenades, and parks which, even though suggesting artificiality, are in con-
trast to the concentrations of wood, stone, and other symmetrically arranged
materials surrounding them. In the Hellenistic period there is reason, as we
have seen, to believe that there was a sharpening of the contrast between
the city and the country, but the evidence is most spotty. The descriptions of
the charms of the countryside are set off against a long urban tradition which
was not born in the Mediterranean world but was well nourished there.
Alexander created in the Near East a few large settlements of the Greek
urban type. Alexandria was the outstanding example. He refounded some,
like Gaza in Palestine, perhaps Tyre in Phoenicia, after he had destroyed
them. One should speak of the Hellenistic period more in terms of the variety
of urban life which flourished then and the activities nourishing it rather than
as a period of city-building, because so many of the cities already were there.
Established old cities were enlarged, new ones on the extended pattern were
established. Some of the cities kept their native names, others, like Ptolemais-
Ake, received new dynastic names. Some were recent foundations, others
were pre-Ptolemaic. During the Hellenistic period new Hfe was infused into
Greek centers of export trade. Greek-Phoenician cities Hke Sidon and the
harbor of Al-Mina were the most notable of the revived semi-Greek emporia.^^
Scores of Greek poleis were located in the oriental parts of the Asian em-
pire "at the points of the great and strategic commercial roads which from
time immemorial had connected with each other the most civilized and pro-
gressive parts of the Oriental world."
Most of the Greek poleis created by Alexander thus were not brand-new
nor transformations of small villages. The former in most cases already
cities,

had been commercial centers. Neither were roads his creation, nor did he
connect great centers of caravan trade with the sea. "The new and momentous
feature of it [his colonization] was the transformation of the Oriental marts
into business centers of a type hitherto unknown to the east."^^ One might

^^HW, Vol. 2, pp. 1230-1238, 1302.

^^HW, Vol. I, pp. 130-13 1.
2^HW, Vol. I, pp. 132-133.
 CreaWig a Second Nature 127

thus accept RostovtzefT's distinction between urbanization of the Hellenistic

and that of the later Roman world. The Romans introduced urban life and
the urban mentality of Greco-Italian type, he says, into areas of almost purely
tribal and village life; the Seleucids built Greek cities for many purposes-
first and foremost was colonization for mihtary and political purposes— but

real urbanization had been achieved in Syria, Babylon, and Mesopotamia long
before Alexander.^^
In the preceding discussions, the Hellenistic period has been described
as an active broad philosophical outlook toward man
era, characterized by a
and his environment, including the nature of man, his place in the universe,
and what distinguishes him from other forms of life, and also by a practical
outlook toward resources embodied in the economic and political aspirations
of the Hellenistic monarchs. A4ost of the important passages, moreover, date
from this period or from writings inspired by it; there are a few from earlier
times— Hesiod, Herodotus, Isocrates, Xenophon— but they too, like Plato and
Sophocles, seem isolated examples.

4. General Descriptions of Environmental Change

Occasionally there is an awareness of changes in the environment through

time without, however, any interpretation of their significance. One of the
most commonly quoted sayings of Herodotus is that Egypt is "an acquired
country, the gift of the river." But Herodotus knows this is only a half truth.
Egyptian civilization is more than the gift of the Nile, for the Egyptian peo-
ple themselves had changed their land. The mythical Sesostris built canals,
and the face of the countryside had been changed by forced labor: an Egypt
whose countryside had been suitable for horses and carriages was now un-
suited to either because canals had replaced them and changed the road
network.^^
wrote of another mythical Egyptian king, Busiris, the son of
Isocrates
Poseidon and of Libya, who thought the country of his mother's birth un-
worthy of him and had therefore subjugated Egypt. Unlike those places
which lacked the favorable chmate and situation for all kinds of crops— they
were inundated by rain or devastated by the heat— Egypt, that is the delta of
the Nile, placed in the most beautiful part of the world, could produce the
most abundant and varied products, defended by the eternal rampart of the
river. The Nile had made it possible for the Egyptians to act like gods in

^^HW, Vol. 3, note 262, p. 1436. See also V. Tscherikower, "Die hellenistischen
Stadtegriindungen von Alexander dem Grossen bis auf die Romerzeit," Fhilologus Supp.
Bd. 19, Heft I (1927), vii + 216 pp. See also HW^
Vol. 3, note 5, p. 1091, Tarn's dis-
cussion in Hellen. Civiliz., ch. 3, and Heichelheim, "Effects of Classical Antiquity on
the Land," MR, pp. 168-169.
27Hdt., II, 5, 108; Kees, "Sesostris," PW, lAii, col. 1873.
128 Creating a Second Nature

making their lands produce. Zeus distributed the rains and the droughts to
other peoples, but the individual Egyptian was like Zeus himself in control-
ling these.^^(These contrasts between the water sources of the Egyptians and
those of other countries, aswe have already seen, go back at least to the Hymn
to Aten\ they are mentioned also in Herodotus and in Plato.)
Later in the Hellenistic period, Theocritus admires not only Ptolemy, but
Egypt, the Nile, and human skill as well. Ten thousand lands and ten thousand
nations cultivate their lands with the help of rain from Zeus; but no country
is low country of Egypt where the Nile brings the water,
so fruitful as the
soaking and breaking the soil, "nor no country, neither, possessed of so many
cities of men learned in labour. The cities builded therein are three hundreds
and three thousands and three tens of thousands, and threes t\vain and nines
three,and in them the lord and master of all is proud Ptolemy."-^
There is extant a beautiful floor mosaic from a bath at Antioch (fourth
century B.C.). The scene in Egypt illustrates three personifications of its rich-
ness: fertile earth, careful cultivation, the Nile. Nor is the combination dif-
ficult to understand. Technology is a connecting link betwxen inventive man
and nature.^^
Strabo also comments on the environmental changes which the Egyptians
have brought about in their own country, incidentally explaining the details
of their control of water and drought. To the Greeks, the Egyptian environ-
ment must have been as fascinating as was their civilization.

Theattention and care bestowed upon the Nile is so great as to cause industry
to triumph over nature. The ground bv nature, and still more bv being supplied
with water, produces a great abundance of fruits. By nature also a greater rise
of the river irrigates a larger tract of land; but industry has completely succeeded
in rectifying the deficiencv of nature, so that in seasons when the rise of the
river has been less than usual, as large a portion of the countrv is irrigated by
means of canals and embankments, as in seasons when the rise of the river has
been greater.^^

Among the geographers of the Hellenistic period, Eratosthenes shows a

striking awareness of the complex cultural and historical factors involved in
environmental change. The
plains of Cyprus in past times, he says, had been
covered with forests; clearings were made to provide fuel for smelting copper
and silver, and timber with which to build ships "as the sea was now navigated
with' security and by a large naval force." Cuttings for these purposes were
insuflicient to "check the growth of timber in the forests," and the people

28Isoc., Bus., 10-14. On the legend, see Hiller v. Gaetringen, "Busiris, 5," PTF, 3, cols.
1074-1077.
29 Idyll XVII, 77-85.
^^Nat. D., II, 60, 150-152; de fin. V, 74; Lucr. I, 159-214. For the plate, see HW, Vol.
I, facing p. 352.
31 Strabo, XVII, i, 3.
 Creating a Second Nature 129

were allowed to cut down

and "to hold the land thus cleared as their
trees
own property, free from
payments." Eratosthenes thus relates the changes
all

in the landscape to mining, navigation, and to governmental land policy.^^

5. Theophrastus on Domestication and Climatic Change

Historically, students of plant and of land forms have been

and animal life

sensitive to the influence of human

on these phenomena. Botanists,
activities

for example, have been interested in the nature of domestication and in plant
successions due to human agency. In the ancient world, Theophrastus was
such a student, asking two questions which have become of surpassing interest
in modern times. In what ways does a domesticated plant differ from a wild
one? Is it possible for man to change the climate? Both answers reveal, as
Plato's discussion of erosion reveals, a curiosity regarding man's ability to
change plants and to bring about environmental conditions which may favor
or inhibit plant growth.
Theophrastus' distinctions between wild and domesticated plants are dis-
appointing, being little more than recastings of common observations. He
rejects Hippon's idea that each plant has a wild and a domestic form and rec-
ognizes that human care is related to domestication, and that some wild plants
cannot live under cultivation. Certain trees, however, which degenerate from
a parent tree seeds, may be improved by cultivation and
which grows from
The pomegranate changes character if it receives plenty of
special attention.
river water and pig manure, the almond if its gum is allowed to exude by in-
serting a plug in the tree and if it is given various other kinds of care.^^ Do-
mesticated plants are likened to the tamed animals which live in close associ-
ation with man. Possibly Theophrastus has cosseting in mind. The following
passage suggests that artificial selection of desirable qualities is the chief dis-
tinction between a wild and a domesticated tree, although he seems to be
talking about a formerly domesticated tree now living ferally. "Any tree
which runs wild deteriorates in its fruits, and itself becomes dwarfed in leaves,
branches, bark and appearance generally; for under cultivation these parts,
as well as the whole growth of the tree, become closer, more compact and
harder; which indicates that the difference between cultivated and wild is

chiefly shown in these respects.^^

His discussion of climatic change owing to human agency, however, is
more significant to our theme because it is the beginning of the long history
of speculation concerning this subject. Theophrastus says that there are dis-

ss
Strabo, XIV, vi, 5.
33Theophr., An Enquiry into Flants\ on Hippon, I, 5, and III, 2; I, iii, 6; II,
iii, ii,6, 1. ii, 1

s^Theophr., An Enquiry into Plants, III, 3. In IV, iv, one lias a glimpse into the
ii,

botanical results of Alexander's conquests. On this subject see Bretzl, Botanische

Forschungen des Alexanderzuges.
130 Creating a Second Nature

tricts, like around Larissa in Thessaly, where in former times the trees
that
did not freeze, the air was denser and the district warmer; the entire district,
moreover, had the appearance of a large marsh. When, however, the water
was drained off and was prevented from accumulating again, the district be-
came cold and the freezings increased. The evidence for this local change of
climate, he says, is that the olive trees, even those in the city itself, which were
formerly large and beautiful, have disappeared, and the vines are often at-
tacked by the cold as they never were before. In another example, Aenos on
the Hebrus (Maritza) became warmer when the river's waters were made to
flow nearer to it. On the other hand, in the vicinity of PhiHppi, it formerly
froze more than now: the fields were drained. The greater part of the district
was dried up and put into cultivation. In this case the uncultivated area is
the colder and it has denser air; the forest cover prevents the penetration of
the sun's rays or the breezes even if there are stagnant accumulations of water
within the woods.
In the Larissa example, drainage leads to greater extremes of cold, while
the presence of water has a moderating effect, and in the Philippi example,
the clearing of the woodlands has opened up the land, exposing it to the sun
and bringing about a warmer climate. Similar statements in PHny are clearly
derived from Theophrastus.^^
Theophrastus' examples of climatic change due to human agency were of
very small areas, but to him there was clearly a universal principle at work,
as is apparent from the theory on which the explanation is based. This in-
quiry, which starts so modestly with Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle,
became the theme of countless writers in modern times, especially in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
It would be incorrect, however, to say that these particular ideas stimulated

later investigations, for they seem to have occurred independently to many

men in different periods. The effects of clearings on climate were dis-
cussed by Albert the Great in the Middle Ages; after the age of discovery,
discussions multiplied because so many travelers, especially in North America,
observed, or thought they observed, or believed the reminiscences of the old,
that the climate became warmer when the woods of the newly discovered
lands were cleared.

6. Rural Life and the Golden Age

Among the ancient authors, modifications in the environment made by man

are most frequently mentioned in the treatises on agriculture. Some writers,

^^Theophr., De causis plant. V, 14, 2-4, 5 (= Opera, quae supersunt omnia p. 284).
I amindebted to Capelle, "Meteorologie," PPF, Supp. vol. 6, col. 354, for the reference
to this passage. See also De ventis, 13, Opera p. 379, on the changing climate of Crete,
for which, however, no reason is given. See also Pliny, NH, XVII, iii, 30.
 Creating a Second Nature

like Xenophon and Cato, were concerned with the practical details of the art;

others linked the agriculture of their day with the fertility of the golden age,
contrasting the fruitfulness of the soil then with the exacting work of con-
temporary tillage (Hesiod, Lucretius, and Virgil are good examples); still

others, like Varro, Columella, and Pliny, linked agriculture with wider ques-
tions of cultural history and philosophy.
In his Oeconovncus, Xenophon describes the moral values of an agricultural
life; Socrates, the chief spokesman, praises the Persian king for an interest in

agriculture, and for his encouragement of what the Persians call "paradises"
which are "full of all the good and beautiful things that the soil will pro-
duce. (According to an inscription engraved about a.d. 100-150, Darius
. .

praised Gadatas, apparently the satrap of the Ionian province, for cultivating
in western Asia fruit trees brought from beyond the Euphrates, that is, west
of the river, perhaps from Syria. The earth yields to men both the necessities
and luxuries of life, and the art of stockbreeding is "closely linked with hus-
bandry"; but to gain these things men must work for them.^^ Farmers are ex-
horted to keep the soil permanently fertile; everyone knows the value of
manure and that nature produces it, but despite its abundance, some men col-
lect it, others neglect to do so. Nature sends the rain, and if the vegetation
that must be cleared from the fields before sowing is thrown into water
"time of itself will make what the soil hkes"; every kind of vegetation or soil
turns into manure in stagnant water. Men too must learn how to drain land
properly and to remove excessive salts. "For the slothful cannot plead igno-
rance, as in other arts: land, as all men know, responds to good treatment.
Husbandry is the clear accuser of the recreant soul."^^
Similar advice through proper care and manur-
on maintaining soil fertility

ing is common and Pliny.

also in the agricultural treatises of Cato, Columella,
Cato, sharing with Xenophon an esteem for agricultural ways, has said in
often-quoted Hues: "What is good cultivation? Good ploughing. What next?
Ploughing. What third? Manuring. "^^ PHny also discusses the advantages of
hillside ploughing, the causes of soil fertihty, and the prevention of soil ex-

haustion.^^
The agricultural writings were also related to the myth of a golden age as
described by Hesiod and many succeeding writers: not only did the people
of the golden age possess physical and moral superiority but the fertihty of
their soil was so great that it supplied men with food without the need of

"Letter of Darius, 521-485 b.c," in Tod, Greek Historical lnscriptio7is (2d ed.,
Oxford, 1 951), No. 10, pp. 12-13. The authenticity of the text has been challenged.
On Gadatas, see Xen., Cyr. V, iii, 10. See also Xen., Oec. IV, 8.
^^Xen., Oec. IV, 13; V. 2-3. In Oec. V, there is a long discussion of the beauties and
the moral and economic advantages of farming; the quotation is in V, 3.
38 Xen., Oec. XX, 10-15.
39 Cato, On Agriculture, LXI, quoted by Pliny, NH, XVIII,
174.
40 Pliny, NH, XVIII, 2.
132 Creating a Second Nature

tillage. The theme, originating with Hesiod and repeated (or copied) by
many later writers hke Seneca, Ovid, Varro, and Virgil, is that the present
age requires the active toil and the careful management of land to secure

from it a living which in the golden age was spontaneously bestowed by the
earth.^^
Hesiod, whose poem
combination of conjectural history and moral
is a
and agricultural precepts, beheved that the gods hid the means of life from
man; if they did not, man would lay aside his tasks and his fields would not
be cultivated.*^ Environmental change comes about under the goad of neces-
sity.

Hesiod thought there were five stages in the cultural history of man: the
golden, the silver, and the bronze ages, followed by a race of demigods, then

the contemporary or the iron age. The people living in the golden age ex-
perienced no sorrow ("remote and free from toil and grief"), never suffered
old age, and had all good things of life, "for the fruitful earth unforced bare
them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon
their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed
gods."*^ The golden age was characterized by happy shepherding and innate
soil fertility. An important element of myth is the notion that the soil is
this

most fertile when it is least interfered with by human art. Whether the mean-
ing is that the present age represents a decline of soil fertility corresponding
to cultural decline of the iron age (an improbable interpretation), or whether
it simply meant that in the golden age there prevailed a condition opposite
to that observed in the iron age— in which a living was hard to get from the
soil— is difficult to say, but the role of hard work in preparing the land for
cultivation and keeping it in good condition, through plowing and fallowing,
is certainly striking. "Plough in the spring; but fallow broken up in the sum-

mer will not belie your hopes. Sow fallow land when the soil is still getting
light: fallow land is a defender from harm and a soother of children."**

The idea of soil fertility of the golden age persisted in antiquity as a theme
in culture history from the time of Hesiod to that of Seneca, roughly a period
of seven centuries, to say nothing of countless later repetitions. Perhaps the
soil fertility of the golden age was but one aspect of the blissfulness of fife in

This theme recurs constantly in classical literature; see, for example, Lovejoy,
Fr'nnitivisin and Rel. Ideas in Antiquity^ the passages from Ovid {Met.^ I, 76-215),

with comment pp. 43-49; A?noros, III, viii, 35-36, p. 63), Virgil (Georgics, I, 125-155,
p. 370); Dicaearchus, in Porphyry, De abstinentia, IV, i, 2, p. 94. See also the remarks
on cultural primitivism, pp. 7-1 1, and the funny parodies of the golden age by the
Greek comic poets, pp. 38-41.
Hes., Works and Days, lines 42-45.
^^Ibid., lines 1 10-120. On the historical significance of this passage, see Lovejoy, op.
cit.y pp. 27-28.
^ Ibid.^ see lines 460-464.
 Creating a Second Nature 133

that remote period which was set against a less bountiful nature of the iron
age; the idea, however, was repeated so often and over so long a period that
it may have become a literary convention without special meaning. "The

very soil," says Seneca of the heroic age, "was more productive when untilled,
and yielded more than enough for peoples who refrained from despoiling
one another. "^^ Ovid too describes the golden age as one in which man had
made change in the primeval environment. "Not yet had the pine-tree,
little

felled on its native mountains, descended thence into the watery plain to visit
other lands; men knew no shores except their own. The earth herself, with-
. . .

out compulsion, untouched by hoe or ploughshare, of herself gave all things

needful." Men gathered food that was about them, like the arbutus, berries,
and acorns. The spontaneous crops of the earth were like the domesticated
plants of human art. "Anon, the earth untilled, brought forth her stores of
grain, and the fields, though unfallowed, grew white with the heavy, bearded
wheat. Streams of milk and streams of sweet nectar flowed, and yellow honey
was distilled from the verdant oak."^^ Varro, citing Dicaearchus, agrees that
the remotest stage of human must have been the state of nature "when
life

man lived on those things which the virgin earth produced spontaneously."^^
Regardless of the interpretation one places on these ideas of soil fertility of
the golden age— whether the soil fertility is but one aspect of an idylHc exis-
tence all of whose parts are harmonious with one another, whether these
ideas are part of the whole sympathy with primitivism and its supposed graces
compared with the hard reahties of contemporary life— it is reasonable, I
think, to conclude that in a less idyllic later age, the soils required the active
cooperation of man, who wrested from nature through the arts and
a living
techniques of tillage, soil replenishment, and soil care. In the contrasts be-
tween the spontaneities of the golden age and the purposeful toil of the
present, it was recognized that the existence of human society, wicked as it
is, requires the alteration of the primitive landscape.
Hesiod's descriptions of the golden age probably were in sharp contrast
with the harsh reahties of his own time (perhaps, the eighth century B.C.).
In Aristophanes' time (fifth to fourth centuries B.C.) conditions were also
harsh. The Attic farmer, almost naked, worked soils which "to a large ex-
tent [were] poor, stony and often still uncultivated." Despite deforestation,
charcoal-burning was still practiced and important. "Swelhng land which
could be graphically described as 'the buttocks of the field' was rare, in spite
of the famous phrase of 'rich Athens', or the beautiful patriotic outburst of

Ep. mor.^ 90, 40.

^5 Sen.,

Ovid., Met.^ I, vv. 95-112.

*^ Varro, On Farmings Bk. II, chap. I, 3-4. See also Fragment Vita Graeciae,
/,

Porphyry, De abstinentia^ IV, I, 2, text and translation in Lovejoy and Boas, Doc. Hist.,
pp. 94-96.
134 Creatifig a Second Nature

Aristophanes: 'O beloved city of Kekrops, native-born Attica, hail, thou rich

soil, udder of the good land!' [and] it was only in the dreamland of fairy-
. . .

tale that ample crops would grow without hard labour."*^

7. Is THE Earth Mortal?

Theories of soil exhaustion were also related to the idea of senescence in

nature, an apphcation of the organic analogy to the earth itself. The theory
is ably expressed and refuted by Columella, who lived, probably, in the first
century a.d.; although he does not mention Lucretius by name, it is his doc-
trine which Columella is attacking.
This idea of the senescence of the earth survived through the Middle Ages
and into modern times; it was one consideration in the quarrel between the
ancients and the moderns. Men like George Hakewill, Jon Jonston, John
Evelyn, discuss it; and Montesquieu, arguing in the Persian Letters that the
populations of modern times are less than those of ancient times, asks, through
a letter his Persian Rhedi wrote from Venice to Usbek in Paris in 1 7 1 8: "How
can the world be so sparsely populated in comparison with what it once was?
How can nature have lost that prodigious fertihty of primitive times? Could
"^^
she be already in her old age, and will she fall into her dotage?
Lucretius beheves, as we have seen, that the earth is a mortal body; it will
grow old gradually, and ultimately it will die. Nor is it sacrosanct. It is non-
sense, he says, to think that "the glorious nature of the world" has been fash-
ioned by the gods according to a divine plan for the sake of man; it is foolish
to think of a divine artisan who has created an eternal and immortal abode
for him. He ridicules the idea that it is a "sin ever to stir from its seats by any
force what was established for the races of men for all time by the ancient
wisdom of the gods, or to assail it with argument, and to overthrow it from
top to bottom. Here to digress a moment, he may be referring to at-
. .

titudes which have been commonplace in modern times: the sinfulness of

interfering with divine arrangements through human art. In modern times the
point of view has been urged against the diversion of rivers, the digging of
canals, and of course in medicine, the administration of anesthesia being an
outstanding example. If the Lord had intended these things, they would have
been created by Him in the beginning. Perhaps Lucretius is criticizing popu-
lar belief, similar to that mentioned by Tacitus in the next century. In an
arresting passage, Tacitus calls attention to the effect of religious belief in
preserving the natural order, mentioning popular objections to diversions of
rivers on the ground that nature herself had made the best provision for their

Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophmies^ pp. "js-l^-

^9 Montesquieu, The Persian Letters^ Letter 112, trans, by Loy.
^^Lucr., V, 156-164.
 Creating a Secofid Nature 135

sources, their courses, and their mouths. A discussion began in the Senate, he
says, whether the inundations of the Tiber should be checked by changing
the courses of its tributary rivers and lakes. Various deputations from mu-
nicipalities and colonies were heard. The Florentines pleaded that if the course
of the Chiana [Clanis] were deflected into the Arno, they would be ruined.
If this scheme caused the Nar [Nera] to overflow after the stream had split

into rivulets, the most productive fields of Italy would be doomed. The
Reatines (of Reate, modern Rieti) protested against damming the Veline
Lake (Lago di Pie-di-Lugo) at its outlet into the Nar. "Nature," they said,
"had made the best provision for the interests of humanity, when she as-
signed to rivers their proper mouths— their proper courses— their limits as well
as their origins. Consideration, too, should be paid to the faith of their fathers,
who had hallowed rituals and groves and altars to their country streams. Be-
sides, they were reluctant that Tiber himself, bereft of his tributary streams,
should flow with diminished majesty." On this Tacitus comments, "Whatever
the deciding factor— the prayers of the colonies, the difficulty of the work, or
superstition— the motion of Piso, 'that nothing be changed,' was agreed to."^^

(The effects of such behefs have been great, indeed, in the history of human
settlement. The influence of religious beliefs in preserving natural landscapes
could be illustrated by examples from many parts of the world and from
many periods of history. Sacred groves around sanctuaries, to use but one
example, are often indicators of former landscapes which have now disap-
peared. The desirability of preserving trees, and rude notions of the evils of
indiscriminate deforestation, often seem mixed in with the behefs in the gods
of the sacred grove.)
No, Lucretius continues, the universe is too full of imperfections, the earth
too full of land which cannot be used, to admit the possibility of its creation
for man by divine power. (See chap. I, sec. 9.) Furthermore, the earth is older
than it was. The greater fertihty of the golden age is ascribed to the youth of
the earth. The strength of man and his oxen isworn down; the plow can
scarcely turn the soil of the grudging fields. The ploughman compares his
ill fortune with the blessings of his fathers, who won a living from the soils

so much more easily. "So too gloomily the planter of the worn-out, wrinkled
vine rails at the trend of the times, and curses the age, and grumbles to think
how the generations of old, rich in piety, easily supported life on a narrow
plot, since aforetime the hmit of land was far each man. Nor does he
less to

grasp that all things waste away little by little and pass to the grave fordone
by age and the lapse of hfe."^^
Columella attacks a similar idea, apparently widely accepted among the
administrators of the state; in fact, he begins his work with the attack, later

^1 Tac, Ann., I, 79. See also I, 76.

^^Lucr., II, 1
1
57-1 174.
 Creating a Second Nature

reemphasizing his objections. Leading men of the state complain about the
lack of soil fertility and bad climatic years as being responsible for poor
crops, basing their complaints "as on well-founded reasoning, on the
if

ground that, in their opinion, the soil was worn out and exhausted by the over-
production of earlier days and can no longer furnish sustenance to mortals
with its old-time benevolence." Speaking more plainly. Columella continues:

For it is a sin to suppose that Nature, endowed with perennial fertility by the
creator of the universe, is affected with barrenness as though with some disease;
and it is unbecoming to a man of good judgment to believe that Earth, to whose
lot was assigned a divine and everlasting youth, and who is called the common
mother of all things— because she has always brought forth all things and is

destined to bring them forth continuously— has grown old in mortal fashion.

Columella does not mean that the soils cannot be exhausted, that they are
everlastingly productive, but that their failures may have a human cause.^^
The comparison of Mother Earth with a human mother, he says, is a false
one. After a certain age, even a woman can no longer bear children; her
fertihty once lost cannot be restored, but this analogy does not apply to soil
which has been abandoned, for when cultivation is resumed "it repays the
farmer with heavy interest for its periods of idleness." Soil exhaustion is not
related to the age of the earth but to agricultural practices. Columella cites
Tremelius, apparently an older respected writer on soils: "Virginal and
wooded areas, when they are first cultivated, yield abundantly, but soon
thereafter are not so responsive to the toil of those who work them." His
observation is correct, says Columella, but the interpretation wrong. Such
is

land is fruitful not because it has lain fallow longer and is younger, but be-
cause of the accumulated nourishment of the leaf and herbage of years.
fall

When clearing takes place and the axe and the plow break up plant roots, the
soil's source of food is cut off; the soil, formerly rich, now grows infertile

through deprivation of its former source of food. It is not because of old age
or senescence of the earth "but manifestly because of our own lack of energy
that our cultivated lands yield us a less generous return. For we may reap
greater harvests if the earth is quickened again by frequent, timely, and mod-
"^^
erate manuring.
.Manures— green and animal— are considered at length.^^ Seemingly trivial
influences on the soil should be observed, such as studying moisture in the soil
before allowing it to be trampled by cattle. In a passage which reminds one
of Thorp's discussion of migrant fertility in China, Columella says that in
about the middle of February elevated slopes should get manure with hay

^3 Columella, De re rustica, Pref., 1-3.

^Ubid.^W, I, 1-7.
Ibid., II, xiv-xv; see also index, Vol. Ill, of the Loeb edition.
 Creating a Seco?id Nature

seed, "for the more elevated slope supplies nourishment to the land that lies

below when a pouring rain or a hand-conducted rivulet carries the liquid

manure along with its own waters to the part below. And it is for this reason
that wise farmers, even in ploughed land, manure a hillside more heavily than
a valley, because . . . the rains are forever carrying all the richer matter down
"^^
to the lowland.
Columella believes in an "equable law of fertility for all green things, even
as for human beings and other living creatures." Nature has distributed her
gifts to all regions. He points to the natural endowments of Italy, which "is

most responsive to care bestowed by mankind, in that she has learned to pro-
duce the fruits of almost the entire world when her husbandmen have applied
themselves to the task. Therefore our doubts should be lessened as to that
fruit which is a native, as it were, belonging to and born of our soil." Like
Victor Hehn in the nineteenth century, he thinks that Italy has many plants
which were domesticated on other shores and brought there by human beings."
Similar thoughts, probably derived from Columella, are expressed by PHny,
for he cites among his many authorities on agriculture the lost work of Mago
the Carthaginian, Columella, and Varro. Pliny is aware of the significance of
domestication; he distinguishes between trees growing wild and spontaneously
and orchard trees which owe their formation, if not their actual birth, to the
art and ingenuity of man. There is some of Columella's common sense in his
discussion of soils, for they should not be regarded as old in a mortal sense;
soils will last with care, and it is unnecessary to denude hillsides if the plowing

is done skillfully. In hillside plowing the farmer should avoid plowing up and

down the hillside. It is "ploughed only across the slope of the hill, but with
the share pointing now up hill and now down."^^ Pliny also preserved ideas
of climatic change owing to human agency, following the observations on
this subject made by Theophrastus.
In the agricultural writings from Xenophon
to Virgil, one can detect a
widening change the natural order. The con-
realization of man's abihty to
fidence is grounded in observation and empirical knowledge. With few ex-
ceptions, however, the main emphasis is on the fertility of arable land. This
general emphasis on arable land, even if the problems of grazing were occa-
sionally considered, is characteristic of modern agricultural chemistry through
the time of Liebig. The detailed study of changes in the non-arable environ-
ments, like the grazing lands and the forests, is a modern interest although there
are hints in medieval writings that changes were taking place there too and that
they were significant (see pp. 330-341).

^^Ibid., II, xvii, 6-7; Thorp, Geog. of the Soils of China, pp. 433-436.
Columella, De und Hausthiere
re rustic a. III, viii, 1,5. Victor Hehn, Kulturpfianzen
in ihrem Ubergang aus Asien nach Griechenland und Italien soivie in das Ubrige Europa,
58 Pliny, NH, XVII, i, i;
3, 29-30; quotation is in XVIII, 49, 178.
 Creating a Second Nature

8. Interpreting Environmental Changes

Within a Broader Philosophy of Civilization

Among the works of writers whose interpretations of environmental change

are part of a broader philosophy, those of Cicero, the Hermetic writers (who
probably derive their ideas on this matter from the Stoics), Lucretius, Varro,
and Virgil are the most instructive. Despite differences in approach, each of
them either implicitly or exphcitly assumes that cultural history has at least
in part been the history of environmental change and that the development of
the arts and sciences has brought about changes in the physical environment.
In the Stoic philosophy, man's technological achievements, his inventions,
the changes he brings about in nature, are combinations of the skill of the hand,
the discoveries of the mind, observations of the senses; he has his share of the
artisanry and reason which permeates the world, the earth being particularly
suited to him, as witness the arrangements of external nature like the Nile, the
Euphrates, and the Indus, that exist for his preservation and care.^^
Environmental change by man, the creation of a "second nature" within the
world of nature, is explained in essence by the basic quahtative difference
between human and animal art. Man is a reasoning creature, whose cumulative
experience through time permits innovation and invention; he participates in
the creative life and spirit pervading the whole world.^^
The naturalistic view of Lucretius presents an alternative interpretation
without benefit of the artisan analogy and the argument from design. Men by
their struggles add to what is already provided by nature. Tilled lands are
better than untilled ones; they produce more. Earning a livelihood is en-
meshed in a physical and human cycle: rain from the skies ultimately brings
food to the towns; later the water of the streams returns to the ocean to be
lifted again to the sky.^^ Lucretius is deeply aware of the physical difficulty
men have in maintaining the environments they create; with failure, careless-

ness, or laziness, the thorns, coppice, and weeds will again invade the tilled

field.

One of the most arresting of Lucretius' discussions of man's interferences

in the world of nature, however, is in his conception of animal domestication.
It has a surprising teleological character, surprising too in the assumption of
self-conscious choice by the animals. Animal domestication is a "commenda-
tion"; the animals are entrusted to human tutelage, but Lucretius does not
say who commended or entrusted them to our tutelage, nor does he explain
the purpose of this puzzling pupil-teacher relationship. The animals are cast
in the role of self-conscious determiners of their own fate. Domestication has

^^Nat. D., II, 52, 130; de fin. 5, 39.

^oPohlenz, Die Stoa^ Vol. i, pp. 227-228; see also Kaerst, Gesch. d. Hellenismus^ Vol.
2, pp. 124-125.
®i Lucr. I,
208-214, 250-264, 782-788.
 Creating a Second Nature 139

survival value for certain kinds of animals who flee from the hard hfe of nature.
Lucretius implies that there is self-conscious and purposive action by animals
who weigh and that domestication is semicontractual on the part
alternatives
of the animals but is undertaken by men for utilitarian, not humanitarian, pur-
poses. (The utilitarian explanation of animal domestication can be harmonized
with either the Epicurean or the Stoic philosophy; in the latter it is in ac-
cordance with the design, especially if it is assumed that the resources of the
world useful to man are in fact created for him). In the Lucretian philosophy
(is this true of Epicurus too?) animal extinctions may be explained in two
ways: the animals in nature either fail to survive in the struggle for existence,
or fail to find human protection. The passages in Lucretius on natural selection
and struggle for existence, however, have resemblance to Darwinian
little

evolutionary theory; the fixity of species is assumed, the role of man is decisive
for several species of the more and human interferences in the
docile animals,
animal world are assumed to be of ancient age. Man is interfering very early
in the order of nature, singKng out certain species whose survival and mul-
tiplication are no longer dependent on the natural environment alone but on
him.^^ The idea expressed here by Lucretius reappears in the discussions of
animal domestication in the Histoire Naturelle of BufTon, the most impressive
natural history written during the eighteenth century. Buffon was an ardent
admirer of Lucretius' writings.
Men in the past, though hardier than those of today, did not spend their
energies at the plow, for they knew nothing of plowing, planting, or pruning.
Like people of the golden age, they accepted freely the spontaneous gifts of
the earth. The invention of fire was forward in the conquest of
a great step
nature; lightning, or possibly the friction of tree branches with one another,
first made it available.^^ Then, in lessons from the sun and its effects on earthly

substances, men learned how to cook. With the invention of fire, the next
step was the discovery of metallurgy.
Lucretius' theory of the origin of metallurgy reveals how conscious he was
of the activities of man: the discovery of the metals (copper, gold, iron, silver,
lead) he ascribes to great forest fires which may have been started by lightning,
by warring men who started fires against one another, or by those who de-
sired to increase their arable landsand pastures at the expense of forests or who
wished to kill off wild beasts. 'Tor hunting with pit and fire arose first before
fencing the grove with nets and scaring the beasts with dogs."^^ The forest fire,
whatever its cause, burned so fiercely that the melted streams of silver, gold,
copper, and lead flowed into the hollows of the earth's surface, and men,
attracted by the luster and polish of the metals, could see from their odd shapes
that they could be molded. They could now make tools to clear forests and

62Lucr., V, 855-877.
^^Ibid., V, 925-987, 1091-1104.
^'^
Ibid., V, 1241-1296. The quotation is of V, 1250-1251.
140 Creating a Second Nature

work up lumber, and to till the fields, first with copper tools and later with
the iron plow.
Taught by model of nature and in imitation of her, men planted and
the
grafted plants, and experimented with various types of cultivation. With
gentle care, they brought the wild fruits under human protection and culti-
vation, and following the suggestions of nature, they widened areas of change,
substituting a domesticated environment for the pristine.

And day by day they would constrain the woods more and more to retire up
the mountains, and to give up the land beneath to tilth, that on hills and plains
they might have meadows, pools, streams, crops, and glad vineyards, and the
grey belt of olives might run between with its clear line, spreading over hillocks
and hollows and plains; even as now you see all the land clear marked with di-
verse beauties, where men make it bright by planting it here and there with
sweet fruit-trees, and fence it by planting it all round with fruitful shrubs.^^

Lucretius' poem has now been discussed in three different contexts: his

rebuttal of the basic ideas which supported the argument from design, his
conception of the organic, and therefore the mortal, nature of the earth, and
his ideas of environmental change as a part of culture history. These latter
ideas seem more historical in character, less theoretical, and are set apart from
the other two. In the passages just quoted, he is clearly describing, in poetical
language and without any suggestion of decay or death, the manner in which
a people transforms the landscape.
Man's progress in the arts has its effects on his environments as well; he has
learned by imitation, by using his mind, and he has increased his knowledge
by practice and experience; he has saved many animal species; he has domesti-
cated plants, has cleared and drained land, and the landscape about him is,

at least in part, a result of his own creativity.

Varro's work on farming is significant to our theme because it is an attempt
—very influential in modern times— to describe the historical sequence in the
use of land, investigations inspired by the peripatetic philosopher and stu-
dent of Aristotle, Dicaearchus, whose life of Greece (ySto? 'EXXaSo?) had in-
fluenced many writers, Posidonius among them. Dicaearchus, according to
Varro, thought that men originally lived in a state of nature, using the products
which the earth voluntarily afforded. For them it was a happy state, a golden
age; According to Porphyry, Dicaearchus thought of the golden age as a
happy condition not because men were physically, mentally, or morally supe-
rior to later generations, but because they did not desire amenities which could
only be obtained by hard physical effort; since they had no higher aspirations,
they had few cares and sorrows. There was less sickness because the food was
simpler, and there was less strain; there were no wars, for there was no object
in strife. From this state of nature men descended to a less desirable condi-
tion, the pastoral stage, nourishing themselves on wild-growing acorns, 21-

^^Ibid., V, 1 3 70-1 3 78.

 Creating a Second Nature 14

butus berries, mulberries and other and on animals which were captured,
fruits,

confined, and tamed for food. Sheep probably came first, being useful, trac-
table, and adaptable to man, bringing him milk, cheese, wool, and skin. The
pastoral stage was followed by the agricultural, which retained much of the
former two states, lasting a long time before the present era. Several species
of wild animals survive: the sheep of Phrygia, goats of Samothrace, and the
wild goats of Italy; it is the same with swine, and there are many quite wild
cattle in Dardania, Maedica and Thrace, wild asses in Phrygia and Lycaonia,
and wild horses in Hither Spain. To Dicaearchus the existence of these animals
in the present proves his theory that domestication grew out of taming and
that present-day livestock-raising is a survival of the pastoral stage.^^
Varro agrees with this, and it is no surprise that the author of De lingua
latina carries the argument a step further and tries to prove the antiquity of
animal domestication, especially that of the sheep, on philological grounds.
The Greek and Latin tongues reveal that the most famous ancients were
shepherds. Goats and sheep were esteemed by the ancients, and astrologers
named constellations after them. Many place-names could be traced to the
names of animals. The Roman people themselves sprang from shepherds.^^
What is the historical significance of this theory? In the first place, it

turned attention away from the environment itself to the sequences of stages
which characterized cultural history. Varro's method is similar to the modern
comparative or historical method in which cultures are assumed to pass through
an ideal series of stages, the early stages in the sequence being recognized either
from survivals existing in antiquity or among peoples in various stages of
development existing in the contemporary world. The stage theory has been
severely criticized in the twentieth century (now, however, it is being re-
vived in a much more sophisticated form), from the ethnological and histori-
cal point of view, for its neglect of historical materials in favor of abstract
formulations; but of equal importance is the fact that such a theory at the
outset discourages any attempt to study the history of an
environment or the
manner in which a culture has changed it. Varro was
dogmatic about
far less
his theory than many of his later imitators, for he accused the Romans them-
selves (Hke Cicero, his contemporary, he was alarmed that so much of the
arable land of the small holders was being turned into grazing lands for the
large landowners) of deserting the countryside for the cities, of importing
grain and wine from abroad, of reversing the historic process by reverting
from an agricultural to a pastoral life.

''And so in that country where the city's founders were shepherds and

66 Varro, On Farmings I, 2, 15-16; II, i, 3-4. See Fragment I of Dicaearchus' Vita

Graeciae (n. 47 above). Cf. Doc. Hist., n. 159, p. 95, in whicii the authors comment on the
proverb "Enough of the oak-tree," meaning satiety with eating acorns and a desire
for a better diet and life. See also PW, "Dikaiarchos," and Wehrli, Die Schiile des
Aristoteles. Texte und Kommentar. Heft. I. Dikaiarchos, pp. 56-59.
67 Varro, op. cit., II, i, 3-9.
142 Creating a Second Nature

taught agriculture to their descendants, these descendants have reversed the

process, and, through covetousness and in despite of laws, have turned corn-
land into meadow, not knowing the difference between agriculture and
"^^
grazing.
It is true that Varro recognizes that modifications of the natural order are
part of cultural and economic history; different kinds of cultures, based on
economic systems, use their environments in different ways, but the con-
creteness, the rich historical and geographical material, is lost in reducing the
process to stages.
The economic development of mankind the pastoral stage
idea that in the
preceded the agricultural has been effectively challenged only in modern
times. The stage theory, or variants of it, has appeared in many twentieth cen-
tury economics textbooks, although Lord Kames in the eighteenth century
and Alexander von Humboldt in the nineteenth pointed out that a pastoral or
nomadic stage could not be observed in the New World. Modern research,
moreover, has stressed the late appearance of nomadism.^^
In other passages Varro makes interesting comments on agriculture and
grazing: he distinguishes between the productiveness of agriculture and the
removal of the vegetation by grazing animals; it is best therefore for both
agriculture and pasture-farming to be practiced together so that, in addition
to other advantages, the farmer can profit from the manure in helping to
further plant growth.
Varro transhumance in southern Italy:
also describes Flocks of mine . .

used to winter in Apulia which spent the summer on the mountains about
Reate, though the pastures were far from each other and connected between
these two places by pubhc tracks like a pair of baskets by their yoke."^^ Unlike
modern discussions of transhumance, there is no mention of overgrazing or
of deforestation in order to increase the grazing lands.
Varro unkind words for the goat. Fundanius, Varro's father-in-
also has
law, disparaged agriculture because, as Dicaearchus had shown, pastoral life
had preceded it. To this Agrius, "a Roman eques of the Socratic school,"
replies by quoting the laws for settlers: "On land planted with young trees
let not the settler pasture the offspring of the she-goat— creatures which even

astronomy has removed to a place in the sky not far from the bull." Fundanius
replies that the law applies to "certain cattle," for certain animals, like the
she-goat, "are hostile to cultivation and poisonous to plants for by nibbling
at them they ruin all young plants, and not the least, vines and olive trees."^^

68 Ibid., II, Intro.,

4.
6^The of the universaHty of this stage theory, as far as I know, is
earliest criticism
that of Henry Home (Lord Kames); see Sketches of the History of Man, Vol. II, pp.
82-84. Lord Kames thought the puzzle could be solved with more knowledge.
70 Varro, O72 Farming, II, Intro., 4-5; quotation on transhumance is in II, 2, 9, and see
also II, I, 16-17, and II, 10, 1-3, on the qualifications of shepherds.
Ibid., I, 2, I, 15-18; Fundanius continues, 19-20.
 Creating a Second Nature 143

To Father Liber, the discoverer of the vine, he-goats were sacrificed because
of their misdeeds; no such sacrifice was made to Minerva because the goat
bruised the olive tree and his saHva was poisonous to vegetation. At Athens
goats could enter the Acropolis only once a year for the sacrifice "lest the
olive tree, which they say first sprang up there, be touched by a she-goat."
In a later chapter on the breeding and selection of goats, Varro says that they
are happier in woodland glades than in meadows, that they like wild shrubs
and the small branches in cultivated areas, and that a tenant generally is for-
bidden by contract to allow them to graze on a farm he has rented."^^
Varro's remarks are interesting because they reveal an awareness of the
power of this domesticated animal (an extension of human activity because it

is under man's control) as a destroyer of the vegetation of the farm or the

mountain wilderness. The loud complaints about the destructive grazing
habits of the goat— as the cause of widespread environmental deterioration—
that have appeared so frequently since the nineteenth century have to my
knowledge no real counterparts in antiquity, perhaps because their habits
were not interpreted as part of a broader ecological problem (as modern
students of vegetational change have seen them); probably also little was
known of the cumulative effects of such environmental change.
The development of civilization, in Virgil's reconstruction, is accompanied
by transformations of the land. Employing the myth of the golden age, he
saw even before Jove an "Earth, unbidden, which gave the more freely of
all her store, in that none asked her bounty." Jove stopped this bounty, fash-

ioning nature as we know it now; he gave the snake its poison, made the
wolf a beast of prey, made the ocean swell, "scattered the honey from the
leaf, swept the fire away, and stayed the wine that once streamed in every

brook ." so that man, profiting by experience, might evolve the arts like
. .

agriculture and mining. Only after Jove had acted was navigation known on
the rivers and on the seas (the "rivers felt the hollowed alder; then the
mariner numbered the stars and named them .") or was it possible to cap-
. .

ture wild beasts, "to cheat the bird with hme, and to circle the vast glades
with hounds ," to fish in the streams and on the sea. "Then came the iron's
. .
.

rigour and the blade of the rasping saw: in the old days men cleft their facile
timber with the wedge! Then art followed on art." Ceres showed men how
to turn the soil; now they had to learn how to combat plant diseases and the
animals that preyed on their crops.^^ Virgil calls upon the farmer to cultivate
his land, to cosset the plants, "Come, then, ye husbandmen, and learn the

tillage that each kind claims for its own, mellow your harsh fruits by culture,

nor suffer your fields to lie idle. There is joy in planting Ismarus with the
vine, and joy in clothing great Taburnus with the oHve." Nature can be
subdued; wild trees that are grafted or transplanted in trenches "will resign

I, 2,20;II, 3,7-8.
^3 Virgil, Georgics, I, 120-159. On firing, manuring, and fallowing land, I, 71-99.
144 Creating a Seco7id Nature

their wild spirit, and, by dint of constant tilling, assume with readiness what-
ever character thou wilt have them bear." Know the soils, weave hedges to keep
the flocks from your they are more harmful with their iron teeth
vines, for
and their scarrings of the "deep-gnawed stem" than the snow, the hoarfrost,
"or the summer brooding heavy above the thirsty crags."^*
Virgil thus describes changes in the land, brought about first by Jove, and
then by human art: man is an overseer, protecting his crops from wild ani-
mals and his own domesticated animals and guarding them from disease,
spreading his cultivation— of the olive and the vine— through lands not now
given to them; all his activities are a product of that intelligence and that
knowledge based on experience with which he has changed his mode of hfe
and the countryside upon which he is dependent.
In my opinion, the most important attempt to reconcile the environmental
changes by man with both a philosophy of man and the order of nature was
made by the Stoic philosophers and by those who came under their influence,
ideas expressed most clearly in those writings of Cicero which include the
contributions of Panaetius and Posidonius: Man cooperates with nature and
ever improves on its pristine condition; the changes which he has made and
is to make are in fact part of the divine purpose in creating the world. This
conception is significant, too, because of the immense prestige of Stoicism in
the Hellenistic period, including the widespread acceptance of Stoic ideas
during the latter period of the repubhc and the early period of the empire.

To the Stoics, however, it was the same Logos which was at work both in the
Cosmos and within man. It therefore followed naturally that man also carried
within him the creative energies which led him on to craftsman-like productive
work. To be sure, the old Stoics had no particular interest in the arts and crafts.
Panaetius, therefore, had tried all the harder to demonstrate that human beings,

endowed with the senses and hands, are well-fitted for craftsmanship, that the
Logos has, in fact, developed, with their help, all the possible arts, and that by
means of them the earth's entire surface has been transformed to their ends, and
that there has been created in nature, as it were, a second nature. Then his pupil,
Posidonius, defined exactlv what the practical goals of men should be: "to work
jointly with nature— and with all their energies— in the actual formation and
ordering of the Cosmos."^^

Rejecting the opinion of Democritus that man had developed his artby
imitating nature and the skills of animals, Posidonius, admitting that man
might have received some stimulus from these sources, maintained however
that by virtue of his own Logos, revealing itself in outstanding individuals,
man had created something entirely different, something in accordance with
his own being: his arts were not products of instinctive behavior, like the
web of the spider or the honeycomb of the bee; human art embraced all realms

II, 35-39, 49-53, 371-380.

Translated by the writer from the
^5 German of Max Pohlenz, Der Hellenische
Mensch, pp. 276-277.
 Creating a Second Nature 145

of life, unfolding itself in many diverse ways through the creative perform-
ance of individual personalities/^
Man is thus a part of nature; he shares his creative endowment with the
whole cosmos but his arts are in a different realm of being than are those of
the animals. With his hands, his tools, his intelligence, he has changed the
earth by creating arts and techniques of agriculture, fishing, animal domesti-
cation, by mining, clearing, and navigation. Cicero has Balbus the Stoic unite
the design argument that nature has given man opportunities, such as the life-
giving floods of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Indus, with the idea that
man in turn has not only preserved but improved animals and plants which
would become extinct without his care; that nature has given man hands, a
mind, and senses, the basic endowments of his art: the mind to invent, the
senses to perceive, the hands to execute. By human hands much of nature
has been both controlled and changed. Our foods are a result of labor and
cultivation; wild and domesticated animals are put to many uses; the mining
of iron is indispensable to tillage; clearings are made for fire, cooking, house-
and ship-building.
"We enjoy the fruits of the plains and of the mountains, the rivers and the
lakes are ours, we sow corn, we plant trees, we fertilize the soil by irrigation,
we confine the rivers and straighten or divert their courses. In fine, by means
of our hands we essay to create as it weresecond world within the world of
a
nature."^^ Balbus the Stoic is speaking here, but Cicero has revealed elsewhere
his appraisal of the power of men to change the earth about them.

In short, what advantage and convenience could have been realized from the
brute creation, had not men assisted? Men, undoubtedly were the first who dis-
covered what useful results we might realize from every animal; nor could we
even at this time either feed, tame, preserve, or derive from them advantages
suited to the occasion, without the help of man. And it is by the same that such
as are hurtful are destroyed and such as may be useful are taken. should Why
I enumerate the variety of arts without which life could by no means be sus-

tained?^^

^6 See again, Sen., Ep. mor.^

90, 7-13; Pohlenz, op. cit., p. 277. Both Seneca and Posi-
donius show their awareness of environmental changes by man resulting from mining
and agriculture. Seneca says he differs from Posidonius when the latter "says that wise
men discovered our mines of iron and copper, 'when the earth, scorched by forest fires,
"
melted the veins of ore which lay near the surface and caused the metal to gush forth'
(90, 12). Seneca also criticizes Posidonius on his ideas of agricultural improvement. "This
trade also, he declares, is the creation of the wise,— just as if cultivators of the soil were
not even at present day discovering countless new methods of increasing the soil's
fertility!" (90, 21-22).
^^Cic, Nat. D., II, 60, 151-152. See the whole passage, II, 60, 150-152, which is too
long for quotation here, and the important commentaries on these passages in Pease,
De natura deormn, II, pp. 939-945. These mention the sources and the use made of them
by later thinkers, especially the early Church Fathers. Pohlenz argues that Nat. D.,
II, 59-60, 147-153, are derived from Panaetius. See note 75 above.

Cic, De officiis, II, 4.

146 Creating a Second Nature

With Cicero surely it was not a matter of philosophy alone; it must also
have been the observation of past and present Roman technical achievements:
mining, commerce, trade, the Cloaca Maxima, the land surveys, and the roads
were evidences that the power of man was not only great but of a different
order than that of any other kind of life/^
Even more explicitly is the role of human agency in changing and im-
proving the designed earth expressed in the Hermetical writings. In the
Asclepius, the ideas held by the Stoics reach a climax in the conception of the
interrelationships existing between God, nature, and man. The creation of
man accomplishes two purposes: veneration of heaven and the administration
of earthly things in partnership with God. "He raises reverent eyes to heaven
above; he tends the earth below." No passages in ancient literature, with the
exception of those in Cicero, express so clearly the activity of man in changing
the natural environment and in so doing fulfiUing a destiny inherent in God's
design.

And when I say "the things of earth," I do not mean merely the two elements,
water and earth, which nature has placed in subjection to men; I mean all things
that men do on land and water, or make out of earth and water, as for instance
tillage and pasture, building, harbour-works and navigation, and intercourse
and mutual service, that strong bond by which members of the human race are
linked together. [For to man is given the charge] of that part of the universe
which consists of earth and water; and this earthly part of the universe is kept
in order by means of man's knowledge and application of the arts and sciences.
For God willed that the universe should not be complete until man had done
his part.

The reason that man can accomplish his role is explained later by the same
author: man's knowledge is dependent on his memory and "it is the retentive-
ness of his memory that has given him dominion over the earth."^°
If, as the Hermetical writer says, the earthly part of the universe is to be
kept in order by man, modern air archaeology has revealed, as has no other
study, dramatic examples of this order in ancient landscapes. The photographs
show landscapes, not ideas, but in looking at such evidence of change in the
central Mediterranean lands, one wonders why ho777o artifex is not in the
classical world a more important figure than he is. For what suggests more
efficaciously a planned, ordered, geometric landscape than does Roman cen-
turiation? This method of partition of newly occupied lands— its uncertain
origins possibly being in the third century B.C.— by which the land was divided
up on the side (jj6x jj6 yards) still appear strikingly
into squares of 20 actics
Po Valley and of Apulia, less clearly in many other
in the air photos of the
Mediterranean areas. "The forceful imprint of the elaborate gridded road-
systems which betoken it can still be traced across some thousands of square

^9See also Cic, De senectute, XV, 53; De oratore III, xlv.

^^Hermetica, Asclepius I, 6a; 8; III, 32b. See also I, iib.
 Creating a Second Nature 147

miles on both sides of the central Mediterranean." Centuriation, Bradford

continues, well displayed "the arbitrary but methodical qualities" in Roman
administration. "With an absolute self-assurance and great technical com-
petence, the same formal topographical framework of land-division was super-
imposed on the well-watered alluvium of the Po Valley and the near-desert
of Tunisia, in a nicely balanced blend of the doctrinaire and opportunist."
Such parceling of land made large-scale gardening easier; in arid Tunisia,
centuriation made intensive dry-farming easier, the many field-boundary
banks and ditches impeding surface erosion. Its milieu was the lowlands but
there were interlockings with the pastures, the woods, the hills, and the moun-
tains. It was a field system redolent of frontier conditions, of new settlement

and colonization. Centuriation was a striking recreation of the natural land-

scape, one that rivals, probably even excels, the geometric order of the formal
garden of France, such as the intricate designs of the parterres at Versailles.^^

9. Conclusion

The thinkers of antiquity developed conceptions of the earth as a fit environ-

ment for human life and human cultures whose force was still felt in the
nineteenth century. The conception of a designed earth was strongest among
the Academic and the Stoic philosophers, but even among the Epicureans
harmony between man and nature, orderly even
there could exist a if not a
product of design. Geographically, it was a most important idea: if there
were harmonious relationships in nature (granting the necessary but subordi-
nate role of struggle and evil) ofwhich man was a part, the spatial distribu-
tion of plants, animals, and man conformed to and gave evidence of this
plan; there was a place for everything and everything was in its place. It as-
sumed the adaptation of all forms of life to the arrangements of nature found
on the earth.
Furthermore, this conception was hospitable to our two divergent if not
contradictory ideas: the influence of the environment on man, and man's
ability to change it to his own uses. The first could be accommodated by
pointing to evidence of design in the diflFerent climates of the earth and the
peoples, plants, and animals living in them and adapted to them. So could
the second. Man, as the highest being of creation, changes nature— even im-
proves it— through art and invention; his habitats, in Strabo's words, show
that art is in partnership with nature. His environments may be those of art—
the towns and cities, centuriation, clearings, irrigation works, farming and
viticulture— but they are really products of his divinely endowed intelligence;
his inventions, tools, and techniques spring from a higher creative source as
he improves and brings the pristine earth to a finished state.

^ijohn Bradford, Ancient Landscapes, pp. 145, 149; on the origins of centuriation,
p. 166.
148 Creating a Second Nature

Equally important was the utilitarian bias of these speculations, especially

in those thinkers who saw who,
the creation as serving the uses of man, and
interpreting the past by observation saw in the usefulness of
of the present,
the grains, of beasts of burden, of the dog, the sheep, and the goat the reasons
for their creation. These domestications took place in the past for purposes
illustrated by the uses to which they are put in the present. And lastly, if one
may speak of ancient thought in modern language, the idea of design was
antidiffusionist in character; the idea of a design with all parts well in place
and adapted to one another in an all-embracing harmony implied stability and
permanence; nature and the human activity within it were a great mosaic,
full of life and vigor, conflict and beauty, its harmony persisting among the
myriads of individual permutations, an underlying stability.
Since classical times, this conception of a designed earth has been but a part
of a wider teleology and a philosophy of final causes, but one should not
forget that it is the beauty, the utility, the productivity of nature on earth
that, with proper selectivity and avoidance of the harsh and unproductive,
provided convincing evidence of purpose in the creation, and in turn a tra-
ditional proof for the existence of God. The conception of the earth developed
by the classical thinkers and the moderns who followed them was no abstract
natural law. It could be enriched with lovely, often poetic, descriptions of
nature itself. It owes its force and its influence to its all-embracing character;
all ideas could be fitted into it and this hospitality was the reason for its failure:

anything that existed, any relationship could be explained as part of the design,
ifone ignored (as Lucretius refused to do) certain characteristics of the earth
as a habitable planet that were hard to explain as products of purpose and
design. The Stoic-Epicurean disagreement was strikingly similar to the nine-
teenth century arguments of the natural theologians such as Paley, Chambers,
and many others, with Lyell, Darwin, and their sympathizers.
In the classical period, the history of environmental theories based on physi-
ology and the humors is basically a commentary on the Airs, Waters, Places
of the Hippocratic corpus. The history of theories based on situation is de-
rived from multiple sources, a result both of the diversity of Mediterranean
life and of relief and site in the Mediterranean basin and in less-known periph-
eral areas. Generalizations emerged from the role of the sea in Greek history,
the rise of Rome to become the cosmopolitan capital of an empire, and of
the effects of Greek and Roman on the barbarian peoples living
civilization
adjacent to them. noteworthy that in antiquity the criticisms of environ-
It is

mental theories came from those who were impressed by the force of custom
and tradition and cultural contact; there were no critics who stressed, as an
alternate view, the role of man in changing the environment.
In antiquity, Panaetius, Posidonius, Cicero, and the Hermetical writers
came closest to giving philosophical significance to the environmental changes
made by man. If the earth was divinely ordered for life, man's mission on
 Creating a Second Nature 149

earth was to improve it. Such an interpretation found room for triumphs in
irrigation, drainage, mining, agriculture, plant breeding. If this interpreta-
tion of man serving as a partner of God in overseeing the earth were correct,
understanding man's place in nature was not When, however, unmis-
difficult.

takable evidences that undesirable changes in nature were made by man

began to accumulate in great volume in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies, the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the classical, and

later of the Christian, idea of stewardship were threatened. For if man cleared
forests too rapidly, if he relentlessly killed off wildlife, if torrents and soil

erosion followed his clearings, it seemed as if the lord of creation was failing

in his appointed task, that he was going a way of his own, capriciously and
selfishly defiant of the will of God and of Nature's plan; but castigations of
this kind do not appear until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, reach-
ing their culmination in Marsh's Man and Nature.
The influence of these classical ideas was exerted in part through Christian
theology and the writings of the early Church Fathers. Judeo-Christian ideas-
of the earth, however, must also be considered, for the modern fusion of the
two traditions produced concepts of the earth as a habitable planet which
served men well into the nineteenth century. The physico-theologists of the
seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries looked with respect on the
Platonic and Stoic thinkers, but they had a Christian God and their synthesis
had the headier ingredients of classical thought. Christian theology, and mod-
ern science.
There is a sharp contrast between ancient and modern literature on the
modifications of the earth by human agency. If the surviving works from the
ancient world are representative, the contrast is a measure not only of the

vast increase in the amount and change in modern times, but also of
rate of
an awareness of change, accumulating in the Middle Ages, advancing rapidly
in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, rising to a crescendo
in our own times, and for which we are still seeking explanations that rise
above description, technical solutions, and naive faith in science.
 Chapter 4

God, Man, and Nature

in Judeo- Christian Theology

I . Introduction

Christian thought, Uke any other which brings into focus numerous ideas
from many sources (the ideas of God, of freedom, of nature, and of progress
are examples), is not a unified body of thought; it is more like a series of texts
which have accumulated numerous exegeses which comment not only on the
texts but on other exegeses as well. Attitudes toward man, nature, God, the
world (whether we mean the cosmos, the physical earth, or the social milieu)
are in this category. Contradictory ideas may grow up; balancings and recon-
ciliations of ideas may be both subtle and fragile. Examples are the problems
of physical and moral evil (that is, the tragic consequences to human beings
of a catastrophic storm or of cruelty inflicted by one person or another) God
.

is good; he loves the world and his creations. He also saw fit to destroy them.
The beauties of the earth are of his making, but man must walk warily among
them, for his destiny lies not in this world but in the next world. Nevertheless,

God saw to man's creation and to his multiplication, willing that he have
dominion over all life on earth.
 Judeo-Christian Theology

Man is a created being. So is the earth in which he lives. Much of Christian

thought, in so far as it is related to our themes, is concerned with establish-
ing connections between these two creations. The outstanding attempt (ante-
dating Judeo-Christian thought, as we have seen) is the theme of God's care
for the world— care for man, his fellow beings, the plants and the animals,
the physical earth. God's care for the world can thus be a unifying theme.
In this and the following chapters illustrations of this truth will appear.^
Apart from its religious importance, perhaps the most significant observa-
tion to be made about the account of the creation in Genesis I is that it is

brief. Words are used so sparingly in describing the successive acts in the
creation of the cosmos that, with the growth of Christianity and the con-
tinuing strength of Judaism, an enormous exegetical literature was inevitable.
The acts of creation are basically concerned with physical and biological
matters, and the ensuing exegesis, whether it is Philo's around the beginning
of the Christian Era or a nineteenth century attempt to reconcile scripture
with religion, of necessity used materials currently available from botany,
zoology, physics, astronomy, sacred and profane history, and even ethnology.
There are strong incentives also in this theology toward the love of nature
and even toward its study. The intense otherworldliness and rejection of the
beauties of nature because they turn men away from the contemplation of
God are elaborated upon far more in theological writings than in the Bible
itself.

God is the Creator of heaven and earth. UnHke Greek speculation. Genesis
I is unconcerned with their origins. Neither is God the artisan-deity of Plato's
Timaeus, bringing order out of recalcitrant materials. The creation is evi-
dence of the existence of God, but it must not be confused with him. The
beauties and the glories of the creation are not to be loved for themselves:
they are of God but God is not in them; they may be teachers of mankind,
leading it, with the help of the words of God, to the life that is to come after
death. God has bestowed strong powers on man, notwithstanding his pro-
pensity to evil; man has a divine mission to control the whole creation. To
achieve God's intention that
this, it is mankind multiply itself, spread out over
the earth, make its dominion over the creation secure.

2. The Creation, Sin, and Dominion

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was
without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the
Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."^

^ See generally, Rudolf Bultmann, Primitive Christianity in its Contemporary Settings

pp. 15-34.
2 Clarke, Concise Bible Commentary : "Hebrew history for the O.T. writers begins
with Abraham, the stories in Gen. i-i i belonging rather to world history as then con-
ceived" (p. 10). See also p. 336: "Yahweh [beginning Gen. 2:4] is a figure very far
152 Judeo-Christian Theology

In the first chapter of Genesis, "the organization of human life within the
pattern of the week, the last day of which is a holy day, is . . . presented as
purposely ordained by God and reflects the world's first week in which the
creative work was accomplished."^
Light was created before the sun during the first day, that is, from evening
to evening in the Hebrew manner. In the second, He created the firmament,
or the heavens, separating the waters above from those below. On the third
day, two works were accomplished: the waters were confined and dry land
appeared, with its varieties of vegetation. The fourth day saw the creation of
the lights of the firmament, one for night, and one for day, to indicate the
march of the seasons and the passage of the years. On the fifth day, He cre-
ated the creatures of the sea and the birds. Finally, on the last day, there were
also two works: the creation of the animals and the creation of man.
The living things which God created— sea monsters, fish, birds— were blessed
by God. "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds
multiply on the earth" (Gen. 1:22). God said toman also, "Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish
of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves
upon the earth" (Gen. 1:28). Seed-yielding plants and fruit trees were pro-
vided for animals and for men, since they were vegetarians.
Man, unique and in the center of the creation, is set apart from all other
forms of and matter because God has willed this role for him; he is "the
life

climax of God's work, set here as a steward, responsible to his Creator for all
he does with the world over which he is given dominion."^
The idea of stewardship has played an interesting role in the history of
Christian thought toward other forms of fife and even of inanimate nature; in
recent years it has often been invoked in pleas for conservation and nature
protection. Christian stewardship being closely finked with the responsibility
that a temporary sojourner on earth has toward posterity.
Man is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27) in the sense that "the total
being of man bears a likeness to the total being of God. Man alone on this
earth has this likeness; the animals do not possess it (though in paganism they
did)."^
The cosmos and every element in it are continually dependent on God's care

removed from the majestic Deity of Gen. i. Like a potter using clay he makes man out

of the dust of the earth." In many of his actions, he "behaves like a magnified man."
See also Clarke's commentaries under Gen. i to 8, and Frazer, Folk-lore in the Old
Testament, Vol. I, pp. 3-6, 45-52. See also Bultmann's discussion of the doctrine of
creation, op. cit., pp. 15-22.
3 Wright and Fuller, The Book of the Acts of God, p. 50.
4 Ibid.,
p. 49.
5 Ibid., p. 54.
 Judeo-Christian Theology 153

"Without God's constant concern,

for their survival. the order of nature
would be wiped out in a moment and would revert to the original chaos."^
It is this belief in God's continuing care which, I beHeve, is the basis of the
famous idea of the creatio continua, common in the Middle Ages and in mod-
ern times as well, as we see in John Ray's preface to The Wisdom of God
Manifested in the Works of the Creation. The creation is a continuing process
requiring the constant care, activity, and solicitude of God.
Since He is His work are in the cre-
a transcendent creator, evidences of
ation; it is however limited in what it can reveal because it is only a creation.
Much but not all can be known about God through it. "God is the ultimate
mystery beyond all things knowable; he is known only because, and in the
manner that, he has revealed himself."^
In the second creation myth, man's relation to the earth is entirely different.
The earth, already in existence, lacks vegetation because there is no rain. The
order of creation begins with man (created from dust and made to live by
God's breathing in his nostrils), followed by plants (by divine planting in the
Garden of Eden), animals (produced out of the earth by God) and woman
(from the rib of Adam). Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden "to till it
and keep it" (Gen. 2:15). Is there not here a hint that man is a caretaker of
nature, that nature may be man's garden? The vocabulary of the myth is that
of a peasant farmer; the plants are domesticated and the gardener of Eden
tends them, perhaps removing the weeds, but he is a caretaker, not a farmer.^
The animals are created as helpers of man— the Lord brings them to Adam for
naming^ but they are wanting; Adam must have a helper fit for him alone.
When Eve yielded to the persuasions of the serpent, with irrevocable ef-
fectson Adam, Eve, and the serpent, the Lord said to Adam, "cursed is the
ground because of you" (Gen. 3:17); henceforth toil will be needed for hold-
ing on to life. The story of the Fall became important to the Christian idea of
nature because it is the source of the belief, widely held through the seven-
teenth century, that the fall of man has caused disorder in nature and a decHne

^ Ibid., p. 51.
Ubid.,^.SZ-
^ Clarke, Concise Bible Comm., "The story supposes that fruit and edible plants al-

ready exist. All man need do is to tend the garden and keep it safe; the toil of the
cultivator lies in the future. Truly a peasant's paradise" (p. 342). "Der Mensch soli

den Garten bearbeiten und bewachen; zu Grunde liegt diesem Zuge nicht etwa der
modern-protestantische Gedanke vom Wert des Berufes und der Arbeit; sondern es
ist das naive Ideal eines antiken Bauern, dass die ersten Menschen Gartner gewesen

seien: der Baum tragt seine Friichte, Jahr fiir Jahr, fast ohne Arbeit des Menschen; der
Acker aber muss alljahrlich miihsam bestellent werden 3 lyfT.; so ist das Ideal des
Bauern, Gartner zu sein und von Baumfriichten miihelos zu leben; und nun gar Gartner
im Paradiese!" Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, p. 10.
^"By naming the animals Adam gives them their essential nature." Clarke, op. cit.,

p. 342. See also Gunkel, Genesis, p. 1 1.

154 Judeo-Christian Theology

in its powers, an idea clearly distinct from the classical idea of senescence in
nature based on the organic analogy. The passage is also important his-

torically because it introduced the idea of toil as a consequence of sin. Many

Christian exegetes, however, have held that agriculture was a pleasing activity
and not to be associated with sin.
Life becomes hard. Adam and Eve are driven from the garden. In succeed-
ing generations, God regrets the creation of man and is determined to eradi-
cate him, the beasts, and the birds (Gen. 6:7). God spared Noah and the
animals which accompanied him, and God told him as they left the ark, "that
they may breed abundantly on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply upon
the earth" (Gen. 8:17).

3. Man in the Order of Nature

When Noah built the altar and made offerings, the Lord said in his heart, "I
will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of
man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever again destroy every living
creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold
and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8: 2 1-22).
God blesses Noah and them again to be fruitful and to multi-
his sons, telling

ply, to fill the earth, that they are to have dominion over all living things.
*'Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the
green plants, I give you everything" (Gen. 9: 3). God makes a covenant with
Noah and his sons, their descendants, and with the creatures that were on the
ark. There will be no more floods to destroy the earth (Gen. 9: 1 1). Hence-
forth mankind and his creatures can expect, despite the evil of the world, an
ordered universe without further worldwide catastrophe; man can count on
order, regularity, and permanence in nature, and can be assured that the earth
will remain the permanent abode of man (Gen. 9:8-17). According to the
apocryphal book of Enoch^^ (composed over a period of a century, 165-63
B.C.) the elements of nature actually took the oath of the covenant.
The order of the cosmos and man's place in nature are reaffirmed elsewhere
in the Old Testament. "Yahweh is the God of an ordered universe; . .
."^^

he cares for the world which he created for human habitation. "For thus says
the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and
made it (he established it; he did not create it a chaos, he formed it to be
inhabited!). . .
." (Isa. 45:18.)

^0 is considered in more detail in the discussion of the Middle Ages. See

This theme
George Boas, Essays on Frimitivisfii and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages,
11 Robinson, Inspir. and Rev. in the OT,
p. 10; / Enoch Ixix, i6ff. See chap. 4, p. 247,
note 1 1, of the Charles trans. On / Enoch, see Wright and Fuller, The Book of the Acts
.of God, pp. 234-235.
*2 Stanley Cook, An Introduction to the Bible, p. 1 29.
 .

Judeo-Christian Theology 155

The theme may be compared to that of Psalm 8 where man, despite his
insignificance in a cosmos encompassing the moon and the stars (''What is
man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou dost care for
him?") plays an exalted role as an expression and an evidence of God's pur-
pose. "Yet thou hast made him little less than God, and dost crown him with
glory and honor. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy
hands. .
." (Ps. 8:5, 6.) "The heavens are the Lord's heavens, but the earth
.

he has given to the sons of men" (Ps. 115: 16). The theme that man, sinful
though he be, occupies a position on earth comparable to that of God in the
universe, as a personal possession, a realm of stewardship, has been one of the
key ideas in the religious and philosophical thought of Western civilization re-
garding man's place in nature.

4. Earthly Environment

God's power is infinite: "He binds up the waters in his thick clouds. . . . He
covers the face of the moon, and spreads over it his cloud. . . . The pillars
of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke. By his power he stilled
the sea. ... By his wind the (Job 26:8—13.) The
heavens were made fair. . .
."

environmental conditions on earth are God's handiwork. God is an omnipotent

weatherman particularly interested in heat, rain, and wind. "Hear this, O Job;
stop and consider the wondrous works of God": the "balancings of the
clouds," the heat and stillness created by the south wind, and the skies spread
out "hard as a molten mirror" (Job 37: 14-18; see also 36:24-33). The Lord
silences Job in the language of the carpenter and the mason: "Where were
you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understand-
ing. Who determined its measurements— surely you know! Or who stretched
the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone? .

(Job 38:4-6.) Who set bounds for the sea and said to it, "Thus far shall you
come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed"? (Job
38: II.) (The attention given to water and to the confinement of the seas—
probably owing to arid climates and to the Mediterranean— is very noticeable
both in the Bible and in the patristic literature.) The Lord queries Job on his
understanding of the order of nature; to really understand, he would have had
to witness its planning. ("Have you commanded the morning since your days
began, and caused the dawn to know its place? .") (Job 38: 12.) Docs Job
. .

comprehend the depths of the sea, the expanse of the earth, the dweUing place
of light and of darkness, the storehouses of snow and hail? "Who can number
the clouds by wisdom? or [in the language of the desert] who can tilt the
waterskins of the heavens, when the dust runs into a mass and the clods
cleave fast together? " (Job 38:37-38.)
The Lord asks Job questions about the habits of the mountain goat, why
the wild ass ("to whom I have given the steppe for his home, and the salt
156 Judeo-Christian Theology

land for his dwelling place") goes free (Job 39:6), about the faithfulness of
the wild ox to man, the habits of the ostrich, the power and usefulness of the
hawk, and the nest of the eagle in the rocky crag (Job
horse, the soaring of the
39). Further given Job of man's weak powers of understand-
illustrations are
ing the creation with descriptions of the life habits of the behemoth and the
leviathan/^
By this questioning, the Lord instructs workings of an ordered
Job in the
world in which so many relationships unsuspected by him must be considered.
He is speaking of various physical environments: deserts, streams, and moun-
tains, and mountain pastures and the animals which inhabit them, and their

breeding habits and means of self-preservation which enable them to continue

as a species, despite their preying on one another. The purpose, the fore-
thought, and the wisdom shown in the order of nature on earth transcend
the insights of even the most pious, patient, and understanding heart. The
Lord explains that nature serves man— even hmits him— but nature is not for
him alone and its significance does not depend on human wants. "Who has
cleft a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt, to bring
rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man; to
satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?"

(Job 38:25-27.)^^
The book of Job shows that the processes of nature may be beyond the com-
prehension of man; but they are mysteries only to him, for they are the
product of a divine and rational purpose. There are similar ideas in Psalm 104,
but the message is more cheering and exultant. The cosmos is ordered and
beautiful; it is created by God though he is not part of it. "Man is indeed
central in the picture, though at first sight he seems to take so small a place."^^
He is central because the "culmination of the Psalm in the praise of God by
man" is made by "the one earthy creature in which praise can be articulate. "^^

13 Clarke, Concise Bible Comm., says that the anticlimactic speech of Yahweh in Job
40, 41 may be due to the fact that the second speech of Yahweh may be derived from
an Egyptian wisdom book, p. 473; see also p. 474.
1* "Perhaps the lesson most needed today is that of
38, 26 ["to bring rain on a land
where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man"]— while Nature has its in-
fluence on man's destiny, this does not exhaust its meaning for God." Ibid., p. 474.
15 Robinson, Inspir. and Rev. in the OT,
p. 8. "If the first speech of Yahweh in the
Book of Job gives us the fullest Old Testament review of Nature's mysterious details,
the best picture of Nature as a going concern is to be gained from Psalm civ. even
though this is partly borrowed from the Egyptian 'Hymn to the Sun.' " [On this point,
see chap. I, note 6.] "The point of view is here a different one from that of ']ob.' It is
not the incomprehensible mystery of these items in the catalogue of Nature that attracts
the eye of the psalmist, but the harmonious order which rules them all, through the
moon and the sun, so that the night is made for the wild creatures and the day for man."
Ibid., pp. 8-9.
1^ "The psalm really illustrates the thought of Isa. xlv: 18, which says that God formed
the earth that it might be inhabited, and the thought of Psalm viii, which sets man in
the supreme place amongst the creatures of God" Ibid., p. 9, footnote i.
 Judeo-Christian Theology 157

The Lord in his wisdom has created the varied rehef of the earth, confined
the seas, and has made water easily obtainable for all life. God is a generous,
compassionate, and continuous overseer of the natural processes on earth; "the
earth is with the fruit of thy work" (Ps. 104: 13). He has seen to it
satisfied
that there are wild plants for the animals, cultivated plants for man, that the
birds and the land animals have proper habitats ("the high mountains are for
the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the badgers" Ps. 104: 18), that even
the predatory beasts have their prey. "O Lord, how manifold are thy works!
In wisdom hast thou made them all" (Ps. 104:24).^^
It is not to be wondered at that Psalm 104 has been quoted so often by
thinkers sympathetic to the design argument and the physico-theological proof
for the existence of God. The life, beauty, activity, order, and reasonableness
in nature are described without mysteries, joyously— even triumphantly. God
is from nature but he may be understood in part from it. In the late
separate
seventeenth century, John Ray prefaced his famous work. The Wisdom of
God Manifested in the Works of the Creation with the twenty-fourth verse
of Psalm 104; with him and thinkers of similar belief, the praise of God by the
discovery of wisdom in his works becomes a bridge between science and re-
ligion: praise and love the Lord, and show this love by study and learning,
for in this way one obtains knowledge of nature and a deeper understanding
of the works of God.
Elsewhere the theme of the majesty of the Lord and his care for man is
reiterated, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is thy name in all the earth!"
(Ps. 8: 1.) The Creator has also been solicitous of man, whom He has made
little less than God. "Thou hast given him dominion over the works of thy

hands; thou hast put all things under his feet . .

." (Ps. 8:6): sheep, oxen, the
beasts of the field, the birds, and the life in the sea. This is the most important
idea in Christian theology relating to one of our themes, the idea of man as a
controller and modifier of his environment. God, the maker of heaven and
earth, has given the earth to man to rule over it. His dominion over the animals
is exerted in two ways: through domestication and through man's ability to
extinguish animal life in order to obtain food or for other purposes.

5. Attitudes Toward Nature and the Wisdom Literature

"The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his
handiwork" (Ps. 19: i). God is "the hope of all the ends of the earth, and of
the farthest seas" (Ps. 65:5): he has created the earth with water, and blessed
the growth of plants on the soil."Thou crownest the year with thy bounty;
the tracks of thy chariot drip with fatness. The pastures of the wilderness drip,
the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,

Compare Ps. 148.

158 Judeo-Christian Theology

the valleys deck themselves with grain, they shout and sing together for joy"
(Ps. 65: 1 subhme passage, one of many descriptions of the beau-
1-13). This
ties of nature in the Old Testament and especially in the Psalms, is matched,
in its mingling of landscapes made beautiful by nature and by man, only by
the beauty of Psalm 104.
Further evidence of a love for and dehght in nature and of a belief that it
is manifestation of God's handiwork comes from the conception of njoisdom
developed particularly in Proverbs of the Old Testament and in the Wisdom
of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus of the apocryphal writings. In this literature,
"Wisdom is regarded as a Being dependent on God but in some sense separate
from Him."^^ "Wisdom" is human and divine; Yahweh creates wisdom before

the creation itself; "Wisdom comes to be a personification, almost a person;

it is the artificer of all things."^^ Wisdom is conceived of as a "mediating and
quasi-personalized entity."^*^ Most writers have seen Hellenistic influences in
the wisdom literature; it clearly is not a doctrine of immanence nor is it the
Stoic Logos. The most lucid expression of the conception is Wisdom's speech
in Proverbs (8:22-31).

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. When there
were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding
with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was
brought forth; before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the

dust of the world. When he established the heavens, I was there, when he
drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when
he established the fountains of the deep when he assigned to the sea its limit, so
that the waters might not trangress his command, when he marked out the foun-
dations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman; and I was
daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world
and delighting in the sons of men.^i

In this passage the joy in nature, the joy in human life, the joy in doing things
that one does superlatively well, are in startling contrast with the sombre
themes of another exemplar of the wisdom Hterature, the book of Job.

Rankin, Wisdojn Literature. For a detailed list of this literature, see pp.
Israel's
1-2, footnote See especially pp. 1-15; 35-52; 198-210; and chap. IX on "The Figure of
I.

Wisdom"; these are the most important discussions for our theme. Quotation is on p. 224.
p. 68. On Wisdom's being replaced by the Logos in Philo,
19 Cook, Intro, to the Bible,

see ibid.; on Hellenistic influence on The Wisdo?n of Solo7?ion, see p. 67. See also
Robinson, op. cit., pp. lo-ii, and Bultmann, Friiiiitive Christianity, pp. 96-97.
20 Robinson, bispir. and Rev. in the OT,
p. 10. "The precise origin of the figure of
Wisdom in Hebrew usage is obscure and disputable. Here it must be sufficient to say
that its appearance suggests outside influence, possibly Iranian. [Follows Rankin, Israel's
Wisdom Literature, pp. 228-254.] Its unifying function in regard to Nature is obvious.
The world becomes a revelation of the divine wisdom, and Nature is a unity in the
sense that it exhibits the wisdom of its divine Creator and Upholder" (p. 11).
21 This is but part of the hymn to wisdom. See Proverbs 8—9:6. In 9:1-6 Wisdom

becomes virtually an omnipotent housewife.

 =

Judeo-Christian Theology 59

Neither Wisdom nor the Creator is the artisan-deity of Plato, but the Lord
here seems Hke a surveyor and to a lesser extent an architect, Wisdom the
highly competent journeyman who sees at a glance what must be done and
how to do it. One can almost see the two of them, the master and the respected
servant, walking on an equal footing through the fields discussing where to
mark the boundaries, where to plant the grains, where to build the houses.
In the Wisdom of Solomon,^^ which may be regarded as an extension of the
teachings of Proverbs 8, the Spirit of God fills the world^^ and death is not of
God's making; his creation meant that all things should have being. "For he
created all world
things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the
are wholesome. (1:14.)
. These
. verses elaborate the thought of Genesis
1:31, that the creation is good and that the Lord is satisfied with it.^^ Man's
knowledge comes from God: our being and words, our understanding, our
prudence, our skills, knowledge of the order of the world, the structure of the
world and the activity of the elements (7:16-18), the course of the months, of
the seasons, the sun, the cycles of the year, the constellations (19-20): "I
learned both what is secret and what is manifest, for wisdom, the fashioner
of all things, taught me" (7:2 1-22) ; she is not only a teacher, she is "a breath
of the power of God. from one end of the
..." (7:25). "She reaches mightily
earth to the other, and she orders all things well" (8: i). She is compared to a
young love, a bride, she lives with God who loves her and she participates
in his craftsmanship (8:2-5). God made the world with his word, and has
created man to rule the creation "in holiness and righteousness. ." (9:3.) . .

But wisdom is his helpmate. "With thee is wisdom, who knows thy works and
was present when thou didst make the world, and who understands what
is pleasing in thy sight and what is right according to thy commandments"

(9:9). Wisdom watched over Adam and gave him dominion over all else
(10:1). God's love of his creation is emphasized (11:2 5-26). But why cannot
man see and know God? Men "were unable from the good things that are seen
to know him who exists, nor did they recognize the craftsman while paying
heed to his works. . .
." (13:1.)^^ Instead they made gods of fire, wind, stars,

turbulent water, the sun, and the moon. Perhaps, delighted with their beauty,

22 According to Clarke, Concise Bible Comm.^ thetext of the Wisdom of Solomon (

the Vulgate of Wisdom) points to multiple authorship because it lacks unity; it
Book
is based on the teaching of Proverbs 8. Its author has "a considerable, if second-hand,

knowledge of Greek philosophy, especially Plato and the Stoics" (p. 646). On this
book's influence on New
Testament writings, especially Paul's The Epistle to the
Romans, p. 647.
23 Clarke, op. cit., points out the similarity between this idea and the Stoic conception

of "the soul of the world" (p. 647).

2^ Clarke's commentary on Wisdom of Solomon, 1:13-16, op. cit.,
p. 647.
25 This passage occurs in the long discussion of idolatry. "The heathen failed to appre-

ciate the argument from design, or to deduce from beauty the Author of beauty; the
treatment of the subject is thoroughly Greek. Note that 9 contradicts i." Clarke, com-
mentary on Wis. of Sol., 13:1-9, ibid.y pp. 649-650.
i6o Judeo-Christian Theology

men mistook them for gods? ( 13:2-3.) "For from the greatness and beauty of
created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator" (13:5).
Similar themes, often suggesting Proverbs 8, are also in Ecclesiasticus, or the
Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.^^ The power of man over the whole cre-
ation is reasserted as a divine plan for the birth, Hfe-span, and death of man
(17:1-3). Wisdom is like a mistress, or perhaps she is only a servant-girl.

"Wisdom and will glory in the midst of her people. In the

will praise herself,
assembly of the Most High she will open her mouth, and in the presence of
his host she will glory: 1 came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and
covered the earth like a mist' " (24:1-3). Wisdom describes herself and the
Lord's care for his creation in the nature imagery of daily life. "I grew tall
like a cedar in Lebanon, and like a cypress on the heights of Hermon," or
tall as the palm, the rose, the olive, the plane tree. "Like a vine I caused love-
liness to bud, and my blossoms became glorious and abundant fruit" (24: 13-
17). In the imagery of trees, honey, wine, fruit, the harvest, and streams, the
beauty and the honor and the riches of wisdom are set forth. Sometimes
the metaphors describing the Lord's wisdom in fashioning the geography of
the earth as he did are strikingly beautiful, even if the symbol is a commonplace
possession of a Mediterranean people: "At his word the waters stood in a
heap, and the reservoirs of water at the word of his mouth" (39: 17).
The ways of God as a continuing creator, who interferes in the orderly and
expected routines of nature and with the physical arrangements on earth when
he sees do so, are a boon to the good, a curse to the sinner (39: 27). "Fire
fit to
and hail and famine and pestilence, all these have been created for vengeance;
the teeth of wild beasts, the scorpions and vipers, and the sword that punishes
the ungodly with destruction. ." (39:29-30.) . .

The theme of natural catastrophes, of purposeful and violent changes in

the physical nature of the earth as a punishment for sin— often collective sin-
has been a strong one in Christian theology, reaching its climax in the Lisbon
earthquake of November i, 1755, an event which shook this and other Chris-
tian beliefs to their foundations.^^
Anthropocentric interpretations, reminiscent of Xenophon and like those
the earlyChurch Fathers will make, explain the courses of the sun and the
gentler moon whose changes give man a calendar in the sky (43:1-8); the
stars,"a gleaming array in the heights of the Lord" (43:9). All natural phe-
nomena—the winds, snow, frost— are of his doing. "Many things greater than
these lie hidden, for we have seen but few of his works" (43: 32). Admirable
as the creation is, God is not immanent in it; he is a transcendent being. "Who
has seen him and can describe him? Or who can extol him as he is?" (43: 31.)

26 Ecclesiasticus (Vulgate) is Ecclesiasticus, or The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of

Sirach; it was probably written between 200 and 180 b.c. Clarke, p. 651.
27 This will be discussed in chap. XI. See T. D. Kendrick, The Lisbon Earthquake,
pp. 1
1
3-1 69.
 Judeo-Christian Theology i6i

6. Romans 1:20

In the New Testament, the interrelationships of God, man, and earth are not
always clear; perhaps this lack of clarity is because of the syncretism of the
religion.^^ The most important ideas are in Paul's writings, one a theologia
naturalis in miniature, the other an expression of a vanity and corruption which
reached even the creation; both have had a deep influence on the Christian
attitude toward nature and, by extension, on the study of natural history.
Paul attributes the sin of man to his failure to see in nature the works of
God.^^ "Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his
eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have
been made" (Rom. 1:20). With some change, this could have been written
by a Stoic philosopher; it is also a complement to Psalm 104. Men have no
excuse for not knowing or for not honoring God. Neither is there any excuse
for idolatry. "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory
of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or
reptiles" (Rom 1:22-23). theme repeated often in Christian theology:
It is a

worship the Creator, not the creature. The works of God can be discerned in
the creation, but God is transcendent, the creation is by him but not of him,
and it is only a partial teacher. One can see His ways in it, but worship is for
the Creator alone. There is a parallel thought in the Acts. Paul and Barnabas
interfere with the priest of the temple of Zeus who is about to make a sacrifice;
they tell the people to turn to the living God, the Creator, adding, "In past
generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; yet he did
not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven
rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness" (Acts
14:16-17).^^
The creativeness of God is contrasted with the lesser talents of man. "For
'the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it'
" (I Cor. 10:26). "What then is

Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you Lord

beheved, as the
assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth"

28 See Bultmann's chapter, "Primitive Christianity as a Syncretistic Phenomenon," in

Primitive Christianity, pp. 175-179. "Christian missionary preaching was not only the
proclamation of Christ, but, when addressed to a Gentile audience, a preaching of
monotheism as well. Fornot only arguments derived from the Old Testament, but
this,
the natural theology of Stoicism was pressed into service" (p. 177). See also illustrations,
in part discussed here, of syncretism, in the New Testament, pp. 178-179.
29 Paul prefaces these remarks by acknowledging his obligations to Greeks and bar-

barians (1:14-15), by asserting the power of the Gospel "to the Jew first and also to
the Greek" (1:16), continuing that it is not difficult to know about God: "For what
can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them" (1:19).
A
2^ similar thought is in Acts 17:24-25. God does not live in shrines made by man;
he is not served by human hands. He is responsible for nations, for their boundaries,
"Yet he is not far from each one of us, for 'In him we live and move and have our
being' " (17:27-28).
 62 Judeo-Christia7i Theology

(I Cor. 3:5—6). "For we are fellow workmen for God; you are God's field,
God's building" (I Cor. 3:9; cf. 16). "For everything created by God is good,
and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. ." (I Tim.
. .

4:4.) God cares for the world and loves it (John 3:16).
Romans 1:20, like Psalm 104, has been an important support not only for
the argument from design (the wisdom of God as manifested in the creation)
but also in keeping Christian theology on an even keel, avoiding excessive
otherworldliness, rejection of this world, and complete estrangement from
human society. St. Augustine uses it for this purpose. St. Bonaventura finds the
reflection of God in his traces in the sensible world, ending his discussion with
the quotation of Romans 1:20, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as we shall see, has
a vital interest in showing the goodness, not the corruption, of nature.^^

7. CONTEMPTUS MUNDI

These are the affirmations of the closeness of the relationship between God,
man and nature; they are also, I believe, the dominant ones in the Old and the
New Testaments. Nevertheless it is undeniable that there has been in Christian
theology, especially in the exegetical literature, a contemptus mundi, a rejec-
tion hterally of the earth as the dwelling place of man, a distaste for, and disin-
terest in, nature, opposition to a theologia natiiralis, the behef that one can find
in the creation the handiwork of a reasonable, loving, and beneficent creator.
Romans 1:20 (quoted with such approval and piety by the scientists of the
seventeenth century) was an invitation to a deeper understanding of God and
of nature; opposed to was Romans 5:12-14, which is concerned directly
it

with the condition of man. One man, Adam, brought death into the world
through sin; death came to all men because they too sinned. Sin existed before
the law, "but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from
Adam to Moses, even those whose sins were not like the transgression of
Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come" (Rom. 5: 1 3-14). This
passage, containing the essence of the doctrine of original sin, is essentially a
commentary on Genesis 3:17-18, the other important passage leading to a
pessimistic view of man and of nature, in which the Lord addresses the serpent
and Eve and Adam, giving punishment to each. The punishments, however,
are more than personal; they mark an alteration in nature: "Cursed is the
ground because of you" (Gen. 3:17), the Lord says to Adam; now it will
exact its toll of him and he will labor against the thorns and the thistles; a
product of the earth, he will return to it when he dies.^^

Augustine, On Christian Doctrine^ Bk. I. chap. 4; St. Bonaventura, The Mind^s

St.
Road toGod, chap. 2, 11-12; see also St. Thomas Aquinas. Philosophical Texts, chap.
V, on "Creation."
32 See Isa. 24:4-6. "The earth mourns and withers"; "it lies polluted"; "a curse devours

the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt." In Isa. 11:6 conditions existent in
the Garden of Eden are restored.
 Jiideo-Christian Theology 163

According one contemporary view, "the doctrine of the Fall with its
to
sequel, the infection and total corruption of nature," has had a "far-reaching
effect in estranging Christendom from an interest in science. "^^ Paul's purpose
was to demonstrate the greatness of Jesus' coming, because it was a symbol of
life and redemption in contrast with sin and death which followed the first

Adam. In Romans 5: 12-14 "i^ is by no means certain that the Apostle's lan-
guage enforces the behef that Adam's sin tainted his posterity." Thus in sub-
sequent theological doctrine, elements that were subordinate and incidental in
the writings of St. Paul became of crucial importance in Christianity. Romans
8: 18-39 is far more representative of Paul's thinking and of the tradition: the

creation "waits with eager longing for the reveahng of the sons of God"
(Romans The fertility of the creation is owing to the will of God. The
8: 19).

creation itself may look forward to a glorious millennium free from decay.
The creation, "groaning in travail," and man are groping to a higher order
and fulfillment. The imperfections, the "groaning," are not because of man's
sin: these too are part of God's purpose and interaction. "St. Paul is far too
good a theist, far too close a student of the Old Testament, to believe that the
imperfection of creation due to any act of devil or man: only God is in con-
is

trol of His World. Nor because still imperfect is that world deprived of the
power to strive and agonize and yearn for that which is to come. With the
active assistance of God's indweUing Spirit the creation gropes its way for-
ward in hope."^^
According to another, the Fall symbolizes man's problem as being one of
rebellion against his Creator. "He has used the freedom that God has given
him for the purpose of ruling over the earthly creation in order to assert his
independence of God and to become like God." He refuses to accept his status
as a creature dependent on God, he seeks independence from Him, and
equahty with Him— and in so doing loses communion between himself and
God. "His assertion of independence is actually his separation from the source
"^^
of all hfe and all blessing.

8. Key Ideas and the Nature of Their Influence

The first chapter of Genesis inspired the hexaemeral literature, brought into
being by the bare days of the creation. It was started
listing of acts in the six

by Philo, charm by St. Basil, disseminated by the Latin prose of

cultivated with
St. Ambrose, who borrowed much from Basil. Since Genesis left so many i

questions unanswered, the hexaemeral writings, whether apologetics, exegesis,

or homiletics, thus made use of knowledge for religious ends. (The hexaemeral
literature continues through the Middle Ages, reaches magnificent expression

23 Raven, Science and Religion, p. 34.

Ibid., pp. 35-36.
35 Wright and Fuller, The Book of the Acts of God, pp. 56-57.
 Judeo-Christian Theology

in Milton's Paradise Lost, and degenerates badly in the nineteenth century

reconciliationsbetween Genesis and geological theory, brought to a head by
the controversies over historical geology and evolution.) The more literally
the writers of hexaemerons interpreted the sequences of the creation, the
more the need for evidence from physics and biology. Christian piety, natural
curiosity, the desire for rehable exegesis made a more detailed embroidering
of the account inevitable; the materials, many physical, biological, and geo-
graphical, were organized around the account of the six-day creation, be-
coming of the highest significance to revealed religion. The hexaemeral litera-

ture can be regarded as a vast curiosity and irrelevancy; it is closer to the truth,
I think, to see it as a body of commentary which, however faulty, kept alive
and before men's minds the idea that the history of the cosmos and thus of
the earth had been an eventful one, and that the observation of nature was
closely related to an understanding of the creation.
In the somber account of Genesisi no value judgments are made of man;

and the consequences are part of the other story. The first
his sin, his fall,
chapter, moreover, gave a Christian setting to the argument of design; the
subsequent history of that argument in medieval and modern times shows
clearly the components coming from Biblical sources and those from the
classical world.
The second chapter of Genesis (apart from its great religious significance)
has had an enormous influence on the history of Western man's conception of
mankind and of ethnological thought because it introduced questions concern-
ing the nature of Adam as a man, thus inviting comparisons between him and
the types of men who were born after the Fall. These comparisons introduced
questions— which were widely discussed in the Middle Ages— concerning the
nature of cultural primitivism, just as Greek and Roman thought, for different
reasons and from different sources, had produced a similar literature. In in-
spiring the Garden of Eden literature, especially the attempts to locate and
describe the Garden, Genesis 2 both influenced geographical speculation and
encouraged idealized descriptions of nature— often they are descriptions of
Mediterranean-type environments— and some which even point indirectly to
environmental influences on man.
The idea, derived from Genesis 3, that the fall of man had also caused a
deterioration in nature influenced conceptions of the nature of the earth, at
least until the end of the seventeenth century. This deterioration and the toil
required after the Fall to induce productivity in the soil were the counterpart
in the physical world of evil in the moral world.
This deterioration is not an organic change; it is not a decHne in the powers
of nature. It is a curse, for to the Hebrews not only persons but objects could
be cursed. The curse is not in forcing man henceforth to work—he is created
for work— but in forcing him to toil among the thorns and thistles of stubborn
 Jiideo-Christian Theology 165

and ungenerous fields.^^ Even though there might be imperfections and a

niggardliness in nature well suited to the evil propensities of man, this idea
conflicted with another: it is God and not human evil that is responsible for
the condition of the earth.
Questions concerning the constancy of nature are important and we will
meet them again; they are important for the same reason that Lucretius' or-
ganic analogy and Columella's objections to it were important, for if the
powers of nature are not constant, but decay as an organism decays, men can
do little but resign themselves to geographical conditions which, with the
passage of time, will only worsen and will inevitably lead to decay and death.
The application of the organic analogy to the earth, however, is not character-
istic of Judeo-Christian thought, although the idea of senescence in nature ap-
pears in II Esdras in which a comparison is made between the young, born
from the womb of a young mother, with those of lesser stature when the
mother is old. The stature of each succeeding generation will be smaller be-
cause each is "born of a creation which already is aging and passing the
strength of youth." (II Esdras 5:55. See also 14: 10-18.) This passage and the
ideas of Lucretius were frequently cited in modern discussions of the con-
stancy of nature.
The writings in the Old and New Testaments and in the Apocrypha are
often notable for the beauty and richness of their nature imagery. The similes
and other figures of speech might be in the language of the shepherd, the
peasant, the artisan, or the farmer doing simple tasks. "I went forth," says
Wisdom, "like a canal from a river and like a water channel into a garden. I
said, 'I will water my orchard and drench my garden plot'; and lo, my canal

became a river, and my river became a sea" (Sirach, 24: 30-3 1 ).

These descriptions of nature, conspicuous in the Psalms, Job, and Sirach
suggest daily life in a rural setting, the highland pasture and the grain field,
the orchard, the olive grove, or the irrigation ditch. The Psalms dwell on the
beauty of nature, the need to love it as a work of the Creator and to seek him
in it. It is not God however that one sees in nature; it is only his works. Subse-
quent Christian theology is replete with these warnings of the danger of
absorption in, contemplation and worship of. His works. The thought is well
expressed in the Wisdom of Solomon (in the Apocrypha). Men ignorant of
God, witnesses of earthly beauty, do not "recognize the craftsman while pay-
ing heed to his works" (13:1). No matter how fervid the natural theology,
no matter how deep is the reahzation of earthly and celestial beauty, there
must never be any confusion between the maker and his works. This distinc-
tion has been decisive in the Christian attitude toward the earth as a living
place for man; too fervid praise for the works of the creation might lead to

Gunkel, Genesis, p. 22.

 66 Jiideo-Christian Theology

neglect of the revealed word or, as in the case of deism, to outright rejection
of Christianity.
Most striking, for our themes, is the idea of the dominion of man as ex-
pressed in Genesis, and repeatedly expressed in other writings, notably Psalm
8.But one must not read these passages with modern spectacles, which is easy
to do in an age like ours when "man's control over nature" is a phrase that
comes as easily as a morning greeting. Is this idea of dominion anything more
than a distillation of everyday observation of the techniques involved in the
care of plants— gardening and oasis agriculture, grain growing, horticulture—
the ability to kill the wild and subjugate domestic animals— putting the latter
to work in the tasks of agriculture, herding or transport, or using their bodies
for food or clothing? Is there not here also an assertion of the dignity of man
who, made in theimage of God, on His sufferance exercises dominion over
living things on earth comparable in a small way with God's control of the
universe? This power, moreover, is not achieved by, nor is it because of his
abilities; he is lord of the creation because his superior place has been given
him by God. Man's power as a vice-regent of God on earth is part of the
design of the creation and there is in this fully elaborated conception far less

room for arrogance and pride than the bare reading of the words would
suggest.

Thou hast given him dominion over

the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet,
allsheep and oxen,
and also the hearts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the sea.
Psalm 8:6-8

The power, though great, is derivative; it is thrust upon man; he has not earned
it.^^

Genesis also posed important historical questions: how had the world's
population grown; how had the men throughout the habitable
distribution of
world taken place and how had
conspicuous changes among them occurred?
Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth, accompany him ofiF the ark. The
world owes its peophng to them (Gen. 9: i8). Then follow the genealogy of
the sons of Noah, the lands they occupied, their occupations and skills; from
^'^
"According to man's power over creation is a kind of ethico-juridical power
v. 7,
from God, perhaps God's power over the universe and man. The termi-
in imitation of
nology of the verse reflects clearly the terminology for such a concept, and the con-
text implies that man has this power over all kinds of beings, even those apparently
beyond his control. Especially in Gen. i and 2 it is clear that man has the right to use
all things for his own purposes. Man may not be able to enforce this right at all times,
but fundamentally he has it, thanks to God's establishment of man as lord of the earth."
Conrad Louis, The Theology of Psalm VIII, p. 93.
 Jztdeo-Christiaji Theology 167

these lands "the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood" (Gen.
10:32). (The uncertainties regarding the aborigines of the New World in
the fifteenth century stopped with a papal bull pronouncing these peoples to
be human, thus reconcihng their presence with the Christian belief in the unity
of the human race and its subsequent diffusion.) The biblical tradition is

friendly to ideas of cultural diffusion, as the literature on the ten tribes of Israel
attests; in modern times, the idea of independent invention based on the psychic
unity of mankind has in part been a reaction to the extravagances based on
an uncritical acceptance of bibhcal sources.
The Lord, seeing the city and the tower of Babel, scattered the people over
the face of the earth with little thought of furthering intellectual communica-
tion. The world before the dispersion had "one language and few words." The
story thus explains differences in language and habitat of contemporary
peoples.^^ Was this the only plausible means of explaining the cultural diver-
sity of their world, with its many languages and dialects, a world which ac-
cording to scripture had originally been alike and unified?
Genesis also presented the problem of accounting for the growth in world
population from the times of Noah and
his sons to the contemporary era. In a
typical chronology of sacred history, which was still being published in the
nineteenth century, the creation occurred anno mundi i the birth of Noah in
;

1056; God's resolve upon the flood and his command to Noah to build the ark
in 1535; the embarkation of Noah, his wife, their three sons and their wives,
and the animals in 1656, Noah being then 600 years old; the disembarkation
in 1657; the construction of the tower of Babel in 1757; the birth of Christ in
4004.^^
There is nothing in this literature to compare with the classical speculations
on the influences of the physical environment. There is the suggestion, how-
ever, that man is adapted to nature, dependent upon it, capable also of using
it. "EHphaz promises to an upright Job a covenant with the stones of the field,

i.e., the removal of their threat to its fertility, whilst the beasts of the field

will be at peace with him."^^ Plowing, harrowing, sowing, threshing, are done
properly because the farmer is correctly instructed: "His God teaches him"
(Isa. 28:26). The farmer thus carries out the purposes of Yahweh.

The influence of religion thus spreads far beyond ethics, philosophy, and
theology; gathering evidence of the existence of God from observing the
natural order, it brings geography and ethnology within its purview, often
determining the framework within which the great themes of cultural history
and human geography have been studied.

2^ See also Gunkel, Genesis, p. 93.

See Lavoisne^s Complete Genealogical, Historical, Chronological, and Geographi-
cal Atlas (London: 1822), Chronological Maps No. 2 and 7. See also Map 6, Division
of the Earth Among the Posterity of Noah.
Robinson, Inspir. and Rev. in the OT, p. 10; Job 5:23.
i68 Judeo-Christian Theology

The Judeo-Christian conceptions of God and of the order of nature were

often combined by the early Church Fathers with both the classical argu-
ment of design and the idea of an artisan-deity or demiurge, creating a con-
ception of the habitable world of such force, persuasiveness, and resiliency
that it could endure as an acceptable interpretation of life, nature, and the
earth to the vast majority of the peoples of the Western world until the sixth
decade of the nineteenth century.
In one aspect, at least, that which glorified man and nature rather than
denied them, the Judeo-Christian idea of man's dominion over nature em-
phasized his creativity, his activity, his technical advancement, because these
qualities were not of his making but had been placed there by God. He not
only had these godhke quahties, he was also close to God. Men were in an
equivocal position with regard to the rest of the creation. God had brought
it into being but He was not a part of it. Man was made in God's image. He

too was not a part of nature in the way that plants and animals were; he was
more a steward of God, and if he partook of the lowliness of nature, he also
partook of the Godhead from which his stewardship came.
Christianity and the ideas which lay behind it is a religion and a philosophy
of creation. It is preoccupied with the Creator, with the things he created and
their relationships to him and among themselves. What is more usual than to
find among the Church Fathers of the patristic period and the later scholastics
long expositions of the nature of the Creator and his creation? This preoccu-
pation inexorably built up its exegesis, great in volume if not in originality,
but in so doing, different conceptions of life and of nature were fashioned in
the incipient Western civihzation. They were not Greek and Roman ideas
in Christian dress; on the contrary, except for the environmental theories, the
classical ideas now were ancillary to the new synthesis. The new foundations
were built on this religion in northwestern Europe, less enmeshed in tradi-
tion than was the age-old Mediterranean civilization, in an environment call-
ing for practicaHty and experiment.
 PART TWO

The Christian Middle Ages

 Introductory Essay

The was the most studied book of the Middle Ages.^ Men's views of
Bible
the nature of the earth as a fit environment were molded by it and by ap-

propriate chapters in classical physics, biology, and theology (much of it in

the exegetical literature) which, remaining subordinate to the Bible, could
support and strengthen it in those parts where it needed illustration and sup-
plementation. Naturally, the idea of the earth as a habitat planned and de-
signed by God dominated the other two ideas, which, however, were related
to it but in a subordinate position— because they were on a lower level of philo-
sophical and theological generalization.
The words ''Christian Middle Ages" are used here in a broad sense and as a
convenience in characterizing the thought from the patristic period (the first
through the sixth centuries) through the Middle Ages to 1500; perhaps this
use is permissible despite the acknowledged artificiality of such periodization,
especially when different ideas are involved whose course is not the same

* Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, passim.

172 Part Two: Introductory Essay

either in strength or in continuity. We are not concerned here with the rich
cosmopoHtan thought of MusHm, Jew, and Christian in the MusHm Mediter-
ranean world, except when it forced revisions either in knowledge or in
method among Christian thinkers, or for occasional excursions such as the
discussions of Frederick IPs Art of Falconry, or Maimonides' The Guide for
the Perplexed.
The thought of this period, at least with relation to our theme, consists of
much more than passive continuities and linkages from the ancient to the
modern world, although they are there. In the patristic period and in the so-
called Dark Ages, we are in formative periods of Western civilization, which,
it need scarcely be said, does not have classical foundations with Christian
facades.^ The was particularly vital, for the formulation of
patristic period
new and the defense of the religion against its classical de-
doctrine, exegesis,
tractors required thought and energy. Positions had to be taken on the rela-
tion of sin to nature and to man, reexaminations had to be made of the problem
of evil in nature as well as in man. A new chronology and a new annalistic
history were needed, as were a Christian ethnology and a theory on the unity
and dispersion of the human race. How revealing in these respects, among
others, are the anonymous Letter to Diognetus, The Divine Institutes of Lac-
tantius, the Contra Celsum of Origen, and The City of God of St. Augustine!
Later, can one not see revealing episodes in the lives of the Anglo-Saxon
missionaries to Germany in the life and correspondence of St. Boniface and
in The Life of St. Sturm by Eigil, Abbot of Fulda, both dating from the eighth
century? An emboldened Christianity growing in strength enforced new
views of living nature, of the earth, of man himself, largely but not entirely
inspired by Genesis, the Psalms, Job, and Paul's writings. In its very nature
Christianity focused on the creator, the created, and that which bound them
together.
Interesting additions were made to the idea of man as a modifier of his
environment, the result of the slow accumulation of observations, over a wide
area of western Europe and for
a long period of time, of changes, often em-
bodied in traditions, and usages. There was thus the continuing prob-
rights,
lem of interpreting nature, of showing its essential goodness, and yet divorc-
ing it from God, even if it was not investigated in a modern sense. The least
originality was shown with the environmental ideas, although the apphcations
are not lacking in interest.
These conclusions are not surprising when we consider revisions in the
interpretation of the Middle Ages brought about by modern scholarship.
Assaults have been made on the notion of the Dark Ages. Western monas-
ticism has been more closely studied with relation to economic growth. The

2 See Bark's criticisms of Pirenne's treatment of Boethius and the fathers of the patristic

period, Origins of the Medieval World, pp. 29-30.

 Part Two: Introductory Essay 173

vast field of medieval technology is beginning to be explored. Wider recogni-

tion has been given to the area and scope of environmental change whether it

be the quarrying of milHons of tons of stone for the three-hundred-year

period of cathedral building in western Europe or the clearing of tracts of
forests and woodland for the village, the arable, the vine. The Middle Ages
thus are no longer regarded as an unhappy and sleepy interlude in the millen-
nial march of mankind. Recent discussions concerning the nature of the Re-
naissance and the origins of modern science have also pointed to the dangers of
periodization; there have even been complaints that things have now gone too
far the other way, that the creativity of the Middle Ages is being exaggerated
at the expense of real breaks with the past which occurred later.^ One obstacle
in the way of an understanding of this period, as far as our themes are con-
cerned, has been the widely held behef, despite learned articles and mono-
graphs dating back to the nineteenth century, that the peoples of classical

antiquity and of the Middle Ages had neither interest in nor capacity for ap-
preciating nature. Even as late as 1943, it was necessary for Lynn Thorndike—
quoting Emile Male with approval, "The Middle Ages, so often said to have
little love of nature, in point of fact gazed at every blade of grass with rever-
ence"— to say that the notion that the thinkers of the ItaHan Renaissance intro-
duced the appreciation of natural beauty into modern Europe must be aban-
doned.^ Many writers of the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries had
tried to correct the erroneous notion that the love and appreciation of nature
in itself and in its relationships to mankind have been discoveries of modern
times. In geography, the tendency, in considering the relation of culture to

3 On revisions of the idea of the Dark Ages, see Bark, op. cit.; on monasticism and

economics, Raftis, "Western Monasticism and Economic Organization," Comparative

Studies in Society and History^ 3 (1961), pp. 452-469. On the study of medieval tech-
nology, White, "Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages," Speculum^ 15 (1940),
pp. 141-159; Idem^ Medieval Technology and Social Change^ Singer, et al., eds., A His-
tory of Technology, Vol. II: Thomson, "The Medieval Artisan," pp. 383-396 and Gille,
"Machines," pp. 629-658. On cathedrals see von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral, and
Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders; Bloch, Les Caracteres Originaux de VHistoire Rurale
Frangaise, new edition with Supplement by Dauvergne, 2 vols. On revisions in attitudes
toward the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, see Walter Ferguson, The Renaissance in
Historical Thought, and latterly, the articles of Durand, Baron, Cassirer, Johnson, Kris-
teller, Lockwood, and Thorndike in the Symposium on the Renaissance, J HI 4, (1943),
pp. 1-74. See this bibliography sub nomine for the titles of the articles. On the origin of
science, see Alexander Koyre, "The Origins of Modern Science: A New Interpretation,"
Diogenes, No. 16 (Winter, 1956), pp. 1-22. Koyre's paper discusses issues raised by A. C.
Crombie's study of Robert Grosseteste. See also this author's Medieval and Early Modern
Science, 2 vols. All of these works have extensive bibliographic references to older litera-
ture, Bark's being particularly pertinent to the general statements made here.
^ Male, Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century
(
— The Gothic Image,
Harper Torchbooks, Cathedral Library), p. 53; quoted by Thorndike, Hist, of Magic
and Exp. Sci., Vol. 2, pp. 536-537, and in "Renaissance or Prenaissance," JHI, 4 (1943),
p. 71.
174 Part Two: Introductory Essay

environment, to skip from antiquity to modern times, with cursory considera-

tion for the Middle Ages, left similar gaps in medieval contributions and con-
tinuities and minimized the strong influence of theology on geographic theory.
The hexaemeral literature which gave painstaking study to the order of the
creation of animate and inanimate nature was of great importance in the early
period, although hexaemera were written throughout the Middle Ages up
until the nineteenth century. The hexaemeron of St. Basil was the most impres-
sive, that of St. Ambrose, who relied heavily on Basil, the most influential

because he wrote in Latin.

The hexaemeral literature naturally was hospitable to the design argument;
the creation had proceeded in a sequence which brought about an ordered
world. The artisan analogy of the Platonic and Stoic philosophers could be
introduced and reconciled with Christian thought: God's creative acts were
like works of art— not a strange simile to Church Fathers, who had been pagans
themselves, many with a broad knowledge of classical thought. To the Greek,
the universe, like a work of art, had form and matter; Israel, however, "Never
developed its mythology along the lines of the Greek arche. The world was
never conceived after the analogy of a work ( epyov ) or a product of crafts-
manship {rexvY)).'" The Old Testament "never speculates about the pur-
pose (TiXo<;) of creation, or inquires into the rational intelligibility of the
universe."^ The analogy of the universe with the earth contained in it as awork
of art thus became a Christian acquisition as well; Philo, the Hellenized Jew of
Alexandria, may have introduced this modified conception of the creation into
Judeo-Christian thought.
Neither were ideas of environmental influence lacking in the Middle Ages,
although they seem to have been crowded out by a greater interest in astrology
and astrological ethnology; sometimes, as in Albertus Magnus, there is inter-
est in both.Environmental ideas might be nothing more than straight borrow-
ing from classical thought, or they might be reconciled with Christian theology
as St. Thomas Aquinas reconciled them when he says, in his work on govern-
ment written for the king of Cyprus, that a ruler in founding a city must con-
sider the value of the site, just as God did in planning for the creation of the
world.
The geographical tradition also was continued in the Middle Ages by many
descriptive but relatively nontheoretical writings, the de iiatura locorum litera-
ture, illustratedby the compendium of Isidore of Seville of the eighth century
and by Albert the Great, Vincent of Beauvais, Bernard Silvestre, and Bar-
tholomaeus Anglicus of the thirteenth, and by lay and religious travels, which
kept alive— albeit often in obsolete and crude form— notions of contrasting
environments and the fabulous accounts of little-known places. The de natura
locorum literature was almost completely of the compendium type, a gazetteer

^Bultmann, Friinitive Christianity^ p. 128; quotations on pp. 16, 17. Cf. p. 96.
 Part Two: Introductory Essay 175

using as source materials contemporary observations and the geographical

accounts of the ancients which were known to the authors.
Lastly, the Middle Ages was a period of extensive environmental change:
forest clearance, land drainage, the transformation of primeval-appearing en-
vironments by monastic orders such as the Cistercians, and often the reverse
process of the return of once-cultivated lands to a wild state. There is a con-
siderable literature on environmental changeMiddle Ages from Mero-
in the
vingian and Carolingian times until the fifteenth century; but the contem-
porary interpretations of its significance in my experience are few. Those
which we have may be prompted by the establishment of settlements and of
the replacement of forests with domesticated plants like the vine; they may
reflect religious feehngs, the gospel of work, or man assisting God, nature,
and himself, an outlook characteristic of the monastic orders, at least in the
West. Later they hint of the need to control undesirable practices: the heavy
pig- and cattle-feeding in the forest, excessive demands of charcoal makers,
undesirable grazing habits of domestic animals.
Human activities in classical times Middle Ages, unHke those
and in the
since the Industrial Revolution, made less dramatic and certainly less striking
changes in the physical environment. If a dominant idea existed, it was that
man, blessed with the faculty of work, assisted God and himself in the im-
provement of an earthly home even if the earth were, in Christian theology,
only a sojourners' way station.
The most compelhng reason for the observation and study of nature, how-
ever, was that it led to a greater understanding of God. It was part— but only
part— of the proof of the existence of God, of God's plan for a designed world,
and of the truth of the Christian religion.
One must be careful, however, in generahzing about such a long and varied
period. The early Church Fathers, including St. Augustine, did not, in the
apologetics and in their attempts to ward off the pagan attacks, neglect the
evidences from nature in order to prove the superiority of the Christian over
the pagan religion and the hving reality of God's design, just as later thinkers
like Albertus Magnus, in their studies of nature and their defenses of Chris-
tianity, did not neglect the original works, the commentaries, and the transla-
tions of the Muslim civihzation. The early Church Fathers, including St.
Augustine, eagerly grasped at any evidence of God's plan to be found in the
order of nature on earth. Their use of this evidence constituted no superfluous
ornamentation and illustration for a doctrine already proven. In the later
Middle Ages, however, Thorndike has pointed out, although nature study
as

was still study of God's design, it had achieved also a cer-

a part of the general
tain independence and was carried on more for its own sake.
 Chapter g

The Earth as a Planned Abode for Man

I . The Early Patristic Period

Probably every religious writer of the Middle Ages had something to say
regarding the earth as an abode for man because it was so fundamental a topic
and because it constantly came up in exegesis, especially of Genesis, the
Psalms, and some of the Pauline writings.
During the patristic period, the Church Fathers accepted, with necessary
revisions, many ideas concerning the earth which had been held by the classi-
cal philosophers.The cosmological, physiological, and physico-theological
arguments of the Greek and Roman thinkers used in support of the design
argument were adopted by them; these arguments were in fact absorbed by
Christian theology.
The Octavius of Minucius Felix {ca. second century a.d.) is one of the
most revealing of these transition documents. He is a Christian who often
refers to the pagans as "our ancestors." Classical astronomy and geography,
Greek cosmogony beginning with Thales, are put to Christian uses. Epicurean-
 The Earth as a Flamied Abode 177

ism is rebutted, but there is sympathy forTimaeus, and the Christian

Plato's
God is cast in the role of a divine artificer/ Many Church Fathers accepted
the artisan analogy, making here, too, a necessary change by identifying the
artisanwith the Christian God— a Creator planning his creation with the fin-
ished product in mind before his plan is executed. There was, however, a
great difference between the everyday artisan using materials which he did
not create and the divine artisan who created matter and fashioned it accord-
ing to his plan. Although the term physico-theology is a modern one, this
was what these men were were building up proofs and gathering
creating; they
illustrations of the existence of God from the world of nature observable on
earth. The physico-theology of the pre-Augustinian period surpassed in com-
prehensiveness anything produced in antiquity and was unexcelled until early
modern inventions such as the microscope permitted a more thoroughgoing
investigation into the evidences of this divine planning even in the hitherto
imperceptible aspects of nature. This view did not go unchallenged, however;
St. Augustine objected to the literal comparison of God's creativity with
man's artisanship. God does not, like an artisan, create with his hands; "work-
ing invisibly, [he] effects visible results."^
The hexaemeron of St. Basil and the of St. Jerome are the most im-
letters

pressive of these works, especially Basil's, which for charm, comprehensive-

ness, and understanding has not been excelled in its genre, even evoking a
tribute from Alexander von Humboldt, who was not overly friendly to pietis-
tic literature.^ The hexaemeral literature, so widely cultivated in the early

part of the Christian Era, linked the short, cryptic sentences of Genesis i with
the easily observed complexities of the visible creation; the accomplishments
of the Creator performed in definite sequence on each of the six days had
produced a finished and orderly product— and a permanent one, until the final
conflagration should destroy it. Both the order and the permanence of nature
in a finite world were established to their satisfaction; for the living creation
would last as long as the earth because its permanence was part of the Lord's
covenant (Gen. 8:21; esp. 9:8-11). We may illustrate these remarks with
examples— not with any pretense at completeness— to show the existence of
these attitudes toward the earth, despite the strength of an otherworldly scorn

1 "After his conversion, TertuUian seems to have completely forgotten v^^hat reasons

he had once had to be a pagan. This is something which Minucius Felix has never
forgotten. Among all the Apologists of the second and third centuries, Minucius Felix
is the only one who has shown us the two sides of the question." Gilson, HCPMA, p. 46.

On classical ideas in Christian teleology, see Pease, "Caeli enarrant," Harvard Theolog.
Rev., 34 (1941), pp. 103-200.
^City of God, XII, 23.
3 Von Humboldt, Cosmos, trans, by Otte. Vol. 2, pp. 39-42. Humboldt also tells of
his pleasure inreading Minucius Felix and "the delineation (chap, i) of his twilight
rambles on the shore near Ostia (p. 39.)
. .
178 The Earth as a Planned Abode

for nature. Extensive discussion had already taken place before St. Augustine,
in whose works they are brought into sharp focus with a richness of detail.
In the early period, as one would expect, the ties with classical ideas were
still close. The early Christian writings were not all vituperative; often in the
writings of Tertullian, Lactantius, and Minucius Felix there are friendly com-
parisons of Christian with classical thought, especially with the works of Plato
and of the Stoic philosophers.^ The design argument, adopted freely from
antiquity, was recast in a Christian mold, the beauties of the earth being evi-
dence of a divine harmony and of God's grace.
The transition can be observed in a letter, written about a.d. 96, from the
church of Rome to the church of Corinth; its author is believed to be a certain
Clement, third Bishop of Rome, according to the episcopal lists of Irenaeus. It
was "so highly esteemed in Christian antiquity that for a while it was even
reckoned as part of the canon in Egypt and Syria," and Clement of Alexandria
cited it as scripture.
"The earth, flowering at His bidding in due seasons, brings forth abundant
food for men and beasts and all the living things on its surface, without reluc-
tance and without altering any of His arrangements." The seasons peacefully
give way to one another, the winds— without hindrance— perform their func-
tions, and the smallest of living beings live, as the Lord wishes, in peace and
harmony— an arrangement men, "and more than superabun-
that benefits all

dantly to us who have found refuge in His mercies through our Lord Jesus
Christ."^ The theme that the earth serves all men well but is especially bounti-
ful and instructive to those who have absorbed the teachings of Christ and
made them their own is a recurrent one in the history of Christian attitudes
toward man and the earth.
In Minucius Felix' dialogue, Octavius, reminiscent of Cicero's De natura
deorwn^ we see Christian apologists defending themselves against the accusa-
tions of the pagans even while attacking their beliefs. The pagan interlocutor,
Caecilius, an Epicurean, repeats the Lucretian arguments of a cosmos built
up of atoms without divine assistance; these are answered by the Christian
Octavius with the famihar repHes about the order in the heavens and the erect
carriage which enables man to look to heaven. In the oft-performed marriage
of theology and utility, darkness and light provide periods for rest and labor,
and the order of the heavens assists navigation and tells men when plowing
times have come. The sequence of the seasons would be disturbed if it were

4 E.g., Min. Fel., Oct., 19, 20.

^ "The
Letter of St. Clement to the Corinthians," trans, by Glimm, chap. 20, The
Fathers of the Church. The Apostolic Fathers, pp. 26-27. The quotation is from Cyril
Richardson's intro. to the same epistle in Early Christian Fathers, p. 33. Elaborating on
Job 38:11, Clement says the sea is gathered into basins, that laws restrain it from over-
running its barriers. The impassable ocean and worlds beyond it are regulated by the
same divine law. See also chap. 33. On this extremely interesting and important letter,
see Glimm's and Richardson's introductions, and Lietzmann, The Founding of the
Church Universal, p. 61.
 The Earth as a Flanned Abode 179

not guided by the highest intelHgence. Geographical information, possibly-

derived from Posidonius, illustrates God's care for the world.
"Neither does God have care alone for the universe as a whole, but also for
its parts. Britain is deficient in sunshine, but it is refreshed by the warmth of the
sea that flows around it. The river Nile tempers the dryness of Egypt; the
Euphrates cultivates Mesopotamia; the river Indus makes up for the want
of rains, and is said both to sow and to water the East" {Oct. 18).
The utiHtarian argument is appHed to small portions of the earth's surface;
no explanation is given of the need of having bad winters. Perhaps they set off
the advantages of spring! Everyday observation of nature and superficial
knowledge of a favored environment become the supports of proof. It does
not matter if the argument is circular. Nature is assumed to be the result of
God's plan; it is also an important proof of it.
Opposite in argument, similar in purpose, is Arnobius' arresting work The
Case Against the Fagans (Adversus nationes). Apparently a new convert, he
had Httle knowledge of the Old or of the New Testaments; he taught that the
soul is not necessarily immortal; and he ridiculed in the manner of Lucretius—
whom he had clearly read assiduously— the concept of an artisan-deity and
the anthropocentric view of the world. No wonder his latest Enghsh translator
and editor has said that The Case Agaifist The Pagans "is in many ways the
most remarkable patristic document now extant. ." It is thought that he
. .

lived during the reign of Diocletian, writing his book shortly before or after
A.D. 300. Possibly Lactantius was his pupil, but he does not mention Arnobius
in his writings. Nor does St. Augustine, despite his deep interest in the same
subject, the refutation of pagan accusations against Christianity; only Jerome
tells us anything of him.
Arnobius neither appeals to the authority of the prophets, nor quotes from
the New Testament, possibly because he did not know them well, or because
his purpose was to impress the pagans with their guilt, not to convert them.
A sizeable controversial and inconclusive literature is concerned with Lu-
cretius's influence on him, but there is no doubt that he used many Epicurean
arguments even if he was not one himself.
Arnobius rebuts (as did St. Augustine and Hakewill, quoting Arnobius at
length, in the seventeenth century) the claim that Christianity is responsible
for natural calamities and catastrophic environmental change. The rebuttal
appeals to natural law and to the arrangements inherent in nature. There is no
reason to beheve that Christianity brought about changes in the earth, the
sun, the stars, the seasons, the winds, plants, animals, and man— including his

reproductive processes— as the pagans alleged. Christians have not altered and
could not alter the primordial laws of nature. Nor are Christians responsible
for diseases, plagues, crop failures, wars. These have a long history; their
occurrence and recurrence can be documented in periods before the times of
Christ.
The sustained attack on the anthropocentric interpretation of nature, remi-
i8o The Earth as a Planned Abode

niscent of Lucretius, argues that if the tides, the stars, and natural catastrophes
injure human beings, they cannot be regarded as evils. It is the same criticism
that Herder made of Voltaire's poem on the Lisbon disaster. [See p. 524.]
Such events are in another realm; they are apart from human existence and
human values. They are part of nature's plan. A tranquil sky is not wicked be-
cause it prevents merchants from saihng the seas [I, 9]. The knoM^ledge of
origins and final causes is concealed from man [I, 11].
Sharply critical of the famous argument that because he possesses reason
man, creator of the arts andis superior to the animals, Arnobius re-
sciences,
plies that the arts are earthly phenomena, not god-given, "These are not the
blessings of knowledge but the inventions of paupers— necessity" [II, 17-18].
Like the Epicureans, he is an enemy of artisan-deities. The pagan gods are not
artisans or deliverers. Apollo does not bring rain. The pagan gods are late-
comers on an earth created by God, who set natural processes in being long
before they were born [I, 30] He ridicules Timaeus; the origins and diversity
.

of things do not come from his mixing in the Platonic bowl. Here it is Timaeus,
not the Creator, who does the mixing [II, 52]. Nor are the gods skilled
mechanics. Why should they be? [Ill, 20-21.] He challenges his opponents
to explain the causes of hail, raindrops, and other natural phenomena; their
previous attempts have all been failures.
Arnobius can use Epicurean arguments against typical ancient conceptions
of nature, purpose, artisanry, especially those inspired by the Stoic and Pla-
tonic philosophies, because his own philosophy is based on absolute faith in
the meaning of Christ's life, and Lucretius can therefore be used to telling
effect because it is faith, not knowledge, that is fundamental.^
Whether or not he was a pupil of Arnobius, Lactantius (probably late
third and early fourth century, for he lived during Diocletian's persecution of
the Christians) certainly does not pursue this line of attack. His ideas are like
those of Minucius Felix; they are congenial to the Stoic philosophy. Although
the luckless Lactantius is most often remembered for the dogged assurance
with which he denied the possibility of people living in the antipodes, his
writings in fact are marked by a broad humanity, culture, and extensive knowl-
edge of classical thought. With him also the typical utihtarian arguments of
antiquity become items in God's plan to outfit man with the abundant produc-
tions of the earth.
Lactantius agrees that the Stoics were right in saying that the creation was
for man, for man does enjoy the products of the earth, but they failed to ex-

6 I am indebted to McCracken's notes and translation of this work for the discussion

of Arnobius. On his date, see pp. 7-12; on A. and Lactantius, pp. 12-15; on A. and
Lucretius, pp. 29-30, 37-38; on his knowledge of scripture, pp. 25-26; on Timaeus, note
297, Vol. I, p. 331. St. Jerome's testimonies on Arnobius are quoted, facing p. 3. See
also Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 47-49, who says A. "remains an interesting witness to the re-
markable progress achieved by the opponents of Christianity in their criticism of the
new religion" (p. 47).
 The Earth as a Planned Abode i8i

plain the reason for God's creating man or the use that Divine Providence
would make of him. Lactantius replies that the world was created for man
so that he could recognize God in order to honor him. Who but man looks up
to heaven, to the sun, the stars, and the whole creation of God? This pagan
argument leads to the important conclusion that man's works, his changes in
nature, are part of these providential arrangements and that man, through his
inventiveness, is making use of the raw materials furnished by God. The
utilitarian arguments presuppose that the changes in the earth made by man
represent the completion of a task set by God who purposely left his creation

unfinished. In his simple thoughts about the utiHty of fire, heat, trees, springs,
rivers, plains, and mountains, no distinction is made between areas which man
has changed by using them for agriculture, and wild mountain regions which
supply his wood and fuel. The earth is more was at creation:
beautiful than it

it is a nature, improved by the art of man with divine approval and intention.

Perhaps these attitudes— which one often finds in antiquity, the Middle Ages,
and early modern times— arose because of a less firm distinction than there was
in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries between urban and rural
life. In this modern literature the rebellion against civilization does not seem

to be directed against its rural enclaves in the countryside but against massive
displacements of both by the city. In these earlier centuries— perhaps well into
the early Industrial Revolution— nature seems to be what man sees about him,
an interminghng of the natural and the cultural.
Lactantius repeats the time-honored praise of the sea for its fish and its

trading opportunities, of the moisture-bearing Mediterranean winter, of the

final ripening of the fruits in the dry warmth of summer, of the phases of
the moon which like a natural calendar tell off the times for summer journey-
ing, campaigns, and field work (quotes Virgil, Georgics I.289).
In adopting classical ideas of the utihty of the earth to man, Lacantius thus
assumed that human art and technology are part of the creation and that
changes made by man in the earth are extensions of God's foresight; there is
a continuity from the creative act of God to the art of man. Although the
opposing tradition that man should not interfere with nature has also been
strong (if God had wanted it different he would have done it that way at
once), the tradition that man helps the Creator in improving nature also dates
from the earliest days of Christian apologetics.*^
What of the ascetic, otherworldly, and nature-rejecting attitudes of the
early Church Fathers? In my opinion, they had two different outlooks, one
on the nature of the earthly habitat, another on the nature of the city of God.
Each had its own place, although there was no question of the superiority of
one to the other. This distinction appHes whether the world is thought of
symbolically as life, as a vale of tears, as the social environment, or hterally as

^ "The Epitome of the Divine Institutes," chaps. 68-69; "A Treatise on the Anger of

God," chap. 13. On the antipodes, "The Divine Institutes," Bk. 3, chap. 24, ANF, Vol. 7.
1 82 The Earth as a Planned Abode

the planet whose plants and animals and whose orderly arrangement support
human existence.
The anonymous author of the Letter to Diognetus spoke of the Christians
as dwelling on earth, their homeland being in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Although
this text expresses the otherworldliness of Christian society, it also embraces
attitudes toward the physical earth; it is man's temporary habitat during life
and he cannot be indifferent to it even if his permanent home is in heaven, and
even if it is a creation of a lower order.
There are few statements in the early Hterature to match the acuteness of
the following observations from this letter. They seem especially striking to
a twentieth century mind sensitive to ideologies and aspirations of minorities.
Even if there is a suggestion of self-righteousness, thereis also an awareness

of the social milieu which makes men ahke one way, different in another.
in
Uniformities of dress, speech, behavior are there; so are the deep, less con-
spicuous differences.

For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by
country or language or customs. They do not live in cities of their own; they do
not use a peculiar form of speech; they do not follow an eccentric manner of
life. . This doctrine of theirs has not been discovered by the ingenuity or
. .

deep thought of inquisitive men, nor do they put forward a merely human
teaching, as some people do. Yet, although they live in Greek and barbarian
cities alike, as each man's lot has been cast, and follow the customs of the country
in clothing and food and other matters of daily living, at the same time they
give proof of the remarkable and admittedly extraordinary constitution of their
own commonwealth. They live in their own countries, but only as aliens. They
have a share in everything as citizens, and endure everything as foreigners. Every
foreign land is their fatherland, and yet for them every fatherland is a foreign
land. They marry, like everyone else, and they beget children, but they do not
cast out their offspring. They share their board with each other, but not their
marriage bed. It is true that they are "in the flesh," but they do not live "accord-
ing to the flesh." They busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in
heaven.^

In his defense of Christianity against accusations that it embraced atheism,

cannibahsm, and incest, Athenagoras (second century a.d.) says that God,
like an artist or a potter, gives beauty and form to matter. We praise the art
of the Creator, not the beauty and order He has created; we admire the beauty
and splendor of a royal residence but pay homage to the emperor. Emperors,
however, make and adorn their palaces for themselves, but God did not make
the world as if he were in need of it. The world is like an instrument in tune,
but still we worship the creator of the harmony. "I will not beg of matter
what it cannot give; I will not pass God by to worship the elements, which
can do no more than they are bidden. For even if they are beautiful to behold

8 "Letter to Diognetus," The Library of Christian Classics. Vol. /, Early Christian

Fathers, 5-6. On this passage, see Gilson, HCPMA, pp. lo-ii.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 183

as the work of their maker, yet are they by the nature of matter corruptible."
(Quotes Plato, Politics, 2690.)^
These arguments, reminiscent of Plato and Plotinus, are intended, as is the
Timcteus, to demonstrate that the creation is a work of love, and not an act
performed by God for his own satisfaction. Belief in the unselfishness of God
underHes the idea of a beneficent nature, good and motherly toward men, a
belief which served them well until they were overawed by the harsh austeri-
ties of natural selection and the struggle for existence.
Tatian (born ca. a.d. from the famed Pauline text,
120), taking his cue
Romans 1:20, writes in a similar spirit. "I refuse to adore that workmanship
which He has made for our sakes. The sun and the moon were made for us:
how, then can I adore my own servants?
In these pre-Augustinian writings— and more could be quoted to the same
purpose— admiration for the earth (and its beauties) as the habitat of man is
restrained, often reluctant; the divinely conceived earth is still only a creation
and we owe our allegiance to the Creator and not to it.

On the other hand, Irenaeus (born ca, a.d. 126) in his attack on Gnosticism
forcefully argued for a position which could only lead to neglect of the
study of the earth; we cannot even solve the mysteries of nature, let alone
those of God. We are ignorant of the Nile's sources, of the tides, of meteoro-
logical phenomena like the cause of rain, lightning, and thunder; of the phases
of the moon and the homing places of migratory birds. If we know so little
about nature, how is it possible to know God? If scriptural explanations are
lacking, the phenomena of nature and the knowledge of God will always be
imperfectly understood mysteries.Even if we cannot really understand God,
said Irenaeus, we know from scripture that the creation was a generous act;
God bestowed harmony on all things, assigning them at their creation their
proper stations."

2. Origen

Few of the early Christian teachers have written as interestingly concerning

man, his environment, and Providence as has Origen (185-^^. 254). In the
Contra Celsum, Celsus is a Platonist type of thinker (Origen constantly
refers to him as an Epicurean but drops the epithet in the fifth book) who uses
pagan arguments to criticize Christian claims and beliefs while Origen replies,
9 "A Plea Regarding Christians," The Library of Christian Classics. Vol. /, Early

Christian Fathers, chaps. 15-16. Quote in chap. 16.

4, ANF, Vol. 2, p. 66.
10 "Address of Tatian to the Greeks," chap.

"Against Heresies," Bk. 2, chap. 2, 4, ANF, Vol. i, p. 361. "Obviously, the immediate
purpose of Irenaeus was to destroy the very notion of a Gnosis conceived as the integral
on the deficiency of natural
rationalization of the Christian mysteries, but his insistence
knowledge introduced, if not for the first time, at least with a force which was then
new, what will remain, up to the time of Montaigne's Apology for Raymond Sebond,
the favorite theme of a certain type of Christian apologetics." Gilson, HCPMA, p. 22.
;;iB4 The Earth as a Flanned Abode

sometimes strongly, sometimes lamely. To a modern reader the areas of agree-

ment are surprisingly numerous. In this work two of our ideas— of the de-
signed earth and of man as a modifier of his environment— are discussed in a
clearand profound manner. Origen was an eloquent advocate of the doctrine
of the identity of Providence, the creative spirit of man, and the Logos, a

doctrine often smothered in the castigation of sinful man that has been such
a dreary and unattractive part of Christian thought.
It is true that Origen expresses this viewpoint too. St. Augustine and St.

Thomas Aquinas criticized him for ascribing the diversity of nature to the
fall of Hfe from the primeval unity and harmony in which God created it.

Judging by the care with which St. Augustine examines it and the incisiveness
with which he attacks it, this teaching that the whole creation is in some way
a product of a primeval fall was considered— as St. Thomas in the thirteenth
century considered it— a threat to fundamental Christian doctrine. Origen's
Feri Archon (De Frincipiis), however, does not give so uniformly a pessi-
mistic view of nature as St. Thomas implies. What other cause, says Origen,

are we to imagine for so great a diversity in the world, save the diversity and
variety in the movements and declensions of those who fell from the primeval
unity and harmony in which they were at first created by God, and who, being
driven from that state of goodness, and drawn in various directions by the
harassing influence of different motives and desires, have changed, according to
their different tendencies, the single and undivided goodness of their nature
into minds of various sorts?

The is entirely different. God, Origen says, did not

tone of Contra Celsum
create a wicked nature; men have become evil because of upbringing, per-
version, and environment (presumably the social milieu ).^^ God can do noth-
ing wrong, the power of wrongdoing contradicting "His divinity and all His
divine power."^^ God is an artificer, constructing various forms of life for the
benefit of the whole, Origen view that even if
says, in opposition to Celsus'
the soul is God's work the body is not.^^ Long before St. Augustine rejected
the idea of eternal recurrence, Origen wrote that ideas of this kind were in-
compatible with the belief that the universe is cared for by God "in accordance
with the conditions of the free will of each man, and that as far as possible it

City of God, XI, 23; Aquinas, ST, Pt. I, Q. 65, Art. 2.

12

De
Frinc. Bk. 2, chap. 9, 2 =
ANF, Vol 4, p. 290; on the meanings of mundus and
kosmos, Bk. 2, chap. 3, 6, p. 273. See also Gilson, HCFAIA, p. 37, 41-42.
^^De Frinc, Bk. 2, chap, i, i, p. 268. Gilson comments that Origen implies that "even
beasts have become diversified on account of a primitive 'apostasy,' or voluntary deser-
tion from the divine One," {HCFMA, p. 573, note 39).
1^ Contr. Cels., Ill,
69. On Celsus' philosophy and Origen's attitude tow^ard him, see
Chadwick's intro., pp. xxv-xxvi.
^^Ibid., Ill, 70.
^nbid., IV, 54.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 185

isalways being led on to be better " The determinism of eternal recurrence

denied both free will and improvement/^

Celsus said the Christians believe God made all things for man, and Origen
replies that

Celsus, being muddle-headed, did not see that he is also criticizing the Stoic

school of philosophers. They quite rightly put man and the rational nature in
general above all irrational beings, and say that providence has made everything
primarily for the sake of rational nature. Rational beings which are the primary
things have the value of children who are born; whereas irrational and inanimate
things have that of the afterbirth which is created with the child.^^

Celsus, "at last displaying his Epicurean views more clearly," says that thunder,
lightning, and rain are not made by God (and even if they were, they were
not created for the nourishment of man any more than they were for plants,
trees, grass, and thorns). Origen repHes— traditionally— that the nature we

see cannot be explained by mere chance; God has intentionally provided a

home for mankind.^^
The earth and nature do not exist for men for a narrow anthropocentric
reason, but because God favors the rational over the irrational. Man obtains
these favors and possesses an earthly home because he is rational.
Origen pursues this important theme more vigorously in objecting to Celsus'
notions of the providential care of man and wild animals. Celsus, obviously
with Lucretius in mind, says, "Though we struggle and persevere we sustain
ourselves only with difficulty and toil, whereas for them [i.e., the animals]
*every thing grows without sowing and tillage.' " Origen's answer is the classi-
cal answer adapted to Christian needs: necessity is the mother of invention;
God made rational creatures purposely more needy than the irrational animals
to compel men to use their minds and to discover the arts. The answer is
really part of a traditional concept of man as being a helper of God, com-
pleting and improving the creation.
If obvious criticisms may be made of this conception, at least it preserved
the dignity of man; it saw religious value in his mind, his industry, his skills,
his inventiveness. It did not deny the world or the importance of man's activ-
ities in it.

Celsus asks why we human beings as rulers of the irrational

should regard
animals. Why could one not argue that men were made for the wild animals
Nature has given them weapons to destroy men, who are
to hunt and to eat?
weaker and who must devise nets and weapons and obtain the cooperation of
other men and of dogs to protect themselves. Origen praises human intel-

18 /^zi., V, 21; see also IV, 67.

19 /^ii., IV, 74.
Ibid., IV, 7 s-
 The Earth as a Pla?ined Abode
ligence; it is superior to the strength and physical endowments of the animals.
By our intelligence we tame and domesticate animals; we can protect our-
selves against those which we do not domesticate and we can use them— as we
use the domestic animals— for food. Origen seems to follow Stoic doctrine
here.

The Creator, then, has made everything to serve the rational being and his
natural intelligence. And for some purposes we need dogs, for example for
guarding flocks or herds of cattle or goats, or as house-dogs; for others we use
beasts to carry burdens or baggage. Similarly the species of lions and bears,
leopards and boars, and animals of this sort, are said to have been given to us
in order to exercise the seeds of courage in us.^^

Although this passage repeats the trite utihtarian ideas of nature, the exis-
tence of the domestic animals is proof of human intelligence and skill and that
rational creatures, cooperating with God, give meaning to the creation.
"In reply to what you say [says Celsus], that God gave us the abihty to
catch the wild beasts and to make use of them, we will say that it is likely that
before the existence of cities and arts and the formation of societies of this

kind, and before there were weapons and nets, men were captured and eaten
by wild beasts and that it was very rare for beasts to be caught by men."^^
To this interpretation that man's rule over the rest of the creation has been
contingent upon the development of culture, that it is historical in character
and did not exist from the beginning, Origen can think of nothing better to
say than to grant for the sake of argument the truth of the thesis and then
to add that in the beginning there was more solicitous care for the human race;
there were divine voices, oracles, visions of angels.

And probable that at the beginning of the world human nature received
it is

more help men had progressed in intelligence and the other virtues, and in
until
the diicovery of the arts, and were able to live independently, not needing those
beings who minister to God's will always to be looking after them and caring
for them with some miraculous appearance. It follows from this that it is untrue
that at the beginning men were carried off and eaten by wild beasts and that it
was very rare for beasts to be caught by menP

This weak answer, however, does express the interesting idea that the
human race had attained its mastery over Hfe with maturity; in the beginning,
like an infant in a nursery, it had to be protected until it had developed its
powers. Then, like a grown child, not only could it hold its own but later it
could achieve the striven-for suzerainty. The child abandoned in the wilds
is at the mercy of the wolf; the growing youth, the vigorous man, can kill

him easily with a snare or a bow and arrow.

^^Ihid.^ IV, 78; see Lucr., V, 218; Chadwick's remarks Contr. Cels., pp. x-xi; and
chap. I, sees. 7-8, and chap. Ill, sec. 7, on Stoic views.
22 Ibid., IV, 79.
^^Ibid., IV, 80.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 187

3. Philo and the Hexaemeral Literature

The hexaemeral literature, the literature of comment and exegesis on the six-
day was an admirable vehicle for bringing the biological, geographi-
creation,
cal, and physical writings of the pagan world to bear on a central theme in

Christian theology, the order of creation of plants, animals, birds, fish, and
man.^^ Why was the creation a sequence and not a single act? Was creation
in sequence a manifestation of divine orderliness? The answers to the first
question were varied but one important answer was that the sequence in
creation demonstrated to man at each step the existence of God. The answer
to the second was a uniformly affirmative one: the account in Genesis was a
description of the activities of an orderly God.
Philo's On the Creation is an early— perhaps the earliest— example of such an
hexaemeron; in it one can see classical and Hebrew ideas of man and nature
being combined almost before one's eyes.^^ Philo emphasizes the need of
recognizing God's power as a father and a maker (Swdfiev^ ttoltjtov koI

irarpo^ "and not to assign to the world [/cdo-/xo9 a disproportionate majesty."

) ]

Furthermore, a father and a maker cares for what he has brought into being.^^
Philo says that God made all things in preparation for man "as for a living
being dearest and closest to Himself. . . It was God's will that man on
coming world should live and live well, that he should "find both a
into the
banquet and most sacred display" {(tvixtt6(tiov /cat 6 eo.T pov lep(i)Tarov)— the
a
banquet meaning the fruits of the earth for his sustenance, use, and enjoy-
ment, the display meaning the orderly heavens, all sorts of spectacles "circHng
with most wondrous movements, in an order fitly determined always in ac-
cordance with the proportion of numbers and harmony of revolutions."^^
Man's existence on earth is characterized by a dominion over nature of far-
reaching proportions that can be seen in everyday life. (See chap. VII, Sec.
3.) The
Creator has so made man that he is at home in all the elements: he
Lives and moves on land; he can dive, swim, sail, fish; "merchants and ship-
masters and fishers for purplefish and oyster-dredgers and fishermen generally
are the clearest evidence of what I have said." His erect body allows him to
move through the air; and he is heavenly because with the gift of sight he
draws near the sun, the moon, the planets, and the fixed stars. Man being
composed of the four elements is at one physically with the world, but divine

24 Generally, Robbins, The Hexaemeral Literature. A Study of the Greek and Latin

Commentaries on Genesis. Robbins shows the strength of this tradition to the time of
Milton (see Paradise Lost); actually the hexaemeral literature was very much alive in
the nineteenth century, when, as Darwin and Lyell discovered, many thinkers were still
following in "the footsteps of the Creator day by day."
25 See Robbins, op. cit.,
pp. 24-35, which other Jewish hexaemeral writings are also
discussed.
26 On the Creation, 7-10.
27 Ibid., 77-78.
i88 The Earth as a Planned Abode

reason grants him kinship with the first father ("Every man, in respect of his
mind, is allied to the divine Reason, having come into being as a copy or frag-
ment or ray of that blessed nature. . .
.")^^

Although the world was created in six days, the Creator did not require this
time, for He could do all things simultaneously. "Six days are mentioned be-
cause for the things coming into existence there was need of order." Order
involves number, and of the numbers six is the most favorable to productivity:

it is the first perfect number

one since it is equal to the product of its
after
factors (one, two, three) and their sum; half of it is three, a third, two, a sixth,
one. In its nature it is both male and female "and is a result of the distinctive
power of either." Male may be considered odd, female even; three is the start-
ing point of the odd numbers and two of the even, their product being six.
Since the world is the most perfect of things which have come into existence,
it should be constituted in accordance with a perfect number, six; and as the

world was "to have in itself beings that sprang from a coupHng together,
[it] should receive the impress of a mixed number, namely the first in which

odd and even were combined, one that should contain the essential principle
both of the male that sows and of the female that receives the seed."^^ St.
Augustine repeats the same thought: God did not require a protracted time
for creation; because six is a perfect number it signifies also the perfection of
his works. "And therefore we must not despise the science of numbers, which,
in many passages of holy Scripture, is found to be of eminent service to the
careful interpreter."^^
Although we through every day of the creation, a
will not follow Philo
few examples of his exegesis show by one
the kinds of questions considered
infatuated with the properties of numbers.
In these creative acts of God, each day receives its share of the whole.
The initial acts of the creation are not counted as a "first" day but as "one
day" to avoid counting it with the others. What Philo means can be under-
stood from Genesis 1:5: "And there was evening and there was morning,
one day." Following the lore of the properties of numbers, "one day" has
the nature of a unit. The Creator conceives the models of its parts, then the
ideas, then the sensible world.^^
On the third day it was necessary to control the briny water so that the
land would not be barren for crops of trees; dry land is separated from the
sea; the earth is put in order and clothed. All plants at the creation are perfect,
the fruit ripe, ready for immediate consumption.^^
Heaven is created on the fourth day. Four is a perfect number; much evi-

^^Ibid., 147, 145-146.

29/Z;/i., 13-14.
30 City of God, XI, 30.
31 Ow the Creation, 15, 19. (Follows Timaeus 29E.)
^^Ibid., 38-41.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

dence isadduced to prove this, the simplest being that it is the base and source
of ten the complete number. What ten is actually, four is potentially. If the
numbers from one to four are added together, the sum is ten. Further evi-
dences of its importance are the four elements, the four seasons, and that "it
was made the starting-point of the creation of heaven and the world." Since
this numeral is "deemed worthy of such high privilege in nature" it comes as

no surprise that light was created on this day; then man's glances turned
upward to the heavens, and man started toward the birth of philosophy.^^
It is only natural for the animals to be created on the fifth day, there being

no kinship so close to animals as this number, as one can see in the five senses.^*
Man's place in nature is explained by his order in the creation, the most
inferior, the fishes, coming first, the most superior, man, being last, those
between the two extremes coming in the middle. What is it that sets man off
then from the rest of the living creation? It is that man is created after the
image and likeness of God; nothing earth-born is more like God than is man;
it is in mind, the sovereign element of the soul, not in body, for mind was

molded after the archetype, the Mind of the Universe. To an individual, his
mind is hke a god to him; "for the human mind evidently occupies a posi-
tion in men precisely answering to that which the great Ruler occupies in all
the world."^^ This comes about as close as one can come to finding man's
place within Old Testament nature and also to finding his apartness. It is
mind which brings about the apartness and it is mind which also brings about
the control over other forms of life.

4. St. Basil and the Hexaemeral Literature

In the following centuries, the important contributions to the development

made by St. Basil, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine. Basil's
of these ideas were
hexaemeron, written in Greek, was a source for the hexaemeron of Ambrose,
which, composed in Latin, was more widely understood in the West. Au-
gustine as a young man was greatly inspired by Ambrose, then Bishop of
Milan, and he had also used Basil's hexaemeron in Latin translation.^® The
works of these men reveal some interest in interpreting living nature; if their
eyes were on Heaven, there was at least an occasional glance at the earth
below. It is not surprising that there should be an intense interest in nature,
because any hexaemeron, or any commentary on Genesis, which took the

47-53.
34 Ibid., 61.
35 Ibid., 69.
36 Works and bibliography in Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 581-582, 589-591. On the litera-
ture of the Latin translation of Basil's hexaemeron, p. 582; on Ambrose's interest in moral
lessons rather than abstract speculations, p. 589; on Augustine's learning from St. Am-
brose, the " 'spiritual meaning' hidden behind the letter of the scripture," p. 590.
190 The Earth as a Planned Abode

six-day creation story literally (Augustine, however, did not)^^ of necessity

had to document it with facts and observations taken from plant and animal
lifeand from the general configuration of the land and of the sea.^^
One must remember also the outlook of educated Christian thinkers of
the fourth century a.d. Pagan thought and literature were known to them;
many had been converts to Christianity; they bolstered their own religion
with whatever could be salvaged from the science, philosophy, and even the
religion of the pagans.^^ If in the later Middle Ages it was necessary for
Christian theologians to meet the challenge of Mushm thought and the trans-
lations, by studying and incorporating the new and the acceptable wherever
possible, there was in this early period a similar necessity for the Christian
thinkers to show the quality of their thought and to use known facts or sup-

posed facts to demonstrate the superiority of their rehgion to the best that
pagan philosophy and theology could offer.
St. Basil's (ca. 331-379) is the most comprehensive of the early hexaemera.

His exegesis is expressed in the famous homihes which he prepared for his
simple and untutored congregation; they are unencumbered with technical
details or abstruse hairsplitting.Their intent is to show the wisdom of the
Creator, a wisdom evident in the balance and harmony of nature, in the
adaptation of all Hfe— including the special adaptations of man, the highest
manifestation of life on earth— to terrestrial conditions.
Like the natural theologies of modern times, the early hexaemera had strik-
ing characteristics in common, among them an appalling lack of originality,
but the better ones did attempt a synthesis, relying heavily on the biology of
Aristotle, the philosophy of Plato, and the nature imagery of Virgil, which
would make the creation sequence understandable and believable.^^
The charm of Basil's hexaemeron is due to the clarity and simplicity of its

form: it is a popular, not a technical, treatise, and Basil obviously felt that
his congregation would understand his meaning best through the simple,
homely, moralizing which he used.
illustrations
Basil begins by noting
good order which reigns in visible things,"
"the
questioning then the conclusions of Greek science and philosophy, particu-
larly the idea that because bodies are impelled by a circular force they have

^'^
conveniently his allegorical interpretation of Gen. i, in Conf., Bk. xiii.
E.g., see
3^ See the following works in The Catholic University of America Patristic
i?2ter alia,
Studies: Vol. i, Jacks, St. Basil and Greek Literature; Vol. 29, Diederich, Vergil in the
N
Works of St. Ambrose; Vol. 30, Springer, ature-lmagery in the Works of St. Ambrose.
See, for example, Jacks' remarks on the education of St. Basil, op. cit., pp 18-26, and
pp. 7-17 on Christian and pagan learning.
On the influence of the Timaeus on the hexaemeral literature, see Robbins, Hex. Lit.,
pp. 2-1 1. "Plato is accorded respectful treatment, in general, by the Hexaemeral writers.
There were, however, certain Platonic assumptions that the church could not accept,
especially the theory of the eternity of matter, the doctrine of metempsychosis, which
Origen was accused of holding, and the theory that the ideal pattern of creation is
independent of God" (p. 11).
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 191

no beginning, a clear protest against cyclical ideas applied to broader fields

and derived from the analogy of circular motion. The world had a be-
ginning and it will have an end.^^
The world is not eternal, as the Greeks thought; it has been created. Before
this creation an order of things existed, the Creator-demiurge could work in
an atmosphere favorable to the exercise of his supernatural powers, permitting
him to perfect his works.^^ To this world it was necessary to add a new one, the
present world, "both a school and training place where the souls of men
should be taught at a home for beings destined to be born and to die." It is

in this present world too that the passage of time was created, "for ever
pressing on and passing away and never stopping in its course." Mortal crea-
tures are adapted to the nature of time; they grow, or perish "without rest
and without certain stability." Existence is compared to being in a current
whose motion carries a plant or an animal from life to death. Creatures live
in surroundings "whose nature is in accord with beings subject to change."
Time and life are transitory, for in time "the past is no more, the future does
not exist, and the present escapes before being recognized." The pregnant
idea of a time-dominated world being a school for man, later secularized and
expanded, suggests the modern theme of the earth as a nursery and as a
school for mankind, prominent in the writings of Herder in the eighteenth
century, repeated in the geography of Carl Ritter in the early nineteenth, and
introduced into America through the lectures of Ritter 's Swiss-born pupil,
Arnold Guyot, at Princeton in 1 849.^^ It is one of the key ideas in the Chris-
tian attitude toward the earth before the Darwinian theory of natural selection
made nature more brutal than the nature, described by earlier writers, de-
signed forman by a beneficent Creator. Thus, ours is not a chance creation
nor is it created without reason, for it has a useful purpose: "since it is really
the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground
where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and sensible
things, the mind is led, by a hand to the contemplation of invisible things."^^
(Quotes Rom. 1:20.)
The artisan analogy serves the ends of Christian theology too, for creative
arts survive the creative act. Basil contrasts them with dancing and music
which stop with the end of the performance; but our admiration must be
greater for the artisan— the architect, the wood worker, the weaver, the
worker in brass—than for his creation. Similarly the world is a work of art
from which one learns to know God: it is like a building proclaiming the fame
of the architect. The earth is good, useful, beautiful; if the thought here is

41 Hex., Horn, i, 1-3 (NPN, Vol. 8, pp. 52-53).

42 Basil follows apparently Origen, De Princ, II, i, 3. See also Robbins, Hex. Lit.^ on
Basil's use of Plato, Aristotle, Origen, and Philo, pp. 42-44.
^^Hex,, Horn, i, 5, (NPN, Vol. 8, p. 54). Guyot, Earth and Man, pp. 30, 34-35.
^^Ibid., Horn, i, 6, p. 55.
192 The Earth as a Planned Abode

not derived directly from the Timaeus, it at least owes much indirectly to it.
"Being good, He made it a useful work. Being wise, He made it everything
that was most useful. Being powerful. He made it very great. "^^ The benefi-
cent Christian God has fashioned, not out of caprice or personal necessity
but out of His goodness, the powerful, useful, beauteous world of nature
we behold.
At its creation the earth need of finishing. Everything was
was still in
under water; God had yet to adorn his work with the beauties of plant life.
Basil compares the unfinished with a finished earth, "for the proper and natural
adornment of the earth is its completion: corn waving in the valleys— meadows
green with grass and rich with many colored flowers— fertile glades and hill-
tops shaded by forests."^^
In the third homily, which
concerned with cosmology and the elements,
is

Basil speaks of the importance of air and water. There are vast quantities of
water in the earth because it is necessary to preserve the earth against fire
until the final conflagration. In the meantime, fire is necessary to support
life with the arts like weaving, shoemaking, architecture, agriculture; heat,

a milder form of fire, is continuously needed for the reproduction and sur-
vival of animals and fish and for the ripening of fruit. Water and fire thus
balance one another; both are indispensable. These ideas are based on the
classical doctrine of the four elements. Basil sees the divine plan as he surveys
the habitable parts of the earth linked together by the encircling seas: "and
irrigated by countless perennial rivers, thanks to the ineffable wisdom of Him
Who ordered all to prevent this rival element to fire from being entirely de-
stroyed." Eventually, however, fire will triumph. (Quotes Isa. 44:27.)^^
Basil has proofs of the fitness of the environment: the changes in the sun's
position in the heavens during the year (the solstices are especially noticed)
mean that there is no excessive heat in one place, but a temperate climate
throughout the habitable world.^^ The thinkers of the pre-Columbian era
living in northwest Europe or in the Mediterranean had less difficulty in
showing favorable chmates to be part of the design than did those following
the age of discovery who were confronted with sharper extremes.
Basil, like Ambrose who followed him in this, had a sensitive appreciation

of the beauties of the sea. The sea was also useful, because it was the source
of the earth's moisture through subterranean conduits or through evaporation
of its waters. According to a widely held theory, refuted decisively by
Bernard Palissy in the sixteenth century, water from the sea reached sub-
terranean canals and caves and was blown by the wind up through channels

"^^Ibid., Horn, i, 7, p. 56.

^6 Ibid., Horn. 2, 3, p. 60.
^"^
Ibid., Horn. 3, 4-6, pp. 6'j-6(). On ancient science and Basil's and other hexaemera,
see Karl Gronau, Foseidonios und die Jiidisch-Christliche Genesisexegese. See pp. 77-78
for the classical background of the discussion of water and fire.
Ibid., Horn. 3, 7, pp. 69-70.
 The Earth as a Flarmed Abode 193

in the soil, being purified in the process.^^ The other source of the earth's
water suggests rough form of the hydrologic cycle. The sea receives the
a
waters of the land without overflowing its shores because the sun evaporates
the water, the moisture-laden air ultimately returning to land to release its

waters to enrich the earth.

Basil, born in Caesarea, had traveled to Constantinople, Athens, and Egypt,

and probably knew and loved the Mediterranean and its islands. The island-
encircHng sea has both beauty and utility.
Commenting on Genesis 1:10 ("And God saw that it was good") Basil
says it was not merely its pleasant aspect that God saw; the Creator contem-
plated his works, not with his eyes but in his ineffable wisdom. "A fair sight
is the sea all bright in a settled calm; fair too, when, ruffled by a light breeze

of wind, its surface shows tints of purple and azure,— when, instead of lashing
with violence the neighboring shores, it seems to kiss them with peaceful
caresses." According to Scripture, God does not find the goodness and charm
of the sea in its beauty, but in its purposes, for it is the source of moisture, it
encircles the islands "forming for them the rampart and the beauty, because
it brings together the most distant parts of the earth, and facilitates the inter-

communication of mariners. "^^ There is none of the distrust of a maritime

location as a destroyer of indigenous cultural values expressed, as we have
seen, by Cicero and Caesar.
To Basil, the very existence of organic life is one of the best proofs of the
essential nature of the earth and of God. The grasses serve both animals and
man, but those who worship the sun as the cause of vegetation err, for plant
life existed before the creation of the sun.^^ In rejecting pagan behef in the

sun as a source of plant growth, Basil denied not only pagan science but the
evidences of the senses. The beauty and harmony of nature, as evidenced in
plant Hfe, are related to the creative act of God, and it was necessary, as
Basil, and later Ambrose, thought, to insist, following Genesis, that plants
were growing before the sun was created. The sun is not a creator of the
becoming: God's benevolence opens up the earth's bosom, his grace allows
it to bring forth its fruits; the sun is younger than the green [ Ambrose ].^^

The theory was held in variant forms even to the Renaissance. See Bernard Palissy,
Admirable Discourses (1580), for the refutation of the idea and evidence that the waters
of the earth are derived from rain. Leonardo was far more conventional in this respect.
Hex., Hom. 4, 6, p. 75.
On this interesting and curious subject see Gronau, op. cit.., pp. 100-106. Gronau
believes Basil used some type of compendium of natural history based on Aristotle or
Theophrastus rather than the work of any specific classical writer.
pp. 108-109. Plutarch {De Flac. Philosophorum
52 Jacks, St. Basil and Greek Literature,

V, 910 C) credits Empedocles with the theory that trees, the first living things, existed
before the sun and the creation of day and night. Basil says of this: "If they are sure that
the earth was adorned before the genesis of the sun, they ought to withdraw their vast
admiration for the sun, because they believe most plants and grasses vegetated before it
rose" (Jacks' trans.). See Hex., Hom. 5, i.
194 The Earth as a Planned Abode

There is a strong sense of the partnership of man and nature in Basil's

eulogy of the trees which supply food, roofs, ships' timber, and fuel. Even a
succession initiated by man is commented upon: "It has been observed that
pines cut down, or even submitted to the action of fire, are changed into a
forest of oaks." Furthermore, man can remedy (through artificial selection)
natural defects of fruits by his own devices, and gardeners have learned to
know the sex of the palm and the fig.^^
Both Basil and Ambrose were interested in animal life; they saw great
significance in the ability of animals to live together and in the protective
devices they possess which are useful for their survival; each species has its

own habitat. In the sea, the smaller fish are the prey of the larger— an oppor-
tunity now to morahze on the human propensity to oppress inferiors. Each
kind of fish, nevertheless, has its home in the sea assigned to it with equality
and justice. How do fish migrate from gulf to gulf toward the North Sea,
and how do they know they can cross the Propontis into the Euxine? "Who
puts them in marching array? Where is the prince's order?
In a notable passage, Basil reveals how intense is his interest in finding in
nature evidences of the divine. "I want creation to penetrate you with so much
admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring
to you remembrance of the Creator."^^
the clear
It is true that the early Church Fathers, including St. Basil, added little if

anything to the store of knowledge regarding the earth; their biology, their
geography, their natural history came entirely from pagan sources. Basil's
hexacmeron is a compendium of classical science and natural history organized
around a Christian principle; it is, in fact, a rich storehouse of ancient science,
now in the service of the Christian religion.^^ Basil's physico-theology is the
best of its kind until the works of Ray and Derham in the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries; these men had, however, the benefits of the heady
discoveries which Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and others had heaped upon the
student of nature and the servants of God alike.

St. Ambrose shares with St. Basil, from whom he borrowed so much, this
strong desire to interpret and appreciate the physical world of nature about
him, but his work is more allegorical, and has more moralizing in it. Ambrose
also uses the classical writings, especially those of Virgil. His classical educa-
tion, his early interest in nature, stimulated by the impressions of a trip he made
as a boy from Treves (Trier) on the Moselle to Milan, probably were the
sources of this intense love of nature that appears not only in his hexaemeron

^^Hex.^ Horn. 5, 7. Cf. Ambrose, Hex. 3, 13, 53-57, PL, Vol. 14, cols. 191-194. For
the classical references to caprification, see Gronau, op. cit. (n. 47 above), p. 102.
^^H^jc., Horn. 7, 4, p. 92. See also Horn. 7, 1-3.
Ibid., Horn. 3, 2, p. 76.
On Basil's reading and his sources, see Jacks, op. cit., p. 19, and Karl Gronau's ex-
haustive commentary on Basil's hexaemeron, pp. 7-1 12.
 The Earth as a Flanned Abode 195

but in his letters and the hymns.^^ Although nature is described not for its own
sake but for its uses in moral and religious teaching, his pleasure is unconcealed,
and the pious phrases are suffused with the color, fragrance, and beauty of
nature.
In his hexaemeron, Ambrose borrowed so much from Basil that it seems
in reading Ambrose one is reading Basil again. Elaborating on the twenty-
fourth verse of Psalm 104, Ambrose says the world (immdus) is a sign {speci-
men) of divine creation the sight of which leads us to praise the Maker
{operator). If we interpret "in the beginning" in terms of number (i.e., se-
quence), heaven and earth were created and then the earth, with its hills,

lowlands, and habitable regions, was finished in detail.^^ Like his Christian and
classical predecessors, he cannot explain why only certain parts of the earth
should be habitable. The actual becomes the ideal; what is desirable to the
eye is the mirror of the design.
Ambrose, like Basil (both were influenced by Philo), feels called upon to
when God could have made everything
justify the time taken for the creation
instantaneously. God, however, wishes to bury classical theories once and for
all. The creation was spread over six days in order that there would be no

mistaken belief that the world is eternal and uncreated and so that by this
example man could be induced to imitate Him. In unabashed analogies from
the daily life of the artisan, Ambrose says God would have us imitate him,
that we first create a thing and then we finish and adorn it, for, had we ideas
of doing both at once, we could complete neither. The embroidery comes after
the weaving. God created the world first; then he adorned it so that we may
know that He who created it was adornment and
also responsible for its
furnishing. We would not think the creation and the adornment were the
work of different hands: one is believed in through the other. This is also the
general argument of St. Basil.^^
Like some of the classical and biblical writers and those of the Old and New
Testaments, Ambrose was fascinated with water, his praise of the sea (follow-
ing Basil) being one of the most frequently quoted of his nature passages. It
is benevolent (III, 5, 22): It gives rain to the land; and it is the lodging place

of rivers {hospitium fluviorw7i), the source of rain {jons hnbrhim). It is a

wall against the dangers of war, a barrier against the barbarian fury. Along
its shores are the alluvial soils, deposited by the rivers flowing into it. It is a

On Ambrose's use of classical writers (especially Virgil) whose writings were im-
portant in the education of fourth century youth, and his dependence on Plato and
Origen in biblical exegesis, see Diederich, Vergil in the Works of St. Ambrose, pp. 1-6,
a large part of which is devoted to a painstaking comparison of passages in the works of
Ambrose with corresponding ones in Virgil. These are mostly from the Ge orgies and
the Aeneid, less from the Eclogues. See also Joh. Niederhuber's introduction to his
German translation of the Hexaemeron, BDK, Vol. 17.
Ambrose, Hexaemeron, i, 5, 17; i, 4, 12, in: PL, Vol. 14, cols. 139, 141-142.
Ibid., I, 7, 27, PL, cols. 148-149.
196 The Earth as a Planned Abode

source of taxes and a means of livelihood at harvest failure through trade and
commerce, and in other ways. In his practical theology, each wave has its use
in this transparently utilitarianview of nature.^^
Ambrose's hexaemeron is less intellectual than is Basil's; there is much more
allegory and spiritual interpretation in it, an emphasis which had a marked in-
fluence on Augustine, but Ambrose also kept alive and passed on the concep-
tion of man as a partner of God in improving the earth. (See pp. 298-299.)^^

5. St. Augustine

Viewed against the background of these predecessors, Augustine follows along

well-trodden paths. What is distinctive in him is the wealth of ideas and the
imagination with which they are explored.
His ideas regarding the natural order on earth are not so intimately related
to the sequence of creation as were the hexaemeral treatises of St. Basil and St.
Ambrose, for Augustine's own hexaemeron De Genesi ad litteram libri du-
odecim is not a literal one and therefore puts less stress on natural phenomena
associated with the creation than does St. Basil.^^ Broadly speaking, Augustine's
contributions to the conception of nature as observed here on earth are derived
from Greek biology and philosophy (especially Plato) and from the Bible
and biblical exegesis.
St. Augustine's conception of the relation of God, the Creator, to the cre-
ation observable on earth and to man may be summarized as follows: It is God,
the Creator, whose workmanship in creating heaven and earth we must con-
stantly adore. The earth and earthly things are to be spurned when we com-
pare them with the greater glories of the City of God, but neither are life on
earth and the beauties of nature to be despised because they are on a lower
order in the scale of being or because they represent an order inferior to the
Divine Order. The earth, life on earth, the beauties of nature, are also creations
of God. Man full of sin and prone to sinning is nevertheless a glorious product
of God's greatness: man's arts and skills are proof of this, but this greatness
does not come from an innate worth in man— it is no occasion for pride— but
from the goodness of God who created him. Let us now illustrate these general
ideas from the works of St. Augustine.
In the Judeo-Christian doctrine, the distinction between the Creator and
the created (even though proofs of the Creator's existence may, to some ex-
tent, be obtained from observing the creation) is unequivocal, as it must be:
there can never be any question of the inferiority of the natural order, lovely

^^Ibid., 3, 5, 22, PL, cols. 177-178. In his German translation of Ambrose's Hex.^
Niederhuber says the philosopher Secundus replied to Hadrian's question what the
ocean was by saying the sea was a "hospitium fluvioriim" and a "fons imbrium." (Mul-
lach, Fragm. phil. Graec, I, 518.) BDK, Vol. 17, p. 89 note.
Gilson, HCPMAy p. 589, note 11. See also p. 55, and Augustine, Conf. VI, 4.
62 Robbins, Hex, Lit.,
pp. 64-65. See also Augustine, Conf. XIII.
 The Earth as a Flanned Abode 197

as it is, to God. It is a distinction that lies at the root of Christian belief and
in the Christian attitude toward nature: one should never become so entranced
with the beauties of nature that he mistakes them for anything other than
creations like himself. Augustine emphasizes this distinction many places in
his work.^^ The distinction does not mean the rejection of natural theology.
Augustine in fact has made good use of Romans i 20.^^ Although one can find
:

in the creation evidences of the creator, they must be correctly interpreted.

The strength and the dangers of natural theology are well brought out in his
commentary on Psalm 39: "Learn in the creature to love the Creator, and in
the work Him who made it. Let not that which was made by Him take hold
of thee, so that thou lose Him by Whom thou also wert thyself made."^^
In one of his sermons, he distinguishes between evil in the world of men and
the goodness inherent in the order of nature. Evil even plays an important and
positive role in teaching man where his interests lie.

Evils abound in the world in order that the world may not engage our love.
Those who have despised the world with all its superficial attractions were great
men, faithful saints; we are not able to despise it foul as it is. The world is evil,
yea, it is evil, and yet it is loved as though it were good. But what is this evil
world? For the sky and the earth and the waters and the things that are in them,
the fishes and the birds and the trees are not evil. All these are good; it is evil
men who make this evil world.^^

Augustine is thinking, too, of the pagan religions, of the personification of

nature and of the earth. The distinction between the creator and the created
rests on the belief that there is one God, and that the phenomena of nature,
despite their great variety, are the work of a single artisan, not of many.^^
In a long exposition and criticism of the lost work of Varro, Antiquitatum
rerum humananim et dwinamm lihri XLI (the last sixteen books dealing with
res divinae), Augustine protests that the pagan ideas of the gods start with the
conception of the earth as the mother of the gods. The earth is no mother; it
itself is a work of God.^^ Augustine expresses contempt of and disgust with

the effeminate and the emasculated men consecrated to the worship of the
Great Mother Earth.^^ All the great works observable on earth— the gift of a

^3 1 greatly indebted to Przywara's An Augustine Synthesis (cited as Przy.) for

am
many of the references to Augustine. For examples of Augustine's distinction, see
"Contra Julianum," IV, 3, 33, OCSA, Vol. 31, p. 286, Przy. p. 346; "De Trin.," IX, 7-8,
13, NFNist Ser. Vol. 3, pp. 1 30-1 31, Przy. p. 346; ibid., XV, 4, 6, NPN, as cited, p. 202,
Przy. pp. 74-75; "Sermones ad Populum," ist Ser., 158, 7, 7, OCSA, Vol. 17, pp. 487-488,
Przy. pp. 367-368; "Enarrationes in Psalmos," 39, 7, 8, OCSA, Vol. 12, p. 273, Przy. p. 410.
^^City of God, VIII, 10, and De Trin. VI, 10, 12, Przy. pp. 141-142.
39, 8, OCSA, Vol. 12, p. 273, Przy. p. 410.
65 "Enarrationes in Psalmos,"
66 "Sermones ad Populum," ist Ser., 80, 8, OCSA, Vol. 16,
p. 573, Przy. p. 434.
City of God, VI, 8; VII, 23, 30.
67

VI, 8.
68 Ibid.,
69 Ibid., VII, 26. Several chapters of the City of God are concerned with Varro's lost
work: IV, 31; VI, 2-6; VII, 6, 22-26.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

rational mind, the ability to reproduce, the course of the moon, to mention
only a few of Augustine's examples— are Varro thinks, creations to be
not, as
distributed among the gods; they are creations of one God. Heaven and earth
are filled with His power.
The Creator, whom St. Augustine compares with a shepherd or a husband-
man ("ille summus pastor, ille versus agricola")^^ is infinitely superior to what
he has made."^^ Following the guidance of Plato and the Timaeiis, the Creator
is an artificer of infinite skill who is pleased to create, and what He creates
also
is world of order'^ and it is created out of His goodness, for He is pleased
a
to create. He upbraids Origen for not seeing this and for missing the sig-
nificance of Genesis 1:31 ("And God saw everything that he had made, and
behold, it was very good").^^
In an important passage, St. Augustine distinguishes between the actual
order of nature and the standards of value which human beings place upon it.
Living things rank above the lifeless, and among the living, sentient beings
like the animals are above the trees, those of the sentient beings that are intel-
ligent, like man, are in turn superior to cattle. And among the intelligent the
immortal angels rank above mortal man. These gradations in the order of
nature may not be pleasing to men who may prefer forms without sensation
to sentient beings.

And is this preference, that, had we the power, we would abolish the
so strong
latter from nature altogether, whether in ignorance of the place they hold in
nature, or, though we know, sacrificing them to our own convenience. Who,
e.g.^ would not rather have bread in his house than mice, gold than fleas? But
there is little to wonder at in this, seeing that even when valued by men them-
selves (whose nature is certainly of the highest dignity), more is often given for
a horse than for a slave, for a jewel than for a maid. Thus the reason of one con-
templating nature prompts very different judgments from those dictated by the
necessity of the needy, or the desire of the voluptuous; for the former considers
what value a thing in itself has in the scale of creation, while necessity considers
how it meets its need; reason looks for what the mental light will judge to be
true, while pleasure looks for what pleasantly titillates the bodily sense.'''^

In distinguishing between the order in nature and human evaluations of it,

Augustine departs from the familiar utihtarian view of nature. In another
passage, he is even more forthright in exposing the narrowness of the utilitarian
view of nature. The phenomena of nature are to be judged by their own, not
by human, standards. "Therefore, it is not with respect to our convenience or
discomfort, but with respect to their own nature, that the creatures are glorify-

"Sermones ad Populum," ist Ser., 46, 8, 18, OSCA Vol. 16, pp. 264-265, Przy. p. 273.
71 De Trijj., XV, 4, 6; City of God, XI, 4.
City of God, XI, 4.
72

See the discussion of Origen, p. 185. City of God, XI, 23. On the goodness on earth
73

being the result of the goodness of God, see De Trin,, VIII, 3, 4-5, Przy. p. 134.
74 City of God, XI, 16.
 The Earth as a Flanned Abode

ing to their Artificer."^^ Augustine here upholds a tradition that is teleological

in character but which is centered upon the excellence and purposiveness of
individual creations for their own sakes without regard to their usefulness
to man. It is reminiscent of Aristotle's conception of the end of a species being
internal to it; one species is not designed for another/^
a characteristic of
Augustine's distinction between Jerusalem and Babylon, symbohzing the
love of God and the love of the world, is helpful in understanding his attitude
toward nature. These two cities are separate, but not completely isolated from
one another. Neither is Babylon completely useless.^^
The earth is most certainly not lacking in beauty. In fact, famiharity with
its wonders may blunt our perceptions. "But in all the varied movements of

the creature what work of God's is not wonderful? And yet these daily won-
ders have by famiharity become small in our esteem. Nay, how many common
objects are trodden underfoot which, if carefully examined, amaze us!"^^ This
strong urge to see in the creation the works of the Creator is tempered with

the thought that we must see its limitations as a means of understanding God
even if its beauties proclaim His existence. And although it is dangerous to
quote in support of a thesis scattered passages from a prolific author written
at different times in his Hfe and for different purposes, I think we will make
no mistake in quoting passages from various sources regarding Augustine's
view of nature; the emphasis may vary, but he never lets himself stray far
from the idea that nature and the earth are creations of God, that they have
beauty, grace, usefulness, that one should never lose oneself in them, worship-
ping them, and forgetting the Creator and the City of God. "Let us not seek
in this (earthly) beauty that which it has not received, for because it has not
received that which we seek it is on that account in the lowest place. But for
that which it has received let us praise God, since even to this that is lowest
He has given also the great good of outward fairness."^^
Augustine warns that men's love should be directed to God, as if pantheism
and the worship of the creation were a constant danger. He himself had come
too late to the love of God; he had gone astray by looking at the fairness of
the creation. God was with him, he was not with God and the creation had
impeded the understanding: "And there made I search for Thee, and in a de-
formed manner I cast myself upon the things of Thy creation, which yet thou
hadst made fair. Those things withheld me from Thee, which yet, if they
. . .

had not their being in Thee would not be at all."^^

^5 Ibid..,
XII, 4; see also chap. 5.
See p. 48 and Ross, Aristotle, p. 125.
Sec City of God, XIV, 28, and "Enarrationes in Psalmos," 44, 2; 136, 2, OCSA, Vol. 13,
pp. 92-94; Vol. 15, pp. 244-245, Przy. p. 267.
"Epistola," 137, 3, 10, OCSAy Vol. 5, p. 166, Przy. pp. 50-51.
"Contra Epistolam Manichaei quam vocant Fundamenti liber unus," chap. 41, par.
48, OCSA, Vol. 25, p. 476, Przy. p. i.
80 Conf, X,
27. Przy. p. 75.
200 The Earth as a Planned Abode

The cosmological and physico-theological arguments are used in a variety

of moods, some of passionate lyrical beauty, to show how men arrive at a
knowledge of God by observing the order and beauty of the visible creation.

Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea, ask the loveliness
of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the sky, ask the order of the stars,
ask the sun making the day light with its beams, ask the moon tempering the
darkness of the night that follows, ask the living things which move in the
waters, which tarry on the land, which fly in the air; ask the souls that are
hidden, the bodies that are perceptive; the visible things which must be gov-
erned, the invisible things which govern— ask all these things, and they will all
answer thee, Lo, see we are lovely. Their loveliness is their confession. And these
lovely but mutable things, who has made them, save Beauty immutable?

Man's place in this creation is consistent with its harmony and order, con-
sistent too with the scale of being, of creatures high and low, that fill up all
nature. God determined upon a single parent for man as a warning that with
the propagation of the human race, the unity of its growing multitudes should
be preserved. The creation of woman from Adam's side signifies how close
the ties of man and wife should be: "These works of God do certainly seem
extraordinary, because they are the first works." Man's sin and fall did not
deprive him of the ability to propagate but his fecundity is now infected with
lust. Before the Fall, our parents could obey the injunction to increase and

multiply without lust. Lust began after sin. Having children is "part of the
glory of marriage, and not of the punishment of sin."^^ St. Augustine attempts,
by a rudimentary population theory whose premises are in the Scriptures, to
account for the growth of the world's population and for the retention of cer-
tain blessings bestowed on the human race despite the miseries it has endured.
It is a creation having the continuing governance of God; if His creations

were deprived of His strength they would perish. The actual work of the six
days refers only to the creation of natures, not to controlling them; God
continues in his governance of the universe.^^
The most important idea concerning man's relation to the Creator and to
the rest of the creation is that men become gods, notby themselves, but "by
participation in that one God who is the true God." ("Non enim existendo
sunt homines dii, sed fiunt participando ilhus unius, qui verus est Deus.")^^
Even in the arts and the sciences (like agriculture), divine power governs;
man merely helps. "God, who while man plants and waters. Himself giveth
the increase. "^^ Man is a miracle existing in a visible world that is also a mighty
8^ "Sermones ad Populum," 2d series, No. 241, chap. 2, par. 2, OCSA, Vol. 18, p. 238,
Przy. p. 116.
82 City
of God, XII, 27; XIV, 21.
83 "Epistola," 205, 3, 17, OCSA, Vol. 6, pp. 117-118, Przy. pp. 117-118; "De Genesi ad
litteram," IV, 12, 22-23, OCSA, Vol. 7, pp. 121-122, Przy. pp. 117-118.
84"Enarratio in Psalmos," i6th Disc, on Ps. 118, par. i, OCSA, Vol. 14, p. 585, Przy.
p. 306.
85 De Trin. Ill, 5, 1 1, Przy. pp. 43-44. Cites I Cor. 3:7.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 20I

miracle.^^ Man's nature was created as a mean between the angelic and the
bestial and in such a way that if he had subjected himself to the Creator, he
could have become an angel and achieved immortality without the interven-
tion of death, but if he offended the Creator by the proud use of his free will,
he became subject to death and to living as the animals.^^ It is man's mind, not
his body, which is in the image of the Creator.^^ There is much evil in man,
says Augustine, but his condition "would be lowered if God had not wished
to have men supply His word to men."^^ It is man, not nature, that is evil.^°
Man, a creation of God, is assisted by Him, and often assists Him. It is this
relationship which makes St. Augustine so hostile to astrology— which he re-
jects as being absurd on the face of it and incompatible with man's relation
to God. Many of the earlier Church Fathers, seeing in the pagan gods and in
astrology a threat to Christian doctrine, were far more critical of astrology
than were the thinkers of the late Middle Ages.^^
The place of man as an active power in nature will be discussed later (see
chap. VII). It is sufficient now to mention that his discussion of the miseries
and misfortunes inherent in human life is followed by most enthusiastic praise
of man and his skills, praise of man as an inventor, a creator, a discoverer,
whose talents range widely over the arts, agriculture, the hunt, and navigation.
Man still has dignity and greatness, and they have not been engulfed by his
sin.^2

With St. Augustine, the design argument, the scale of being, and the prin-
ciple of plenitude achieve greater stature than contributions to the hexaemeral
and exegetical literature; they constitute a Christian synthesis, a philosophical
view of man and nature.
The synthesis grew in importance because the Christian religion grew in
importance. It is a parochial, delicate, and audacious synthesis whose polarities
offer hard choices: one is the way of physico-theology and of nature study, of
appreciation of man and his creative abilities; the other is the way of ascetic
otherworldliness, the contempt for nature, the condemnation of man, themes
also profoundly affecting the Christian outlook on man and nature in the
Middle Ages and in modern times as well.
Augustine did not invent these extremes. They were implied in the Scrip-
tures. They can be seen, however, as plainly in him as in any important early
Christian thinker. Who does not feel the other extreme in reading the first few

86 See City oj God, X, 12.

^Ubid., XII, 21.
88 "In Joannis Evangelium," Tr.
23, par. 10, OCSA, Vol. 9, p. 521, Przy. p. 18.
89 On Christ. Doct., Prol. 6.
9° "Sermones ad Populum," 80, par. 8, OCSA, Vol. 16, p. 573, Przy. p. 434.
ist ser., No.
9^ St. Augustine, On 21-22; on the Church Fathers and astrological
Christ. Doct., II,

fatalism, see also Eliade, Cosmos and History, pp. 132-133, and the references there
cited, and Grant, Miracle and Natural Law in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian
Thought, pp. 1
19, 265-266.
92 City of God, XXII.
202 The Earth as a Flanned Abode

books of the Concessions} Who can resist sympathizing with his father when
Augustine writes of him,

The brambles of lust grew high above my head and there was no one to root
them out, certainly not my father. One day at the public baths he saw the signs
of active virility coming to life in me and this was enough to make him relish
the thought of having grandchildren. He was happy to tell my mother about it,

for happiness was due to the intoxication which causes the world to forget
liis

you, its Creator, and to love the things you have created instead of loving you,
becau;^e the world is drunk with the invisible wine of its own perverted, earth-
bound will.^^

There is, I must confess, a difficult problem in selection and quotation.

In tracing the history of the idea of a designed earth, pertinent passages empha-
sizing the importance of nature in Christian theology and illustrating a love
of and aesthetic appreciation of it may be quoted or cited more frequently

than is warranted by their significance in the literature. Through selection of

materials, the thought of some Church Fathers can be presented so that they
appear more ascetic and less tolerant, having less love of life, nature, and
learning, so that their thought becomes "incompatible with any high valuation
of nature."^^ Many expressed both viewpoints; one cannot assume consistency
or that contradictions or differences in emphasis will be reconciled.
The idea of a divinely designed earth— beautiful, lovely, and useful because
of its order and harmony, made by a benevolent Creator for man endowed
with the intelligence and skill to use it— prospered, despite this early obsession
with sex, the dreary emphasis on sin, miracles, and marvels, and painful al-
legorizing, because it had strong support in Scripture, the fundamental passage
being Genesis 1:31, and because the Christian religion needed, as the frequent
quotation of Romans 1:20 shows, what later was known as the physico-
theological proof of the existence of God.
Religious thinkers are the main sources for the thought of this age; they
are excellent on theology, but it is less certain that they mirror the true feel-
ings of less literate and articulate people. Newer studies of industry, tech-
niques, and agriculture Middle Ages often point to enthusiastic activity
in the
and to the survival, perhaps improvement, of many industrial techniques in
the so-called Dark Ages.^^

6. The Legacy of the Early Exegetical Writings

Three and nature emerged from the exegesis of the

ideas concerning the earth
patristic period; they were widely disseminated in the
later Middle Ages and
important through the seventeenth century. They were rooted in the idea of
93 Conj, II, 3, trans, by Pine-Coffin.
9^ On Raven, Science and Religion, pp. 48-49.
this subject see
95 See also Bark, Origins of the Medieval World,
pp. 148, 153. Salin and France-La-
nord, Rhin et Orient, Vol. 2, he Fer a VEpoque Merovingienne, especially pp. 3-5, 235-
243.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 203

God as a maker, an artisan, deusand of God being manifest in his

artifex,
works; many was Romans 1:20.
times their inspiration
There is a book of Nature which when read along with the book of God,
allows men to know and to understand Him and his creation; not only man
but nature suffered from the curse after the Fall; one may admire and love
the natural beauty of the earth if this love and admiration are associated with
the love of God. This idea is similar to the first but it lacks the contrast with
revealed religion and the strong dependence on the artisan analogy. It is the
view which leads to St. Francis' "The Canticle of Brother Sun."

Nature as a Book

God is revealed in the Scripture; his works are also visible in the world. The
book of nature is contrasted with the Bible, the book of revelation, the former,
however, being of a lower order than the latter because God is revealed in
His word but only partly so in His works because he is a transcendent God.
The book of nature becomes a commentary, further substantiation of the
truth of the revealed word. Athanasius, for example, praises the book of cre-
ation whose creatures are like letters {oycnrep ypa/jtiiacrl) proclaiming in loud
voices to their divine master and creator the harmony and order of things.
Nature conceived of as a book thus often supplemented revelation as a means
of knowing God and his creation; but the conception could, as it did with Lull
and Sibiude, get out of hand, assuming a strong, independent existence. How
early this notion appeared in Christian theology I do not know, but it is al-
ready well developed by John Chrysostom (died 407), whose clear, simple,
repetitious homilies resemble St. Basil's. Does his ingenious argument arise out
of his historical sense, the cultural and lingual diversity, and the economic
well-being of the peoples he knows? If God instructs by books, he says, such
teaching puts a premium on literacy and wealth. The literate man can read,
the wealthy can buy his Bible. What can the poor and ilhterate do if they do
not have the book of nature? The book also puts a premium on knowledge of
the language in which it is written; "but the Scythian, and the Barbarian, and
the Indian, and the Egyptian, and all those who were excluded from that
language, would have gone away without receiving any instruction." Such
things cannot be said of the heavens; all men can read here, at least all men
who can see. From this volume in the skies the wise, the unlearned, the poor,
the rich, can learn the same. Quoting Psalms 19:3, he speaks of the uni-
all

versal appeal of the creation "which utters this voice so as to be intelligible to

barbarians, and to Greeks, and to all mankind without exception." The same

learning can come from contemplating the alternation of day and night, the
order of the seasons which "like some virgins dancing in a circle succeed one
another with the happiest harmony," the relation of land to the sea, and the
balancing of the powers of nature. The sandy shores breakup and throw back
upon the sea its powerful waves; hot and cold, dry and moist, fire and water,
204 The Earth as a Planned Abode

earth and air, do not consume one another; and a similar

are at strife but they
balancing of the humors takes place in the body. Man was not present at the
creation; even if he were he could not have understood. Thus the mode of
creation has become the best teacher of man. In early Christianity these argu-
ments would have a powerful appeal to the untutored and to converts of di-
verse cultural backgrounds, for like Basil's, the homilies have charm and are
sprinkled with allusions to the experiences of everyday life.^^ St. Augustine
also expresses the idea fully and vigorously: "Some people, in order to discover
God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created
things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it; read it. God, whom you
want to discover, never wrote that book with ink; instead He set before your
eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?
Why, heaven and earth shout to you: 'God made me!' "^^
And in his discourse on Psalm 45, Augustine says that Divine Scripture is
the book in which one learns, the universe {or bis terrarum) the book in which
one sees. No one can read the pages of a book if he does not know the letters,
but in the world even the most unlettered can read {in toto mundo legat et
idiota).^^
The metaphor is constantly used in subsequent writings. Alan of Lille
(twelfth century), author of the Complaint of Nature, wrote,

Omnis mundi creatura

Quasi liber et pictura
Nobis est et speculum^^

The idea of the world or nature as a book "originated in pulpit eloquence,

was then adopted by medieval mystico-philosophical speculation, and finally
passed into common usage." The metaphor suggests the thought of Paul in
Romans John Chrysostom's
1:20, the text being especially conspicuous in
homilies; it also suggests that what one some-
sees in nature is a reflection of
thing else. The expression, as Curtius says, frequently was secularized and was
common in the Renaissance and later, but by this time, I think, the mood and
the meaning had changed; one read the book of nature not to find out about

Athanasius, "Oratio contra Gentes," 34, PG, Vol, 25, 68B-69A. John Chrvsostom,
"The HomiHes on the Statues, or to the People of Antioch," IX, 5-9, A Library of the
Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Vol. 9, pp. 162-170. See also "The Homilies on the
Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans," III, Ver. 20, op. cit., Vol. 7, p. 36. On his
natural theology, see op. cit., Vol. 9, Hom. X, 3-10, pp. 175-185; Hom. XI, 5-13, pp.
192-199. See von Campenhausen, The Fathers of the Greek Church; for the background
of Chrysostom's famous sermons on the statues, delivered in 387, see the essay on him in
this work.
I quote this because of its interest without being able to give the source. Hugh Pope,

St. Augustine of Hippo, quotes it on p. 227, but the citation of De Civ. Dei, Bk. XVI.
viii, I , is not correct.
98 "In Psalmum 45," OCSA, Vol. 12, p. 389.
PL, Vol. 210, 5 79 A.
99
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 205

something else but to learn about nature itself.^^^ The idea of nature as a
book prepared the way for bolder formulations by Ramon Lull and Ramon
Sibiude (Raymundus de Sabunde, Raymond Sebond) who saw flaws in the
revealed word and its exegesis, laying the groundwork for a natural theology
in the later Middle Ages. (See sec. 14.)

The Effect of Man's Sin and Fall on Nature

The sin and fall of man posed another question: Was there a deterioration
in nature corresponding to and coincident with the sin of man? We have
already met up with the difficulties the classical authors had in explaining
physical evil (predators, earthquakes, and everyday annoyances such as in-
sects, despite the fact that some extent ants were often much
bees and to
admired). The activities of bees and ants, however— especially the bees— pro-
vided rich material for morahzing, for proving God's design even with the
most humble beings, and for reading some strict lectures to the human race.
If it was hard to find a place for them in the biological order, they were at least

respectable and often more reliable, industrious, and dependable than man.
They were representatives of a social order inferior to but still comparable
with human society. Learn, says John Chrysostom, from irrational animals as
we in our families learn from thoughtful children. He applauds the prudence
and industry of the ant. The bee's service to man carries its own moral for
him because the bee labors for others; less enthusiasm, however, is shown for
the self-centered spider. Similar morals are drawn from observations on the
habits of the asp, the dog, and the fox.
The thinkers of the Middle Ages, too, had their store of stock answers to
explain physical annoyances and evil. Among the most popular were that man
in his ignorance does not know the uses of insects, an answer combining
humility with irresponsibihty; that they were designed to stimulate a more
sincere study of the wisdom of God, to inculcate in man moral lessons and
virtues; that they were nuisances reminding him of his sinfulness and weak-
nesses and thus teaching him humility; that the order of nature serves man
but is not entirely subject to him, an answer which permitted humility and
was less anthropocentric; and that there had been a change in nature cor-
responding to the new state of human affairs following the fall of man whose
existence, though continuing, would be plagued by lust, sin, toil, and evil—
and annoyances of insects.

In his commentary on Genesis, Bede asks why God, after the creation but
before the Fall, had put the fish, birds, and other animals under man's dominion,

for God at first had clearly intended that man would have food derived only
from plants. Bede answers that God, foreseeing man's fall, had taken the pre-

i°<^Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages^ p. 321; see his discussion
of the book of nature, pp. 319-326, quoting the passage from Alan of Lille, p. 319.
206 The Earth as a Planned Abode

caution of providing him with his later needs in future sin. Birds and even
vicious and poisonous animals had obeyed God's holy servants in the vv^ilder-
ness without harming them.^^^
One of the most interesting examples comes from the early thirteenth cen-
tury. Alexander Neckam compares the contemporary with the original con-
dition of man, explaining the extent of man's dominion over nature and his
partial successes in animal domestication. Both achievements are explained
historically.
Contemporary life may be a reminder of the state of man before the Fall.
"The very herds and remind him of the glory of his primitive
flocks serve to
dignity, which he had before the Fall." Man lost his domain over the whole
animal creation because he presumptuously insisted on divine prerogatives;
this pride and this usurpation were the causes of his being deprived of control

over large portions of nature; the Lord, however, in his pity allowed man as a
consolation the use of certain animals. The insects— and the poisonous plants-
were allowed by the Lord to continue living, in order to remind man of his
pride and his deceit. Thus the earth is governed by moral, not biological,
causes.
These attempts to explain changes in nature and the earth from its antedi-
luvian condition— which were made all through the Middle Ages and into
modern times as well— were essentially attempts to account for obvious dis-
harmonies in nature. On the earth, still beautiful though spoiled by the Fall,
the natural order had been brought into harmony with the imperfect moral
stature of man. There were on this beautiful earth barren wastes, wild beasts
preying upon man and the gentler animals, poisonous snakes and herbs, and
annoying insects. The obvious struggles in nature were reconciled with the
facts of a revealed religion. One could explain, too, the survival of man despite
his sin and fall; he continued to hve and to reproduce himself, but under less

favorable circumstances than existed before the Fall. Despite the hardships
which nature had put in man's way, the human race had multipHed— even
prospered to a degree— and had retained sufficient moral stature to compre-
hend and even haltingly and sinfully to obey the commands of God. And
lastly, was it not a way of explaining the enormous cultural significance of

animal domestication? God had not deprived man of all control. The gentler
animals still were his servants.

John Chrysostom, "The Homilies on the Statues, or to the People of Antioch,"

XII, 5-6, A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Vol. 9, pp. 204-206.
On Bede's hexaemeron, see Robbins, Hex. Lit., pp. 77-83, and Werner, Beda der Ehr-
ivilrdige, pp. 1 52-1 61. According to Bede, before the Fall the earth had no poisonous
plants nor anything unhealthful; there was no unfruitful vegetation, no wolf stalking
before the sheepfold, no snake had eaten the dust; all animals lived harmoniously,
feeding on herbs and tree-fruits. Hexaemeron, Bk. i, PL 91,32 A-C.
Alexander Neckam, De Jiatiiris rerwn, Bk. 2, ch. 156. (Ed. Th. Wright, London,
1863). Translated in Boas, Essays on Primitivisin ajid Related Ideas in the Middle Ages,
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 207

Nature and the Love of God

The consciousness of nature, if not the love of natural beauty for its own
sake, finds support in the Bible, in biblical exegesis, particularly in the hex-
aemeral and the Eden hterature during the Middle Ages. What is the meaning
of this consciousness of nature? There is a constant striving to see correspon-
dences between natural beauty and bibhcal texts, and for symbolism, as in the

selection of a cloister site shaped hke the Greek capital delta. A, because it
symbolized the trinity, to describe paradise as an ideal landscape. It would
be wrong to say that such appreciation of nature leads inevitably to science, to
an investigation of nature, especially to the interrelationships of biology and
human society; it could just as well lead to mysticism, to the nature poetry of
the troubadors, to allegory, to the poetic imagery of Dante, to natural religion,
magic, and esoteric lore.^^^ This literature, ranging from description to al-

legory, finding both moral lessons and a glorification of life in nature and its

relation to the Creator, however, kept alive the notion of the earth as the home
of man, even if it were little more than an anteroom to the next world. These
nature sentiments— concrete and passionately felt— often are found in the litera-

ture on the founding and siting of cloisters. Although many were placed on
uninviting land such as swamps and dense were often chosen for
forests, sites
their beauty: the cloister gardens in the beautifully sited places were con-
sidered miniature pictures of the glories of creation. ^^"^ Possibly too the site

of the monastery on Mt. Athos (Hagion Oros, ayiov 6po^), on the eastern-
most arm of the Chalcidice peninsula, inspired the literature on site selection of
monasteries.^^^ It is true that there was little nature study; rather it was nature
observation with a purpose, nature appreciation which became the material for
edification, for homihes, moraHzing, allegories, and for the praise of God.
There are hints, however, of individual tastes, illustrated by the oft-quoted
verses,

Bernardus valles, montes Benedictus amabat

Oppida Franciscus, claras Ignatius urbes.^^^

pp. 83-85. The theme was also thoroughly explored in the seventeenth century. See
chap. 8, and Victor Harris, All Coherence Gojie.
See the wise remarks of Olschki, Die Literatur der Technik and der angeivandten
Wissenschaften vom Mittelalter bis zur Renaissance (Vol. I of Gesch. d. neiisprachlichen
ivissenschafdichen Literatur), esp. footnote i, pp. 13-15.
See Zockler, op. cit.. Vol. I, pp. 313-315, for an interesting discussion on natural
beauty and the founding of cloisters; see also Ganzenmiiller, Das Naturgefuhl iin Mit-
telalter, pp. 98, 149, and the symbolism of the Trinity in selecting cloister sites shaped
like the Greek letter delta, p. 98. Ganzenmiiller and others point out that sites were not
intentionally chosen because they were poor or unhealthful.
See Hussey, The Byzantine World, pp. 127-128.
Quoted from Wimmer, Historische Landschaftskunde, p. 154, footnote i. I do
not know their origin.
208 The Earth as a Planned Abode

There was no need to prove Christ's divinity by contemplating the won-

ders of the creation— he was revealed in the Scripture— but on the other hand,
evidences of God from the order of the heavens and of nature on earth were
stronger than human conceptions. The strongest religious personaHties of the
Middle Ages, Anselm of Canterbury, Petrus Damiani, Bernard of Clairvaux,
St.Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventura, embraced nature not only as a creation
of God but as the image of the Eternal.

7. Continuities from Boethius to the

Theophany of John the Scot

With these remarks on the legacy of the exegetical literature, we may now
return to our principal theme and show by examples continuities and varia-
tions in these ideas from Boethius to John the Scot.
Boethius' (ca. 450-524/25) ideas are traditional but they appear in the
Consolation of Philosophy, an extremely influential hterary and philosophical
work; in it also is an epitome in twenty-eight verses of the Timaeus, as an-
notated by Chalcidius, who flourished probably at the end of the third or the
beginning of the fourth century.^^^ Boethius comments on the smallness of
the habitable parts of the earth and the vanity of seeking fame when one is
confined "to this insignificant area on a tiny earth." Lessons in the need of
humihty and on the insignificance of man in the cosmos were common in
Christian theology long before the Copernican revolution allegedly made
man feel alone and lost in the universe. The artisan analogy is there; so is the
significance of man's erect carriage and other typical arguments of the physico-
theological proof, although Boethius leans to the cosmological.^^®
John the Damascene belongs to the Greek patristic age, but he is well
known to the Latin scholastics. Writing in the seventh century, he is cited by
St. Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth. The divine being is incomprehensible

to us, he says, butGod has not left us in complete ignorance, for nature has
implanted the idea of God in us. The order of nature, assumed from theology
and the doctrine of the four elements, teaches us that there is a God in control
of the opposing forces of fire and water, of earth and air; He has forced them
together, and he is responsible for their continuing to operate together ami-
cably.^^^
The most important transmitter of these ideas in the Latin West however,
is Isidore of Seville, whose major work, the Etymologiae, and the lesser De
On this point see Ganzenmiiller, op. cit., pp. 291-292.
Cons, of Phil.y Bk. 3, Poem 9. For summary with references to the literature on
Chalcidius, see Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 586-587.
Bk. 2, Prose and Poem 7.
Ibid.^
Bk. 4, Prose 6; Bk. 5, Poem 5; Bk. 3, Prose 12.
110 Ibid.,

Expositio accurata fidei orthodoxae, I, i; in II, 11, John describes the temperate
climate of paradise. On general ideas see Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 91-92, 600.
 The Earth as a Plan?ied Abode 209

return natura were influential sources for those portions of the great encyclo-
pedic works of the later Middle Ages dealing with the properties of things
{de proprietatibus rerum) by such writers as Alexander Neckam, Robert
Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, Alexander of Hales, Thomas de Cantimpre,
Vincent Beauvais, and Bartholomew of England/^^
Historians of many disciplines have emphasized the role of Isidore of Seville
in transmitting classical knowledge to the Latin West in encyclopedic form,
Gilson likening the Etymologiae in the Middle Ages to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica or Larousse in modern times/^^ In both of Isidore's works, one can
recognize the doctrine of the elements, the humors, and the threadbare geo-
graphical description and theory.
Isidore mentions many times the Christian belief in the beaut)^ of God being
manifest in His creation.^^^ A chapter in one of his manuals on theology is
entitled, *'Quod ex creaturae pulchritudine agnoscatur creator." In simple
Latin, he instructs his readers in the terminology of classical physics, cos-
mology, and geography: he tells them that the Greek kosmos is the Latin
mundus, he defines microscosm and the klimata; in his discussion of the four
elements he mentions that the Greek crrotxeta are the equivalents of ele-
menta}^^ The Etymologiae contain much more: a bestiary; an elaboration of
the four-element theory and a discussion of the crToix^la; a gazetteer type of
geography, including an interesting chapter on the Mediterranean Sea, with
notes on cities, and
buildings, arable land; Varro's system of land classification
with references to Hesiod, Democritus, Mago
a digest of agricultural practice,
the Carthaginian, Cato, and Varro. Isidore also copies part of the remarks of
Servius the Grammarian, about national characteristics of the Romans, Greeks,
Africans, and Gauls, thus incorporating in his influential work ideas of en-
vironmental influence which were repeated by other encyclopedists later in
the Middle Ages.^^^
The John the Scot or Johannes Scotus Erigena (Eriu, Hibernia,
Irish-born
Scottia were the main ancient names for Ireland), a learned man— possibly a
clerk, possibly a monk— at the court of Charles the Bald, was acquainted, unlike
most Western scholars, with Greek literature and could read the Greek lan-
guage; it is now beheved, however, that these were continental acquisitions,
and that he arrived in Gaul from Ireland with only a rudimentary knowledge
of Greek.
His De divisione naturae is of interest to us because it is preoccupied with
the idea of nature and with the related concepts of creator and creature. The

On this literature, see Delisle, "Traites Divers sur les Proprietes des Choses," Hist.
Litt. de la FraJice, Vol. 30, pp. 354-365.
Gilson, HCPMA, p. 107.
E.g., Sententiarwft libri tres., Bk. I, chap. 4.
De naturarerum, chap. 9.
116 Isidore, "Etym.," PL, Vol. 82. Bestiary, Bk. XII; the elements, Bk. XIII, chap. 3, 2;
geography, Bk. XIV; Varro, Bk XV, chap. Bk. IX, 2.
13, 6; Servius,
 .

2IO The Earth as a Planned Abode

key to the meaning of the world he finds in the Greek word theo-
sensible
phania. By the divine being, he says, we do not mean God alone, for Holy
Scripture often designates as God what is really his manner of being, which in
turn is revealed to thinking and rational creatures in proportion to their power
of grasping it. This way of being the Greeks call a theophany, an apparition
of God (dei apparitio). Take as an example, he says, the expression, "I saw
God sitting" ( Vidi Dovmiwn sedentevt) by this one does not mean that he
;

has seen the being of God Himself, but something created by Him {cum non
ipsius essentiam^ sed aliquid ab eo factimi viderit)}^'^ God even creates Him-
self in the sense that he reveals himself, that his work is a theophany.
De divisione naturae is presented as a dialogue between teacher and pupil,
and the latter is always accommodatingly moving the furniture around for the
next scene. The universe, like the Holy Scripture, is a revelation. The teacher
asks the pupil to consider whether spatial and temporal recurrences observable
in parts of the sensible world are without their secrets or not {vacant quodavi
mysterio, necne). The cooperative pupil replies that he will not lightly assert
they are so bereft, for there is nothing in the visible phenomena of the corpo-
real world which does not also signify something incorporeal and spiritual.

The pupil then asks the master for a short discussion of these recurrences, and
as always happens in such dialogues, the well-prepared master readily replies.
His illustrations reveal the strong impression which cyclical processes have
made on him. To those who contemplate the nature of things with both
spiritual insight and the judgment of the senses {anivti conceptione et corpo-
ralis sensus judicio), it is clearer than light itself that this recurrence takes
place in the heavens, the continually moving spheres returning always in their
courses to their point of origin. The sun and moon are examples; none need
be given of other planets, for such knowledge is known to all who know
astronomy {astrologia)
The cyclical nature of things, their periodic return to former positions or
states, is also revealed in terrestrial phenomena. What of air? Does it not at

definite times return to the same states of cold, heat, and the temperate? (Pos-
sibly he means here diurnal or seasonal march of temperature.) What of the
sea? Does it not absolutely follow the course of the moon? What of animals
of the land and sea? What of plants and grasses? Do they not also have their
times for bursting forth into buds, flowers, leaves, fruits? This growth too is
cyclical, the end of the movement is the beginning, the beginning the end.
Thus cyclical regularities in the heavens and the organic cycle on earth, so
frequently used as analogies in Greek thought, are adduced as evidence of law,
harmony, order, and divine revelation in nature.

ii'' Cappuyns, Jean Scot Erigene, pp. 7-8, 13-14, 28; on his profession, pp. 66-67;
God creating himself, p. 346. De div. nat., I, 7, PL, Vol. 122, 446D.
De div. nat., V, 3, 866A-D. See Burch, Early Med. Philos., p. 9.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 111

In describing God as the cause of goodness, he again resorts to cyclical or

supposed cyclical phenomena. Let us take, he says, our examples from nature.
This goodness is compared to a river which, rising at its source, flows in its bed
ever downward uninterruptedly to the sea. In the same way divine goodness,
being, life, wisdom— everything which is in the primordial source of all-
flows downward like a stream, first into the primordial causes, bringing them
into being. Next, continuing downward through these primordial causes, in-
effable in their workings, but still in harmony with them, they flow from
higher to lower, finally reaching the lowest ranks of the All. The return flow
is through the most secret pores of nature by a most concealed path to the

source.
The highest, the supreme good, thus bestows existence on the first order of
being, which in turn shares it with the next lower one, the division of being
continuing downward by this sharing {parti cipatio) to the lowest order of
being. Participation he says, is nothing other than the derivation of existence by
one order from the one next higher in the scale. In this hierarchy of being all
orders do not have life in themselves, nor are they life; they derive it from
above. The metaphor of the flowing river is clearly suggested by the ancient
idea of the natural cycling of water from mountain to sea and return. The
water rises in a spring of the mountaintop, it grows to be a river, descending in
its course to the sea, and returning to land by submarine channels. Then it

reaches to the top, often by some kind of natural alembic, since it was not
known that springs in the mountains owed their existence to rainfall.
The emphasis on theophany, on God being revealed in the creation, im-
plies that God knows himself through his creative acts, "for whatever He
knows He creates, and what He creates derives from Himself. Accordingly,
the whole creation is a process of divine revelation, with each being an aspect,
finite and hmited, of God's own nature."^^^

It is this idea which relieves the philosophy of the charge of pantheism, so

often made by earlier students of John the Scot. In a certain sense, God and
the creature are one and the same. We
ought not to think, he says, of God and
creature as two and different from one another but as one and the same.
(Proinde ?Jon duo a seipsis distantia debeinus intelligere Deum et creaturam,
sed unuin et id ipsinn.) The creature exists in God while God himself in a
wonderful and ineffable way is created in the creature.
Two of his celebrated four species or divisions of nature are concerned with
God, two with the creation. "We comprehend nature by reason because
nature is itself rational." If we do not know God or his nature, we can infer
from the order of the sensible and intelligible world that he exists and that he

De div. nat.. Ill, 3-4, 628C-632C.

120 Leff, Med. Thought, p. 68.
121 De div. nat.. Ill, 1 7, 678C-D.
212 The Earth as a Planned Abode

is the cause of things. The first species, the nature which creates but is not
all

created {creat etnon creatur), is God as the principle of all things; the second,
the nature which is created and creates {creatur et creat), represents arche-
typal ideas or primordial causes; the third, the nature which is created and
does not create {creatur et non creat), is the sensible world, the world of
appearances, the creation as we see it; and the fourth, the nature which neither
creates nor is created {nec creat neque creatur), represents God the creator
after he has attained his goal, being now at rest and having ceased to create.
The four species composed of two sets of opposites: the first and
of nature are
the third, the second and the fourth. Such a division of nature accounts for the
origin of creation, the forms or ideas of which the visible creation is a reflection,
the visible creation and its clear purposiveness, the cessation of creative acts on
the sixth day despite God's continuing governance of the world. It also ac-
counts for the diversity of life. "The division of nature signifies that act by
which God expresses himself and makes himself known in a hierarchy of
beings which are other than, and inferior to him."^^^
Individual partakes of an all-pervading universal life. There is no life
life

form which some way is not governed by life force {vitae virtute non
in
regitur). It is called the world soul (universalissima anima) by the wise of the
world because it binds together the whole cosmos. In truth, inquirers into
divine wisdom call it a common life {communem vitam appellaiit)
In John the Scot's philosophy, man's relation to nature was changed by the
Fall. The diversity of human life and the differences among people are post

peccatum. Paradise symboHzes original human nature and Adam's sleep a

turning away from the spiritual road to desire for earthly things, a lust for
sexual intercourse. The sleep which Adam fell into willingly really means a
turning of the spirit from the eternal to the temporal, from God to creature.
The consequences are the world as we know it, the two sexes, and repro-
duction in the manner of cattle.^^^
Essentially however it is an optimistic philosophy of man in his relation to
nature even if it is burdened with an anthropocentrism that sees in human
wickedness a power sufficient to alter the processes of nature. A theophany
assumes an optimistic attitude toward the creation. "Because all creatures both
derive from God as principle, and move towards Him as end, the whole of
nature is a movement powered by love of God."^^^

Ibid., I, 1-2, 441B-443A; II, 2, 527B. The quotation on the rationality of nature is
from Burch, Early Med. Philos., p. 9; that on hierarchy, from Gilson, HCPMA, p. 117.
De div. nat.. Ill, 36, 728D-729A.
^^^Ibid., IV, 20, 835C-836B. See also Burch's discussion, op. cit., pp. 20-24, on the fall
of man.
Leff, Med. Thought, p. 69. (John the Scot discusses at length the four elements in
connection with his hexaemeron, physical geography, and Eratosthenes' measurement of
the earth's circumference), De div. nat.. Ill, 32-33.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

8. St. Bernard, St. Francis, and Alan of Lille

The love of nature and of God, manifested in perceptions of the creation
as a book, as visible evidence of God's care for the world, as a theophany,
reappear in various forms in St. Bernard, St. Francis, and Alan of Lille.

In the writings of St. Bernard (1091-1153), there are attitudes toward na-
ture which date back to St. Augustine and before; they do more than glorify
religion.The beauties and attractions of nature are accepted as long as they
are associated with God and his works. One could learn about Him from the
earth, from the trees, from the grains, the flowers, and the grass. In his oft-
quoted letter to Heinrich Murdach, St. Bernard writes, "Believe me, I have
discovered that you will find far more in the forests than in the books; trees
and stones will teach you what no teacher permits you to hear."^^^
In St. Bernard's description of the cloister at Clairvaux, the landscape is

changed from and given meaning because human beings impose

a wilderness
an order upon it; when men change
nature they can make it more useful—
perhaps, even, more charming and more beautiful.
The abbey is situated at the foot of two mountains separated by a valley:
on the sides of one the grain is growing, the vineyards are on the other, and
"each of them offers to the eye a beautiful sight, and supplies a needful sup-
port for the inmates." On the summits of the mountains, the monks collect
dry branches, "grub up the brushwood which disfigures the ground," dig the
soil "to scatter (as I may say after Solomon 'the bastard sHps' [= Vulgate,

Wisdom V, 3]) which choke the roots, entangle the boughs of the rising
trees" so that there will be no hindrance to the growth of the oak, the lime, or
the beech.
Within the wall that encloses the valley in which the cloister is situated
fruit trees have been planted, and here the sick monks find solace and pleasure;
it is a place suitable for healing. "See how, in order to cure one's sickness, the
goodness of God multiplies remedies, causes the clear air to shine in serenity,
the earth to breathe forth fruitfulness, and the sick man himself to inhale
through eyes, and ears, and nostrils, the delights of colours, of songs, and of
odours."
St. Bernard is pleased with the wayswhich the monks have diverted the
in
river Aube to their own now in many ways performs the
uses so that water
labor of men. The river's sinuous bed "which the labour of the brethren, and
not Nature, has made" divides the valley in two. The water is controlled to
check inundations; it runs great mills and farther on it fills the boiler for the
brewer, and the fullers use it to operate heavy pestles or mallets or wooden
foot-shaped blocks reheving them of heavy labor; the water then passes to

The Love of Learning and the Desire for God^ pp. 135-136; P.
See Jean Leclercq,
Sinz, "Die Naturbetrachtung des hi. Bernhard," Anima I (1953), pp. 30-51, and E.
Gilson, "Sub umbris arborum," Mediaeval Studies (1952), pp. 149-151.
2 14 The Earth as a Planned Abode

weavers' workshops. The tiny streams diverted from the Aube "wander in
careless curves through the meadows, irrigating the fields before returning
to the main stream."^^^
"That spot has much charm, it greatly soothes weary minds, reheves anx-
ieties and cares, helps souls who seek the Lord greatly to devotion, and recalls

to them the thought of the heavenly sweetness to which they aspire. The
smiling countenance of the earth is painted with varying colours, the bloom-
ing verdure of spring satisfies the eyes, and its sweet odour salutes the nostrils."
The beauty reminds him of the fragrance of the clothing of the Patriarch Job,
of the purple robe of Solomon, which could not equal the beauty he beheld.
"In this way, while I am charmed without by the sweet influence of the
beauty of the country, I have not less delight within in reflecting on the mys-
teries which are hidden beneath it."^^^
This passage is one of the few known to me in the writings of the Middle
Ages which combine a strong religious view of nature with an appreciation of
natural beauty and with a frank, exultant admiration for the way the monks,
through their skill, their techniques, their water mills, can complete what
nature has given them. Implicit in it is the idea of man as a partner of God,
sharing in, changing, and improving the creation to his own best uses be-
cause these accomplishments are for the greater glory of God. It would seem
the monks thought their labor had re-created paradise, in the transformation
of a chaotic and disordered wilderness.
We shall return to this theme in chapter VII. The Clairvaux description is
that of an ideal landscape of the Cistercian order inspired by the Benedictine
Rule, at a time when the monks did much of the work themselves or closely
supervised it, when worldliness had not intervened between religious ideas
and landscape change. Here is also the fervent activity that later brought about
forest clearance; the arable; the dissemination of seeds, stocks, roots; construc-
tionwork to use the countryside to better advantage; skill in animal husbandry.
With St. Francis (i 182-1226) the emphasis is on communion with nature,
the humanization of nonhuman life, the joys of poverty in the rehgious life
of the countryside. In The Canticle of Brother Sim written by St. Francis
during the illnesses of his last two years of life, the saint has praise for the Lord
and all his creatures: for Sir Brother Sun, a symbol of the Lord, for Sister
Moon and the stars ("In the sky You formed them
bright and lovely and
fair"), for Brother Wind ("And for the Air and cloudy and clear and all
Weather, / By which You give sustenance to Your creatures!"), for Sister
Water (useful, humble, lovely, chaste), for Brother Fire (beautiful, merry,
mighty, and strong), for our Sister Mother Earth ("Who sustains and governs
us, / And produces fruits with colorful flowers and leaves! ").^^^

127 Works, Vol. 2, pp. 461, 464.

Ibid., Vol. pp. 464-465.
2,
129 "The Canticle of Brother Sun," in The Little Flowers of St. Francis (and other
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 215

St. Francis followed rapturously and most literally the exhortation of Ro-
mans 1:20. "Who could tell," Brother Thomas of Celano says of him, "the
sweetness which he enjoyed in contemplating in His creatures the wisdom,
power and goodness of the Creator?" He called all creatures by the name of
brother; toward the worms, he glowed with exceeding love; in winter he had
honey and the best wine provided for the bees; when he came upon an
abundance of flowers, he would preach to them and "invite them to praise
the Lord, just as if they had been gifted with reason. So also cornfields and
vineyards, stones, woods, and all the beauties of the field, fountains of waters,
all the verdure of gardens, earth and fire, air and wind would he with sincerest
purity exhort to the love and willing service of God."^^^
If Ugohno de Monte Santa Maria's The Little Floivers of Saint Francis is

not folklore but the product of an oral tradition lasting about a century after
the saint's death, then we behold in St. Francis aman who speaks to other
creatures as if they were human, scolding them when they need to be scolded,
telHng them their duties toward God
and what they should do to observe His
commands. He make covenants, as he did with the wolf of Gubbio; indeed
nonhuman life has its own dignity, existing for its own purposes and in its
own right. This thought, as we have seen, was expressed by St. Augustine as
well; the scale of nature, divinely ordained, is a scale with man at the apex,
but this does not mean that all life exists for him and is at his disposal.
At Cannara, he orders the swallows to stop twittering until his preaching
is over, and they obey.^^^ In his sermon to the birds, he addresses them as hu-

mans, reminding them of their debt to God, of the freedom God has given
them, of their wondrous clothing, of the food they need not work for. God
preserved them in the ark, and provided many nesting places in remote refuges
for them. "Therefore, my httle bird sisters, be careful not to be ungrateful,
but strive always to praise God." The birds acknowledge the words and bow
their heads, and St. Francis marvels at their variety, attention, famiHarity, and
affection. He therefore "devoutedly praised the wonderful Creator in them
and gently urged them to praise the Creator."^^^
When the boy of Siena surrenders to St. Francis the doves he is taking to
market, the saint praises him and then explains to the doves, "I want to rescue
you from death and make nests for you where you can lay your eggs and
fulfill the Creator's commandment to multiply."^^^

works), trans, by Raphael Brown, p. 317. On the canticle, see note i to chap. 19, p. 336,
and note 20, p. 350, on the meaning of per, here translated for. On the substance of St.
Francis' sermon to the birds, The Little Flowers of St. Francis, pp. 'j(>-'j'j\ on the visita-
tions and consolations of God and St. Francis' seeing the Creator in all created things, p.
164; on the surrounding of St. Francis by the birds, pp. 177-178.
Brother Thomas of Celano, The First Life of S. Francis of Assisi, trans, by A. G.
Ferrers Howell, chap. 29 (80-81 ). On the birds, the leveret, and the fish, chap. 21 (58-61).
Little Flowers, p. 75.
Ibid., pp. 76-77; quotations on p. 77.
Ibid., p. 92.
2l6 The Earth as a Planned Abode

At Gubbio, the ravenous wolf who had devoured both man and beast is no
match for St. Francis' hoHness, which God now wished to call to the attention
of the people. St. Francis went to meet the fierce wolf, the fearful peasants
warning him of the dangers. The saint made the sign of the cross and the
power of God checked the wolf. "Come to me, Brother Wolf. In the name
of Christ, I order you not to hurt me or anyone." Scolding him for his
depredations, for destroying animals, and for brazenly killing men who are
made in God's image, he tells the wolf he deserves death, but he wishes to
make peace. The wolf agrees and St. Francis promises him food every day
because the evil in him has come from hunger. In return, the wolf promises he
will hurt neither man nor beast. "And as St. Francis held out his hand to re-
ceive the pledge, the wolf also raised its front paw and meekly and gently put
it in St. Francis' hand as a sign that it was giving its pledge." In the name of

the Lord Jesus Christ, St. Francis ordered the wolf to enter the town, where
the pact negotiated between him and the wolf was ratified by the people, St.
Francis acting as bondsman. Neither side ever broke the covenant.
The scene has been brought to Hfe by Stefano di Giovanni Sassetta, one of
the great Sienese painters of the fifteenth century. The saint, serene among his
admiring townsmen at the gate, grasps the friendly paw of the handsome wolf,
which looks like a playful dog. The gay and lighthearted group is the center of
interest, diverting attention from the bloody and mangled corpse near the
wolf. And in harmony with St. Francis' associations with them, the birds above
are in ordered flight.
Many students have found in the Franciscan a deeper understanding of
nature than in any other order. To St. Francis living things might be symbols,
but they were placed on earth for God's own purposes (not for man's), and
they, likeman, praise God. In preaching to birds and flowers and in his pact
with the wolf he imputes a moral philosophy to them (and a contractual re-
sponsibility on the wolf's part) that is virtually human, coming here close to
heresy. Absent is the crude identification of divine with human purpose; living
nature attains a dignity and holiness far removed from the crude utilitarian
conceptions of the behevers in design. White, for example, sees in St. Francis'

thought a revolutionary change in outlook toward nature in the Middle Ages,

the saint rebelling in his humihty against the egotistic anthropocentrism of the
earlier theology; he sees in him the greatest revolutionary in history because
he first taught Europe that nature is interesting and important in and of itself,
and because he forced man to abdicate his monarchy over creation, instituting
a democracy of all of God's creatures.^^^
To Alan of Lille (i 128-1202), Nature is active and efficacious; personified
^^Ibid., pp. 89-91; quotations on pp. 89, 90.
Lynn White, "Natural Science and Naturalistic Art in the Middle Ages," AHR,
Jr.,

52 (1947), pp. 432-433. White adds that this attitude was implied, for example, in Psalm
148. On Franciscan observation of the natural world, see also George Boas's intro. to his
trans, of St. Bonaventura's The Mind's Road to God, p. xix.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 217

and a creature herself of God, she is aware of the reasonableness and holiness
of her laws. The Co?iiplaint of Nature (De planctu naturae) is an excellent
illustration of a traditional Christian conception of nature, with reminders of
Plotinus, Boethius, and John the Scot, before it became necessary to meet the

full force of alternate religious behefs from the south, and to meet the chal-
lenge of a revived and much commented-upon classical cosmology. Alan
(especially in the last third of the twelfth century) lived at a time when
Jewish and Mushm
thought was beginning to intrude upon Christian belief;
in his work on the Catholic faith, for example, he showed the new fears in
the attack on the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the Jews, and the pagans. The
De planctu naturae

expresses the Christian idea of nature common to practically all mediaeval

theologians, except, of course, the extreme representatives of strict other- world-
liness {contemptiis saecidi). Just as in Boethius and in Bernardus Silvestris, Na-
ture represents here the inexhaustible fecundity from which springs the pullula-
tion of beings. Itis the source of universal life, and not only the cause of beings

but their rule, their law, their order, their beauty and their end. Nature could
not be too highly praised in her works, which are, through her, the works of
God.136

The most important poem, from our point of view, is that na-
idea of the
ture's power is small compared with that of God, great compared to that of
man. Nature, removed as in Neoplatonism from the One or from God and
described variously as a mother and as a chain of being, is apostrophized as a
creation of God. She is the reflection of God's works; she is God's deputy
whose pen is guided by the hand of God. Venus is an underdeputy of Nature,
who with Hymen and Cupid keeps all Hfe, especially human life, going. Ideas
of the maintenance of population through time, of the natural order on earth,
of a chain of being, are only slightly concealed by the allegory. Nature regu-
larizes the acts of God. Like The Ro7nance of the Rose, which owes so much

to De planctu naturae, Alan's castigation of mankind is a moral one; it la-

ments the willful separateness of man from nature owing to the evil within
him. Of all beings, man alone in his depravity and with his unnatural vices
fails to observe the laws of nature. Among other aberrations, he severely in-
dicts male homosexuahty because it is a departure from nature's principle of
love. There is obedience in the firmament, in the stars, in the winds, in the
friendship of land and sea— for they all keep to their own stations— in the fish,
and in the marriage in an imperial embrace of rains to the earth. The harmonies
observable everywhere in nature are not observable in man.^^^

Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 172; quote on p. 176. The work is modeled on Boethius'
Consolation of Philosophy, p. 175. For a detailed study, see de Lage, Alain de Lille.
Poete du XW Siecle. De pla?ictu naturae illustrates the importance of the principle of
plenitude in medieval thought. See Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being, pp. 67-98, for
the medieval period, although he does not discuss Alan of Lille.
On Alan's sources, see de Lage, op. cit., pp. 67-75.
2l8 The Earth as a Planned Abode

God achieves harmony by governing the four elements. The four elements
of themacrocosm correspond with the four humors in man, the microcosm.
Nature is God's vicar, an intermediary between man and God. The power
of God is superlative; of Nature, comparative; of man, positive. Alan develops
the personification of Nature through long apostrophes to her by the inter-
locutors and her replies to them.^^^
God himself has created in Nature a network of secondary causes, de-
fining and directing their areas of influence. Once having created the system,
the Creator respects autonomy and normally does not interfere in its
its

functioning. The governance of the universe is compared to that of a great

city, God in his heavenly citadel commanding, the angels in the air (as in the
middle of a city) administering, and man 'like one foreign-born dwelling in
a suburb of the universe," serving.
Nature is a real handmaiden of God:

For I, as I work, am not able to press my step in the footprints of God as He

works, but I contemplate Him in His activity from a long way off, as it were
with longing. His operation is simple, mine is multiform; His work is faultless,
mine is defective; His is marvelous, mine is transient; He is incapable of being
born, I was born; He is the maker, I am the made; He is the Creator of my work,
I am the work of the Creator; He works from nothing, I beg work from an-
other; He works by His own divine will, I work under His name.

9. Ferments from the Mediterranean

Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, in 1143 visited the monasteries of the
Cluniac order in Spain and there arranged for a Latin translation of the Koran
(made by Robert of Ketene, or Ketton) in order that its heresies might be
more easily exposed, a work in which he assisted in his own right by compos-
ing his Libri II adversus nefariain sectam saracenonnn}'^^ 'Trom that time on,
Christianity found itself confronted with two Hving rehgions, that is, with
something quite different from doctrinal divergencies between individual
Christians."^^^ The Christian world, itself threatened with heresy and schism,
now had to meet the challenge of an exceedingly cosmopolitan civilization; it

was also confronted with the original work and the translations which were

isst'TTres potestatis gradus possumus invenire, ut Dei potentia superlativa, Naturae

comparativa, hominis postiva dicatur," PL, Vol. 210, 446B. See also de Lage, op. cit., pp.
64-65.
Ibid., p. 67. On nature description, see Metre 1-3, Prose 1-2; nature as a viceregent
of God, Prose 3; governance of the universe, Prose 3; God and nature compared, Prose
3; the three powers, Prose 3; sexual aberrations, Prose 4, lines 100-150, 1 79-191, and
passim; Nature, Venus, Hymen, and Cupid, Prose IV, lines 375-385. Prose IX reviews
the general argument. See also Chcnu, "Decouverte de la Nature et Philosophie de
I'Homme a I'Ecole de Chartres au XII^ Siecle," IWH, Vol. 2 (1954), pp. 313-325.
Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 635-636.
Ibid.y p. 172; see also pp. 238, 240, 275.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 219

being produced by scholars in the Arab world. The more forward-looking of

men saw that this knowledge should be used in support of the faith; the
these
Swmnae against the gentiles, the reawakening of interest in nature, in mathe-
matics, and in Greek literature, especially in Aristotle, are all parts of this
movement. The exposition of AristoteHan ideas (first the Aristotle translated
from the Arabic that contained Neoplatonism and Arab thought, then a purer
Aristotle from the Greek original) closely associated with the names of Alber-
tus Magnus and his pupils, Thomas of Cantimpre and St. Thomas Aquinas,
intensified interest in the teleological view of nature which is so positively set
forth in the philosophy of Aristotle.
Already in the twelfth century there was a growing interest in natural pro-
cesses and in secondary causes, a realization that little was accomplished
merely by saying that the most trivial and the most fundamental aspects of the
creation alike were owing to God's wisdom. Thorndike has given two excel-
lent illustrations of this. The nephew of Adelard of Bath (twelfth century),
seeking the reason for the growth of herbs from the earth, asks, "To what else
can you attribute this save to the marvellous effect of the marvellous divine
will?" Adelard agrees that it is the creator's will, but there are natural reasons
at work too. When the nephew ascribes all God, Adel-
causes indifferently to
ard replies that, without detracting from God, nature "is not confused and
without system" and "human science should be given a hearing upon these
points which it has covered."^^^ His contemporary, WilHam of Conches in
Normandy, exasperated by those who say, "We do not know how this is, but
we know that God can do it," replies, "You poor fools, God can make a cow
out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show^ some reason why a
thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so."^^^
The cosmopolitan character of Mediterranean civilization, both Christian
and MusHm, provided a new ferment. With the Norman conquest of Sicily
(1060- 1 091), a Christian-Islamic culture flourished under Roger I with Mus-
lims in positions of authority; the great Arab geographer
was in the al-Idrisi
court of Roger II, and under Frederick II, the grandson of Roger II, trans-
lations of Aristotle's and Averroes' works became part of the curriculum of
the newly founded University of Naples (1224) which St. Thomas Aquinas
attended. Frederick's kingdom in Sicily had a Greek element using Greek, a
Muslim element speaking Arabic, and scholars who knew Latin.
Even St. Thomas Aquinas "was no child of the Gothic North, like Albert

i^^LefT, Medieval Thought^ p. 171. See also Gilson's discussion of the Aristotles of
Avicenna, Averroes, and St. Thomas, HCPAIA, pp. 387-388.
Quoted in Thorndike, Vol. 2, p. 28. In Quaestiones Naturales^ chap. 4. See Chenu,
op. cit., passim.
^^"^
Quoted in Thorndike, Vol. 2, p. 58. In De philosophia mundi = PL 90, pp. 1127-
1 178; or 172, pp. 39-102. On
the organization of De philosophia viundi, Gilson, HCPMA,
p. 623. See Chenu, op. cit., passim.
Hitti, The Arabs. A Short History^ pp. 206-21 1.
220 The Earth as a Flanned Abode

or Abelard, but a native of that strange borderland [Naples] of Western civili-

zation where feudal Europe mingled with the Greek and Saracen worlds."^^^
The MusHm world had a common law, language, and religion, but it too
was in part a product of an ancient and deep-seated Mediterranean culture,
its cosmopohtanism coming not only from Mushm, but also from Jewish and

Christian scholarship. Thomas Aquinas uses Maimonides and Averroes and

"^^^
"employs a manner of argumentation familiar from Muslim scholasticism.
These southern breezes stimulated interest in geography, in environmental
influences, in the earth's nature, in the properties of things. There was no
relaxation in embracing the notion of a divinely designed earth with its har-
monious adaptations, but the teleology, enforced by Aristotle's writings,
opened up areas of interpretation (as for example the doctrine of the eternity
of the world) more removed from biblical exegesis than had been the case
when men depended on the Bible and the Timaeus for their cosmogony. Cir-
cumstances had changed; a few went along old paths paying little attention to
the new learning, but this course had its dangers. "A few others, led by a
deep-seated fear of seeing Christian theology outdistanced by pagans and in-
fidels in the main fields of secular learning, considered it their duty to catch
up with the 'philosophers' and to put the Christians on a footing of equality
with their opponents." Men like Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and Albert
the Great "were also convinced that, ultimately, the acquisition of secular
learning would help to spread the Christian truth, but their writings bear wit-
ness to a properly scientific interest."^^^ This partial union of Christian theol-
ogy with Aristotelian teleology, of the divine word as revealed in the Scrip-
tures with the closer observation of the natural surroundings, strengthened the
cosmological and physico-theological proof of the existence of God.

lo. Averroes and Maimonides

Let us examine briefly two examples, Averroes and Maimonides, from this
civilization of the south. Averroes' ideas of design and teleology are Aristote-
lian; they are Muslim counterparts of Christian thinking. The religion of Mo-
hammed is also a revealed religion, monotheistic with a transcendent God who
creates and manner of the Judeo-Christian God. In Surah i6 of the
acts in the
Koran, The Bee^ God shows his concern for his creation; he is especially
mindful of man. The lower orders of the creation exist for Him and are subject
to his dominion much as they are in the Old Testament.

Christopher Dawson, Medieval Essays^ p. 133.

1"*^
von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 342. See also Christopher Dawson's two essays
"The Moslem West and the Oriental Background of Later Medieval Culture," and "The
Scientific Development of Medieval Culture," in his Medieval Essay Sj especially p. iii,
on the cultural unity of Islam.
Gilson, HCPMA, p. 275.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 111

Like Christian thinkers fond of classical analogies which cluster around

words like art, nature, and ivork, Averroes sees in the artisan analogy a funda-
mental way of understanding the creation. In the study of beings we first

must recognize the art in them, then the work of art, then the artisan. Similar-
ly, we recognize in the cosmos the work of an artisan; the more perfect the
recognition of the art which it reveals, the more perfect becomes the recogni-
tion of the artist.
Divine law invites one to a profound and rational study of the universe.
(Quotes Surah 59:2.) Mahomet had said of those who denied his revelations,
"Have they not considered the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and
what things Allah hath created? (Surah 7: 185.) Averroes adds that divine
. . .

law makes it an obligation to apply rational speculation to one's reflections on

the universe. Such speculation takes its most perfect form in the rational
syllogism called demonstration. One thus must know the differences among
various kinds of syllogisms, the demonstrative, the dialectic, the oratorical, the
sophistical.
Syllogisms however are constructed by men of different natures, habits,
tastes, and training; interpretations of religious law will therefore differ. Thus,
the three-fold classification of such interpreters is fundamental to his philos-
ophy. Since the Koran is a divine book, it appeals to all three.
Men of the first class any kind; they are
are innocent of interpretation of
accessible only to oratorical argument and exhortation. All men belong in
some degree to this class; no sound man of spirit is a stranger to it, but primarily
this is the class of the common people who believe without examination in mys-
teries and in miracles.
The second class is more restricted in membership than the first; in it are
men who like dialectical disputation, who are dialectical by nature or by na-
ture and long habit combined. They are Averroes' villains, for they are the
theologians who see contradictions and difficulties but lack the ability either
to find or to comprehend a demonstrative solution, even if their reasonings
may have some semblance of truth. The divergent interpretations they pass on
to the vulgar, who comprehend them poorly and in diverse senses; hence, the
hostile sects, the persecution, sedition, and religious wars of Islam. Religious
peace would be reestablished if the sects disappeared, if governments per-
mitted the two upper classes to communicate to the lower class only those in-
terpretations proper for it, for the lower class would then be neither burdened
with the impossible task of understanding the philosophers nor contaminated
by theologians.
Men of the third and least numerous class give assent only by apodictic

^^^Ibn Rochd (Averroes), Traite Decisif sur V Accord de la Religion et de la Philo-

sophie, Arab text with French trans., notes and intro. by Leon Gauthier. 3d ed., pp.
1-2, 4-5. Analysis based on Fr. trans.
222 The Earth as a Planned Abode

demonstration, admitting neither miracles nor mysteries. They become such

men by nature or art— the art of philosophy. These philosophers perceive the
difficulties and resolve them in a single and unique way.
The common man and the philosopher are both sound in their own way;
they,unhke the dialectical theologians, do religion no harm, establish no sects.
A profound understanding of the creation and the great philosophical ideas,
however, is for the trained and disciplined few. Only harm can come from the
irresponsible diffusion of interpretations to these incompetent to receive them.
Real exegesis is is and should be a gulf between the
highly speciahzed; there
and those of the common people.^^^
ideas of nature of the philosopher
In Muslim thought exegesis has probably been carried on even more subtly
and more voluminously than in Christian. When they came to the Latin West,
Averroes' ideas added to the questionings which Christian exegesis itself had
already raised. Both reveal the stimulus to inquiry which exegesis inevitably
provides. Like Basil's, it could be literal and full of facts from classical botany,
zoology, geography, astronomy, and other sciences; or it could be symboHc
like the hexaemeral writings of Ambrose, Augustine, and John the Scot. It
could be, as Averroes taught, on different levels, hke the exterior and symbolic
sense of the common man and the interior and hidden sense of the philosopher.
Different historical circumstances demanded different remedies, as Thomas
Aquinas saw combatting heresy, for one way might be required with a Jew
in
who knew the Old Testament, another with a heretic versed in the New, an-
other with an early Church Father who could deal with the pagan world be-
cause he had been a pagan himself, another with a Muslim who cares nothing
for the Christian Scripture. Some exegesis might require more emphasis on
nature, some on revelation, as Chrysostom, Augustine, Aquinas, Lull, and
Sibiude realized.
At this time exegesis becomes a kind of sociology of knowledge, a probing
particularly effective in analyzing nature both as it is seen in the everyday
world and in its symbolism. It suggests that interpretation may be cultural and
psychological, that while it is not opposed to piety, it has a vahdity of its own
independent of piety.
Maimonides is of special interest because of the common Jewish and Chris-

tian concern with Old Testament exegesis. In Maimonides' exegesis, Genesis

is not taken literally; it is interpreted according to the theory of the four
elements.^^^ Living long before the days of the higher criticism, he assumes
the two creation stories are one and that they may be reconciled with one an-
other. In the first account, male and female are created (Gen. 1:27) and the
creation is now But the second account then describes
finished (Gen. 2:1).
the further creations of Eve, the trees of hfe and knowledge, the serpent, as if
these events occurred after Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. All our
sages agree, he says, that these creations took place on the sixth day, for noth-

Ibid., pp. 8, 23-26, 29-31. See also Gauthier's remarks, pp. xi-xiv.
The Guide for the Perplexed, Pt. II, chap. 30, pp. 213-214.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

ing new was created after the end of that day. "None
of the things mentioned
above is therefore impossible, because the laws of Nature were then not yet
permanently fixed."^^^ Observance of the Sabbath has two purposes: to con-
firm the true theory of creation^ and to remind us of God's kindness in freeing
us from the burdens of the Egyptians. The Sabbath "gives us correct notions,
and also promotes the well-being of our bodies." It also allows man to pass
one seventh of his life in rest and comfort.^^^ The genealogies of nations are set
down in order to supply information concerning the multiplication and dis-
persal of the human race; lacking them, people might doubt the truth.^^^
In his discussion of the macrocosm and the microcosm, Maimonides says
all forms of life are not vital to the order of nature. Some species are an integral

part of the system because they have the power of generation; others, like in-
sects generated in dunghills, animals in rotten fruit or in fetid liquids, and
worms in the intestines, have no purpose; the power of generation is denied
them. "You will, therefore, find that these things do not follow a fixed law,
although their entire absence is just as impossible as the absence of different
complexions and of different kinds of hair amongst human beings."^^^ Nature
also creates an economy for man, making what is necessary cheap, what is a
luxury dear. Air, the most necessary, is more plentiful than water, which in
turn more necessary and cheaper than food, to say nothing of
is staple and
luxurious foods.^^^ Such a crude utilitarian natural theology is not typical of
Maimonides, however.
Design in nature implies purpose. But whose purpose? Aristotle, he says,
repeatedly points out that nature does nothing in vain. Plants exist for animals;
the parts of animals have design and purpose. This we may grant. "All this
refers only to the immediate purpose of a thing; but the existence of an ulti-
mate purpose in every species, which is considered as absolutely necessary by
every one who investigates into the nature of things, is very difficult to dis-
cover: and still more difficult is it to find the purpose of the whole Uni-
verse."^"
One cannot infer that the universe is created for man. Man should know his
station; the universe does not exist for him, but because the Creator wills it.

Man should see himself as a being in a hierarchy, below the spheres and the
starsand inferior to the angels, but still the highest being composed of the four
elements. "Man's existence is nevertheless a great boon to him, and his distinc-
tion and perfection is a divine gift."^^^
How does Providence work in the design and plan of nature? Maimonides
examines previous theories at length, following then with his own. Aristotle,

Ibid., Pt. II, chap. 30, p. 216.

Ibid.^ Pt. II, chap. 31, p. 219, Pt. Ill, chap. 43, p. 352.
Ibid., Pt. Ill, chap. 50, p. 381.
Ibid., Pt. I, chap. 72, p. 1 16.
156 Pt. Ill, chap. 12, p. 271.
^^"^
Ibid.., chap. 13, p. 273.

Ibid., chap. 12, p. 268.

224 Earth as a Planned Abode

he says, argued that incidents in the existence of individual beings in each

species,whether rational or irrational, are due to chance, not to management.
A storm causes the leaves of a tree to drop, and stirs up the sea, causing the ship
and its passengers to go down; an ox annihilates ants with his excrement; wor-
shippers are killed when the foundations of the house give way. Are such
incidents due to chance or to design?
Maimonides agrees with Aristotle that Divine Providence does not extend
to the individual members of a species, but he makes an exception in the case
of man.

For do not believe that it is through the interference of Divine Providence that
I

a certain leaf drops [from a tree], nor do I hold that when a certain spider
catches a certain fly, that this is the direct result of a special decree and will of
God in that moment; it is not by a particular Divine decree that the spittle of a
certain person moved, fell on a certain gnat in a certain place, and killed it; nor
is it by the direct will of God that a certain fish catches and swallows a certain

worm on the surface of the water.

If, however, men go down with the ship or are killed when a roof falls in on
them, these deaths are not by chance but by the will of God. He accepts this
theory because he has not "met in any of the prophetical books with a descrip-
tion of God's Providence otherwise than in relation to human beings."^'^"

1 1 . Frederick II on Falcons

Let us remain a Httle longer in the south of Europe. If many have seen in the
dignity which St. Francis accorded to all life the creation of an atmosphere
favorable to the study of nature, others (notably Charles Haskins) have seen
in The Art of Falconry of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen (i 194-1250) an
exemplar of what could be accomplished in natural history by observation in
the Middle Ages.^^^ So much has been written about this work as a contribution
to the scientific study of natural history, particularly to ornithology, that a
few general remarks will be enough to show why it has achieved such fame.
Most students of the "Emperor of the Romans, King of Jerusalem and of
Sicily" stress the stimulus of his intellectual milieu, the Sicilian court that
knew the Mushm, the Christian, and the Jew. "For his investigations of falcons,
Frederick had at his disposal the whole machinery of his bureaucratic admin-

^^^Ibid., chap. 17, p. 283.

286-287. The theory that God had providence over man both as a species
Ibid., pp.
and an individual and over the rest of life only as a species was listed as an error by
as
Giles of Rome. In his Errores Fhilosophorum, Giles compiled the errors of Aristotle,
Averroes, Avicenna, Algazel, Alkindi, and Maimonides as a "stern warning and admoni-
tion to read the new philosophical literature critically, and not to forget the teachings of
the faith." Josef Koch's introduction to the Errores Philosophorum, trans, by Riedl. For
Giles' text, XII Maimonides, 9, pp. 63-65.
The Art of Falconry Being the De Arte Venandi cum Avibus of Frederick II of
Hohenstaufen. Translated and edited by Casey A. Wood and F. Marjorie Fyfe. The
translator's introduction is largely based on Haskins; the book has many beautiful plates
 The Earth as a Flamied Abode

istration," the emperor carrying on an extensive correspondence on falcons

with people living in various parts of the empire/^^ This information from
many different locaHties made him aware of the broader aspects of bird study
such as the relation of climate to nesting, migration, food habits, and so forth.
Most exhilarating is the casual treatment of Aristotle, who to him is an
authority, fallible as is anyone else; he can take him or leave him, and when his
own observation or the testimony of his friends or other experts in falconry
conflict with Aristotle, it does not take him long to make up his mind whose to
accept. He notices, for example, how the black pupils of the hawk are en-
larged when its eyes are fixed on an object, diminished when not staring at
something engaging its attention.^^^
This discourse on man's ancient interference with the world of the bird of
prey is suffused with deep knowledge and affection. Few passages in the litera-
ture of natural history, in my opinion, surpass the discussion of the shirker and
the coward among the birds of prey and how they are to be treated (IV,
27-28).

Shirkers are those falcons that can perform better than they do but dissemble and
and give a poor account of themselves. Cowards are those that have been
wounded by cranes and are therefore afraid, or unwilling, to attack or capture
the quarry. Hence the difference bet^^een them is that the one cloaks her true
character and the other is really afraid. The shirker, if slipped at a weak or injured
crane, will take it; but the coward will not touch any prey, injured or uninjured,
weak or strong, so long as her fear lasts.^^*

To Frederick, this kind of hunting was an art which he approached out of

love; he despised those who hunted with pits, nets, and animals. In his prologue,
he said bird life was one of the "attractive manifestations of nature," its study
away of understanding nature. Although many oriental books on falconry
were known to him, it is generally believed that Frederick's depended very

of birds, and of buildings associated with Frederick's reign, especially those in Apulia.
On the work, see Charles H. Haskins "The 'De Arte Venandi cum Avibus' of the
Emperor Frederick II," Eng. Hist. Rev., Vol. 36 (1921), pp. 334-355; idem.. Studies in
the History of Mediaeval Science, pp. 299-326, a revision of the Eng. Hist. Rev. article;
idem, "The Latin Literature of Sport," Specidinn, 2 (1927), 235-252. See also Ernst
Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite, Ergdnzimgsband, pp. 155-157, for extensive
references.
Haskins, op. cit.. Eng. Hist. Rev., Vol 36 (1921), p. 353; and for examples, pp.
354-355-
See the general prologue of the work for criticism of Aristotle. "Nowhere does
Frederick's emancipation from and authority stand out more clearly than in
tradition
his attitude toward Aristotle." Haskins, op. cit.. Eng. Hist. Rev., Vol. 36 (1921), p. 346.
For a restrained view both of Muslim and Frederick's experimentation, see von Grune-
baum, Medieval Islam, pp. 334-336. On the Sicilian- Arab line of monarchs beginning
with Roger I, see Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs. A Short History, pp. 208-21 1. Roger II and
Frederick II were called "the two baptized sultans of Sicily." In Hitti's opinion (pp.
2 10-21 1 ) Frederick's greatest single contribution was the founding of the University of

Naples in 1224. On the hawk's pupils, Art of Falconry, Bk. I, chap. 24, p. 60.
Art of Falconry, Bk. IV, chaps. 27-28. The quotation is from chap. 27, pp. 303-304.
226 The Earth as a Plamied Abode

little upon them, that his work is a fresh start with little reliance on predeces-
sors, including Aristotle, who is cited mainly when the author disagrees with
him.^^^
From a broader geographical point of view, the work adopts the ancient
doctrine of the seven klimata as given by al-Idrisi, discusses those which vari-
ous birds choose for their eyries, those within which migrations take place,
districts suited to crane hawking. The book shows acquaintance with the
northern latitudes and the kinds of birds and the bird migrations taking place
there. Perhaps the geographical tradition was still strong at his court, for al-

Idrisi {ca.099-1 154), the Arab geographer and cartographer, had been at-
1

tached to the court of Frederick's grandfather, Roger II (1101-1154), at

Palermo for twenty-five years.
What are some of the general ideas of this detailed and technical treatise?
An Aristotelian type of teleology explains the nature of organs, but there are
no religious overtones. Every organ of a bird, he says, is made of material suited
to its function and this organ has a functional purpose. Thus if Nature formed
organs to fulfill their appropriate functions, it might be predicated that she
would make one bird in order that it might destroy another, that is, that "Na-
ture has created one species for the annihilation of another, and according to
this axiom, Nature is not only benevolent in one species and malevolent in

another but, what is more important, exhibits her two opposite aspects at the
same time, for each species finds in another what is harmful to it."^^^ Training
birds involves making them do things unnatural to them. The size of cranes,
he says, exceeds that of falcons and it is thus unnatural for falcons to capture
such large birds of their own free will; they must be taught and helped by
man.^^«
The important point is not that falconry was so well understood at this
time, or that there was such close observation of birds over a thirty-year period
and such skill in training them, but that these matters were studied by a learned
man and emperor and by other experts associated with him and were then
written down. Kantorowicz has wisely said that observation had not been lost
and then rediscovered by Frederick, for the peasant or the hunter of the Mid-
dle Ages saw as sharply as did peasants and hunters of past times. But those
articulate enough to have given literary expression to their observations seldom
had an eye for the world of the senses.^^^ The emperor had the sharp eye of
the peasant and the hunter, an interest in the natural world, and the trained in-
telligence to set down in writing what he saw. This is the lesson of Frederick II.

See Haskins, op. cit.. Eng. Hist. Rev., Vol. 36 (1921), p. 346.
166 /lyf Qj falconry, Bk. II, chaps. 4-5; on bird migrations, Bk. I, chaps. 22-23.
^^"^
Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 23-I, p. 57.
Ibid., Bk. IV, chap. 27, p. 303.
Kantorowicz, Kaiser Friedrich der Zweite, p. 336.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 227

1 2 . Albert the Great

Although he cannot be compared with Frederick, Albert the Great (1193—

1280) in the north was also sympathetic to the rational and independent study
of nature. Indeed, he contributed to all the ideas whose history we are con-
sidering. The idea of a divinely designed earth recurs repeatedly in his writ-
ings; it is an expected and important part of his theology. He commented
exhaustively on Aristotle's philosophy of nature, adding fresh, if modest, ob-
servations of his own.^^^ He
wrote on geography, following apparently the
model of Isidore of Seville's compendium of place-names and place descrip-
tions. (Isidore of Seville in turn may be compared with Pliny in this respect.)

To description he adds, however, a sustained discussion of theories of environ-

mental influence. (See chap. 6, sec. 4.) Less sustained is his recognition of
environmental change occurring through human agency, but he tries to under-
stand domestication, the advantage of manuring, the effect the clearing of
trees had on the land. (See chap. 7, sec. 7.)

In the early period, the Christian view of the earth was influenced by the
ideas of Plato, of the Neoplatonists, and finally of Augustine: the earth repre-
sented the finished product of artisanship, the natural order resembling a
mosaic where everything was in its place and the design of the Creator was
clear. In Albert's writings, in thecombination of the biblical account of the
creation (rejecting the Aristotelian idea of the eternity of the cosmos) with
Aristotelian thought, the older view of the earth does not disappear, but there
is a subtle shift in emphasis. There is not only a purposefulness in each living
organism— even within its component parts— but also a purposefulness of the
whole. A vigorous revival of that most subtle of all teleological ideas of nature,
that it does nothing in vain, takes place.
In considering Albert's contribution, one must avoid the two extremes: the
disparagement that emphasizes his aping of the past, and the extravagant praise
of Albert as an innovator, ignoring the fables, the lore of the bestiary, the
demonology, and the astrology which are there.
With Albertus Magnus a new value is placed on contemporary natural sur-
roundings and their proper observation. Albert was monk of the mendicant
a
Dominican order; according to the Dominican Jammy, who edited and pub-
lished his works in the middle of the seventeenth century, Albert journeyed
from cloister to cloister on foot, begging for his food. It is quite likely that his
extensive foot-journeys had a close relationship to his observation; he had
traveled widely in Germany, Italy, and France, these travels becoming more
extensive with his appointment as Provincial for Germany in 1 254. From 254
1

^^^For a well considered appraisal, see Raven, Science and Religion, pp. 66-73. Raven
also makes clear the rationalistic and hagiological pitfalls in the study of Albert as a
natural historian (p. 71).
228 The Earth as a Planned Abode

to 259 he visited the Dominican monasteries and south and north

1 Germany as
far as Liibeck on the North Sea/^^
In the journeys from cloister to cloister, he had walked through Austria,
Bavaria, Swabia, Alsace, the Rhine and Moselle valleys to Brabant, to Holland,
to Westphalia, Holstein, Saxony, Meissen, Thuringia.^^^ Albert was thus well
acquainted personally with some of the most dramatically contrasted land-
scapes of Europe: the Alps, the valleys of the Rhine and its tributaries (Co-
logne was his favorite residence), the central uplands of Germany, and the
landscapes of the North European plain.
Albert aspires to a natural theology that is based on learning. Human knowl-
edge is incomplete, and as long as it is incomplete, we are that much poorer in
our knowledge of God and his works; investigation and observation are com-
patible with Christianity, they are necessary for the true knowledge of the
created and the Creator. To Albert the beauties of the earth are more than
symbols, its apparent order more than a simple illustration of design.^^^ In
discussing the nature of floods, for example, he includes with historical illustra-
tion, universal floods, floods somewhat less than universal, and purely local
ones. There are some, he says, who ascribe all these to divine disposition, who
assert that it is unnecessary for us to seek any further than the will of God for
their cause. We agree with that in part, Albert says: "This world governed
by the will of made also for the punishment of evil men. We say how-
God, is

ever that God by natural causes whose prime mover, God himself, is
does this
able to give movement to everything else. Moreover we do not ask concerning
the causes of his willing, but concerning natural causes which are like instru-
ments effecting his wishes in such matters."^^^
The earth was an environment suited to the perfect man before the Fall; it

remained a fit environment for man after it, even if nature no longer possessed
its previous perfection; thistles and poisonous earth for example, had first

Jammy, intro. to Vol. I of Albert's works, Jessen, Botanik der Gegenivart imd
Vorzeit, p. 145. Meyer began, and his friend Jessen finished, an edition of Albert's
De Vegetabilibus, published in Berlin in 1867. On his travels, see also Wimmer, Deutsches
Fflanzenleben nach Albertus Magnus (1908), pp. 8-9.
Jessen, op. pp. 145-146.
cit.,

Ibid., p. 152. Because of the forbidding volume of Albert's writing, his thought is
^'^^

still imperfectly studied in detail. Among the works concerned with his natural history,

I have found the following to be the most helpful: Ernst Meyer, "Albertus Magnus,"
Limiaea, 10 [1836], pp. 641-741, 11 [1837], PP- 545~595' This article shows how late,
and how full of error has been the study of Albert as a natural historian; see Vol. 10, pp.
642-652, for Meyer's critique of former students of the subject. These articles are sum-
marized in Meyer's famous work, Geschichte der Botanik, Vol. 4, pp. 9-84. Meyer
shows that Albert's ideas of agriculture and plants appeared later in the work of Pietro
Crescenzi (Petrus Crescentiis), the famous ItaHan agricultural writer, 1230?-? 13 10.
Meyer discusses the importance of Albert's foot travels in his nature study. J. Wimmer's
Deutsches Fflanzenleben nach Albertus Magnus is a fundamental work on Albert's nat-
ural history.
i74£)p£^ Tr. Caput Jammy, Vol. 311.
2, 9, 5, p.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 229

come Although nature might be imperfect, its

into being after the Fall/^^
study takes us into a realm of knowledge worth knowing for its own sake and
because it is useful knowledge.
To learn through nature study is not only a pleasurable experience, it is also
useful for life and the welfare of a country. Granted that nature is the sole
principle underlying all natural phenomena, nevertheless everything which is

susceptible to change can be changed, for better or for worse, through art and
cultivation. Men can effect great changes in plants, converting them from the
wild to the domestic state by manuring, working the soil, sowing, and grafting.
Let us talk, he continues, of the cultivation of the fields, of gardens, meadows,
orchards, and of other activities by which plants are taken from the wild to the
domestic state.

Unlike the abstract formulations of his pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas, Albert's
range is from the mightier questions with which St. Thomas concerned him-
self to the famiHar smells of the barnyard. The agricultural portions of the
work, often derived from the Roman writers and Palladius, have a live, con-
temporary ring to them in their discussion of manuring, the working of soils,
grafting. He is interested in land classification,^^^ in fields first brought into
cultivation, in the problem of the roots of felled trees robbing the new crops
of their food, of hillside slopes whose soil is carried by the waters to the valleys
below.^^^
The designed earth of St. Albert is more than an abstraction or a conven-
tional illustration of the physico-theological proof of the existence of God. It

is holy, it is a creation, but it can also be talked about in the language of the
vineyardist, the gardener, the farmer, the horticulturist.

13. St. Thomas Aquinas

In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas hsts and discusses five argu-
ments proving the existence of God, the fifth being derived from the evidence
of the governance of the world. The order and regularity observed in the
behavior of natural bodies which lack the intelligence to act purposefully
presuppose the direction of a being with knowledge and intelligence **as the
arrow is shot to its mark by the archer." There is thus an intelligent being
directing all natural things to their end, "and this being we call God."^^^

^'^^
Summa Theologiae, Pt. 2, Tr. 11, Q. 44, p. 279; Q. 46, Mem. 3, p. 314. Cites Bede,
Augustine, Gen. 3, Jammy, Vol, 18.
De veget, et plantis, Bk. 7, Tr. i, chap, i, Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 488.
Ibid., Bk. 7, Tr. i, chap. 5, Jammy, Vol. 5, pp. 492-493.
^"^"^

On newly cultivated lands and tree felling, chap. 8; hillside slopes, chap. 7, Jammy,
Vol. 5, pp. 492-496.
The five proofs are in ST, Pt. I, Q. 2, Art. 3, pp. 13-14. See also 5CG, Bk. i, chap.
13, par. 5, where St. Thomas discusses John the Damascene and Averroes.
230 The Earth as a Plamied Abode

The artisan analogy is useful also in explaining the variety and the multi-
plicity of the creation.

Since every agent intends to introduce its likeness into its effect, in the measure
that its effect can receive it, the agent does this more perfectly as it is the more
perfect itself; obviously, the hotter a thing is, the hotter its effect, and the better
the craftsman, the most perfectly does he put into matter the form of his art.
Now, God is the most perfect agent. It was His prerogative, therefore, to induce
His likeness into created beings most perfectly, to a degree consonant with the
nature of created being.

No one species can attain to this likeness of God. No single creature can ex-
press in full manner the hkeness of God, it cannot be equal to God. "The pres-
ence of multiplicity and variety among created things was therefore necessary
that a perfect likeness to God be found in them according to their manner of
being."^««
The hierarchy of, and continuity in, nature— its observed variety, richness,
multiplicity, fullness— are therefore necessar)^ to obtain a perfect representa-
tion of God.^^^ The greater the variety, the greater the multiplicity of things,
the more closely is perfection approached. This argument is consistent with
St.Thomas's fourth proof of the existence of God, the proof from the "grada-
tion to be found in things."
Furthermore, it is better to have a multipHcity of species than a multiplicity
of individuals of one species. St. Thomas comes close to a concept of balance

and harmony in nature: despite characteristics that produce conflict (the

lion cannot be blamed for having characteristics harmful to the lamb) there
is an order in their manner of living. In nature no one species, left to itself, will

multiply to the point of dominance. The diversity and inequality of the cre-
ation are necessary to order, which, it would seem, means the orderly working
together of many creatures differing among themselves in gradation of in-
tellect, in form, and in species.^^^
God's intellect is the principle involved in the creation of living beings; the
greatest perfection of the universe would therefore require some creatures
who can share His intellectual nature. Since God creates out of his goodness
and in a wish to communicate a likeness of Himself to his creatures, this like-
ness in the living creation would consist in more than mere existing but also in
knowing. In this way is man set apart from the rest of the creation.^^^
St. Thomas comments on the language of the Psalms (on God's works, on

SCG,Bk, I, chap. 45, par. 2.

Bk. 2, chap. 45, par. 3-4. See also Lovejoy, Great Chain of Being, pp. 73-80.
Ibid.,
5CG, Bk. 2, chap. 45, par. 6-8. Here is St. Thomas's summary: "The diversity and
inequality in created things are not the result of chance, nor of a diversity of matter, nor
of the intervention of certain causes or merits, but of the intention of God Himself, who
wills to give the creature such perfection as it is possible for it to have." SCG, Bk. 2,
chap. 45, par. 9. In par. 10, he continues the same theme with comments on Gen. 1:31.
5CG, Bk. 2, chaps. 23-24; 46, par. 2, 5-7.
 The Earth as a Flammed Abode

"the works of Thy hands"), adding that "we understand heaven and earth,
and all that is brought into being by God, as the handicraft produced by a
craftsman. "^^^ "This sort of meditation on the divine works is indeed necessary
for instruction of faith in God." We can admire and reflect on His wisdom
(quotes Psalm 103:24 =
104:24 in RSV). In this appeal for knowledge in
support of faith through contemplation of God's works, it is the great passages
on the beauty of nature and of the creation in the Bible and the Apocrypha
that are cited: Ecclesiasticus, the Psalms, Paul to the Romans and to the Corin-
thians.^^^ These are the passages which have inspired much of the natural
theology of modern times as well.
The and handicraft of God, like those of the human artisan, require or-
art
der, wisdom, and intellect. Using Aristotelian sources, the Psalms, and Prov-
erbs, St. Thomas argues the case for reason in the activity of God, criticizing
"the error of those who depend on the simple will of God,
said that all things
without any reason."^^^ St. Thomas relies again on the wisdom argument and
the artisan analogy: "All ordering, therefore, is necessarily effected by means
of the wisdom of a being endowed with intelligence. Even so, in the world of
the mechanical arts, the planners of buildings are called the wise men of their
craft."^«^
St. Thomas, and other schoolmen, made a clear distinction between natural

and revealed theology, and if the former was inferior to the latter, it was at
least a valuable aid in the interpretation of nature and the understanding of

God. The dangers to the faith of an undue interest in natural theology were
not yet apparent, nor were the dangers to revealed religion in the reading of
the book of nature. These became apparent later in the writings of Ramon
Lull and Ramon Sibiude (Raymond Sebond) and, in modern times, in the at-
tachment of the deists to natural theology, although these ideas were not con-
fined to them, being shared by many pious and orthodox men.
In St. Thomas, the idea of order, planning, and design were joined with
thoughts on the beauty of the creation, described in the Scriptures to produce
a rigorous natural theology. In the Swmna Contra Gentiles, he composed
the most important and cogent discussion of natural theology which appeared
in the Middle Ages. He distilled— with generous acknowledgment— the ideas

^^*SCG, Bk. 2, chap, i, par. 6; chap. 2, par. i; see also chap. 24, 4-6, in which Psalm

104 (103): 24 again quoted; and chap. 26, 6.

is

Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach, 1:9, 42:15; Ps. 139:6, 11,
14; Wisdom of Solomon, 13:4; Pss. 104:24; 92:4; Rom. 1:20; II Cor. 3:18, and others.
These citations to the RSV of the Bible and the Apocrypha differ from the references
to the Vulgate given as footnotes or in the text to SCG, Bk. 2, chap. 2 of the Image Book
edition.
SCG, Bk. chap. 24, par. 7; par. 4 and 6 citing Aristotle, Metaph. I, 2, Eth. Nic. VI,
2,

4; and par. 24 and Prov. 3 19 in the RSV.

6, Ps. 104: :

SCG, Bk. 2, chap. 24, par. 4.

See Webb, Studies i?i the History of Natural Theology, pp. 235-236.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

of the early Church Fathers with their rehance on the beauties of nature and
natural history in support of the Christian religion in meeting pagan criticism.
In his natural theology, St. Thomas recognizes two themes (already men-
tioned) running through much of the literature on nature in the Middle Ages:
the existence of God no other proof than the
in a revealed religion requires
Word, but evidences from the natural order add supplementary support,
open up new paths to learning the ways of God. It is, again, the distinction
between the book of God and the book of nature.
Aristotle's teleology and his concept that nature does nothing in vain sup-
ported this natural theology. Aristotle, however, did not engulf St. Thomas,
who in fact transformed Aristotle and made him speak on behalf of the Chris-
tian God}''
It is, however, idle to speak of nature, man, and the earth separately, for

they make up a broader problem: the status of Christianity as a religion, and its
ability to combat supposed error, either from within or without, and to achieve
intellectual quality and dignity. The problem in St. Thomas's time is similar
to that of the early Church Fathers who used evidences from the world of
nature and from classical science in support of their ideas of God, the creation,
and the order of nature. St. Thomas saw the problem with great clarity:

To proceed against individual errors, however, is a difficult business, and this

for two reasons. In the first place, it is difficult because the sacrilegious remarks
of individual men who have erred are not so well known to us so that we may
use what they say as the basis of proceeding to a refutation of their errors. This
is, method that the ancient Doctors of the Church used in the refuta-
indeed, the
tion of the errors of the Gentiles. For they could know the positions taken by
the Gentiles since they themselves had been Gentiles, or at least had lived among
the Gentiles and had been instructed in their teaching. In the second place, it is
difficultbecause some of them, such as the iMohammedans and the pagans, do
not agree with us in accepting the authority of any Scripture, by which they
may be convinced of their error. Thus, against the Jews we are able to argue by
means of the Old Testament, while against heretics we are able to argue by
means of the New Testament. But the Mohammedans and the pagans accept
neither the one nor the other. We
must, therefore, have recourse to the natural
reason, to which all men are forced to give their assent. However, it is true, in
divine matters the natural reason has its failings.^^^

Furthermore, there was the question of goodness or the evil in nature, a

recurrent and confusing theme in Christian theology, since it was complicated

by the on nature after the fall of man and of the physical

ideas both of a curse
and moral inferiority of the sensible world to the City of God. We do not see
in St. Thomas the same interest in observing nature as we see in Albert the
Great's Smjmta de creaturis-, neither do we see the almost mystical and lyrical
attachment to nature and living things so typical of St. Francis of Assisi. There

189 See Gilson, HCPMA, p. 365.

SCG, Bk. I, chap. 2, par. 3.
 The Earth as a Plajmed Abode 233

isno mistaking, however, his awareness of nature and of its philosophical and
theological significance. There is a constant effort to show its beauty and
goodness; he combats an extreme otherworldHness, including contempt for the
earth as man's home and for the problems of life.

Thomas is never tired of demonstrating the goodness of nature. And here it

isimportant to appreciate the circumstances under which he wrote. In attacldng
the assumption that nature is evil, he is not merely criticizing a perverse theory.
He is concerned with the greatest danger that ever assailed the Medieval Church.
The thirteenth century saw a widespread revival of Manichaean beliefs, against
which Augustine had strenuously fought. The most notorious example of this
. . .

rigid Puritan creed was the Albigensian heresy, on which the Church had ex-
acted such terrible punishment. But the heresy had been almost as general as the
Catholic Faith. The doctrines of this movement were based upon a dualism of
spirit and matter, and it was believed that all forms of matter were evil. Nature,
including the bodies of animals and men, was indiscriminatingly condemned.
The Albigenses rejected the fundamental doctrines of orthodox Christianity and
advocated social practices which threatened the continuance of the human

St. Thomas' criticism is illustrated by comment on Origen who, he said,

his
beheved that "corporeal creatures were not made according to God's original
purpose, but in punishment of the sin of spiritual creatures." Origen's opinion
is false, Thomas replies, because the universe must be looked upon as an
organic whole, each one of whose parts exists for its own particular end. Some
are less noble than others, but they form a hierarchy of life within the organic
unity of the universe from the least noble to God himself. Nature is not a
reflection of sin; the cosmos, a creation of God, reflects his glory and proves
his goodness. It is doctrine consistent with Genesis 1:31 and with Psalms
Sand 104.1^2

This criticism of Origen is of interest, because the latter in Contra Celsum,

as we have seen, expresses ideas similar to those of St. Thomas: God favors
the rational over the irrational, hence the favored position of man in nature,
and the subordination of much of the irrational life to him.^^^
Since St. Thomas accepts the teleological view of nature, no existence can
be divorced from the ends for which it was created. Teleological ideas his-
torically have always depended a great deal on the world of nature for their
confirmation, especially the biological world where the apparent confirmation
is so ready at hand. Even a man hke St. Thomas, so interested in abstract-
almost legalistic— formulations, is forced to the sensible world and especially
to the biological realm.^^^ St. Thomas had adopted the Aristotelian view of
nature with its emphasis on final causes, and he, like Aristotle, had to consider

Carre, Realists and No?ninalists, p. 97.

192 57-^ pt Q
Art. 2. See also Carre, op. cit., pp. 97-98.
See Contra Celsum, IV, 75, 78.
^9"*
See also Carre, op. cit., pp. 70, 73.
2 34 The Earth as a Planned Abode

the secondary causes, subordinate to the final cause which brings about the
desired end. Secondary causes redound to the greater glory of the creator,
his greatness is not diminished because he fails to do everything personally,
because he acts through subsidiary and intermediate causes. Furthermore, it is

secondary causes, and not the Creator, which are responsible for the existence
of evil in the world and the imperfections of nature. It is not the Divine inten-
tion to deprive lower agents of their causahty; a child is born from the semen
of a man, an object becomes hot because it is near a hot object. The direct in-
tervention of God is not manifested here. Lower agents must have powers as
part of the ends for which they were agencycreated, without calling in the
of God perform every act of a physical or reproductive nature, such as
to
warming up with fire, or reproduction in the organic world. Since Divine
Guidance does not exclude the working of secondary causes, we can under-
stand how evil and imperfection can arise out of their working; here St.
Thomas uses homely examples from daily life. An artisan may be very skilled
but his product may be imperfect because of an imperfection in his instru-
ment; a man may limp, not because of any defect in the mobile power of his
body but because of a tAvist in his leg bone. "So, it is possible, in the case of
thingsmade and governed by God, for some defect and evil to be found, be-
cause of a defect of the secondary agents, even though there be no defect in
God Himself."^^^
God's adornment of the world is part of His creative act. In the beginning,
the earth, invisible, void, shapeless, empty, is "without the comeliness which
it owes to the plants that clothe it, as it were, with a garment."^^^
The work of creation therefore is divided into three phases: the creation of
heaven and earth without form; the work of distinction, the perfection of
heaven and earth "either by adding substantial form to formless matter (cites
Augustine, Ge7i. ad. litt. II, 1 1 ) or by giving them the order and beauty due
them as other holy writers suppose"; and the work of adornment which itself
is accompHshed in phases. On the first day of the adornment, the fourth in the

creation, the fights are created "to adorn the heavens by their movements";
on the second day, the fifth of the creation, birds and fishes are created "to
make beautiful the intermediate element, for they move in air and water
which are here taken as one"; and on the third day of the adornment, or the
sixth of creation, the animals are created "to move upon the earth and adorn
>'i97
^j^g seventh day a further ordering of nature was accomplished; God
acted on this day, not by further creation "but by directing and moving His
creatures to the work proper to them, and thus He made some beginning of
"^^^
the second perfection.

^^^SCG, Bk. 3, chap. 69, par. 12; chap. 71, par. 2; and the important discussion of Bk.
3, chaps. 69-71.
196 sr, Pt. I, Q. 69, Art. 2, = pp. 344-345-
197 Ft. i,Q. 70, Art. I, = p. 346.
198 Pt. I,
Q. 73, Art. I, Obj. 2, and Reply to Obj. 2, = p. 353.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 235

What men can learn from the order in nature is limited: they can observe
it and conclude from it that an artisan exists, but they are unable to discern
the nature of the creative being or whether there is one or many/^^ Consistent
with his teleological position, St. Thomas says that the Creator has only the
good in mind in devising the orderly processes of nature. Leaves, for example,
are so arranged that they protect the fruit of the plant, and various natural
protective devices perform a Hke purpose in animals. They are not products
of chance. "Therefore, the natural agent tends toward what
better, and it is
is

much more evident that the intelligent agent does so. Hence, every agent in-
tends the good when it acts."^^^ The synthesis now expresses the goodness,
the order, and the beauty of nature.
Thomas's description of the Garden of Eden throws an interesting light
St.

on his conception of the most desirable physical environment. Eden is an

idyllic place, but not for lazy idlers, for work here is not wearing, as it be-
came after the Fall. Paradise has a temperate chmate; he agrees with Isidore
(Etym. xiv, 3) that it is most fittingly in the east, "the most excellent part of
the earth," because the east "is the right hand on the heavens." Since the right
is nobler than the left, "it was God should place the earthly para-
fitting that
dise in the east." (Cites Aristotle, De Caelo, II, 2.)^^^ To the objection that men
have explored the entire habitable world and have not yet found paradise, St.

Thomas repHes that it is shut off by mountains, or seas, or torrid regions which
cannot be crossed, so that people who have written about topography make
no mention of it; he discusses the possible location of paradise on the equator,
but is more inchned to agree with Aristotle (Meteor, II, 5) that the equatorial
regions are uninhabitable. This idea, too, was elaborated on at length by Bodin
in the sixteenth century
St. Thomas asks if man was placed in paradise to dress it and to keep it, and
then answers, following Augustine, that cultivation in paradise would be
pleasant "on account of man's practical knowledge of the powers of nature."
To St. Thomas, tilHng the earth in a quiet rural setting in a temperate climate
seems to have been an idylHc existence worthy of man even before the Fall.^^^

SCG, Bk. 3, Pt. I, chap. 38, i.

200 5CG, Bk. 3, chap.

par. 9. 3,
This idea of the right and left of the heavens reappears frequently in the Renais-
sance, as for example, in the Methodus of Bodin. ST, Pt. i, Q. 102, Art. i, p. 499.
20257-^ Pt. I, Q. 102, Art. 2. Reply Obj. 4, p. 501. On ideas of the habitability of the
equatorial regions held in the Middle Ages, see Wright, The Geographical Lore of the
Time of the Crusades, pp. 162-165. "The study of jMoslem astronomy," says Wright
(p. 162),"brought to Europe the opinion that the equatorial zone itself was not only
habitable but actually inhabited." Wright also refers to the long passage in Peter Al-
phonsi [1106?] on the temperate climate of Arin (Aren) on the equator. Dialogi, PL —
157, col. 547. Albert the Great believed the tropics habitable if one could take shelter in
caves when the sun is perpendicular overhead. De natiira locorum, Bk. I, 6, Jammy, Vol.
5, p. 270. Gallois, Les
Geographes Allemands de la Renaissance, believes Albert was al-
most alone in this belief, p. 137.
203 5r,Pt. i,Q. 102, Art. 3, p. 501.
236 The Earth as a Flanned Abode

St. Thomas also considers the effect of the sin of man on the order of nature.

One consequence of the Fall was that those creatures which obeyed man in
his state of innocence no longer obeyed him in sin; his control over animal
life— he is referring to domestication— was only partial after the Fall. Man's
power in his state of innocence is related to his place in the order of perfection.
Citing Aristotle {Pol. 5) on the role of plants in feeding the animals and of
I,

the animals in serving man, St. Thomas says, 'It is in keeping with the order of
nature, that man should be master over animals. "^^
Man "in a certain sense contains Reason makes him Hke the
all things."
angels, sensitive powers, Hke the animals, natural forces, like the plants, and
his body is like inanimate things. Before the Fall, man's mastery over plant and
animal life "consisted not in commanding or in changing them, but in making
use of them without hindrance. "^^^ St. Thomas thus reconciles man's obvious
though partial control over animal life by domestication with the fall from
grace and with his retention— despite the Fall— of enough attributes of the
Divine to make him worthy of a continuing control over nature. The relation
of man to plant and especially to animal domestication must always have been
a question to excite curiosity; St. Thomas's explanation was consistent with
Christian theology. (See p. 206 on Alexander Neckam.)
Man's place in nature and his partial control over it are consequences of his
place in the hierarchy of being; because of this, he also makes use of the natural
environment, adapting what it affords to his own needs.^^^ His dominion over
nature is but an expression of the rational plan of Divine Providence, that
rational creatures rule over others. Since man shares at least to some extent in
the intellectual light, the animals, which do not participate in understanding,
are subject to man by order of Divine Providence.^^^
Perhaps the most significant observation to be made concerning St.

Thomas's ideas of God, man, and man's place in the natural world, is that they
have a cosmopolitan character. The guiding ideas, it is true, do not differ from
the great Christian texts of the past, but the discussions and the amplifications
are the result of intrusions from the south and from the past. Viewed in this
light, St. Thomas' Summa Cojitra Gentiles is one of the most interesting
books ever written.
It would seem that the basic assumption in his philosophy of man and na-

ture is that man rules over the hierarchies of being lower than he is, simulta-
neously adapting benign nature to his manifold uses, not as a right nor because
of power and intellect which he has created by and for himself, but because
of the rational and the divine within him, placed there by God. Man's position
in nature, despite his power and control, is therefore a derivative one, calling
for humihty on his part.

204 ST, Ft. I , Q. i96, Art.

, p. 486.

205 ST, Pt. I, Q.

96, Art. 2, p. 487.
206 5CG, Bk.
3, Pt. I, chap. 22, par. 8.
Ibid., chap. 78, par. i; 81, par. i. Quotes Gen. 1:26 in part.
 The Earth as a Flanned Abode 237

14. St. BonaVENTURA and Ramon Sibiude

In the first chapter of The Mind's Road to God, St. Bonaventura speaks of
God's traces in the sensible world, the text being inspired by Romans 1:20.
Statements like this can be found among all theologians of the Middle Ages,
including St. Bonaventura's great rivals the Thomists. Different interpreta-
tions of nature, however, can emerge from commentaries on Romans 1:20.
St. Bonaventura's has been called exemplarism,^^^ a word that encompasses
many ideas we have already discussed. Everything in nature is a sign of God.
We have seen this exemplarism in the notion of nature as a book; it is implicit
in thetheophany of John the Scot, in Alan of Lille's mirror, in the nature
reverence of St. Francis, and later in the thought of Ramon of Sibiude. It fol-
lows, in this Augustinian tradition, that creatures are important because they
provide the traces of God. They have no significance of their own. The em-
phasis is not on the study of nature per se; creatures confirm the work of God.
Quoting Proverbs 16:4 and Psalms 16:2, St. Bonaventura says God created
things not because they were useful to Him nor because of His need, nor to
increase His glory, but to display it and impart it ("non, inquam, propter
gloriam augendam, sed propter gloriam manifestandam, et propter gloriam
suam communicandam"), in the display and imparting of which the highest
usefulness of the creature is attained, that is, His glorification and His
felicity.2«^

It is this exemplarism that contrasts with interpretations of nature by men

like Albertus Magnus and to a lesser degree Thomas of Cantimpre, who repre-
sent "the tendency of the period to interest itself in the realities, as well as in
the symbolisms, of the natural world."^^^ One should not speak in polarities
but in trends— the trend toward interest in reahties versus that toward "the ful-
fillment of a religious obligation"^^^— in nature study, for one can find exem-
plarism in most of these writers, including St. Thomas Aquinas.
In the early period at least, the Franciscans emphasized the simple preaching
of the Bible, recruited members of the lower classes, and identified themselves
essentially with rural life; these circumstances may have caused the order as
a rule "to put more emphasis upon the observation of the natural world than
its great rival, Thomism, did."^^^

St. Bonaventura became the seventh general of the Franciscan order in

1257, consciously trying to follow in the footsteps of St. Francis. In the thirty-
third year after the saint's death, Bonaventura ascended Mount Alverna to

Leff, Medieval Thought, p. 200.

"In quatuor libros sententiarum," Lib. 2, Dist. i, pars 2, art. 2, quaest. i, concl.
{Opera omnia. Vol. 2, p. 265.)
Taylor, The Medieval Mind, Vol. 2, p. 429.
See George Boas' introd., Mind's Road to God, p. xix.
^^^Ibid., Leff, op. cit., p. 181.
238 The Earth as a Planned Abode

meditate "on the ascent of the mind to God." There, as did St. Francis, he
saw the winged Seraph in the hkeness of the Crucified."^^^
vision "of the
In The Mind's Road to God, St. Bonaventura describes the six stages in the
ascent to God, the first and lowest of which is the reflection of God in his
traces {vestigia) in the sensible world, the word meaning, says Boas, the art
which reveals the artist, the handiwork which reveals the traces of workman-
ship. The saint "seems haunted by the basic metaphor of the universe's being
a sort of mirror {specidwn) in which God is to be seen." We must mount
Jacob's ladder, placing "the rung of the ascension in the depths, putting
first

thewhole sensible world before us as a mirror; by which ladder we shall

mount up to God "^^^

All creatures of this world lead the mind to the contemplation of God be-
cause they are "shadows, echoes, and pictures, the traces, simulacra, and re-
flections of that First Principle most powerful,
and best; of that light
wisest,
and plenitude; of that and ordering, given to us
art productive, exemplifying,
for looking upon God." They are exemplifications "set before our yet un-
trained minds" to guide them to the inteUigences that they do not see.
Every creature is a sort of picture, a likeness of eternal wisdom; "Those who
are unwilling to give heed to them and to know God in them all, to bless Him
and to love Him, are inexcusable while they are unwilHng to be carried forth
from the shadows into the wonderful light of God."^^^
A more interesting work of this genre is the Theologia Naturalis of Ramon
Sibiude (Raymond Sebond); he wrote it in 1436, and it was published about
1484, but apparently it had little influence. His name probably would now be
forgotten were it not for Montaigne's famous— and longest— essay which con-
tains little about either Ramon Sibiude or his thought. His work, however, is
a landmark in the history of natural theology and of Christian apologetics
associated with the propagation of the faith.
Sibiude's work is regarded largely as a continuation of ideas already ex-
pressed by Ramon Lull. In Lull's natural theology— and in this Sibiude fol-
lowed him— God revealed himself in two books, the book of nature, and the
Bible.

Scotus Erigena's 'theophanic' universe, the liber creaturariim of William of

Auvergne and Saint Bonaventure, in fact the whole symbolism of the Lapidariesi
and the Bestiaries, without forgetting the symbolism that decorated the porches
of mediaeval cathedrals or shone in their windows, were so many testimonials
of a general confidence in the translucency of a universe in which the least of
all beings was a living token of the presence of God. If, as is commonly believed,

he was associated with the Franciscan Order, Lull had not far to look to make
acquaintance with this universe. Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Bonaventure
had lived in no other one (Gilson).

The Mind's Road God, Prologue, 2.

to
Boas, op. cit., p. 7,note i; Mind's Road to God, chap, i, 9.
215 Mind's Road to God, chap. 2, 1 1-13.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

Two knowledge are available to man, says Sibiude, the

great reservoirs of
book of creatures and the book of scriptures. If his doctrine of the all-suffi-
ciency of the book of nature were followed, however, the evidences of scrip-
ture would be subordinated to those seen in the visible creation, a point of
view calling for the vigorous study of nature, not for experimentation and ob-
servation for its own sake but, in Webb's striking phrase, with an "attentive
sense," a characteristic true of both ancient and modern natural theology.
Sibiude says that of the two books which have been given to him, man has
possessed the book of nature from the beginning. A book is composed of letters
and man is rational, but he had no knowledge at the creation and had to ac-
quire it. He could do this only with a book, for knowledge is impossible with-
out a book in which it is set down. A creature is a letter written by the finger
of God, and many creatures, Hke many letters, make up a book. The book of
nature, however, is superior to the book of scripture: it cannot be falsified,
destroyed, or misinterpreted; it will not induce heresy, and heretics cannot mis-
understand it.^^^

This doctrine, however,is not so heretical as it might at first appear. It

emerges naturally from biblical exegesis. Holy Writ contains the truth, men's
opinions are always open to error. No doctrine has a firmer grounding in
Christian theology than this. Not
commentaries on Holy Writ have equal
all

merit. St. Augustine had explained "Contra Faustum Manichaeum."

this in the

If we encounter an absurdity in the authentic canon of the Old or the New

Testament, he says, we cannot say the author is in error; it is due to the faulti-
ness of the manuscript, the translator has been deceived, or we have not grasped
the author's meaning. The authority of later writers, below canonical rank,
is lower. They may contain truth, but it is far from being the same as the

canon.^^^ Obviously exegesis had within it the seeds of disputation and con-
troversy; and it could be carried to the point that Sibiude carried it in regard-
ing the written word as inferior to the book of nature.
The physico-theological proof of the existence of God therefore has un-
usual weight in Sibiude's work. The creation is the work of an artisan, God
having determined the correct proportions of things, limited them, and ar-
ranged them. In the hierarchy of nature, there are devices for keeping the
numbers of each kind of creature in balance (one does not increase to the
point of crowding out all else), and the natural array is a harmonious one.

the publication of Theologia Naturalis, Gilson, HCPMA, pp. 701-702, note 61.
On
Lull was born
in Palma de Mallorca in 1235; on his place in Christian apologetics, es-
pecially in exposing the errors of the Averroists and the Muslims, pp. 350-351. Quotation
is on p. 353.
Webb has argued that Sibiude's book was placed on the Index because of Sibiude's
"doctrine of the all-sufficiency of the book of Nature." Quotations on pp. 296, 297.
Sibiude's Theologia Naturalis was translated into French by Michel Montaigne; it is not
to be confused with his apology for Raymond Sebond. See the preface to the TN, chap. 3.
"Contra Faustum Manichaeum," XI, chap. 5, OCSA, Vol. 25, pp. 538-539; NPN,
Vol. 4, p. 180.
240 The Earth as a PlaJined Abode
Man is exalted over the organic and inorganic world, but his superior station,
like the inferior stations of the plants and animals, is not of his making. The
ways of obtaining subsistence correspond with the hierarchy of life: trees
take their nourishment directly from the earth with their roots, animals use
their mouths, and man lives more nobly than either. These arrangements of
nature rest, of course, on the assumptions of the fixity of species and of an
order on earth established at the creation. Sibiude's questions answer them-
selves: Who sees that each creature remains in its proper rank, station, and
order? Who made these gradations permanent? Who keeps the land and the
sea within bounds?
Neither Lull nor Sibiude relied on scripture or on authority. Lull argued,
and Sibiude followed him in this, about the articles of faith and tried to show
the logical value of CathoHc truths without appeal either to the Scriptures or
to the doctors of the church.^^^ Sibiude regarded man as the most important
of creatures after the angels; in the hierarchy, all things ranking below him
find their end in him, as man finds his end in God. For this reason, man appears
as a connecting link between the sensible world of nature and the divine.^^^

Not since St. Basil's time had there been such thorough use of the world of
nature in the service of theology. Sibiude's thought is not a daring departure,
but a one-sided extension— almost an exaggeration— of the traditional belief.

The creation is reliable evidence of God's presence and his handiwork; it is a

book not subject to the error of misinterpretation, schism, conflicting doc-
trine. Thisan attitude which comes close to the natural religion of the
is

seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries.

15. Secular Views OF Nature

Not all of this thought about man, nature, and the earth served religious pur-
poses. If rehgious men like Albertus Magnus were also interested in natural
history, plants, and agriculture as practical matters, this preoccupation had its

counterpart in secular writings and in art. An excellent example in poetry is

The Romance of the Rose (1237, 1277), one of the most widely read and
enjoyed poems of the Middle Ages. Chaucer has translated part of it into Eng-
lish. Lorris's part has beautiful passages of nature description; de Meun's, of
equal beauty, is broadly based on scholastic learning and is controversial.

Guillaume de Lorris's poetry in the Romance "won an immediate follow-

ing," while de Meun's "created a furore."
In his apology (chap. 70) De Meun defends himself against a charge of
bawdiness of speech by saying that his language is necessary for his tale. Of
his supposed misogyny, he says he writes for instruction's sake to depict human

Theologia Naturalis. Sibiude gives the main outline of his argument in his preface.
Probst,Le Lullisme de Raymond de Sebonde {Ramon de Sibiude), p. 18.
Ibid.y p. 16. On Sibiude's natural theology, see also Webb, Studies in the Hist, of
Nat, Theology, pp. 292-312.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 241

life as it is, that there is early authority for women's behavior. He has no in-
tention of making personal attacks on those who follow the Holy Church or
who lead a devoted religious life, but he will seek out hypocrisy and has proof
of his accusations.

If Holy Church can find a single word

Which she may foolishdeem, I ready stand
To make amends, if they will satisfy
Whenever she may deign to fix a fitting time.^^^

De Meun was a man of learning and of historical sense; he translated Vege-

tius' De re 77nlitari, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, the Life and Letters
of Peter Abelard and Helo'ise, and Giraldus Cambrensis' Topography of Ire-
land, Because of its popularity and preeminence, and the breadth of the con-
ception, especialy de Meun's, the poem is a sensitive expression of many ideas
current in his age.^^^ It is full of interest to anyone studying the history of ideas
of nature, and one is immediately struck by the influence of Alan of Lille's

De planctii naturae. In Guillaume de Lorris's part, including the last seventy-

eight lines of an anonymouts poet (lines 1-4058), there are many charming
passages full of life, sparkle, and appreciation of natural beauty, but they are
simple, personal, with pretense of philosophic depth or significance. In
little

Jean de Meun's part 4059-21780) the conceptions of nature, the Cre-

(lines
ator, the earth, and man are expressed as Alan expressed them, by a personified
"Nature" and by "Genius." Discussions of sexuahty, written in bold meta-
phorical language (the hammer and the anvil also come from Alan), are really
strong affirmations of life, fecundity, and plenitude in nature. Man's behavior
is castigated when it departs from the norm characteristic of the rest of nature.

The Platonic artisan-deity creates an earth of beauty and loveliness; this

generous creator has a plan and purpose, and like the God of the Jews, creates
ex nihilo. In the beginning God ordained chaos, a mass of confusion and dis-
order; then he separated out the elements "which never since have been
anatomized," numbered them, and stationed each element in its proper place.

The lighter rose aloft; the heavy sank

Down to the center— medials between.
In time and space He rightly each ordained.^^^

When, according to His design God "has thus His other creatures all dis-
posed," He established "Nature" to serve him, appointing her his chamberlain,
his constable, his steward, and his vicar-general.

God honors me so much that in my ward

He leaves the lovely golden chain that binds
The elements, which bow before my face.^^^
221 The Romance of the Rose, chap. 70, 124-127.
222 See Charles Dunn's introduction to The Romance of the Rose, trans, by Robbins,
esp. pp. xvi-xviii; on its fame, pp. xxv-xxvii.
Ibid., chap. 81, lines 46-48; on the creation, lines 18-31.
^^^Ibid., chap. 8i, lines 64-66, and lines 49-63.
242 The Earth as a Pla?ined Abode
It is God's will that all obey Nature, observing her rules, forgetting none of
her laws. Of all the creation only man fails to observe these regulations with
care. Man however has freedom of the will; he can bring reason to his relation-
ship with the cosmos; the influence of the stars may be great but reason can
withstand it.

Each wise man knows

That Reason is not subject to the stars;
For 'neath their power she was not brought to birth.^^^

Man owes to his understanding the power over the dumb, destitute beasts
that cannot speak or understand one another.

But, if they were endowed with speech and sense

To understand each other and themselves,

It would go hard with man.^^^

Maned coursers would neither permit the bit nor let knights mount them; no
ox would submit to the yoke; no ass or mule would carry a burden for a
despised master; no elephant would bear a castle high on his back; no cat or
dog would serve man, for they could well support themselves. There would
be war if animals had the endowments of man; his plots to conquer them would
be met by similar artifices. The animals would fight a dramatic war to the
finish with the human race, from the apes and monkeys to the bugs, nits, and
flesh worms who even now are bold.^^^

So boldly that a man must leave his work

To beat them down and drive the pests away.^^^

The moral is that men must avoid wickedness and vices which dull the senses
and intoxicate. Man can use free will and follow reason; if he does not, he can
plead no mitigation.
Men should see that violent storms of thunder and hghtning ("The trum-
pets, kettledrums, and tambourines of the celestial orchestra") have natural
causes.

For nothing but the tempest and the wind

Are needed to explain the havoc wrought.^^^

Men now have books to study about nature. Aristotle has observed more of
naturp than any man since the times of Tubal-cain, and Alhazen's book on
optics "none but fools neglect."^^^
In the remarkable chapter 87, again reminiscent of Alan of Lille, partly

Jbid.^ chap. 82, lines 43-45; on nature's laws, chap. 81, lines 53-74.
Ibid.^ chap. 82, lines 543-545.
227 Ibid.^ lines
545-580.
^^^Ibid., lines 581-582.
229 Ibid., chap. 83, lines 1 1-12, 28-29.
230 Ibid., lines 1 19-123. On Tubal-cain see Gen. 4:22.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 243

moralizing, partly didactic, de Meun commends the whole creation, the

heavens, the elements, plants, birds, animals, and insects, all except man. The
heavenly bodies on their courses fulfill their duty; the elements behave; plants
are attentive to nature's laws. Good scholars are the fish and fowl:

They breed according to their several wonts,

And thus do honor to their lineage.
Great comfort 'tis to see how each of them
Strives to prevent his race from dying out.^^^

The animals are given a clean bill of health too; they couple well and gra-
ciously:

No bargaining
Delays their union when they're in accord.^^^

The insects— the flies, the ants, and the butterflies— the worms "that breed in
rottenness," adders and snakes like good scholastics "are studious to do my
work."^^^
Man is a companion of creatures everywhere, shares the blessings which
they have, but he alone fails. Like the stones, he has being; like the herbs, life;

like the beasts, feehng; like the angels, thinking. (See above on St. Thomas,
p. 236.) Of him. Nature complains.

He humans can conceive;

has whatever
He ismicrocosm in himself—
a
Yet worse than any wolf cub uses me.

Man, however, is out of Nature's jurisdiction; she did not provide him with
his understanding.

I'm neither wise nor powerful enough

To make a creature so intelligent.^^^
Jesus came to save sinful man; but Nature says she does not know how he
became mortal without her aid except that in His omnipotence God could
create him. She expresses amazement that he was born of the Virgin Mary,
"since it could never be / By Nature that a virgin could give birth." In the
exhortation to fecundity. Genius speaking on behalf of Nature makes a plea
forhuman sexual activity compatible with the divine plan.^^^
The plea for a natural sex life and the attack on the sexual abstinence of
the clergy (sympathetic with the seculars, he was particularly bitter toward
the Dominicans) are cast in striking metaphorical language, often of the farmer
and the smithy. He sees no merit in the argument that God in his omnipotence

Ibid.^ chap. 87, lines 37-40. See this chapter entire.

Ibid.^ lines 48-49.
Ibid.^ lines 54-57.
^^^Ibid., chap. 88, lines ij-i^, 33-34-
235 Ibid.y lines i lo-i 12. On Plato's thought, lines 37-73.
244 The Earth as a Planned Abode

has removed desire from some men, for He would want all men to have an
equal share of his grace. If all men shared this lack of sexual desire mankind
would be extinct.

I believe
That 'tis His will that all— not just a few-

Pursue the road that best will lead to Him.

If 'tis His will that some lead virgin lives,
The better to follow Him, then why not all?^^^

Although he challenges the divines to refute him, he has little hope of suc-
cess; they will discuss "but never will conclude." Like Alan of Lille, he op-
poses aberrant sexual behavior and for the same reason: sexual activity and
reproduction are parts of the divine plan of nature; perversions and permanent
continence divorce man from the rest of the law-abiding creation and bring
about disharmony.

But thosewho with their stylets scorn to write

Upon the precious tablets delicate
By means of which all mortals come to life.
Which Nature never lent us for disuse. .^^^ . .

And again, using the ancient identification of woman with the plowed earth,

And those who are so blinded by their sins

Or by the pride by which they are deranged
That they despite the furrow, fair and straight
Amidst the blooming and luxuriant field.
And to the proper roadway never keep
But go like wretches to the desert wastes
Where they misuse their plows and lose their seed. . .

The stresson the force and power of life, the richness and fecundity of
is

nature, and on nature as an instrumentality of God. The sexual act as part of

the divine intent should be conducted in accordance with its high purpose;
de Meun's is not a philosophy of license and excess.

Be active in your functions natural-

More active than the squirrel, and more deft
And lively than the birds or than the breeze.
Provided only you work manfully,
I pardon all your sins; lose not that boon!

Exert yourselves gaily to leap and dance.

And rest not, lest your members grow lukewarm.
All your utensils in the task employ;
He who works well by work will warm himself.

Ibid.^ chap. 91, lines 90-94. On de Meun's attitude toward the mendicants, see intro.
pp. xxii-xxiv.
Ibid.^ chap. 91, lines 100, 1 01-104.
Ibid., lines 111-117. On woman and furrow, see Eliade, Patterns in Comparative
Religion^ pp. 259-260.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 245

Plow, barons, plow— your lineage repair;

For if you do not there'll be nothing left
To build upon.^^^

Indeed, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, conceptions of the earth and
the living and nonhving nature upon it progress beyond wonderment, simple
piety, and commentaries on theology. There is less interest in miracles, more
in regularities and in natural law. More is made of the distinction between
divine works and nature's works. There is much interest in the observation
of nature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries^^^ and, as we have learned
from Emile Male, in its faithful representation in religious art.
The whole medieval world, according to Male, is regarded as a symbol, and
the artists carrying out their work on the churches under supervision express
the religious thought of their day. But once this all-embracing symbolic inter-
pretation has been complied with in the conception, subordinate decoration
may proceed at will. The symbolism is like a canopy, the realism within re-
flecting often the interests, joys, and aspirations of the untutored and un-
sophisticated artisan and craftsman who do not hide their light under a bushel.
"At Chartres and Bourges ... in the windows given by the guilds, the lower
part shows the donors with the badges of their trade— trowel, hammer, wool-
carding comb, baker's shovel and butcher's knife. In those days no incongruity
was felt in placing these pictures of daily life side by side with scenes from
the legends of the saints."^^^
Jean Gimpel also has written of this commingling of the sacred and the
earthly. Of the Cathedral of Chartres he writes.

Examining the church closely, it becomes evident that the guilds obtained
the best possible placement for their windows. They were installed along the
side aisles or in the ambulatory nearest the public, while glass donated by
bishops and lords was relegated to the clerestory windows of the nave and choir.
The cloth merchant, the stonecutter, the wheelwright, and the carpenter each
had himself depicted in a medallion in the lower part of the window donated by
his guild, as close as possible, as it were, to future clients.^^^

It is an error, Male continues, to find symbolism in everything the sculptor

of these times did.

The impartial student of the decorative fauna and flora of the thirteenth cen-
tury finds it purely a work of art, the expression of a deep and tender love of
nature. Left to himself the medieval sculptor did not trouble about symbols,
but was simply one of the people, looking at the world with the wondering
eyes of a child. Watch him creating the magnificent flora that came to life under
his hand. He does not try to read the mystery of the Fall or the Redemption

Ibid., chap. 91, lines 151-162.

Crombie's discussion of thirteenth century biology in Medieval and Early
^'^^See
Modern Science, Vol. I, pp. 1 39-1 61.
Male, The Gothic Image, pp. 1-5, 29; quotation on pp. 64-65.
Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders, p. 47.
 .

246 The Earth as a Planned Abode

into the budding flowers of April. On the first day of spring he goes into some
where humble plants are beginning to push through
forest of the lle-de-France,
the earth. The fern tightly rolled like a powerful spring still has its downy
covering, but by the side of the streams the arum is almost ready to open.^^^

There is much more that must be left to the reader of Male himself and to
the authorities like Violett-le-Duc to whom he refers. There are the evolutions
in the sculptoring of blossoms, the bas-reliefs devoted to realistic descrip-
tions of the activities of each month, often differing from place to place be-
cause of differences in the times of seasonal change.
There no strong contrasts between town and country, and the rural
are
inspiration evident in the bas-rehefs of the church. Every detail in the
is

thirteenth century bas-relief was

the outcome of the artist's direct experience of life and nature. At the very gates

of the little walled towns of the Middle Ages lay the country with its ploughed
land and meadows and the rhythmical sequence of pastoral toil. The towers of
Chartres rose above the fields of La Beauce, the cathedral of Reims dominated
the vineyards of Champagne and the apse of Notre Dame at Paris the surround-
ing woods and meadows. And so the sculptors drew inspiration from immediate
reality for their scenes of rural life.^^^

And again.

In the small medaUions which cover the basement of the cathedral porch at
Lyons a of creatures of the fields and woods are to be seen. Two chickens
number
scratch themselves, a claw hidden under their feathers, a squirrel leaps from
branch to branch of a tree clustered with nuts, a crow settles on a dead rabbit,
a bird flies off with an eel in his beak, a snail crawls among leaves, and a pig's
head shows between the branches of an oak-tree. These animals have been care-
fully observed, and their characteristic movements are given.

To seemed an epitome of the world and "a

these sculptors, the great church
place in whichGod's creatures may find a home." In a Book of Hours (end
all

of the thirteenth century), "A monkey disguised as a monk walks on stilts, or

a musician gives a concert by scraping together the jawbones of an ass."^*^
The sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt, so often discussed in histories
of art, A pehcan tears its
has a place also in the history of nature description.
breast, a magpie perched on a slab holds a cross in its beak. A lord seated with
his lady holds a falcon on his right hand. A mounting rider poised with one is

foot in the stirrup. A snail with five antennae emerges from its shell, two life-
like parrots grasp their perch with their claws, a frequently reproduced sketch.
A minstrel, with his dancing dog, plays the viol; a parrot is perched on the

Male, op. cit., p. 5 1

^^Ibid.^ p. 67. Of theme is chapter 2, on the

great interest but peripheral to our
method used in medieval iconography, in which Male organizes his work around the
Speculum Majus of Beauvais, the thirteenth century encyclopedist. (For an analysis of
this remarkable work, see J. B. Bourgeat, Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais.)
^^^Ibid., pp. 54, 63,61.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode 247

arm of a graceful woman, her dog jumping beside her. A wild hare and a wild
boar are sketched above two crouching figures who are possibly shooting dice.
A lion trainer, he says, beats his two hounds when he wishes the growling lion
to obey him; the puzzled lion, seeing the beating, has his own spirits dampened
and obeys. Villard prides himself on having drawn the lion from real life. He
sketches a porcupine, a bear, a jaguar, a grasshopper, a cat, a fly, a dragonfly,
a crustacean, a curled dog, grazing sheep, two ostriches, their long necks inter-
secting to form a rough V, a man with a scythe, a hooded falconer in a triangle,
four stonemasons revolving around a broken cross, and the earliest known
representation of the water-driven saw.^^^
Although medieval art, church architecture, decorative art, and poetry, are
far beyond my modest scope and would carry us into broader fields concerned
with the relation of nature to art, of romantic love to nature, of symbolism to
nature, and a vast number of other topics, we may very briefly take note
of inquiries which give evidence either of a secular view of nature or of a more
realistic portrayal of human beings and natural phenomena.

Iconographical representation in the thirteenth century of the Ascension,

of the Virgin and the Child, and of the Crucifixion is faithful to human feel-
ing. Christ is shown contorted by pain, with blood flowing from his wounds.^^^
In the iconography of the six-day creation, the early period (roughly fifth
and sixth centuries) favored the early days of the creation, the cosmological
episodes, while the period of efllorescence of this art (from the middle of the
twelfth to about the middle of the thirteenth century) stressed the later acts
of creation, that what had happened on earth.^^^
is,

Nature poetry, some of it ordered about the march of the seasons (like the
church bas-reliefs of which Male speaks), is closely associated with love of
life, abandonment of study in youth, and romantic love. In the famous an-

thology of medieval lyrics, the manuscript of Benedictbeuern, there are these

lines:
The earth lies open-breasted
In gentleness of spring.
Who lay so close and frozen
In winter's blustering,
The northern winds are quiet,
The west wind winnowing.
In all this sweet renewing
How shall a man not sing?^^^
246 Yhe Sketchbook of Villard de Honnecourt, edited by Theodore Bowie. See de-

scriptions of the plates, pp. 7-14, and Male's remarks on Villard, pp. 54-55.
White, "Natural Science and Naturalistic Art in the Middle Ages," Vol. 52 AHR,
(1947), pp. 425-426, and footnote 9. White sees the beginning of an age deeply con-
cerned with the investigation of nature around 1 140. On the representation of the cruci-
fixion, see also pp. 432-433,and Male, p. ix.
See Schmidt, Die Darstellungen des Sechstageiverkes von Ihren Anfangen bis zum
Ende des ij Jahrhunderts, pp. 90-92, cited by White, op. cit., p. 430.
^'^^
Medieval Latin Lyrics, trans, by Helen Waddell, p. 219.
248 The Earth as a Planned Abode

Such from 1 150-1250, says Helen Waddell, owe much to

lyrics of the age
Celtic, to Arabic,and especially to pagan sources. The famous manuscript of
Benedictbeuern is an impressive example. The drinking song shows no pa-
tience for the restrained or the timid drinker. The lyric praises the sweet
folly of youth, who must reaHze that time passes as do the opportunities for
such folly. Youth and spring go together, but the beauty of nature, the de-
hcious wandering among trees and the picking of flowers, are no match for
loving a young girl. Summer too is for love, and unrequited love is winter.
The love themes often borrow generously from classical mythology. In nature,
summer must yield to winter, but there is no such cooling of the fire of real

16. The Condemnations of 1277

Other ferments appear in the 2 1 9 theses held by £tienne Tempier, Bishop of

Paris, to be errors and condemned by him in 1277. The errors, reminiscent of
those previously condemned by the same bishop in 1270, are taken from the
writings of Averroes, Avicenna, Andrew Capellanus (the treatise Liber de
Amove), St. Thomas iVquinas, and from unknown authors. Some may have
been sayings never put in writing. They affect the ideas under discussion
only indirectly; they are more relevant to the history of physics, cosmology,
theology, and philosophy. The condemnation, however, showed a natural
hostility to the Aristotelian doctrine of the eternity of the world, staunchly
opposing anticreationist ideas. Consistent withwas the rejection
this position
of the so-called doctrine of the double truth, according to which a proposi-
tion could be considered false from the point of view of reason, true from the
point of view of faith. Philosophy and theology thus could be and should be
kept apart.^^^ Bishop Tempier complained that such men acted as if there were
two contrary truths, one based on philosophy, the other on the CathoHc faith.
("Dicunt enim ea esse vera secundum philosophiam, sed non secundum fidem
catholicam, quasi sint due contrarie veritates, et quasi contra veritatem sacre
scripture sit Veritas in dictis gentihum dampnatorum, de quibus scriptum est:

Terdam sapientam sapientium,' quia vera sapientia perdit falsam sapien-

tiam.")^^^Broadly viewed, however, the Bishop's condemnation was an attack
on the possibihty of a separate existence for a non-Christian philosophy rather
than a narrower attack on Averroes and his Christian sympathizers.^^^ The
interpretation that there was no conflict between the two truths because revela-
tion was a higher form of truth than that derived from natural law was also

pp. 7, 340-342.
On the condemnation as a whole, see Gilson, HCPMA,
Pt. 9; condemned works,
p. 406; condemnation of 1270, p. 404; double truth, pp. 387-388, 406; Leff, Med. Thought,
pp. 224-231.
Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, Vol. I, p. 543.
253 Leff, Med. Thought, pp. 226-229.
 The Earth as a Plaiined Abode 249

vulnerable to the charge of insincerity and of paying lip service to revelation.^^

The condemnation rejected world is eternal to the extent

the theses that the
that all and that there never has been a first man and
species are eternal (87),
there never will be a last man— that the generation of man from man has always
taken place in the past and will always take place in the future (9). Both theses
conflicted with the Christian belief in the creation as an historical event. De
Meun's characters in the Romance of the Rose had already espoused some of
the condemned among them that continence is not in itself a virtue
errors,
(168), total abstinence from the activity of the flesh corrupts virtue and the
species, and simple fornication as is natural between an unattached man and
an unattached woman is not a sin (183). Other condemned theses were also
critical of the virtue of chastity and abstinence (172, 181, cf. 166).
Broadly speaking again, these condemned theses stated the case for the
naturalness of normal human sexual relations. Others were critical of Chris-
tianity, maintaining that there are falsehoods and errors in the Christian as
in other religions (174); the Christian law hampers education (175); one has
his happiness in this not in another (176); the discourse of the theologian
life,

is based on myth (152). All of these theses suggested possibilities of learning

outside the immediate supervision of Church dogma.^^^ Astrology and black
magic (206) were also condemned.
£tienne Tempier's condemnation of the 219 errors was aimed at preserving
theology as the all-embracing discipHne and the Christianity that existed be-
fore the coming of the new knowledge from the iMediterranean Muslim
world. The main targets were Siger of Brabant, Roger Bacon, Boethius of
Dacia (Sweden), and Thomas Aquinas. Both Gregory IX and Urban IV,
however, had favored the reception of Aristotle's writings "in a manner that
would maximum of benefit to Christianity as well as a minimum of
insure a
harm." The Papacy did not confirm the condemnation, recognizing the im-
portance of the new learning, and approving "St. Thomas's ideal of a recon-
"^^^
ciliation between Aristotehan science and the Christian faith.

The episode itself is an interesting subject in the history of ideas. To Thorn-

dike, the condemnation is an intrusion of theology into the province of natural
science, comparable to Rome forbidding the teaching of Copernican theory

Hooykaas, "Science and Theology in the Middle Ages," Free University Quar-
terly, Vol. 3 (1954), pp. 90-91.
2S5Xhis is the enumeration of Chartularium Ufiiversitatis Parisiensis, Vol. I, pp. 543-
555. Many modern writers use Mandonnet's rearrangement of the theses {Siger de Bra-
bant, Vol. 2, 2d ed., pp. 175-181) instead of the CUP where they are listed in haphazard
order. See also Dunn's intro. to The Romance of The Rose, pp. xxv-xxvi.
256 pegis' intro. to 5CG, Bk. I,
p. 15; Dawson, Medieval Essays, pp. 132-133. See also
Gilson, HCPAiA, pp. 402-410 and the accompanying notes. Many of the condemned
propositions with notes on their derivation are cited on pp. 727-729, Other interesting
observations in Leff, Med. Thought, pp. 229-231. See also Pierre Duhem, Le Systeme du
Monde, Vol. 6, chap, i, and Alexander Koyre, "Le Vide et I'Espace Infini au XIV®
Siecle," Archives d'Histoire Doctrinale et Litteraire du Moyen Age, 24 (1949), 45~9'i
esp. pp. 45-51.
250 The Earth as a Plamied Abode

as the truth and to the silencing of Gahleo, a comparison rejected by Hooykaas.

In a famous passage, Pierre Duhem modern science may well
says the birth of
date from this time. The condemnations were a blow at the determinism of
Aristotle and Averroes. The Bishop, says Duhem, solemnly proclaimed the
possibility of a plurality of worlds and that the ensemble of the celestial spheres
could, without contradiction, be activated by rectilinear movement. The idea
here apparently is that no Greek determinisms control God; He can create
and govern as He wishes. There are no limits set by natural law to His activity.
Gilson claims less but thinks it is the date on which the birth of modem
cosmologies became possible in a Christian environment.
Leff sees in it the beginning of a change in thought "from synthesis to separa-
tion. There was the progressive attempt to disengage what belonged to faith
from what could be known by reason. Never again, after 1277, shall we
. . .

see quite the same confidence in reason's ability to know that which was a
matter of behef."
Christopher Dawson considers it impeding for a time
a transitory affair,
the inevitable attempt to reconcile Aristotehan science with Christian thought,
and Hooykaas thinks that in the denial of the eternity of the species, the way
was unintentionally cleared for developmental theories. Finally, Crombie says
that "with the condemnation of the Averroist view that Aristotle had said
the last word on metaphysics and natural science, the bishops in 1277 left the
way open for criticism which would, in turn, undermine his system." Natural
philosophers had another alternative; they already had Aristotle's philosophy
of nature; now they could begin to form their own hypotheses, "to develop
the empirical habit of mind working within a rational framework, and to ex-
"^^^
tend scientific discovery.

17. Conclusion

In these concluding remarks, I wish to make a few general points pertinent

to our theme but which if elaborated upon will carry us too far afield into the
history of philosophy, theology, logic, and science. It is true that we can ex-
pect more unity of thought in the Middle Ages than in other periods because
of the unique and commanding position of Christian theology. In no age, how-
ever, does one idea dominate all others. Alternatives arise out of agreed-upon
unities. No age is so monolithic or so intellectually disciplined that it loses the
capacity for cherishing old ideas or for entertaining new ones. The intellectual
possessions of an age have a museum-like quahty as do the works of prolific

257Thorndike, A Hist, of Magic and Exper. Sci., Vol. 3, p. 470; Hooykaas, "Science
and Theology in the Middle Ages," Free Univ. Quarterly, Vol. 3 (1954), pp. 101-102,
103-105; Duhem, Etudes sur Leonard de Vinci, Vol. 2, p. 41 1; Gilson, La Philosophie au
Moyen Age, id ed., p. 460, and HCPMA, p. 408; Dawson, Medieval Essays, pp. 132-133;
Leff, Medieval Thought, pp. 230-231; Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science,
Vol. I , p. 64.
 The Earth as a Planned Abode

authors who live a long time. Knowledge and opinion accumulate, often with
no greater order than exists in a small county museum piled high with the
furniture, trinkets, and daguerrotypes of its pioneer residents and their heirs.
Different and often conflicting ideas persist, and one does not necessarily dis-
place another.
In his Medieval Thought, LefT sees a distinct break with the past occurring
in the fourteenth century, characterizing the thirteenth as an age of synthesis,
the fourteenth as one of separation. In his opinion, attempts to show con-
tinuities between the two are misguided. From the viewpoint of our study, the
attempt to abandon reason as a tool of theology was probably the most im-
portant development. Reason no longer supports theology; revelation becomes
a matter of faith; the theologian and the philosopher are no longer the same.
"Beyond expressing God's will to create," says Leff of Duns Scotus, who rep-
resents this trend, "this world could offer no explanation of His ways; it cer-
tainly could not specify the way in which God worked. Consequently, there
is a discontinuity between the divine and the created which is absent from the

much more precise order of St. Thomas. "^^^ In the new thought, therefore,
reason is confined to the study and interpretation of natural phenomena.
It has also been suggested that nominalism, beginning with the teaching of

Roscehnus (Roscelin of Compiegne, 1050-^:^.1125), and continuing with his

critical pupil, Peter Abelard (1079-1142), "opened the great dispute over

universals which led men to take a greater interest in the individual material
object as such and not, as St. Augustine had done, to regard it as simply the
shadow of an eternal idea."^^^ Of William of Ockham's ( 1 300?-! 349) extreme
nominahsm it has been said that he departs both from an earlier "unspeculative
piety" and the typical attitude. Fides quaerens intellectum, of Augustine,
Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas, that it is reason's task to clarify "in logical
terms, as far as possible, the deliverances of revelation." "Since there are no
universal principles in things, principles are generalizations from particulars.
His preference for sensible realities over metaphysical entities governs his
contributions to physics."^^^
If William of Ockham restricted reality to individuals and knowledge to
experience, it was possible to reject many concepts as purely mental con-
structs; everything except individuals and knowledge from experience exists in
the intellect, and the explanation of universals is therefore psychological.^^*
With Ockham too, reason cannot prove revealed faith; consequently, the same
methods are unsuited to theology and to natural science.

LefT, Med. Thought, p. 267.

259Crombie, Medieval and Early Modern Science, Vol. i, p. 25. Hooykaas, op. cit.,
pp. 120-135, and Carre's discussion of St. Augustine's realism, the nominalism of Ros-
celinus and Abelard and the intermediate position of St. Thomas, Realists and Nominal-
ists, esp. pp. 30-31, 40-42, 58-61, 99-100.
Carre, op. cit., quotations on pp. 121, 120.
261 Leff, p. 281.
252 The Earth as a Plajined Abode

In the following two chapters, we

concerned with religion and
will be less
theology; in them we shall see evidence of the value placed on practical ex-
perience and of interest in technology, trends which also could undermine a
thoroughgoing religious interpretation of nature and encourage a clear dis-
tinction between natural and supernatural knowledge. Furthermore, if proofs
and verifications are taken from experience, the material and the efficient
causes could lead a more independent existence, with less weight being given
to final and the formal causes.^^^ These considerations, however, lead us into
discussions of the origin of science. The history of the idea of a designed
earth, however, is not subsumed under the history of the scientific method; it

is a continuing part of philosophy and theology as well, with closer affinities

to biology than to physics, because the former has been more hospitable than
has the latter to teleology, design, and final causes.^^^
At the end of our period, there are several alternatives. Interpretations of
design based on Augustine, "the book of nature" literature, the theophanies,
persist into the fifteenth century in the work of Sibiude. Schooling in Aristo-
telianways of thinking, especially in the period from 240 on, when the works1

of Aristotle were translated from the Greek without accretions, established

the Greek philosopher's teleological view of nature, as is plain especially in
St. Thomas's fifth proof of the existence of God. Independent observation and

study of nature as in the work of Albertus Magnus could be conducted within

the framework of this teleology. The natural philosophy both of Albert the
Great and of St. Thomas offered encouragement in the study of nature. Albert
especially liked to study the concrete in nature even if he felt called upon in
so doing to apologize for adapting himself to "rustic intelligences."^^*
What then is the next development in this history? It comes, I think, in
Renaissance thought, with the rediscovery of Cicero and the natural theology
of De natura deorum^ which contains, as we have seen, clear expositions of
the idea of a designed earth. Further contributions then come from the Cam-
bridge Platonists whose thought helped in the construction of the great natural

262 Ibid.,
p. 296.
See Lynn White, "Natural Science and Naturalistic Art in the Middle Ages," AHR
(52) 1947, pp. 421-435. White stresses that scientists of the later thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries differed with Aristotle, once they understood him. See also the cogent
remarks on the Aristotelian tradition by Kristeller, Renaissmjce Thought, pp. 29-34,
who emphasizes the strength of the tradition and the pitfalls in commonly accepted
generalizations regarding the displacement of Aristotelianism by Platonism in the Renais-
sance. For modern research on the origin of science, see the several essays (which, with
the exception of Crombie's, originally appeared in the Journal of the History of Ideas)
in Wiener and Noland, eds., Roots of Scientific Thought, especially Crombie, "From
Rationalism to Experimentalism," pp. 125-138; Randall, Jr., "Scientific Method in the
School of Padua," pp. 139-146; Koyre, "Galileo and Plato," pp. 147-175; Moody, "Galileo
and Avempace: Dynamics of the Leaning Tower Experiment," pp. 176-206; Randall,
Jr., "The Place of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Emergence of Modern Science," pp. 207-
218; and Zilsel, "The Genesis of the Concept of Scientific Progress," pp. 251-275.
264 Quoted in Thorndike, op. cit.. Vol. 2,
p. 536.
 The Earth as a Flamied Abode 253

theologies of Ray and Derham in the latter half of the seventeenth and the
early part of the eighteenth centuries.
Thus the idea seems to be growing that even if this earth is only a temporary
abode, much can be learned about it that is useful and instructive to the Chris-
tian. There are divine works, like the creation and miracles, and the works
of nature; both are ultimately the work of God, but the works of nature are
accomplished through laws which can be studied.^^^
When I first started reading in the medieval period, I felt that one could
describe its contributions in bold strokes, that it was a period in which certain
easily recognizable changes had taken place in the attitude toward the earth.
I realize now that this feeling was an error, that this complex period was
creative because fundamental developments regarding man's relation to nature
took place then.
What might one say, then, of the significance of the period as a whole?
From this bewildering mass of material, most of which is centered around the
Bible or is seldom far from it, roads lead in many directions, to theology, to
mysticism, to the lyric, to a secular study of nature tolerant of secondary
causes, to exegesis, controversy, and disputation.
To me, its outstanding characteristic is its preoccupation with creation. The
sun, the moon, the constellations, are formidable in their glory, but the con-
tinuously visible creation on earth, as one constantly sees in the naturalistic,
symbolic, and allegorical writings, is the evidence men know best. This long
discussion of creation and its meaning in the formative period of Western
and harmony in nature, in physical
civilization intensified interest in unity
and moral evil, in intermediate agencies between God and the world of daily
life, be they secondary causes or the nature personifications of Alan of Lille

and Jean de Meun. If I were to single out a second word, I would say exegesis^
the means by which creator and creature were examined, including the hexa-
emeral literature, the Summae, the homilies. From exegesis came the alternative
views of nature— mystical, sacred, symbolic, secular. What happened re-
sembled Male's description of medieval religious art: the world remained a
symbol all right, but within it the humble artisans decorated the church with
branches and blossoms realistically portrayed and did not neglect self-adver-
tisement. If the symbolic world was indeed like a great hemispheric tent,
within it were also busyness, practicality, interest in the immediate, truths I

became convinced of in collecting materials for chapter VII.

If this interpretation is correct, a reworking of Western ideas of man and
nature took place in the Middle Ages. These became the ideas which modern
man had to reckon with, and their reverberations are still with us.

On this general theme, see Chenu, "Decouverie de la Nature et Philosophic de

THomme a I'Ecole de Chartres au XII® Siecle," Journ. of World Hist.^ Vol. 2 (1954),
pp. 313-325. Ref. on p. 318.
 Chapter 6
<r ^ ^ ^ ^
f *
^ Ye/lour
if

Environmental Influences Within

a Divinely Created World

I . Introduction

In the sixth century, Cassiodorus said that monks should know about cosmog-
raphy in order to recognize the location of places mentioned in sacred books.^
It is a good text with which to begin a discussion of geographic ideas in the
Middle Ages.
The idea of a close relationship existing between God, the earth, and man,
dominant throughout the Middle Ages, did not mean that ideas of environ-
mental influence would gradually die out as being inconsistent with an all-
pervasive theology. Classical antiquity had offered choices in considering the
relation of humanity to nature and to the divine. In the Middle Ages, there
was only one choice, but Christian theology was not hostile to ideas of en-
vironmental influence, nor indeed in the high and late Middle Ages, to ideas
of astrological influences, even though the early Church Fathers had castigated

^ Cassiod., Intro, to Divine and Human Readings^ Bk. I, chap. 25.

 Environmental Influences 255

astrology. Aristotle's Metaphysics and De Caelo and Arab commentaries on

them inspired among Christian thinkers after the twelfth century a veneration
of the heavenly bodies far greater than had existed in the period prior to the
recovery of these works.^
After all, environmental theories are often simple theories of adaptation.
The elements of the creation, existing in order and harmony, limited and con-
trolled by God, are adapted to one another, even on an earth which may have
suffered a disarrangement after the fall of man. Throughout its history, the
design argument has been friendly to philosophies of environmental adapta-
tion, playing a role in its time comparable to nineteenth century theories of
the inheritance of acquired characteristics or of natural selection, which also
assumed varying degrees of environmental adaptation.
To my knowledge, no exhaustive examination has ever been made of theories
of geographical influence in the Middle Ages; such a study would not be re-
warding since it would only tediously and repetitiously accumulate examples
of a few basic ideas.^ Theories of the four elements, of mixtures, and of the

2 Webb, Studies in the History of Natural Theology, pp. 153-155.

2 See Kretschmer, Die Physische Erdkunde in Christlichen Mittelalter; Wright, The
Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades; and Kimble, Geography in the Middle
Ages, pp. 176-180. On travel and voyaging, Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography^
3 vols, (the work, however, deals very little with theoretical questions); and Wright's
Geographical Lore is very valuable for its discussion of ideas; so is Kimble's work, which
includes chapters on classical and Muslim geography. See also Delisle, "Traites Divers
sur les Proprietes des Choses," Hist. Litt. de la France, Vol. 30 (1888), pp. 334-388.
Mollat, "Le Moyen Age," in Nougier, Beaujeu, and Mollat, Histoire Universelle des Ex~
plorations, Vol. i, pp. 254-408; and Olschki, Marco Polo^s Precursors.
I have reluctantly omitted discussion of Ibn Khaldiin. His ideas belong to Arab thought

and not to the West, least of all in this period. They were not well known in the West
until de Slane published his translation of the prolegomena, 1 863-1 868. Ibn Khaldun's
thought is of great interest, however, because it contains environmental ideas from
classical sources; it uses the concept of the seven klimata together with ideas coming
from his interpretation of Arab history. It is an exciting example (Vitruvius comes to
mind here also) of two traditions meeting but with no reconciliation. See The Muqad-
dimah, translated by Rosenthal, especially Bk. I, chap, i, third Prefatory Discussion.
Von Grunebaum points out that the Mu'tazilite, al-Nazzam, in the ninth century ac-
counted for differences in body build and intelligence on climatic grounds, and that his
disciple al-Jahiz (died 869)
adduces climatic considerations to explain why Zoroaster threatened his followers with eter-
nal cold rather than with eternal fire. He goes on to argue that, since this threat would be
effective only among the inhabitants of the mountainous region where Zoroaster actually be-
gan to preach his religion, this very doctrine would prove the local limitations of his mission
and his message. In contrast to the merely provincial validity of Zoroastrianism, the Koranic
hell-fire, whose terror is not based on local apprehensions —
considering that the Arabs were
—
exposed to both heat and cold gives evidence of the universal character of Mohammed's
mission and message (an interpretation which, incidentally, Jahiz finds it useful to corroborate
from Revelation itself).
Von Grunebaum, "The Problem: Unity in Diversity," in von Grunebaum, ed.. Unity
and Variety in Muslim Civilization, pp. ij-'^j. Reference on pp. 19-20. See also pp. 22,
24-25. CHmate plays a role in cultural relativism and in casting doubts on the universality
and validity of religions in modern times in the West, as we shall see, from Bodin to
Montesquieu and Voltaire. See also Levy, The Social Structure of Islam, pp. 482-484.
256 Environmental Influences

humors were accepted in the Middle Ages; consequently, environmental

theories in this period are either copies or variations of Greek and Roman
ideas. Many of the encyclopedic writers used classical sources or epitomes de-
rived from them. In the seventh century, Isidore of Seville used Servius the
Grammarian; in doing so, he probably made indirect use of Hippocrates,
Aristotle, Posidonius; in the thirteenth century Bartholomew of England, one
of the most comprehensive of the later encyclopedists in his exposition of geo-
graphical theory, often depended on Isidore for the traditional materials, but
showed refreshing vigor in recording contemporary life.^
Environmental and astrological theories continue to explain racial and cul-
tural differences. They also continue, as they did in antiquity, their relation-
ship with poHtical theory: Thomas Aquinas is close to the ancients like Hip-

pocrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Vitruvius, close also to Dante, to moderns like
Bodin, Botero, Machiavelli, Burton, and even to Montesquieu. Environmental
theories have been important to political theorists because, following Plato's
example, they are considered indispensable to proper government: to be just
and efficacious, law must conform to the nature of the people, and their nature
is often determined by their environment. The environment— climate, soils,

relief, and the like— was studied little for its own sake; men accepted it as given

and applied traditional generalizations as a matter of course to contemporary

affairs.

Since theories of environmental influence in the Middle Ages were derived

from classical speculations, there is the same division into physiological theory,
based on the Hippocratic tradition and the humoral psychology and physi-
ology, and the theories of location and of position. There were also other
borrowings from classical sources, such was
as the idea that cultural isolation
the result of physical isolation, of being away from the kaleidoscopic world
of trade, navigation, and the interminghng of peoples.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries especially, more sophisticated en-
vironmental theories appear among the encyclopedic writers, the most impres-
sive discussions being those of Giraldus Cambrensis (ii46?-i22o), Albert the
Great (1196? or i2o6?-i28o), St. Thomas Aquinas (1225?-! 274), and Bar-
tholomaeus Anglicus (fl. 12 30-1 2 50). Although the ideas of these writers—
particularly those dealing with places remote in time or place and outside
their own vision— are derived from the classical writers, occasionally there is
novelty in their appHcation, in their adaptation to Christian theology, and in
their observation of contemporary conditions.
The most significant writings appeared either early, in the wake of classical
civilization, or after the partial rediscovery of classical thought from the Mus-
lim world and enlivened by travel and the gathering of observations which

^Philipp, "Die historisch-geographischen Quellen in den etymologiae des Isidorus v.

Sevilla," Quellen und Forschungen zur alien Geschichte and Geographies Heft 25, Pt. i,

1912; Pt. 2, 1913.

 Enviromnental Influences 257

it inspired. The connecting link between the two periods is the work of
Isidore of Seville, whose gazetteer-like compendium is a simple account of
places and of rude economics, as well as geographical description.

2. Classical Echoes

Even before Isidore, one feels the reverberations of far-off Greek thought in
the sentences of Orosius and of Cassiodorus, the statesman who left the court
of King Theodoric to enter the monastery of Vivarium about a.d. 540. The
Teutones and the Cimbri, says Orosius, endured Alpine snows, invading, with
forces intact, the plains of Italy; there they became effeminate under the in-
fluence of a mild climate, abundant drink, food, and baths. The letters of Cas-
siodorus, full of interest for the light they throw on civihzed society during
the period of the migrations, include a few revealing sentences which show
that in different localities and at different times the Greek ideas of cHmatic
influence had not been lost in the millennial span from the time of Hippocrates
to his own.
Cassiodorus was born about 477 in Scyllacium on the Gulf of Squillace,
whose site is believed to be at or near the modern Roccella, or La Roccelleta
del Vescovo city— his style is at times charm-
di Squillace.^ In his praise of the
ing, at times overly ornate and bombastic— he mentions its natural qualities to
illustrate the effect of nature on man. Its airs, temperate throughout the whole

year, allow men to live without sorrow and fear of violent seasons. "Hence,
too, man himself is here freer of soul than elsewhere, for this temperateness
of the chmate^ prevails in all things." Variations of familiar correlations are
here: a hot country makes people sharp and fickle; a cold country makes them
slow and sly; and the temperate country "composes the characters of men by
its own moderation." Then follows an interesting statement, the earliest one

on this subject known to me, that seems to confirm an opinion already ex-
pressed in the first part of this work, that the Greeks themselves ascribed their
greatness to physical causes:

Hence was it that the ancients pronounced Athens to be the seat of sages,
because, enriched with an air of the greatest purity, it prepared with glad liber-
contemplative part of life. Assuredly
ality the lucid intellects of its sons for the
for the body to imbibe muddy waters is a different thing from sucking in the
transparency of a sweet fountain. Even so the vigour of the mind is repressed
when it is clogged by a heavy atmosphere. Nature herself hath made us subject
to these influences. Clouds make us feel sad; and again a bright sky fills us with

^ Orosius, Seven Books Against the Pagans, Bk. V, 16; Hodgkin, The Letter's of Cas-

siodorus, pp. 68-72, with map; Philipp, "Scylletium," FW,

2A: i, cols. 920-923.
^Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus, Bk. XII, letter 15. Translating "hinc et homo
sensu liberior est quia temperies cuncta moderatur." "Variarum Libri Duodecim,"
Variae XII, 15, 3, In Mon. Ger. Hist., Auctores Antiquissimi, Vol. 12, 1894,
Mommsen, p. 372.
258 Environmental Influences

joy, because the heavenly substance of the soul delights in everything that is

unstained and pure/

The comparison between muddy waters for the body and heavy air for the
mind suggests the humoral psychology, the reference to the heavy atmosphere
is De fato and of Heraclitus' association of moisture
reminiscent of Cicero's
with dullness, while the Platonic overtones of the last lines suggest the com-
patibility of these theories with Christian theology.
These ideas persisted in works like those of Cassiodorus— and his is only an
example— for better reasons than the unimaginative patience of tireless copying
and the force of inertia. They continued because they were serviceable in
accounting for cultural, and especially for racial, differences. Pliny, the most
influential of the classical writers on natural history during the Middle Ages,
made, as we have seen, a correlation between race and climate. (See chap. II,
sect. 8.) It seemed clear enough that the Negro peoples who hved in the
hottest climates received the strongest and most direct solar heat, that the
Mediterranean peoples were in an intermediate position, and that the northern-
ers were at the other extreme. The climatic explanation could also be applied
to other differences. Equally important has been the hold on men's minds of
the idea of latitudinal differences, the crudeness of this correlation concealing
not only the errors of the generalization but also the longitudinal problem,
same latitude might also
that peoples living along different meridians in the
differfrom one another.
Although it is true, as Kimble has pointed out, that most discussions of
environmental influence appeared late in the Middle Ages when there were
far greater opportunities for travel, classical ideas of environmental influences
were transmitted into Christian thought quite early, and the man responsible
for their transmission was Isidore of Seville.^

^ Hodgkin, The Letters of Cassiodorus, Book XII, Letter

15, pp. 503-504. In the letters,
there are interesting passages on the care and maintenance of channels and aqueducts;
see Book V, Letter 38, p. 286, on clearing shrubs from the aqueduct of Ravenna. "Vegeta-
tion is the peaceable overturner of buildings, the battering-ram which brings them to the

ground, though the trumpets never sound for siege." The theme of aqueducts, their
advantages and maintenance, is pursued very interestingly in Book VII, Formula 6
(Formula of the Count of the Aqueducts), pp. 324-326. On Cassiodorus, see Leslie
Jones's introduction to An hitrodiiction to Divine ajid Human Readings, pp 3-64. This
work has extensive references to modern scholarly studies on Cassiodorus.
^Kimble, Geography in the Middle Ages, p. 176. "The cloistered life of the early
Fathers provided few opportunities for the contemplation of the cultural landscape. It
was not until men began to travel as they did in the Crusading epoch that they began
to perceive the varying relationships existing between landscape and life." Monks in
certain monastic orders, however, were very much aware of their environment and of
their ability to change it even if they did not depart from the environs of the monastery.
It is true that there was not the opportunity for comparison or for observing differences
in the cultural landscape that the Crusader had but there was the difference between
the woods and the clearing, the vine-covered and the forested hill, the agricultural
field and the drained swamp, etc.
 Ejivironmejital Influences 259

Isidore thought he had discovered in the etymologies of the names of things

the key to their essential nature. Ethiopia, he says, was so named because of the
color of its people, the name being derived from the Greek words for burn
and ^ace. Their color is caused by their nearness to the sun and from the in-

fluence of the heavenly bodies; they live in a region of continual summer, for
all of it is in the south. ^ The thought is also probably derived indirectly from

Pliny. Isidore says that just as there is diversity in the heavens so are there
differences in human faces, in coloring, in bodily development, and in the
nature of peoples. Following Servius the Grammarian, he says the seriousness
of the Romans, the lightheartedness of the Greeks, the cunning of the Africans,
the fierce and courageous nature of the Gauls— all have environmental causes.^^
A second environmental idea came out of the experience of the barbarian
migrations; it was advanced by Paul the Deacon (eighth century) in his
History of the Langobards^ and has been influential even in modern times.
Paul, a Benedictine monk, is believed to have entered the monastery of Monte
Cassino before 782, where he lived the quiet studious life of a religious man;^^
he had served the emperor Charlemagne intermittently in the latter 's efforts
to encourage and promote learning. Paul was one of the many men, from the
fourth to the eighth century, who were concerned with the history and the
migrations of the barbarian peoples, and who— if only incidentally— were in-
terested in the causes of the invasions of the Latin West.
Theories of overpopulation and consequent land hunger as causes of migra-
tion were common and early fifth cen-
in classical times.^^ In the late fourth
turies, the ecclesiastical historian Socrates, as well as Sozomen, had advanced
similar theories to explain the migrations of the Goths and the Huns. Cas-
siodorus had himself prepared a history of the Goths, now lost, which was
used by Jordanes in his work.^^ The unique feature of Paul's theory was that

^ According to Webster's New International Dictionary, 2d ed. unabridged, definition

of "Ethiope," the Greek word Aithiops apparently is derived from aithein, to burn, and
dps^ face, or it may originate from a native African name. Isidore, Etyjnologiae, Bk. XIV,
chap. 5, 14, PL, Vol. 82, 51 iC. See Philipp, op. cit., Pt. 2, p. 128, for sources. Is the
ultimate source through intermediaries Pliny, NH, II, 80? See also Sarton, Appreciation
of Ancient and Medieval Science During the Renaissance^ pp. 78-80.
^^See Servius' Comm. in Verg. Aen., VI, 724, and pp. 114-115 above. Isidore, Etyjn.,
Bk. IX, chap. 2, 105, PL, Vol. 82, 338C. See also Philipp, op. cit., Pt. 2, pp. 32-33. Repeated
in essence by Bartholomew of England, De proprietatibiis rerum (13th Century), Book
XV, chap. 66, 2. Servius used climatum, undoubtedly a translation of the Greek klima\
it does not mean climate, but like klima suggests a latitudinal zone, or perhaps in medieval

and early modern times a region, as in the English word "clime." See also H. C. Darby,
"The Geographical Ideas of the Venerable Bede," Scott. Geog. Mag. Vol. 51 (1935),
pp. 84-89.
1^ McCann, Saint Benedict, revised ed. (Image Books), pp. 205-208.
^2 Fora summary and discussion of these theories, see Teggart, Rome and China, pp.
225-235-
One wonders if this theory originated with Cassiodorus, whose history of the Goths
is lost. Jones says its purpose was to show the nobility of the modern nations and there-
26o Enviromnental Influences

it offered a climatic explanation for overpopulation. He believed that the north

(perhaps meaning southern Scandinavia and northern Germany) had been a
hive of nations {officina gentium): the northlands were the source of many-
barbarian migrations, the climate being the cause of the fecundity of the
people, who multiphed in sufficient number to force emigration. "The region
of the north, in proportion as it isremoved from the heat of the sun and is
chilled with snow and frost," Paul says in the opening sentences of his work,
"is so much themore healthful to the bodies of man and fitted for the propaga-
tion of nations, just as, on the other hand, every southern region, the nearer
it is to the heat of the sun, the more it abounds in diseases and is less fitted for
the bringing up of the human race."^^
The indefatigable Isidore had, in the Etymologiae, derived the name Ger-
many from ger?ninare, "to sprout or bud," a derivation adopted by Paul, who
thought that the whole region from the Tanais (Don) to the west (not fur-
ther defined) "is not improperly called by the name of Germany."
Its inability to feed the people it is capable of producing accounts for the
invasions of Europe and Asia. "Everywhere ruined cities throughout all Illyria
and Gaul testify to this, but most of all in unhappy Italy which has felt the
cruel rage of nearly all these nations." Paul, however, mentions that reasons

(which he does not specify) other than overpopulation have been alleged for
the emigration of people living in Scandinavia who, dividing themselves into
three groups, "determined by lot which part of them had to forsake their
country and seek new abodes." It has been suggested that a sibyl may have
told them to go forth in order to attain salvation from on high.^^
This simple, straightforward account, with its combination of climatic
theory and the idea of a northern womb of nations, had momentous conse-
quences in the history of environmentalistic theories, for it initiated the specu-
lations, lasting well into the nineteenth century, regarding Scandinavia as an
overpopulated homeland of barbarian peoples.
Jordanes' Gothic History (written a.d. 55 i )— possibly relying heavily on
Cassiodorus' lost Gothic History, even if we find it hard to believe that the
latter's steward loaned it to him for only threedays— started the notion that
"Scandza" was a womb or a hive of nations, whose migrating peoples were
likened to a swarm of bees, without, however, any reason being given for the
likeness.^^ Paul's assignment of an environmental cause started a train of

by to bring about a "reconciliation of the decadent Latin race with that of the more
vigorous Goths," p. 12. Such a theme might well have involved an argument like
Paul's, but this is the merest guess. See Jones's trans, of An Introduction to Divine and
Human Readings, pp. 12-14; Jordanes' abstract, p. 14.
^^Paul the Deacon, Hist, of the Langobards, Bk. I, chap. i.
15 Isidore, Etym., Bk. XIV,
4, 4, PL, Vol. 82, 504B-C. Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang.,
Bk. I, chap. 1-2, and Foulke's note 4, p. 3.
16 See Jones's introduction to Cassiodorus, An Introduction to Divine and Human

Readings, pp. 12-14. For a discussion of Cassiodorus and Jordanes, see also Mierow's
 Enviromne7ital Infliiences 261

thought which ultimately correlated climate with the liberty-loving Gothic

peoples of the north, contrasting them with the weak and effete southerners/'^
The sentences with which this Benedictine monk begins a history of the
people from whom he himself had descended illustrate how important it is in
the history of ideas to note the repetitions coming about when the ignorant
copy from one another. The joining of the old classical tradition of cHmatic in-
fluences with the desire to find a cause for the turmoil, suffering, and devasta-
tion of the period of the barbarian migrations (so clear in Paul the Deacon's
history) initiated a train of thought which lasted at least a thousand years.^^
Since Paul's theory was an attempt to explain a series of historical events,
it was not directly concerned with theology. One might expect, however, that
sooner or later, environmental theory would be linked directly with the cre-
ation of man and his subsequent cultural differentiation. Such a linking oc-
curred in the writings of John the Scot, who, as we have seen, was well
acquainted with Greek thought.
To devoted believers, the Christian religion posed extremely difficult ques-
tions about the origin and present condition of mankind. The creation of man,
ma manner entirely different from that of the animals, introduced questions
concerning the reasons for taking one particular part of Adam's body for
creating Eve. The obvious present racial and cultural diversity of man raised
questions concerning the original unity of the human race and the role of sin
or other influences after the Fall in bringing about cultural and racial dif-
ferences.
These questions were to be considered at great length by the cosmographers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The voyages of discovery and the
knowledge derived from them enormously complicated the explanations of
the change from uniformity to diversity in the human race and of the mecha-
nisms of its dispersion.
If the first man had
not sinned, said John the Scot, he would not have ex-
perienced a division of his nature into two sexes: he would have remained

edition and translation, The Gothic History of Jordanes, esp. pp. 13-16, 19, 23-29, and
Jordanes' own words in his preface, which have been received with some skepticism; he
says he read the books a second time on a steward's loan of three days. The famous
sentence is, "Ex hac igitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe velut vagina
nationum cum rege suo nomine Berig Gothi quondam memorantur egressi. ." De . .

origine actibusque Getarum, IV, 25, ed. Mommsen, p. 60.

i^Kliger, The Goths in England, p. i. "The analysis of Gothic character found in
these early texts [Tacitus, St. Augustine, Salvian, Jordanes, Paul the Deacon] described
the Goths as a Teutonic folk to whom political liberty was dear" (p. 2). Proponents
seized on the theory of Paul the Deacon, although he had made no correlation between
climate and love of Hberty. See also pp. 10-15, the discussion, "Climate and Liberty,"
tracing the idea of the environmental influence on the love of freedom, especially from
the Renaissance to the eighteenth century, pp. 241-252.
On the subsequent attempts of the Uppsala scholars (Redbeck, Joannes and Olaus
Magnus and other Swedish writers) to show that Sweden was really the vagina gentium,
see Kliger, p. 12, and the works to which he refers.
262 Environmental Influences

unchangeable in the primordial condition in which he was created in the image

of God. Overcome by the sense of guilt at his sinning, he suffered a division of
his nature into masculine and feminine. Because he did not wish to obey the
divine law concerning his reproduction, his existence was, as just punishment,
reduced to that of an animallike and transitory multitude of masculine and
feminine beings. In Christ, there was a beginning of a new unity like the
primordial one, and a likeness of the future resurrection.^^ Since the Fall, there
have been distinctions more numerous than those of sex; there has also been
a variety of departures in qualities, size, and in other ways from the original
single form. Changes do not have
in individual characteristics (like stature)
their origin in nature (i.e., in the primordial form of man) but arise from
the sin and the Fall and from spatial and temporal differences owing to the
land, water, air, food, and similar circumstances. It is known to all, he says,
that differences in customs and in ways of thinking came into being after the
sin and the Fall.^^
To my knowledge, John the Scot was the first to use an environmental ex-
planation to illumine puzzhng uncertainties in the Christian concept of early
man. It seems, however, to be an isolated idea without influence on either
the thinkers of the Middle Ages or those of modern times. It was not one of his
major teachings and it may have been lost in the text of a very long book.

3. Remarks Introducing a More Systematic Thought

In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, changes were occurring in

the nature of geographical description. They were not revolutionary, nor were
they divorced from the past. The solid anchors of geographical description
were the works of the classical geographers— and the inspirations of biblical
geography. Such was the geography of Isidore of Seville whose descriptions
of places had often come through key transmitters like Servius the Gram-
marian or St. Ambrose. Isidore's was a compendium; the works of the encyclo-
pedists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries— Albert the Great, Bartholomew
of England, Vincent of Beauvais, and others— were also compendia. Was there
any difference between the earlier and the later compendia as far as geograph-
ical knowledge is concerned? There was; Bartholomew of England— who

certainly relied heavily on earlier writers, as his many descriptions of places

ending with the phrase, as Herodotus says, or as Isidore says in book XV—
gives the clue. Bartholomew says he started out merely to describe biblical

^9 De div. 7iat., II, 6, PL 122, 532A-533A.

2^ "Siquidem diversitas hominum a seipsis, qua uniuscuj usque species ab aliis discernitur,
et staturae modus variatur, non ex natura provenit, sed ex vitio, et diversitate locorum
et temporum terrarum, aquarum, aerum, escarum, ceterarumque similium, in quibus
et nutriuntur. De diversitate morum cogitationumque superfluum est dicere,
nascunter
cum omnibus manifestum sit, ex divisione Naturae post peccatum, initium sumpsisse."
Ibid., II, 7, 53 3B.
 Environmejital hifliiences 263

places; he ends with many others, biblical, clerical, and modern, that are
strongly based on his own or his contemporaries' personal travel and observa-
tion. Bartholomew's De proprietatibus rerum was written perhaps in the
middle of the thirteenth century; but there are remarkably fresh breezes al-
ready in the twelfth in William of Tyre's chronicle, A History of Deeds Done
Beyond the Sea, in which descriptions of places— there are no theories of en-
vironmental influence— are vivid, detailed, and exciting. Hovering over the
places and their history like an angry cloud is the all-pervading misery of the
human race. The breezes are equally fresh— at least on occasion— in Otto of
Freising's The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa and in Adam of Bremen's (died
1076?) History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. These books are,
independent of the bookish learning based on the classical
partially at least,
geographies; there are also simple contemporary observations about food, the
location of a place, the nature of trade, of which the author, however, makes
little theoretical use.
Subtle changes were made in the old theories based on Hippocrates, Aris-
totle, or Galen. The timeworn examples of the classical authors were not
merely repeated; they were handy now in illuminating situations of which
thesemen were aware. The adaptation of an old tradition to new conditions
was much more subdued than that which took place after the age of discovery,
and which is particularly noticeable in the writings of Bodin, Botero, and
Montesquieu.
In addition to the classical inspiration, certain other interests in the high
Middle Ages encouraged the emergence of environmental theories. There was
the continuing and perennial interest in places because of their religious in-
terest and importance or because of their historical and economic significance.
There was also an interest in national character with or without causal expla-
nations of it. Making generalizations about the characteristics of one's neigh-
bors seems to be an old human occupation. Bartholomew of England, to use
but one example, discusses the fine bodies, the strength, the courage, the hand-
some faces of the Hollanders, their honesty, their devotion to God, their
trustworthy and peaceable nature, their lesser inclination to pillage and rob-
bery than that which exists among other German peoples.^^ No reasons are
given for these admirable characteristics, but when writers did try to explain
national characteristics or cultural differences, they relied heavily on environ-
mental explanations.
The encyclopedias of the Middle Ages included an important body of
knowledge dealing with the nature of places {de natura locormn) and the
properties of things {de proprietatibus rerum), literature which generally
2.

included a compendium on geography and sections on the four elements, the

humors, mixtures, and qualities, all of which were pertinent to cosmography

21 Bartholomew of England, De proprietatibus rerum, Bk. XV, chap, no, 5. De

Ollandia.
264 Environmeiital Influences

as it was envisaged in the Middle Ages. Albert the Great, discussing the
properties of the elements in relation to places in the De causis proprietatum
elevientorum, refers the reader to his essay on the nature of places for more
detailed discussions of the effects of different places, such as coasts, mountains,
and seas.^^ Writings on the nature of places and of the properties of things
thus were closely linked together. The doctrine of the four elements, the idea
that complex compounds were mixtures of them, introducing— as in classical
times— ideas of mixture and proportion, called attention to the influence of a
given place in bringing about various combinations of the elements and thus
creating differences.
There were many such discussions among writers like Gervase of Tilbury,
Alexander Neckam, Thomas Cantimpre, his teacher, Albertus Magnus, Al-
bert's more famous pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and
Robert Grosseteste. I have selected from this literature four works which seem
to illustrate well— and in some detail— ways in which environmental theories
were involved in the general thought of that age: the De natiira locomin of
Albertus Magnus, On Kingship of St. Thomas, the geographical sections of
Bartholomew of England's De proprietatibus renim, and the historical works
of Giraldus Cambrensis, The Topography of Ireland,The History of the
Conquest of Ireland, and the Itinerary of Archbishop Balduoin Through
Wales, introducing the latter with a discussion of Otto of Freising. In addition
I have added some notes on Roger Bacon's ideas of sacred geography and

astrological ethnology. Each of these works illustrates in a different way the

reforming of old ideas in the face of new situations, and in one case at least
—that of St. Thomas— a reconciliation of environmental theories with the most
exalted theological doctrine. Some of these ideas had come directly from clas-
sical sources through Isidore; others were made known through the redis-

covery of Vitruvius, Vegetius, and Aristotle's Politics. Some probably came

from the Arabs, among them Avicenna (980-1037), whose writings show his
knowledge of classical medical theory. In his didactic poem {Canticum de
Medicijja) written for novices as an introduction to the study of medicine,
Avicenna restates many of the medical aphorisms of the classical world re-
lating to mixtures, humors, airs, foods, and drink.^^ The mixtures (warm and
cold, dry and moist) and the corresponding humors are seasonally dominant:
phlegm in winter, blood in spring, yellow bile in summer, black bile in the
fall; similar correlations are made with the ages of man, children and the

young being warm, older people, especially the very old, cold. Skin, hair,
and eye color are caused fundamentally by mixtures determined by climate.

22 Albert the Great, De causis proprietatum elementorum liber primus (hereafter

DPE), Tr. I, chap. 5 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 297).
23 Avicenna, "Das Lehrgedicht iiber die Heilkunde (Canticum de Medicina)," trans,

from the Arabic into German by Karl Opitz, in Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der
N aturwissenschaften und der Medizin, Vol. 7, Heft 2/3, 1939, pp. 150-220. See verses
12-80, 116-146, pp. 160-163, 165-166.
 Environviental Influences 265

The mixtures in the seven klimata can be recognized by differences in skin

color. The aphorisms on the air,the effects of the sun's heat, mountain and
valley climates, wind directions, swamps, are concerned primarily with effects
on physical health, for he is interested in medical problems, not cultural ques-
tions.

4. Albert the Great

There isan interesting conjunction of ideas in Albert the Great's celebrated

treatise on the nature of places {Liber de natura loconmt).^^ If we merely re-
cite his ideas concerning the influence of the environment, we will see that
indeed he had much to say about these matters but that it would be more
profitable to read Hippocrates, Galen, the Posidonian fragments in Strabo,
Phny, and Vitruvius, and Ptolemy, because these are clearly the sources, either
direct or indirect, of his theories.
If, however, one tries to discover the part they played in his thought— and
perhaps in the age as a whole— something more exciting and living emerges.
Environmental theories have a definite, if modest, part in his theory of causal-
ity. A study of them enables one to perceive how it is possible to consider these

geographical matters (and the encyclopedists of the Middle Ages were inti-
mately concerned with geography as a field of study because of the importance
of biblical and classical place-names) as part of a larger body of knowledge
and theory concerned with a divinely created unity. Awareness of this unity
leads one to God, to an understanding of the creation and the relationship of
peoples to their environments. What were the general relationships among
these areas of thought? First, the Christian belief in God's creation of the
earth did not conflict with theories of the constituents of matter— the four
elements or the four humors or combinations of them— because God in his
omnipotence could have created any number of each or any combination
of them. Second, following ancient theory, the four elements were related
to theories of place or location because it was beheved that the latter would
influence the combination, one preponderating over the other, depending
on the spot it occupied on the earth's surface.^^ Any place which an entity-
man, plant, or animal— occupied on the earth's surface differed in some way
from every other place for two main reasons: the influence of the stars and
the influence of physical conditions on earth.
Although this is not the place to discuss the history of astrology, it is nec-

24 In this analysis I am gready indebted to Klauck's "Albertus Magnus und die Erd-

kunde," Studia Albert'ma, pp. 234-248. Klauck discusses earlier contributions on Albert's
cosmological and geographical writings; his own, however, is far superior to any of
them in its explication of the principles of geography as seen by Albert. Here, of course,
we are only concerned with a small part of Albert's geographical theory.
2^ See, for example, the beginning lines of DP£, Bk. I, Tr. I, chap.
5 (Jammy, p. 297
recto).
266 Envir 0717726 fit al IfiflueTices

essary to add that astrological theories and theories of environmental influence

are not necessarily competing ideas, that acceptance of one does not mean
rejection of another. They might supplement one another. The use of both
types of idea systems to create a consistent causal explanation of the great
variety of and matter elsewhere in nature is prominent among thirteenth
life

century writers like Albert the Great who, unlike earlier thinkers, had become
familiar with the physical works of Aristotle. Ptolemy, as we have seen, had
not achieved such a synthesis, considering them as if they were two unrelated
aspects of knowledge. Albert the Great combines them. One of the significant
differences between a thinker of the thirteenth century like Albert the Great
or Roger Bacon and the earher Church Fathers is in their different attitudes
toward astrology. Denunciations of astrology, as we have been, are common-
place among the early fathers. To Augustine, it was the equivalent of wor-
shipping false gods, and it implied a denial of the freedom of the will.^^
Astrology stood in the way of a belief in God and in Christ, and its false
teachings led many away from the truth of the Christian teaching. To Albert,
however— such is the resilience of the design argument— stellar influences are
but another example of the creativity of God. God is the Creator of
all;

citing Hermes Trismegistus, Albert says that the formative energy influencing
the sublunary sphere is in the stars. The astrological influences are often the
more general ones; local influences, including nearness of mountains and of
seas, supplement them or further differentiate within an area of general sim-
ilarity caused by cosmic influences. Men who are well versed in the lore of the
stars can, by their knowledge and art, either further or ward off stellar in-
fluence.^^
Albert's insistence on the need to know the nature of places in detail is also
noteworthy; it is part of an interest in nature, natural history, and geography,
which the recovery of the Greek and Latin works through the Arabs had
stimulated. The interest which Albert shows in the theories of environmental
influence is part of a vaster conception which includes theology, astrology,
geography, and nature study.
In the broadest sense, Albert's contributions to human geography lay in his
revival of the De Jiatura locormn hterature of the classical writers and the
early Christian encyclopedists like Isidore, a revival convincingly shown in
the dreary third tractate on cosmography,^^ and his systematic presentation

26 Augustine's cogent criticism, The City of God, V, i, 0?i Christian Doctrine^

See St.
II, chaps. and above, chap. 5, note 91.
2 1-2 2;
DNL, Tr. I, chap. 5 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 268, misprinted as p. 277). The reference
to Hermes is to the De virtibiis universalibus. See also Tooley, "Bodin and the Medieval
Theory of Climate," Specidmn, Vol. 28 (1953), p. 67, and footnotes 23, 24.
Tr. I, chap, i (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 263). The cosmography of is taken DNL
up with gazetteer-like geography, a recitation of the rivers, cities great and small, lakes,
etc., relieved occasionally by a personal remark regarding a place or its historical
significance.
 Environmental Inflimices 16']

with contemporary additions and illustrations of ideas of environmental

influence. Presumably from Arab sources (he cites Avicenna and Ptolemy),
his writings called attention to important questions of the habitabihty of many
parts of the earth, including the equatorial regions and those of the southern
hemisphere.^^
Albert's interest in places and their nature rests on a solid foundation:
without a detailed knowledge of the variety of places and of the causes of this
variety one cannot have a natural science, and those who fail to seek such
knowledge err. General observation is insufficient, for attention must be di-
rected at the specific and particular, as Plato and Aristotle had directed theirs.^^
Albert's treatment of geographical materials is confused because he inherited
from the classical writings two different ways of dividing the habitable world
into regions and does not try to reconcile one with the other. At first glance,
most reliance seems to be placed on the seven khmata, and he speaks of their
value in classifying the character and nature of places (". . . deinde etiam
tangemus terminos latitudinum septem lineis notabilibus, quae cHmata dis-
cernant, ut ex illis natura et proprietas loci cuiuslibet ostendatur").^^ Then
he abandons this commitment in favor of a description of the habitable world,
dividing it and south quarters. There are indications
into east, west, north,
elsewhere, moreover, of the use of the three zones which had nothing to do
with the klimata,^^ that is, the frigid, torrid, and temperate zones and the cor-
relations with race, color, personal qualities, and physical characteristics ac-
companying them.
Albert accepts the traditional classification of the seven klimata: one and
seven, the tropical and the boreal, are the extremes; two and six are less extreme,
two resembling one, and six, seven; four and five are more benign and tem-
perate. Following classical custom, the Idimata apply only to the inhabited
parts of the earth (oikoumene), and there was a difference of one half-hour in
the length of the longest day from one klijna to the next, ranging from thir-
teen hours at Meroe, the first and southernmost klima, to sixteen at the Borys-

Tr. I, chap. 6 (refers to Ptolemy and Avicenna), and chap. 7 (Jammy, Vol.
5, pp. 268-272). See also Kretschmer, Die Phy. Erdkunde im Christ. Mittelalter, p. 140,
and Klauck, op. cit., pp. 239-240.
30 Ex omnibus his igitur satis liquet, quod oportet scire naturam loci, nec sufficit tractatus qui
in physicis habitus est de ipso, eo quod ille non nisi universaliter certificat de ipso: sed oportet
nos scire diuersitates locorum in particulari, & causas diuersitatis ipsorum, & accidentia diuer-
sorum locorum: tunc enim perfecte sciemus ea quae generantur et corrumpuntur in locis.
DNL, Tr. I, chap, i (Jammy, p. 263 top recto). The references to Plato and Aristotle are
made upon these themes.
after elaborating
Tr. Ill, chap, i (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 283 bottom recto). One becomes hope-
Ibid.,
lessly confused in reading the classical and medieval sources (and some of the modern
discussions as well) on the seven klimata. The only guide out of this swamp known to
me is Honigmann's Die sieben Klimata. . . .

22 Honigmann, op. cit.,

pp. 17-19, 26-27; the use of the klimata and the zones in
Posidonius is probably the source of much later confusion, especially if it is true that
Vitruvius (whom Albert mentions in this connection) based his discussion on Posidonius.
268 Environmental Influences

thenes (the Dnieper) in the seventh and northernmost.^^ Albert subdivides

each of the seven khmata into three regions. He makes no attempt, however,
to correlate cultural or physical characteristics of human beings v^ith each of
these twenty-one divisions. Instead he emphasizes the importance of seasonal
variations in heat and seminal moisture, selecting these because they are in-
dispensable to all life.^^ Varying mixtures, determined by the place, account

for the characteristics of living things.

The important klimata from the point of view of contrasts and comparisons
are the firstand the seventh extremes and the intermediate fourth and fifth.
The first is a region of excessive heat and dryness, cold and moisture
klima
being diminished there. The semen, generated from hot foods and ripening in
great heat in the body, falls into the womb, where it is boiled away. (It is a
wonder any pregnancy at all takes place!) The sun's heat is also responsible
for the black skin and the curly hair.*^^
In a more detailed discussion in the De natura locorum, the people born in
the hottest places are very hot themselves— wrinkled like pepper seeds from
too much dryness. The black skin color (the Ethiopians are the examples)
is explained as follows: The hot and dry womb receives hot semen; in the
heat the thinner liquid of the semen boils away, and the heavy and the
earthy which remains creates the blackness of the skin. (Albert is most obscure
regarding the earthy parts of the body like bones and teeth, which are
white.) Their dry bodies, surrounded by very hot air, are continually losing
water. These people are light and agile; they have little fear of fever. The
heat takes all the moisture from them, so that their private parts are weak
and sterile. The spirit of life escapes with the moisture and they live only to
thirty years. Although women (for obvious reasons) conceive with dif-
ficulty owing to the dryness and the debility, they deHver easily— the womb
is and
lax soft. Natives leaving the first for the fourth or fifth klima would
undergo a change in their color from black to white.
Those people who, like the Indians, live in the first klima in areas of
moving heat (the monsoon? ) are quick-witted in invention and outstanding
in philosophy and magic— but here astral influences seem to dominate.
The peoples— and their physiological processes— in the seventh klima are
in great contrast to those of the first. On the border of the seventh klima—
and even beyond it— are the Dacians and the Goths in the West, the Slavs
in the East. They are white because of the cold which constricts the blood
and may even press it out. The women of the north menstruate rarely, he

33 Honigmann, Die sieben Klimata, p. 9. See also his discussions of the seven klimata
and the Arabs.
34 "Propter quod si sciuerimus ex loco varietatem calidi & humidi, sciemus universaliter

(secundum quod competit huic scientiae) naturas corporum generatorum quas habent
ex locis." DNL, Tr. II, chap. 2 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 280).
35 D?E, Bk. I, Tr. I, chap.
5 (Jammy, Vol. 5, pp. 297-298).
 Environmental Influences 269

says, citing Aristotle, but they may bleed through the nose. Because their
bodies are not porous, much heat remains in them causing them to be fleshy
and full of phlegm.^^ Women conceive rarely and when they do they have
difficult deliveries. These women Albert compares with German women who
readily become pregnant— almost more so than any others— but they, too, have
very difficult deliveries. The coldness, constricting their bodies, hinders the
drying-out of their life spirit and the body fluids and they remain energetic.

There always an abundance of warmth in their blood and in their disposi-

is

tions.^^ Thus they greatly dread fevers (there is so much heat and moisture

within them), but fear wounds much less because they have so much blood.
The inhabitants of the seventh klima do not excel in physical labor, because
their bodies are heavy. They and untutored but they could
are dull-witted
be aroused to better things by study. The Dacians and
the Slavs, unhke the
people of Milan, do not bother themselves with the study of law, humanistic
inquiry, and the arts.^^
The qualities in the fourth klima and the fifth near it are really means of
the desirable qualities of extremes, a conclusion consistent with classical opin-
ion. Their peoples live to old age, their works, as natural as they are spirited,
are most praiseworthy, and they have good customs. The customs of the
peoples of the north are brutish (literally wolflike) because of the heat in
their hearts. The southerners are extremely lighthearted. The temperate
peoples live easily among themselves, practice justice, keep their word, respect
peace and the society of men. Albert paraphrases approvingly Vitruvius'
comment that the success of the Roman Empire was due to its temperate en-
vironment between the extremes.^^ Here he is obviously concerned with a
simpler classification than the klimata: merely the very cold, the very hot,
and the temperate climates.
But Albert has other environmental theories as well, such as contrasts be-
tween the mountains and the sea, or the woods and the marshes; they are
supervening causes {accideittia) which bring about differences owing to
purely local physical conditions. These remind one of Hippocrates' discussions.
Men born in stony, flat, cold, dry places are extremely strong and bony;
their joints are plainly visible; they are of great stature, skilled in war and

36 "Et hoc [i.e., the heat kept within the body] augut corpora eorum et facit ea

carnosa et phlegmatica. .DNL, Tr. II, chap. 3 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 282).

.

2^ ". .quia frigus loci et constrictio corporum eorum impedit evaporationem spirituum
.

& humoris: propter quod virtus earum fortis semper manet, & ilia facit eas concipere
multum: & quando non perfecte sunt emundatae a menstruis. Et haec etiam causa est,
quare corpora earum calida sunt vehementer: et ideo sunt audaces: quia calor semper
abundat sanguine et spiritu." Ibid., p. 282, Tr. II, chap. 3 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 282 bottom
verso).
38 DNL,Tr. II, chap. 3 (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 282).
39 reference is to Vitr., On Arch., Bk. VI, chap,
The i, lo-ii. DiVL, Tr. II, chap. 3,

ad fin (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 282 recto).

270 Environmental Influences

handy waging it, and they have bony hmbs. Their customs are wild and
in
they are Hke men of stone. Peoples, however, of moist and cold places, have
beautiful and smooth faces, their joints are well covered over, they are fleshy
and fat, not very tall, and their bellies are extended. They are daring because
they have such fiery hearts, but they slacken quickly at their work. They
lack zeal in war. Their faces are white or yellow. People living in mountains
frequently have knotty and strumous necks and throats (goiter?) because the
water is such that too much phlegm is generated in them.^°
On the other hand, Albert's thought illustrates how old and persistent is
the belief that men are not helpless in the face of a harsh or unfriendly en-
vironment. Often they can change it. Areas near or in the middle of a
forest have stifling and dense air ("habent aerem suflFocatum et spissum");
many are cloudy and have whirlwinds. The floor of the forest is moist; the
vapor, in contact with the trees, becomes confined and dense. For that reason
the wisemen of the past improved their localities by cutting down trees and
woods. The walnut and the oak and other trees are harmful because they
either poison the air with their bitterness or confine it because of their height,
thus preventing it from escaping and from being
Environmental purified.
influences thus are not necessarily permanent, for they can be changed by
human agency. The passage is reminiscent of the statement of Theophrastus,
repeated by Pliny, that the cutting of trees can change the climate of a
place.^^
Albertus Magnus's De natura locorwit is the most important and the most
elaborate discussion of geographical theory with relation to human culture
since the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places. The lack of originaHty of the
treatise should not obscure its significance as a landmark in the continuity

of ideas. Diversity of places meant diversity among the phenomena situated

on them; a place was also important for astrological reasons. And both envi-
ronmental and astrological influences were aspects of that unity and harmony
imposed on the elements by divine will. Albert also perpetuated the old error
of extrapolating to entire peoples environmental influences that presumably
caused mental or physical differences among individuals. As it was with the

ancients, so it was with Albert: the environmental theory became a handy

explanation for racial difl^erences— especially skin color and type of hair— and
for physiological and cultural differences.
Albert achieved a well-ordered system of thought on man and nature.
This is a created, not an eternal, world, and the cosmos shows evidence of

^^DNL, Tr. II, chap. 4 (Jammy, Vol. 5, pp. 282-283). The chapter continues in the
manner of Vitruvius with a discussion of the proper siting of houses, clothing, and
medicine and their relation to various places. What applies to men applies also to animals,
plants, and stones.
^1 DNL, Tr. I, chap. 1^, ad fin (Jammy, Vol. 5, p. 278).
 Environmental hifliiences 271

the order and the beauty intended by God. The heavenly bodies have their
spheres of influence on earth and they are supplemented by local physical
conditions on earth; moreover, he does not forget the study of nature as
a whole, for cHmate, habitat, and local conditions were as necessary in under-
standing natural history as they were in understanding peoples.^^

5. The Encyclopedist, Bartholomew of England

The encyclopedists of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, like Isidore of

Seville in the sixth and seventh, from whom they copied so much, normally
included a treatise on geography or cosmography; usually it was a com-
pendium-like collection of place-names, provinces, and quotations from the
ancients. Works of this kind were written by Albertus Magnus, Alexander of
Hales, Thomas de Cantimpre, Vincent Beauvais, and Bartholomew of England
—the latter's discussion of geography in the De proprietatibus rerum being the
most impressive of these discussions. These attempts to summarize geographi-
cal knowledge generally leaned heavily on Pliny, Isidore, Orosius, St. Au-
gustine, St. Basil, and St. Ambrose.
Although little is known of his life, Bartholomew presumably was born in
England; he lived in France and apparently traveled widely in— or heard
direct reports of— the lowlands, France, and Germany. The De proprietatibus
rerum, believed to have been published around the middle of the thirteenth
century, had circulated in England before the end of the thirteenth century;
it was translated into Italian, French, and English, the French translation of

Jean Corbechon being especially popular. It was still widely read and influen-
tial at the beginning of the sixteenth century .^^ Bartholomew was a student

of Robert Grosseteste, who himself had written a short essay on the nature of
places, which, however, is of little interest to our present theme.^^

^2 See, for example, "De animalibus," Bk. XII, Tr. I, chap.

4, 59, in Beitrage zur
Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Vol. 15 (1916), p. 820.
Delisle, "Traites Divers sur les Proprietes des Choses," Hist. Litt. de la France^
Vol. 30, pp. 363-365. Delisle tries to make a case for the French birth of Bartholomew.
I am indebted to William J. Humphries' unpublished doctoral dissertation (Berkeley,

1955) which summarizes the main sources on his life; the dissertation consists of the
edited Latin text and the French translation of 1372 by Jean Corbechon of Book XV
on geography. The De prop, rerimi treats the following subjects in the order shown:
God, the angels, the soul, the elements and the humors; parts of the body; hfe, family,
and society; melodies; the celestial world, movement and time, matter and the elements,
atmospheric phenomena, birds, water and fish, earth and mountains, provinces, minerals,
plants, animals, and special properties of matter.
The Bartholomew-Grosseteste relationship is mentioned here because of the im-
portant place of the latter in the history of experimental science. On Grosseteste (d.
1253) see A. C. Crombie's Robert Grosseteste and the Origins of Experimental Science,
1 100-1100, and a summary discussion in his Medieval and Early Modern ScieJice, Vol. 2,

pp. 11-23. See also Anton E. Schonbach, "Des Bartholomaeus Anghcus Beschreibung
272 Environmental Influences

Bartholomew's ideas are also derived from the physiological theories of the
ancients.^^ The cool, drying north wind closes the pores and bodily heat is
retained; hence the tallness and fairness of the northerners. Those influenced
by the hot and moist south wind lack the boldness, wrath, and anger of men
of the north.^^ These and other environmental explanations are used when he
is borrowing from others, but when he is speaking of places he knows of in

contemporary life, it is likely that either there will be no explanations for

the conditions or the explanations will not be environmental ones. A theme
which could profitably be explored in the history of geographical thought is
that ideas of environmental influence have been more convincing and accept-
able when apphed to far-off days— or places— than when applied to times and
situations well known to the observer. There are too many obvious factors
to be observed in everyday life to permit of one explanation. Moreover,
Bartholomew's failure to confine himself to his stated purpose— to write about
sacred places— is symptomatic of his wider interests (as many of the articles
show) in the commercial importance of places and in the national character-
istics of peoples.
In his discussion of Europe, Bartholomew says he follows Pliny in con-
trasting the white and the black peoples. Adopting
Isidore's etymology of
Ethiopia, he gives a climatic explanation of racial color.^^ The entry on Gaul
shows knowledge of Isidore's generalization, derived from Servius the Gram-
marian's commentary on the Aeneid, about the klimata being responsible for
the gravity of the Romans, the hghtheartedness of the Greeks, the mahce of
the Africans, and the courage of the Gauls; the thought is repeated in the
entry on Poitou.'*^
These borrowings, however, if quoted alone, give a wrong impression.
The pattern of the more general entries is to give brief characterizations of the
land and of the people: whether the land is fertile and grows grains or vines
or other crops, whether it has marshes, woods, and wild animals; whether the
people are brave, good, crafty, or cruel. In the discussions of Flanders and of

Deutschlands gegen 1240," Mitt, des Insts. fiir osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Vol.
27 (1906), pp. 54-90; and H. C. Darby, "Geography in a Medieval Text-Book," Scott.
Geog. Mag., Vol. 49 (1933), pp. 323-331-
See De prop. reru7n. Book IV, chap. 2, on race, skin coloring, and climate. Refer-
ences are to Aristotle De caelo et mundo, chap. 6, with references to Galen. All of Book
IV is concerned with the elements and the humors.
^^De prop, reriim, Bk. XI, chap. 3. See Kimble, Geog. in the Middle Ages, p. 178,
where there is an interesting example of the conflict between environmental theory (rep-
resented by the above citation from Bartholomew) and astrological theory drawn from
the Liber Canonum Astrologiae of John Calderia, a physician of Venice (fifteenth
century).
47 PHny, NH, II, 80. De prop, reriim, Bk. XV, "De Europa," 7. A very threadbare

theme by now; Albert the Great had worn it thin. Bk. XV, 52, "De Ethiopia," i.
'^^
Ibid., Bk. XV, 66, 2, "De Gallia," and "De Pictavia," 122, 5, where Isidore is again
referred to. See Isidore, Etym., Book IX, chap. 2.
 Environmental Influences 273

Holland, the shopworn wares of Pliny and Isidore are forgotten. The people
of Flanders, by digging turf from their bogs, make up for their deficiency in
wood; the vigorous fire has a disagreeable odor and the ashes are useless.^^
His comphmentary description of Holland has already been mentioned. Dis-
similarities among peoples of the same nation living under similar climatic
conditions are recognized but without causal explanation. France possesses
fine quarriesand excellent building materials, and the soils of Paris are re-
markable for their gypsum, which the Parisians call ''plaster." Bartholomew
has generous praise for Paris as a city.^^ He recognizes the fact that cultural
characteristics may be the result of the mixing of peoples. The people of
Poitou mixed in with the French and learned their language and customs;
they owe their beautiful bodies and their physical strength to the Picts from
whom they have descended. He cites Isidore then on environmental influ-
ences on build, color, and spirit. Mixing with the English has changed Scot-
tish manners; the Scots are no longer like their primitive forefathers, who
lived like the people of Ireland, in forests, and who were jealous of, and
gloried in, their ancient customs. There are similarities among the peoples of
Slavia, the differences among them, however, being religious, for there are
pagans and those of Greek and of Latin worship.^^
One could write an interesting essay on conceptions of the physical environ-
ment of theGarden of Eden held by writers of the Middle Ages, because
their descriptions often reveal what they considered to be ideal living condi-
tions. Bartholomew, quoting Isidore on the derivation of the word "paradise,"

agrees with him that because of its great height the Flood failed to reach it.
Paradise is neither cold nor hot; it has eternally temperate air, with flowering
plants and pleasant scenes. It is a place worthy of one made in the image of
God; following Strabus and Bede, he says that paradise was suited to man in
a state of innocence. It is high; as Bede and Isidore say, it touches the circle
of the moon, and with its quiet, pure air it is a region of eternal life. The
pictures of the Garden of Eden are idealized earthly environments, conspic-
uous for health, fertihty, lushness of vegetation, and a temperate climate.
Stagnant and disease-bearing swamps obviously were not part of the environ-
ment of paradise, whose beauty and habitability were commensurate with the
nature of man before the Fall.^^

6. St. Thomas to the King of Cyprus

St. Thomas Aquinas's On Kingship, To the King of Cyprus is concerned

in part with the relationship of the physical environment to the governing of

49 Ibid.,
58, 5, "De Flandria."
^^Ibid., 57, "De Francia"; on Paris, 6-9.
^^Ibid., Ill, "De Pictavia"; 152, 4-5, "De Scotia"; 140, i, "De Sclavia."
Ibid., 112, "De Paradiso." One of the longest articles in the work.
274 Environmental Influences

2L state, an important theme in the history of both political theory and geo-
graphic thought.
St. Thomas, who follows the celebrated passage from Aristotle closely in
this matter, says that man cannot live alone, that he is a poHtical animal,
that he must have government, and that a monarchy (relying on the analogy
of God as a ruler of the universe) is the best form of government, though
the monarch should not be a tyrant. In founding a city, or in governing one
after its estabhshment, a king must take many things into consideration, in-
cluding site selection, the nature of the atmosphere, and the food supply.
This work may have been written as an "offering to Hugh II of Cyprus,
a Lusignan king whose house had been friendly with the Dominican activity,
or to one of his family for the churches they built, or as a reminder to the
Christian princes that their services were needed after the fall of Jerusalem in

1244 and the unsuccessful crusade of St. Louis of France," for "an increased
activity of the Dominicans is noticeable to rally princes and peoples to the
precarious cause of the Holy Land." These are conjectures, but the age of
the Crusades did offer many opportunities for comparing different environ-
ments. Medieval accounts of Cyprus describe a variety of conditions from the
temperate and healthful to the hot and marshy; such variety demonstrated the
need to consider the chmate in establishing settlement. "It is perhaps on account
of similar reports that St. Thomas thought it advisable to remind the king of
the ancient teaching on the relation between civil life and climate and on the
importance of medicine for politics. ."^^ His guides in this endeavor are
. .

Aristotle (especially the Politics and the Physics), Vitruvius, and Vegetius.^^
In comparing civil authority with divine works, St. Thomas says that the
founder of a city, or a kingdom, must try, as best as his human powers will
allow him, to have as his model the example of God's creation of the world,
seen in the production of things and in "the orderly distinction of the parts
of the world." We observe certain kinds of distributions: stars in the heavens,
birds in the air, fish in the water, animals on land. "We notice further that,
for each species, the things it needs are abundantly provided by the Divine
Power."^^ (Illustrates the point by recapitulating Genesis i.)

The founder kingdom can never be a creator in this sense,

of a city or
for he cannot create men, places for them to live in, or other necessities. He
must, through his arts and techniques, make use of things already existing in
nature, as the smith uses iron, and the builder, wood or stone. "Therefore the
founder of a city and kingdom must first choose a suitable place which will
preserve the inhabitants by its healthfulness, provide the necessities of life

^2 On
Kingship. Translator's introd., pp. xxxi, xxiii-xxiv.
VII, 7; Physics, VII, 3, 246b; On Length and Shortness of Life, I,
5^ Aristotle, Pol.,

465a, 7-10; Vegetius, De re militari, I, 2; Vitr., On Arch., Bk. I, chap. 4. See also trans-
lator's notes pp. 68-80.
^5 On Kingship,
99.
 Environmental Influences 2j§

by its fruitfulness, please them with its beauty, and render them safe from
their enemies by its The parallel between the divine
natural protection. "^^
plan and the civil plan drawn; the work accomplished in founding a
is clearly
city is a kind of creativity— of a far lower order than God's— in which kings
and their subjects can participate. The geographic portion of the treatise,
therefore, is largely concerned with matters of earthly planning helped by
the practical traditions of antiquity and by the example of divine planning.
Some parts of a kingdom may be suitable for establishing cities, others, for
villages or hamlets; sites can be chosen for military camps, places of learning,
markets, churches, law courts, the trades, providing the necessities for all

persons according to their position and station in life.

The Aristotelian golden mean (representing in its physiological aspect a

harmonious balancing of the humors) is the keystone in the planning arch.
"A temperate region should be chosen, for the inhabitants derive many ad-
vantages from a temperate climate. In the first place, it ensures them health
of body and length of hfe; for, since good health consists of the right tempera-
ture of the vital fluids (i.e., humors),^'' it follows that health will be best pre-
served in a temperate clime, because like is preserved by hke." Extremes are
therefore bad; like Albert, he cites the supposed thirty-year life-span of men
in the very hot parts of Ethiopia because the moisture which, with the heat,
is necessary to maintain life is dried up.^^
"Then, too, a temperate cHmate is most conducive to fitness for war, by
which human society is kept in security." (Quotes to this point, Vegetius,
De re militari, I, 2, on chmatic influences affecting military recruits.) A
temperate chmate also "is of no little value for political life" (cites Aristotle's
Politics, VII, 7, 1327b, 23-32).
The healthfulness of a site should be considered; marshy places should be
avoided, and it should have the proper exposure (cites Vitr., I, 4). The health-
fulness of a place can be judged by the condition of the food which it produces.
"The ancientswere wont to explore this condition by examining the animals
raised on the spot." Next in importance to good air is good water. The ap-
pearance of the people also reveals the healthfulness of its climate. A place
should be healthful and and of the two means of obtaining food, by
fertile,

growing crops or by trading, the former is to be preferred because men

become more self-sufficient. Echoing the classical belief in the harmfulness
to morals of trade, St. Thomas says that intercourse with foreigners (follow-
ing Aristotle, Pol., V, 3, 1303a 27; VII, 6, 1327a 13-15) "is particularly
harmful to civic customs. Foreigners with their different customs cannot be
expected to act like citizens, who, however, may be led from their own ways

^^Ibid., 100.
Ibid., 124. On the classical sources, see notes to 124-127.
58 /^ii., 125.
276 Environmental Influences

by the example of the strangers. "^^ This is an astonishing statement in view

of the vast efforts made in city-founding in the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies; St. Thomas stays so close to the classical model and to religious ideas
concerning profit that he apparently ignores his best contemporary examples
—the new cities and the complexities generated by them.

The site of a city "must claim the inhabitants by its beauty": it should have
broad meadows, abundant forests, mountains, groves, plenty of water; but
as befits a behever in the golden mean, neither should it be too beautiful, for
its beauty will tempt men too much to pleasure, thus dulling and impairing the

judgment of the senses (follows Aristotle, Eth. Nic, VI, 5; Eth., VI, 4.)
St. Thomas's essay on kingship is more than a restatement, in the thirteenth
century, of ideas derived from the writings of Aristotle, Vegetius, and Vitru-
vius; he seems also to be concerned with contemporary situations to whose
solution the ideas of the ancients were apposite. The classical ideas were the
best available; Albert the Great had said that the subject of climate, medicine,
and civil society had interested kings since ancient times. The reasons for this
interest in St. Thomas's time were substantially the same as they were in the
classical world: there was clearly a relationship between the physical environ-
ment and health. And the thinkers of the Middle Ages were wiHing to follow
their classicalmentors in believing the relation extended to mental, racial,
and cultural differences, too. The important thought in this essay, however,
is the comparison of kingly rule on earth with divine rule of the universe.

The king, like God in his creations in the higher sphere, plans and establishes
cities and kingdoms rationally, as a man of reason and intelligence should,

applying human arts and inventions, and studying thoroughly the airs, waters,
and places before beginning the onerous and responsible tasks of creating a
kingdom.

East and West:

7.

Otto of Freising and Giraldus Cambrensis

In The Geographical Loreof the Time of the Crusades, John K. Wright

noted the emergence during the Crusades, when men of the Latin West were
becoming acquainted with the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, of a
philosophy of history which assumed a geographical march in the course of
civilization. This conception grew out of world history as it was then known
and out of the knowledge— from biblical and classical sources— of the greater
antiquity of the lands to the east (ex oriente lux). It was therefore believed
that throughout history centers of civiHzation had moved from east to west.

^^Ibid., 126, 128-129. The ancients, according to Vitr., On Arch., Bk. I, chap. 4, 9,
examined the livers of cattle. St. Thomas was also hostile to trade on religious grounds
because it provoked greed; it was softening and unfavorable to military activity; it also
concentrated people too much within city walls, leading to dissension and sedition.
Trade could not be avoided altogether, but it should be carried on in moderation.
 Environmental Influences 277

But there was no comfort in the doctrine. "For it was felt that mankind would
meet its final doom when the movement had reached the uttermost limits of
the Occident."^^ In the fourth century, Severian of Gabala said that God with
an eye to the future placed man in the Garden of the East "in order to cause
him to understand that, just as the light of heaven moves toward the West,
so the human race hastens towards death. "^^ As we have seen, there was also
the tradition of the southward migration of civilization owdng to the distinc-
tive characteristic of the northlands as an officina gentium.
The theme of the geographic march of history has been a recurring one
in the history of Western thought. It enjoyed some popularity in the nine-
teenth century, being found in Hegel's philosophy of history, in Ritter's
geographical thought, and in that of his pupil and disciple, Arnold Guyot.
Carl Ritter, the most dedicated teleological and pietistic theorist of nineteenth
century geography, used the analogy with far happier consequences than
those foreseen by the gloomy Severian. Asia is literally the land of morning
and the source of civilization, and Europe is the land of evening, the seat of
advanced civilization; Africa is a nondescript and undistinguished midday,
and the north polar regions, night. The discovery of the New World, how-
ever, created a new Orient for Europe; the land of evening.^^ In the twentieth
century, the idea of the northward advance of civilization has enjoyed some
popularity, resting, however, on partial views, the most obvious an overem-
phasis on the significance of the history of western Europe in the history of
civilization.
Anticipations of this theme, like Severian's, appeared before the Crusades.
Marcus Justinus wrote an epitome of Pompeius Trogus's
(third century a.d.? )

Historiae Philippicae, in which Justin saw a progression of the sites of world

empire from the east (Assyria, Media, Persia) to the West (Macedonia and
Rome). "Justin represents the power {iinperium) or authority which rules
the world as being handed over by a failing world empire to its successor. This
idea (under the name of translatio i7nperii) plays an important part in the
historical views of the Middle Ages. . . Christian writers adopted the idea,
Jerome mentioning the Assyrian-Babylonian, the Medo-Persian, Macedonian
and Roman sequence. Orosius substituted Carthage for Persia, the four em-
pires corresponding to the cardinal directions.^^ The conception was elaborated
upon by Otto of Freising (i 1 14?-! 158). In a wise passage of The Two
Cities, Otto says that we are trained "by the passage of time and the resultant
experience in life, yes, trained the more quickly the more advanced the
age of the world is in which we are set," and that we devise new things after
mastering what has been achieved before. The "lapse of time and the course

60 Von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 62.

61 Quoted by von Grunebaum from Wright, Geo. Lore, p. 234.
62 Geographical Studies, trans, by Gage, p. 73.
63 See Mierow's discussion in the introduction to his translation of Otto, Bishop of
Freising's The Two Cities, p. 29, to which I am indebted for this material. Orosius, 2, i, 5.
278 Environmental Influences

of events" reveal things to men, things which could not be seen by their
ancestors from whom the future was hidden. *'And so all now see to what
the Roman Empire came— that Empire which, because of its preeminence,
was thought by the pagans to be eternal and even by our people to be almost
divine."
Human power or wisdom originating in the East "began to reach its limits
in the West," passing from the Babylonians to the Medes, Persians, Mace-
donians, to the Romans, to the Greeks under the Roman name, and from
them to the Franks and then— such is the mutability of human affairs— to the
Germans.^^ This westward flow has been true also of the history of religion,
as is evidenced by the flourishing state of Western monastic life— monks, for-
merly most numerous in Egypt, now are found in greatest numbers "in the
regions of Gaul and Germany, so that one need not wonder at the transfer
of power or of wisdom from the East to the West, since it is evident that
the same transfer has been effected in matters of religion."^^ There is in The
Tnjoo Cities^ however, such an atmosphere of sorrow, of the all-pervading
misery of the human race, that it may be questioned whether his idea of the
geographical march of civilization has any roots in environmental determinism.
Rather the influence of the church is the dominant theme; the fall of the
Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church are key events in human
history. The Church, exalted and enriched by the state and the favor of rulers
like Constantine, could not have so deeply humiliated the state until it, en-
feebled by its own priesthood, was destroyed by its own material sword and
sword of the Church. By Roman times civiHzation had so ad-
the spiritual
vanced that men would accept Christianity, and Christ with his new laws
could come to a world bowed before Roman power and molded by the wisdom
of philosophers. The temporal had failed; the spiritual, with its inevitable con-
tempt for the world, had advanced. Men of the world grow more unclean,
while the monastic and secular clergy as God's citizens attain through His
grace a fullness of virtues, recognizing that the Church too has its grain and
its Otto had joined the Cistercian order; he was sympathetic with its
chaff.
mysticism and its asceticism. The state no longer represented the city of

Earth, even the Church no longer represented the city of God. He frankly
wonders about the present earthly exaltation of the Church. His Cistercian
asceticism turns him away from the transitoriness and impermanence of hfe,
the mutability and uncertainty of earthly fortune, of civitas mundi^ to the
abiding nature of the eternal civitas dei.^^

^^The Two Cities, Bk. V, prologue, p. 322. See Mierow's remarks, p. 30. The Two
Cities, Bk. VI, chap. 24, pp. 384-386; on the transitoriness of the supposedly permanent
abiding place of power with the Franks, see Bk. V, chap. 36, pp. 357-359.
^5 The Two Cities, Bk. VII, chap.
35, Mierow trans., p. 448.
Ibid., Bk. Ill, prologue, p. 220; Bk. VII, prologue, pp. 404-405; and chaps. 9, p. 415;

24, pp. 433-434; 34, p. 445. On Otto's times and the gloominess of his views of the
world and the more cheerful atmosphere of his The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa^
see Mierow's intro., pp. 57-61; on his philosophy of history, pp. 61-72.
 Environmental Influences 279

In the work of Giraldus Cambrensis {ca. ii^6-ca. 1220), however, the

contrasts between East and West are of a geographical, not a historical, char-
acter. His descriptions suggest a knowledge of conditions in the eastern
Mediterranean in the sharply contrasting pictures of the healthful West (rep-
resented by Ireland) and the disease-ridden East.
This Welsh historian expressed in The Topography of Irelaitd (completed
in 1 187), with all its marvels, fables, and vanities, ideas which differed, as
had Bartholomew's, from the usual classical borrowings. Some seem to have
come from personal observation of Irish conditions, some from reports of the
Crusades.
Giraldus arranges all phenomena on earth in an ascending hierarchy: inor-
ganic nature, followed by plants, animals, man, and the angels. God, like the
potter who is superior to the clay he molds, transcends all created being.
These thoughts inspire in Giraldus a humility which, like the divine hierarchy,
is a famihar stage piece of the Middle Ages. . . O man, with what face,
with what temerity thou presumest to scrutinize and trace out those myster-
ies, to the investigation of which the very angels esteem themselves wholly
incompetent."^'' We need not take this humility too seriously, for Giraldus is

curious about everything; no eye-lowered shyness prevents him from giving

himself full credit for his many abilities.

To Giraldus, "Ireland is the most temperate of all countries"; there is green

grass for the cattle in summer and winter, and there is no need for cutting
hay, no need for stalls.The air is healthful— "no clouds bring infection, and
there are no pestilent vapours, or tainted breezes." Strangers, however, are
subject to only one disorder, dysentery. This interpretation of idylHc tem-
perate Ireland is spoiled by his belief in the senescence of nature, from which,
however, Giraldus lets the Irish off lightly. . . As the world grows older,
and is falling as it were into the decrepitude of old age, and draws to an end,
the nature of almost all things is corrupted and deteriorated." Floods, dense
clouds, and fogs apparently are the signs of old age, but Giraldus seems
impatient with his theme, ending on a happier but inconclusive note. "Not-
withstanding, no disturbance of the atmosphere, no seasonableness of the
weather, either troubles those who are in health and spirits, or affects the
nerves of delicate persons." The senescence of nature is forgotten; the Irish
are in no imminent danger.
The East has its silk, precious metals, gems, and aromatic shrubs, but unHke
the West with its temperate and healthful chmates, it has bad air. In a passage,

^''Topography of Ireland, Dist. I, chap. 9, Wright ed., p. 31. Although he had been
sent in 1188 to Wales with Primate Baldwin to preach the Third Crusade, Giraldus
never was in the Holy Land. He accompanied Henry II to France— the news of Saladin's
capture of Jerusalem was received in late 11 87— and on Henry's death the new king,
Richard I, sent him back to Wales because of his hold on the Welsh, relieving him of
his vow. See Wright's introduction to The Historical Works of Giraldus Cambrensis,
and the article on him in the nth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
28o Environinental Influences

possibly a distillation of many reports of hardship, disease, and death in the

eastern lands, Giraldus says, "In those countries all the elements, though

created for the use of man, threaten wretched mortals with death, undermine
health, and bring life to an end." There is death in contact with the earth
and the rocks, in the drinking water, the air, the thunder and lightning, the
blazing sun; there is death from overeating and from drinking wine undiluted
with water. People poison one another. There is danger from wild animals
and snakes. The East with its venom and poison thus is no match for the
Irish climate whose golden moderation offsets the advantages of oriental
pomp and circumstance. God has been particularly generous to the Irish land.
There is no fear of the open air or of the rocks; life is better despite the
poorer soils and their lower yields. "The nearer, indeed, we go to the regions
of the East, and warmer climates, the greater is the fertility of the soil, and
the more plentifully does the earth pour forth her fruits. The people also,
. . .

thanks to a brighter atmosphere, although slender in person, are of a more

subtle intellect." They attain more by poison than by violence, more
their ends
by their arts than by their arms. The western parts of the world have a more
sterile soil, but the air is more healthful and the people though less acute are

more robust; "for where the atmosphere is heavy, the fields are less fertile
than the wits." Giraldus adds a touch of astrological ethnology to emphasize
the point about environmental distinctions.

Bacchus and Ceres, therefore, rule in the East, with their attendant Venus, who,
deprived of them, is chilled; Minerva, also, who was always nursed and attracted
by a purer sky. Here [in the West] reigns [sic] Mars, Mercury, and the Ar-
cadian god. In the East is accumulated a superabundance of wealth; here we
have a modest and honorable competence. There the atmosphre is serene, here
it is salubrious. There the natives are fine witted; here, their understandings are

robust. There they arm themselves with poisons, here with manly vigour. There,
they are crafty, here bold in war. There men cultivate wisdom, here eloquence.
There Apollo rules, Mercury here; there Minerva, here Pallas and Diana.

It all sounds like Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. In an elaborate summation, combin-

ing geographical contrasts with the humoral psychology and physiology and
analogies drawn from the ages of man, Giraldus concludes that the advantages
lie with the West.

As much then as ease of mind is more desirable than anxiety, as preservation

is better than cure, and as it is better to enjoy constant health than, after much
suffering, to seek for remedies, so in thesame degree, the advantages of the West
are to be preferred to those of the East; and so far nature has cast a more favour-
able eye on the regions fanned by the West, than those swept by East winds.
It appears to be very probable that as moisture tempers and softens the morning
and evening of day, while noon is scorching, and the earliest and latest years of
man are mellowed by a moist temperament, while his middle age is fervid, so
while, in respect of the regions on the meridian and its confines, the sun raging
 Enviromnental Influences 281

in those parts as if in the prime of youth, infects the air with disease, so a more
humid climate renders the boundaries of its rising and setting temperate.^^

In this extraordinary attempt to explain the differences between the East

and the West, Giraldus seems captivated by the magnificence and the rich-
ness of the Eastern potentates (there is no mention of the poor), and he shows
a wistful, almost reluctant, preference for the quieter and less flamboyant life
in the West. Climate and disease seem to be the real bases for these cultural
distinctions. These ideas, peppered with mythological allusions, astral effects,
environmental influences, and correlations with the ages of man (a frequent
topic discussed by the encyclopedic writers of the Middle Ages) are far less
remarkable than his theory of stages of economic development; it might well
be the theory of Dicaearchus adapted by Giraldus to Irish history.

The Irish are a rude people, subsisting on the produce of their cattle only,
and living themselves like beasts— a people that has not yet departed from the
primitive habits of pastoral life. In the common
course of things, mankind
progresses from the forest to the field, from the town, and to the
field to the
social condition of citizens; but this nation, holding agricultural labour in con-
tempt, and little coveting the wealth of towns, as well as being exceedingly
averse to civil institutions— lead the same life their fathers did in the woods and
open pastures, neither willing to abandon their old habits or learn anything new.
They, therefore, only make patches of tillage; their pastures are short of herbage;
cultivation is very rare, and there is scarcely any land sown. This want of tilled
fields arises from the neglect of those who should cultivate them; for there are
large tracts which are naturally fertile and productive. The whole habits of the
people are contrary to agricultural pursuits, so that the rich glebe is barren for
want of husbandmen, the fields demanding labour which is not forthcoming.^^
There are few kinds of fruit trees— not because they could not be im-
ported and, once imported, cultivated, but because "the lazy husbandman does
not take the trouble to plant the foreign sorts which would grow very well
here." There are metals but they are not mined; neither is there interest in
manufacturing linen or wool or in the trades and mechanical arts. The
slothful people like only the exemption from toil and their freedom. Their
dress, the custom of allowing the hair and beard to grow long, are further
evidences of their barbarism.

But habits are formed by mutual intercourse; and as this people inhabit a country
so remote from the rest of the world, and lying at its furthest extremity, form-
ing, as it were, another world, and are thus secluded from civilized nations, they
learn nothing, and practise nothing but the barbarism in which they are born
and bred, and which sticks to them like a second nature. Whatever natural gifts
they possess are excellent, in whatever requires industry they are worthless.*^^

Topog. of Ireland, Dist. I, chap. 25, pp. 51-52; chap. 26, p. 52; chap. 27, pp. 54-55;
chap. 28, p. 56.
Ibid., Dist. Ill, chap. 10, p. 124.
Ibid., pp. 125-126.
282 Environmental Influences

This passage can stand comparison with writings on cultural history and
with theories of economic evolution of the nineteenth century. In Giraldus'
theory, the forest takes the place of the pastoral stage— the Mediterranean
grazing lands of the ancients— probably because the forests had a comparable
significance in the grazing of animals. There
no sentimentalizing about
is

primitive life, but it is Most

described with understanding and objectivity.
striking is the idea that men do not necessarily make use of resources which
nature makes available to them, and that an advantageous physical environ-
ment will have little meaning in understanding a people if one does not also
know their habits and predilections. Equally striking is the use Giraldus makes
of the role of isolation and its relation to cultural inertia. People, one can
almost hear him say, are changed less by their environment than by the other
peoples whom they chance to meet. These passages, bearing the stamp of
observation and experience, have little of the fancifulness of his other specu-
lations.
His discussions of culture and environment have the inconsistencies that
come from blending the borrowings from others with facts known from per-
sonal knowledge. To him the East could best be understood through its
climate, its luxury, and the prevalence of disease. Climate plays its part in
understanding the West, too, but cultural isolation is the key to understanding
the Irish, so great is the contrast between them— living so long in their cher-
ished isolation— and those who have known agriculture and the village life
of civilization.

8. Roger Bacon: Geography and Astrological Ethnology

In his discourse on mathematics, Roger Bacon explored extensively the inter-

relationships of theology, astronomy, and geography, but
fundamental his
interest was in astrology because he saw in the heavens the great cosmic forces
influencing the sublunary world. Although most of what he has to say is
more appropriate to an essay on astrological ethnology, it would be a mistake
to ignore him in this work, because of the blending of astrology with geog-
raphy, and the importance of place in his thought.
The aim of philosophy, he says, is to know the creator through the creature.
The theophany, however, must include the whole cosmos because of the vast
magnitude of celestial things. Celestial and earthly phenomena lead us to
praise and reverence the creator, but the two are not comparable with regard
to their end, the latter being insignificant in comparison with the former.
This is the basic conception: celestial things, creations of God, are vaster than
anything on earth, and their influence is therefore greater.^^
Bacon repeatedly insists upon the importance of accurate knowledge of

^1 Opus Majus, Pt. II, chap. 7, Vol. I, p. 49; Pt. IV, pp. 200-201.
 Ejjvironmental Influences 283

places and the task of astronomy in determining their exact location. Precise
determinations are indispensable for the proper interpretation of theology
and the sacred texts. The thought goes far beyond insistence on an accurate
sacred geography so that men may know the exact locations of places men-
tioned in the Scriptures. Such knowledge is indispensable for comprehend-
ing the spiritual meaning of places; it also becomes the way toward under-
standing the earthly theophany and the spiritual message of landscapes, or
individual mountains, rivers, or cities.

Let us outHne the argument and summarize Roger Bacon's illustration.

Nothing of importance can be known about things unless the places where
they are, are also known. The sciences of astrology and astronomy must de-
limit the habitable and the uninhabitable parts of the world, and further divide
the former into proper regions. History without geography precludes literal
and spiritual knowledge. For men ignorant of places ''the rind of history fre-
quently has no taste because of the infinite number of places, and especially
owing to the manifold falsity of the new Bibles; and as a consequence he
will be impeded in rising to the spiritual meanings and only imperfectly will
be able to explain them." But the man who knows about places, the man who
has "learned their location, distance, height, length, width, and depth, and
has tested their diversity in heat and dryness, cold and humidity, color, savor,
odor and beauty, ugliness, pleasantness, fertility, sterility, and other condi-
be pleased very greatly by the literal
tions, will history, and will be able
easilyand admirably to gain an understanding of the spiritual meanings."
Corporeal roads signify spiritual roads, and corporeal places, the ends of
spiritual roads.
Such thinking shows his sympathy with allegorical exegesis. Bacon quotes
Jerome approvingly: "He will have a clearer insight into the sacred Scriptures,
who has viewed Judea with his own eyes, and has learned the memorials of
the ancient cities and the names either the same or changed of the places."
But the argument is not that through such knowledge one's impressions of
biblical scenes and landscapes become more exact, vivid, colorful. It is that
exact literal geography leads to precise symbolic interpretation. He praises
the ecclesiastics, Jerome, Orosius, Isidore, Cassiodorus, Eusebius of Caesarea,
who saw These men accomplished in essence
the need for sacred geography.
the task as Jerome had seen it: "We made it our care to undertake this labor

[his commentary in the second book of Chronicles] along with the most

learned of the Jews, that we might traverse the province of which all the
Churches of Christ speak.""^^

How does exact literal geography lead to confident symboHc interpreta-

tion? Let us take Bacon's illustration. The south-flowing Jordan lies east of
Jerusalem. Between the river and the city are Jericho and its plain, the Mount

Ibid.^ Vol. I, pp. 203-205.

284 Environmental Influences

of Olives (to the east of Jerusalem), the Valley of Jehoshaphat (i.e., NT

Kedron), lying between the Mount of Olives and Jerusalem, and finally the
holy city itself. What is the spiritual meaning of this literal geography?
The river Jordan represents the world for many reasons: it empties into
the Red Sea which symbolizes Hades. Jericho signifies the flesh, the Mount
of Olives, "the excellence of the spiritual life, owing to the excellence of
the mountain." The Valley of Jehoshaphat signifies humihty, Jerusalem, "the
vision of peace, and morally it is the sacred soul that possesses peace of heart;
allegorically it signifies the Church militant; analogically the Church tri-

umphant."
One who wishes to approach end with peace of mind, who wishes to
life's

be a perfect and faithful member of the Church, who wishes in this fife to
reach the heavenly Jerusalem, should either leave Jordan (the world) behind
him by subjecting it to him or withdraw from Jordan as do the monks of
monastic orders. Then he must attack the flesh, a harder task than leaving
Jordan. This conquering of the flesh must be done gradually. Thus, the flesh
is Jericho with its plain. Bacon here shows his opposition to drastic physical

strains exerted on the body by sudden, dramatic asceticism. The task is to

be approached as through a plain to Jericho. When Jordan and Jericho are
behind him, a man is prepared "to ascend to the excellency of the spiritual
life and to the sweetness of devotion." He therefore ascends the Mount of

Olives "to reach the summit of perfection and to plunge into the sweetness of
prayer and contemplation." Then he must cross the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
that is, he must end his life in perfect humihty. When he has done so, he is in
Jerusalem in a triple sense: in the peace of heart, in the peace of God, in the
peace of the Church mihtant."^^
Many other spiritual meanings. Bacon says, are to be found in geography.
The influence of geographical landscapes on religious allegory is an interesting
theme; in Christian theology it appears in the early hexaemera, which do not
give hteral interpretations. The nature imagery of St. Ambrose is especially
rich in allegory takenfrom geography, nature, and agriculture and viticulture.
Exact knowledge of places, of longitude and latitude, is therefore a means
of ehciting divine meanings, "in drawing forth many things from few, great
things from small, obscure things from those that are more manifest." To a
practiced eye, landscapes assume the character of a theophany.
The key to this understanding is astronomy, for one learns by means of it
what planets hold sway over different regions thus creating differences among
them."^^The influence of the stars may be resisted, but the rational soul may
be "strongly influenced and aroused, so that it gratuitously desires those
things to which the celestial force inclines it, just as we see men, owing to
association, advice, fear and love and the like, change greatly their intention,

^3 Ibid.^
pp. 205-207.
p. 208.
 Eiivironmental Influences 285

and gratuitously wish for those things which they previously did not wish
for, although they are under no compulsion, like him who in the hope of
safety casts into the sea his most precious wares."^^
Roger Bacon is aware of the cultural diversity in the various klimata, among
the Scythians, Ethiopians, Picards, French, Normans, Flemings, and the
English, but the causes of these differences are in the heavens, not on earth
or in men. Observation, however, forces him to modify the generalization,
because Bacon sees too the cultural influence of a great city on its environs;
a province surrounding a famous city assumes its manners and customs be-
cause "the city serves as a refuge and a central point for transacting the
affairs of life," because cities have power over neighboring districts, and

because of communication and violence. A similar relationship exists when a

powerful kingdom lies among lesser ones.
When Bacon turns to more practical matters, his plea for geography and
a knowledge of places is basically a plea for enlightened knowledge of the
world, in the spirit of his plea for learning foreign languages. Things of the
world cannot be known except through a knowledge of the places where they
are contained, whether these are phenomena of nature, morals, sciences, men's
customs, or differing techniques in practicing the arts and sciences. Knowledge
of peoples and places is necessary for trade, conversion, understanding of the
nonbehever, for opposing him and the Antichrist. Travelers must know the
climates and the characteristics of the foreign lands they visit. They can select
temperate places through which to travel. Men have destroyed themselves
and the business interests of Christians because they have passed through
places too hot in the hot season, too cold in the cold. People who seek to
convert need a knowledge of climate, of places, of rites, customs, and condi-
tions of nations.''^

9. GUNTHER OF PaIRIS

In the poetry of almost all ages, one finds evidence of the popularity of en-
vironmental ideas; their presence is often discernible in nature poetry. Some
of the most pleasing descriptions of nature written in the Middle Ages ap-
peared in the epic poem of Gunther of Pairis (in Alsace), written about
1186/1187, and celebrating the early reign years (1152-1160) of Frederick
I (Barbarossa)/'' The poem has exquisite descriptions of the scenery of the

well-peopled Frankish land— its fields, trees, and noble vines— of the regions
of the Rhine and the Moselle; of the route through the Ardennes to Aachen;^^
of the Apennines moderating the summer heat and the hot breath of the south

"^^
Ibid., p. 271.
Ibid., p. 273; p. 321.
Der Ligurinus Gunthers von Pairis im Elsass, intro., p. viii.
"^^Ibid., Bk. I, vss. 385-434.
286 Environmental Influences

wind; of the Alps walling out the northern cold; and of the Po, gathering its
waters from the Alps and the Apennines, flowing into the Adriatic/^ These
are descriptions with no causal relationships between man and nature. The
people living along the Baltic, however, are described as being in a close
relationship with their environment. Little is known of their customs— their
natural situation protects them— but they are rude, uncultivated, terrible in
appearance, and frightful. They are not subject to the control of law, they
practice bloodletting, theirs is an unsettled, changing spirit which is foreign
to the feeling of devoted Christian emotion.^^
These reprehensible quahties are caused partly by nature, partly by the
harmful influences of neighbors who are still worse. For the Baltic has no
island— apparently he thought these lands about the shores of the sea were
islands— whose ground is not hardened by eternal cold, and only the mattock
can be used to till the miserable land. The people of the Baltic resort to
hunting and pillage and in times of hunger even to cannibalism. Under these
conditions, the people whom they influence could scarcely be highly culti-
vated. The passage illustrates a conventional approach to a people known
mostly by hearsay in far-off places and whose peculiarities are explained by
their remoteness and by their environment.

lo. Conclusion

Writers of the Middle Ages offered little that was original in the study of
geographical influences on man. For as one reads in the theology, philosophy,
science, and pseudoscience of the Middle Ages, the geographical theory seems
insignificant in comparison with the attention given in the high and late
Middle Ages to magic, astrology, and alchemy as bodies of knowledge worthy
of study. These gifts in new Muslin clothing promised much: control over
nature and over man, a boundless new creativity of breathtaking proportions.
The extended consideration of the subject by Albert the Great, however,
reassures one that environmental theory was indeed a significant body of
thought in the Middle Ages. In avoiding the literature on the fabulous— the
oddities of far-off places, the dog-headed men, men with their heads in their
chests, one-eyed men— which was conspicuous and respectable in these times,
I may have given a misleading impression of a greater reasonableness in geo-

graphic theory than was actually the case. But there is another side to the
fabulous and the fantastic. William Archbishop of Tyre's descriptions of
the Levantine cities visited by the Crusaders, and over which they fought and
died, are unsparing. So are the pages of Otto of Freising. Adam of Bremen's
descriptions of the Northlands— Jutland, Fyn, Zealand, Scania, Norway, Vin-

79 /^iJ., Bk. II, vss. 56-118.

8o/Z;ic/., Bk. VI, vss. 25-49.
 Environmental Influe?ices 287

land, Iceland, and others— are far superior in imaginative description to the
gazetteer-like compositions of the past. In these works there are no theories
of geographic causation, but their authors have a lively understanding of the
nature of an environment and its uses.^^ The theories of geographical influence
in the Middle Ages continued the classical tradition of postulating a close
relationship between the physical environment and mental and spiritual well-
being, deriving a practical art from them useful in the siting of houses and
towns, and in finding healthy and avoiding unhealthy places, of using them
also as handy explanations of cultural differences, and finally of seeing in
them aids to statecraft in devising good laws. These theories thus fit well into
the Christian theology and philosophy of the Middle Ages. There need be
no conflict if they are regarded as generalizations of regional or local sig-
nificance elucidating the plan and the design of God. They had the weight of
classical science behind them; they were relevant to the problems, trials, and
illnesses of the wicked on an earth quite different in moral vigor from the
paradise in which the first man lived.
St. Thomas Aquinas came as close as anyone to pointing out the pertinence

of the one to the other. God made and planned the cosmos; the king made
and planned his kingdom. In his puny way and yet partaking of the divine,
the king would consider everything— the advantages of a place, its healthful-
ness, its influence on its human inhabitants— as a creative and creating mortal,
possessed of reason and a sense of order, should.

81 See William Archbishop of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, Bk. I,
chap. 7, on the origin and ancestry of the Turkish race; the description and history of
Constantinople, Bk. II, chap. 7; the description of Jerusalem and its water supply, Bk.
VIII, chaps. 1-4; the description of Caesarea, Bk. X, chap. 15. And also see Otto of
Freising, The Deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, Bk. II, chap. 13, for descriptions of Po
Valley, the Alps—which he called the Pyrennes— and the Apennines. The Lombards,
he said, lost their barbaric rudeness; intermarrying with the Romans, their sons in-
herited "something of the Roman gentleness and keenness from their mother's blood,
and from the very quality of the country and climate, retain the refinement of the Latin
speech and their elegance of manners." See also the description of the mountain of
Freising in connection with his summary of the life of St. Corbinian, in The Two Cities^
Bk. V, chap. 24, pp. 348-349. Adam of Bremen, History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-
Bremen, Book IV, on a description of the islands of the north.
 Chapter 7

Interpreting Piety and Activity,

and Their Effects on Nature

I . Introduction

The modern study of the Middle Ages has revealed an active, energetic world,
and it would be remarkable if in its surviving records there were no inter-
pretations of the significance of the changes made in the physical environ-
ment by man/
* I am indebted to many secondary works; although
In the preparation of this chapter
I documents when this was possible, many of the ideas were
have, consulted the original
gleaned from quotations of documents the originals of which, because of bibliographical
rarity or inaccessibility, were unavailable to me. The following works were of particular
value: Grand and Delatouche, V
Agriculture au Moyen Age de la Fin de VEmpire Romaiii
au XV Siecle, cited as AMA; Huffel, Economie Forestiere, cited as Huffel; De Maulde,
Etude sur la Condition Forestiere de POrleaiiais an Moyen Age et a la Renaissance^
cited as De Maulde); and Schwappach, Handbuch der Forst- und Jagdgeschichte
Deutschlands, cited as Schwappach.
Since this discussion is concerned with attitudes or ideas and not with the actual
history of environmental change, the following works— in addition to those cited above
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 289

Many historical geographers and historians of medieval times have seen

in the widespread environmental changes by human agency of that long
period a close relationship to its social and economic history. Let us name a
few of the themes, (i) The contributions of land reclamation in Western
Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries to ''the emancipation of the
common man."^ (2) The antiphonal themes of resistance to and the progress
of such change, the role of classes and the growth of organizing abihty among
them; examples are the maintenance of forests for royal and noble hunters at
the expense of the less well-off who were anxious to clear and increase the
arable, economic and religious motives in colonization, and the use of con-
tractors and subcontractors in forest clearance.^ (3) The role of the frontier
in medieval times and the comparative study of frontier history, a theme
especially attractive to the American historian James Westfall Thompson,
who saw parallels between the German expansion from the feudal west to
the nonfeudal east and the nineteenth century history of the American
frontier. Thompson also saw in Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier hypoth-

— may be consulted; they are valuable for their discussions and for their references to
other literature. Darby, "The Clearing of the Woodland in Europe," in MR, pp. 183-
216; idem, "The Face of Europe on the Eve of the Discoveries," in The New Cambridge
Modern History, Vol. i, pp. 20-49. Darby's writings on the historical geography of
Britain, the fens, and the Domesday Book have also been concerned with environmental
change. Bloch, Les Caracteres Originaux de VHistoire Rurale Frangaise, rev. ed., in two
volumes, the supplementary volume being edited by Dauvergne, Vol. i, pp. 1-20, Vol.
2, pp. 1-30. Vols. I and 2 of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe (cited as
CEHE) are also of interest, the following articles being most pertinent to the subject
matter of this chapter. Vol. i Koebner, "The Settlement and Colonisation of Europe,"
:

pp. 1-88; Parain, "The Evolution of Agricultural Technique," pp. 1 18-168; Ostrogorsky,
"Agrarian Conditions in the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages," pp. 194-223, and
chap. 8, "Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime," pp. 278-492 (Ganshof on France,
the Low Countries, and western Germany; Mickwith on Italy, Smith on Spain; Aubin
on the lands east of the Elbe and the German eastward colonization; Rutkowski on
Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary; Struve on Russia, Neilson on England, and Bolin on
Scandinavia). Vol. 2: Postan, "The Trade of Medieval Europe: the North," pp. 119-
256; Nef, "Mining and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation, pp. 429-492; Jones, "Build-
ing in Stone in Medieval Western Europe," pp. 493-518. The voluminous writings of
G. G. Coulton often touch on these themes. For a summary of his views on the Bene-
dictine Rule, monasteries, the peasant, and clearing, see Medieval Village, Manor, and
Monastery, pp. 212-230. See also his Five Centuries of Religion, Vol. 2. As is well
known, Coulton is very critical of many modern apologists of the monastic orders, who,
he believes, exaggerate their direct participation in the actual work of reclamation. He
is quite sympathetic with St. Benedict and the early monks working under the Bene-

dictine Rule. Boissonnade, Le Travail dans P Europe Chretiemie au Moyen-Age (English

trans.. Life and Work in Medieval Europe). Thompson, An Economic and Social His-
tory of the Middle Ages. White, Medieval Technology and Social Change.
2 On the history of this idea and for a case study from maritime Flanders, see Lyon,

"Medieval Real Estate Developments and Freedom," AHR, Vol. 63 (1957), pp. 47-61.
See also, Koebner, CEHE, Vol. i, pp. 3, 5, 11.
3 Darby, "The Clearing of the Woodland in Europe, MR,
pp. 193-194; Ganshof,
CEHE, Vol. I, p. 281; Koebner, ibid., pp. 45-47, 69, 71-72.
290 Interpreting Piety and Activity

esis a suggestive interpretation for earlier periods as well. me, the dif-To
ferences destroy much of the value in the comparison: one, with a modest
technology, was the work of centuries, the other, with the aid of machinery,
the work of decades. A more profitable comparative history would be with
the Mediterranean or the Chinese cultural landscapes through forest clear-
ance, the driving back of wild animals and the extinction of the larger preda-
tors, town building, irrigation, canal building, diking, and the like. The
study of this eastern German movement is of anthropological interest also,
century description of the manners of the Prussians reveals;
as the thirteenth
the theme of environmental change here may be associated with culture con-
tact. The eastward expansion of the Germans therefore involved dramatic
landscape changes, the creation of new settlements, forest villages (Wald-
hufenddrfer), river control, and marsh drainage. Landscapes whose appear-
ance reflected new kinds of densities arising out of human choices replaced
the older environment. For these reasons there has been a close association in
European scholarship between environmental change and settlement history.*
Finally, (4) there is the continuity of peasant competence and the history
of peasant ways, for peasants had the hands, used the tools, possessed empiric
knowledge of animals and plants.^
The age as a whole is marked by the retreat of forest, heath, marsh, and
bog, and the creation of new towns and arable, but we must not regard these
activities as progressively expanding, as the modern study of deserted villages
reminds us. Quarrying, another landscape change, was related to the building
demands of feudalism and the Church, mining, to forest use and to the ex-
ploration of remote regions thought to have ore deposits, reverberations of
traditional activities vividly described later in the early pages of Agricola.
Furthermore, one should emphasize the precarious nature of these environ-
mental changes: they had no necessary permanence; they might be merely
small and dispersed clearings in a forest. This precariousness and lack of
permanence are revealed in the modern study of the Wustungen, les vagues,
the deserted places, evidences of the reversion of the Roman arable to brush
or forest, or of areas once cleared but no longer occupied. Some of the most
intimate descriptions in the hagiography of the Middle Ages suggest the
meeting of the monks with feral animals and their joy, in coming upon a
deserted field, in recreating a paradise like the Garden of Eden. The vastinae,

*See note i. Lyon, op. cit.^ p. 47. Thompson, An Econo?nic and Social History of the
Middle Ages, pp. 517-519. Koebner, ibid., pp. 80-81. See also "The German Push to
the East," in Ross and McLaughlin, eds., The Portable Medieval Reader, pp. 421-429.
The valuable Ordensritter und Kirchenfursten, ed. by Biihler, from which the selection
is taken and translated, is not readily available in the U.S.
5 On this theme, see Koebner, CEHE, Vol. i,
p. 75; Coulton, Med. Village, Manor,
and Monastery, pp. 214, 219-221. Pfeiffer, "The Quality of Peasant Living in Central
Europe," MR, p. 241.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 29

the solitudines, the mansi, eremi loca invia, alsi, non vestiti were some of the
names applied to them.^
The whether made by the monasteries, the large manorial organi-
clearings,
zations, or by individual men, had little of the permanence and inevitability
with which we associate environmental change by human cultures today.
In the last hundred years in the areas of the world in which cultural modifica-
tions of the landscape have progressed most rapidly, there is little alarm, I
think, that barring worldwide destruction, nature again may claim the land-
scapes of man. The feehng that a clearing once made, a swamp once drained,
must be jealously guarded lest the whole area revert to its primitive state is
remote; it has been superseded by other worries because of the comparative
ease with which the changes of nature and the clearings can be maintained.
It is one of the interesting contrasts between these times and a past which

lasted perhaps up to the beginning of the nineteenth century: now it is a

question not of maintaining the cultural landscapes against the powerful
recuperative power of nature but of conserving the natural environment in
the face of the expansion of economies, tourism, and mechanistic concepts of
aesthetics.
Various historians have written of the great eras in the history of environ-
mental change in the Middle Ages, and these dates, naturally, have varied
somewhat. Grand and Delatouche distinguish three principal periods of clear-
ing—and of drainage: (i) the deforestation of the first barbarian kingdoms
(the Merovingians), with the earlier stimulus of the Roman example (on the
other hand, barbarians were often unfriendly to forest clearance because of
their behef that the seats of the gods were in the innermost forest and were
therefore holy);'' (2) the Carolingian period; and (3) the period from the
middle of the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries,^ the age des grands
defrichements, a most fascinating period in human history because of its

inherent interest as an example of landscape change on a large scale, because

of its lasting effects, because of the relationship of Christian theology to a
philosophy of change, and because of the glimmerings of understanding-
empirical rather than theoretical or experimental— of certain ecological rela-
and agriculture, the effects of grazing animals, shepherds'
tionships: the forest
firesand forest destruction, health, and environmental change— which we
will meet with in the following pages. Other periods were far less active,

^ Boissonnade, op. cit., pp. 31-32; AMA, pp. 55, 244. For an extensive bibliography

on the Wiistungen, see Guyan, "Die mittelalterHchen Wiistlegungen als archaologisches

und geographisches Problem dargelegt an einigen Beispielen aus dem Kanton SchafT-
hausen," Zeit. fiir Schweizerische Gesch, Vol. 26 (1946), pp. 433-478; see especially pp.
476-478 for the bibliography, and pp. 462-65 for the reasons adduced for the existence
of deserted places.
^Koebner, CEHE, Vol. i, pp. 20, 43-44.
^ AMA, pp. 237-246.
292 Interpreting Piety and Activity

distinguished by plagues, catastrophes, and invasions or anarchy, like that from

the middle of the ninth to the middle of the tenth century consequent upon
the Viking and Saracen invasions of Europe, the Black Death in the four-
teenth century, and the Hundred Years' War from 1337 to
(usually dated
the middle of the fifteenth century). The periods during which these great
changes in the appearance of the landscape took place naturally varied from
area to area and from time to time. The emphasis also changed: the early
monastic enthusiasms bound up closely with the ideals of St. Benedict and
St. Augustine later became more comfortable and worldly, and then corrupt.

In the late Middle Ages, the history of landscape change is associated both
with individuals and with the great domains, lay and ecclesiastical. It is not—
and cannot be— our task to describe the history of these changes themselves;
it is necessary, however, to make the general point in order to give substance to
the interpretations made of the changes. The most valuable clues are in spe-
cialized—and local— histories of forestry, grazing, transhumance, and mining.
Although one cannot divorce the ideas from the circumstances and events
which caused them to thrive and gave them meaning, we can distinguish in
the Middle Ages three different general ideas of man as a modifier of his
environment.
Despite some obvious objections, I have taken my illustrations from dif-
ferent countries and from different times. What I wish to say is that in the
Middle Ages, many men, widely scattered in place, living at different times,
were conscious of the reality of human modifications of nature by men like
themselves, that these changes were local in character and in the very nature
of things could not be synthesized into a body of thought represented by
the modern conservation literature. Today it is much easier to learn about
them than it was at the time. Occasionally, it is true, one meets with a state-
ment applying to a large area and a long time-span. Caesarius of Priim re-
marked that "it is known that during this long time [from 893 to 1222], many
forests have been cut down {multas silvas exstirpatas) many estates have been
^

built {villas aedificatas) and that the tithes had increased; in the period men-
tioned many mills had been erected, vines planted and an immeasurable extent
of land had been cultivated."^
These three general types of ideas are ( i ) those clearly inseparable from
Christian theology; (2) those without any necessary rehgious significance or
which, at least, are not directly related to theological questions, as for example
the effect of drainage on health, of first clearance on climate, of pine plantings
on sand dunes; and (3) those which combine the two, like the Benedictine
Rule and the early strictness of the Cistercians, the Premonstrants, the Char-
trists, in which work was both a duty to God and a practical activity related to

^Quoted in full in Lamprecht, Deutsche s Wirtschaftsleben im Mittelalter^ Vol. 1:1,

p. 402. See also Wimmer, Geschichte des deutschen Bodens, p. 56.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 293

the virtues and advantages of clearing, drainage, protection of woods for

pasture, or the creation of alps or mountain pastures. Piety was an active ally
compatible with these desired changes in nature. Creating a landscape fit for
Christian settlement for conversion and colonizing was a reward of piety.

2. The Christian Religion and the

Modification of Nature

Christian thinkers, hke the classical, asked two fundamental questions. How
does man differfrom other forms of life, especially the mobile, large land
animals, those closest to him in the hierarchy of being? How did man invent
arts like house building, weaving, and tillage? Man is intelligent, inventive,
skillful in the use of the eye and the hand which enforce the decisions of his
mind; the animals, lacking these qualities, have self-reliance from early infancy
and are much better endowed with protective covering— hair, fur, thick skins
—than is man. Man, with a mind and a soul— but without these natural protec-
tions—thus has a certain capacity to create his own environment, and through
his own inventiveness to create useful and protective devices which more than

make up for his natural weakness. This was the classical answer, the answer
that necessity is the mother of invention. The Christian answer was that of
Genesis, that man created in God's image has by God's grace dominion over
all nature. Many of the Church Fathers combined the two.

Theories of environmental influence had their place in medieval Christian

thought, as we have seen, and it was easy to reconcile them with the dominant
theology. It was equally easy— except for the extreme ascetic and the other-
worldly—to accept man's activities as part of his life on this earth, changes
being inevitable in this partnership with God, as he practiced agriculture, used
the forests and the domesticated animals and plants. The idea that man lived
as God's helper in finishing the creation, in a finite, created, and destructible
world, could be easily expressed by rural figures of speech of the Bible; it was
more easily understood than the sophisticated Greek ideas of environmental
influence. The occupations of town and rural life— tilHng, cutting of trees,
irrigation, grafting, building stone fences, quarrying— could easily persuade
men they were partners of God in improving the creation. "Yet the funda-
mental ethos of the new rehgion," Christopher Dawson has said, "was in no
way ahen to the peasant life. Its first beginning had been amongst the fisher-
men and peasants of GaHlee, and Gospel teaching is full of the imagery of the
field and the fold and the vineyard."^^

The early Christian Fathers were aware of the agricultural philosophy of

antiquity, especially as it was expressed by Varro and in Virgil. (The degree
to which they appHed the organic analogy to the earth is hard to answer

Dawson, The Making of Europe, p. 174.

 Interpreting Piety and Activity

clearly; many of them rejected the idea of a senescence in nature, possibly

following Philo: nature as a creation of God was a fertile and abundant gift
and was not mortal in a human sense.) The earth owes its fertility to the good-
ness and the planning of the Creator; human beings can live so long as they
till and plant it, prune its trees, or graft them, or introduce them into new

places.
It would be remarkable, therefore, no bridge was built from theology to
if

farming, grazing, and the forest— that is, if no divine purpose was seen in man's
ability to sustain himself by using the earth and changing it to meet his desires.
The monks of the West could enter on virgin lands or reclaim those once
prosperous and fertile under the Romans. In forests, which were more than
reserves for royal and noble hunters, men could graze the horses, cattle, swine,
sheep, and goats, gather honey for sweetening and wax for the Church candles,
and collect dead branches for fuel.
What has been said of the monks could apply to the whole Church. One
must live and propagate the faith even in a sinful world that is but a shabby
anteroom to the heavenly city to come. The monastic settlements "were
forced by necessity to take up the peasant's task, to clear the forest and to till
the ground. The lives of the monastic saints of the Merovingian period,
whether Gallic or Celtic, are full of references to their agricultural labours—
their work of clearing the forest and of bringing back to civilization the lands
that had been abandoned during the period of the invasions."^^
To the very religious, the earth, as the home of man, was a vital link in his
partnership with God. There was often a deep feeling among the monks that
in their forest retreats, their clearings, their tillage, they were duplicating con-
ditions like those of Paradise before the Fall. Nor should one dismiss lightly
the legends of wild animals appearing in the forests, becoming helpers of the
monks, as expected excesses of enthusiastic hagiography; distorted in the tell-
ing and the repetition, the legends may well be based on actual conditions in
which monks reclaimed deserted lands, using feral animals and perhaps re-
domesticating them. In the early history of the monastic orders, when the
religious idealswere still stronger and not yet diluted by prosperity and world-
liness, there was a close relationship between the ideals of the contemplative

life, the philosophy of work in the Benedictine Rule, and the daily tasks of

normal living, whether of monks or of their lay helpers. It was understood

how changes in the environment could affect them. Such understanding is
apparent in the conflicts over customary rights and usages, often very simply
as the shepherds who cause forest fires by fires they light to warm themselves
while tending their flocks, in forest legislation, and in the intimate relationship
between the forest and the arable land.

^^Ibid., p. 178.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 295

3. Interpreting Man's Dominion Over Nature

It was not uncommon for religious thinkers to adopt a positive attitude toward

man's activity on earth, an attitude that recognized his need to change the
earth and which often valued technical inventions. Certain writings of Philo
the Jew, of Tertullian, Origen, St. Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St.

Ambrose, St. Augustine, Theodoret, and Cosmas Indicopleustes illustrate the

breadth and scope of ideas which linked religion, technology, and environ-
mental change.
Philo's belief in an artisan-deity who had created the earthby design led
him to consider the question of man's dominion over nature, which the Old
Testament repeatedly assured men they possessed. In no other early writer
known to me is there so vivid a commentary on this dominion which God had
granted man; moreover there is reason to believe that men became convinced
of the reality of this dominion through their age-old association with domesti-
cated animals in Asia Minor and the eastern Mediterranean.
Man, appearing and suddenly, Philo says, produced consternation
last

among the animals; the mere sight of man was enough to tame them, the most
ferocious of the animals being the first and most easily tamed. Their docility
was reserved for man alone, their pugnacity continuing unabated among
themselves. All living things on land, water, and in the air were subject to him.

The clearest proof of man's rule is afforded by what goes on before our eyes.
Sometimes vast numbers of cattle are led by one quite ordinary man neither
wearing armour nor carrying an iron weapon nor anything with which to de-
fend himself, with nothing but a sheepskin to cover him and staff wherewith to
show them which way to go and to lean on should he grow weary on his
journeys. See, there is a shepherd, a goatherd, a cowherd leading flocks of sheep

and goats, and herds of kine. They are men not even strong and lusty in body,
unlikely, so far as healthy vigour goes, to create consternation in those who
see them. And all the prowess and strength of all those well-armed animals, who
possess the equipment which nature provides and use it in self-defence, cower
before him like slaves before a master, and do his bidding.^^

The everyday handhng of the bull at the plow, the shearing of the ram, the
mastery over the horse, the most spirited of animals, shows how easily this
power is exerted.
Man in his control over nature is compared to a driver and pilot (rjvioxov

Srj TLva Koi Kv/SepvrjTrjv) . It would be a mistake to suppose that man lacked
power because he was the last to be created, because he followed behind
the others. The driver follows the team but holds the reins; and on the acts
of the pilot at the stern depends the safety of all.

Philo, On the Creation, 84-85.

296 Interpreting Piety and Activity

"So the Creator made man all things, as a sort of driver and pilot, to drive
and steer the things on earth, and charged him with the care of animals and
plants, like a governor subordinate to the chief and great King."^^ What a
gracious and transparent passage! How quickly it explains man's dominion
by his prowess and skill in the control of animals and the domestication of
plants.
In a remarkable rebuttal of the doctrine of metempsychosis, Tertullian {ca,
i6o-ca. 240) skillfully brings ideas of migration, population increase, and
environmental change by human agency to bear on the argument.^^ If the
living come from the dead as the dead now do from the living, then the popu-
lation of the earth should always be the same; there should be the same num-
ber of people on earth that started life in the beginning. This is clearly not
the case, he says, because people in the past have migrated because of over-
population. (Tertullian's source is apparently Varro's lost work on divine and
human things.) In fact, he continues, there has been a gradual increase in the
world's population in various centers of growth, people coming there from a
mother city TertulHan probably means by this term nomads,
as aborigines.

exiles, conquerors, or ordinary emigrants,^^ from overpopulated areas. The

world now not only has more people in it, but it is also daily becoming more
cultivated. Indeed, faith and reason can coexist, for it was Tertullian also who
said, "Credo quia ineptum."
"All places are now accessible, all are well known, all open to commerce;
most pleasant farms have obliterated all traces of what were once dreary and
dangerous wastes; cultivated fields have subdued forests; flocks and herds
have expelled wild beasts; sandy deserts are sown; rocks are planted; marshes
are drained; and where once were hardly solitary cottages, there are now
The complaint is that the growing numbers of the world's
large cities. "^^
peoplesbecome a burden which the earth's substances cannot sustain. "Our
wants grow more and more keen, and our complaints bitter in all mouths,
whilst Nature fails in affording us her usual sustenance." Pestilence, famine,
earthquakes, have pruned the luxuriance of the human race; but these men
have never returned to earth "after their millennial exile," a reference to Plato's
term for "the usual time for the purification during the interval between two
subsequent incorporations."^''

^^Ibid., 88.
^^In what follows I am indebted to J. H. Waszink's edition of De Anivia {Quinti
Septimi Florentis TertulUani De Anijna), Latin text, introduction, and commentary.
See the commentary on De Anima^ chap. 30, pp. ^jo-^jj.
1^ Tertullian, who knew Greek well, used the term
aTroi/c/a, a colony or settlement, to
describe this kind of migration. The word also had the sense of a daughter colony; on
aborigines, see Waszink, op. cit., pp. 372-373.
16 "A Treatise on the Soul" {De Anima), trans, by Peter Holmes, chap. 30, 3, ANF,
Vol. 3, p. 210. Tertullian did not really say credo quia absurdum. See Gilson, HCPMA,
p. 45.
p. 376, under 30, 4: Mille Annos, and the references there cited:
17 Waszink, op. cit.,

Plato, Republic, 10, 61 5 A; Phaedrus, 249A; Virgil, Aeneid, 6, 748.

 Interpreting Piety and Activity 297

Tertullian had expressed similar ideas in On the Fallium (De pallio) from
which the passages in De aniJJta are derived. "How much of the earth has this
age transformed! How many of her cities has the triple vigor of our (present)
"^^
empire produced, increased, or restored! Tertullian sees a relationship be-
tween population growth in scattered centers throughout the world and the
transformations of the landscape, but his checks to population growth are not
related to environmental change nor is there a suggestion of environ-
mental deterioration as a result of expanding population. But TertuUian was
interested in keeping dead souls from coming back to earth, not in environ-
mental change. Although Tertullian said, in his plea to the rulers of the
Roman Empire for justice, that Christian truth knows "she is but a sojourner
on the earth," he added that the accusation that Christians are "useless in the
affairs of hfe" is false. "We are not Indian Brahmins or Gymnosophists [i.e.,
the naked Indian philosophers], who dwell in woods and exile themselves
from ordinary human life. ... So we sojourn with you in the world, abjuring
neither forum, nor shambles, nor bath, nor booth, nor workshop, nor inn, nor
weekly market, nor any other places of commerce. "^^
According to Origen, man changes nature because he needs the arts, for
he lacks the necessities of life and the protective covering of the animals. The
classical argument of necessity being the mother of invention is compatible
with Origen's Christian theology because God had appointed man a partner
in nature over which he was to rule as a master. Human understanding is made
to be exercised, not to be idle. God made man a needy being to force him to
discover arts in order to nourish and to protect himself. It is the human in-
tellect that Origen values. Those having no interest in religion or philosophy
should be in need so that they may be spurred on to discover the arts. If
these men were prosperous, they would neglect their intellects. Need for the
life-giving necessities brought about agriculture, viticulture, gardening, car-
pentry, blacksmithing, weaving, wool-carding, spinning, building and then
architecture, and sailing and navigation because the necessities of life are
not found in all Providence makes the rational creature more needy
places.
than the irrational animals. The sequence is from God to man's intellect to
the arts, and from them to the changes made in the landscape. The latter,
however, are not stressed; but the cultivation of the mind through the stimu-
lus of need is.^^

18 "Quantum reformavit orbis saeculum istud! quantum urbium aut produxit aut
auxit aut reddidit praesentis imperii triplex virtus!" {De pallio^ II, 7). The passages im-
mediately preceding this must have been of great interest, but they are too garbled for
quotation.
19 Apology, trans, by Thelwall, chap, i, ANF, Vol.
3, p. 17; chap. 42, p. 49. The whole
apology is interesting for the information it gives regarding the accusations made by
the critics of the Christians and their replies.
20 Origen, Contra Celsmn, IV, 76. Chadwick, Contra Celsiim,
p. 245, calls attention
to the importance of Plato's Protagoras^ 321A-B; Cicero's De natura deorur)!^ II, 47, 121;
298 Interpreting Piety and Activity

In the second homily on the text, "the earth was

and unfinished,"^^ invisible
St. Basil says that God created both the essence and the form of the earth, the

matter which He created being in harmony with the form He wished it to

have. Many details of the creation He passed over in purposeful silence, such
as the manner in which water, air, fire, came into being, because it was neces-

sary to train the human intelligence to discover the truth. Contemporary ob-
servations that excessive moisture impairs the earth's productivity suggest to
Basil the nature of a still incomplete earth whose waters are not yet confined
within their proper bounds. Excessive dampness prevents the earth from being
seen (because of fog) and from being complete, "for the proper and natural
adornment of the earth is its completion: corn waving in the valleys— mea-

dows green with grass and rich with many coloured flowers— fertile glades
and hill-tops shaded by forests." The description of the furnishing of the
earth— which in Basil's example includes changes made by man— explains, in
lieu of direct divine information on the subject, what God did. The land-
scapes of his own day, by impHcation, are adornments and completions, like

God's furnishings.^^
Gregory of Nyssa expresses a view which affirms the value of nature and
things of this earth even though they must be in a subordinate position to the
kingdom of God. Gregory says there is a connection between the actual and
the spiritual; God has created both and rules over them. Nothing in the cre-
ation should be rejected, nor anything excluded from the community of
is

God (follows I Tim. 4:4). This union of spiritual and physical is embodied
by God in man.^^ Man is a master over nature which helps him on his way
to God, nature itself being raised up and exalted in the process. God made an
earth full of riches, including the gold, silver, stones, valued by man; he al-
lowed men to appear on earth to witness these wonder works and to assume
his role as master of them.^^ Mastery over the lower beings was necessary
to satisfy his needs: mastery over the horse because of the slowness and dif-
ficulty of human bodily movements; over the sheep because of our naked-
ness; over the oxen because humans are not grass eaters; over the dog because
his jawbone is a living knife for men. His mastery of iron gives him the pro-
tection that horns and claws afford the animals.^^
St. Ambrose (340-397), whose writings contain so much symbolism, so

many comparisons between religious acts and the everyday duties of agricul-

and Plutarch's Moralia, 98D, in the distinction which Origen makes between inventing
man and the well-endowed rational man; see also Chadwick's remarks on Stoicism and
Origen, pp. x-xi.
21 Gen. 1:2, trans, in the RSV, "The earth was without form and void," etc.
22 Basil, Homilies in Hexaemeron, II, 3.
23 Yhe Great Catechism, chap. 6.
24 On the Making of Man, chap. 2.
25 Ibid., chap. 7.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 299

ture, gardening, and viticulture (the Church is a field filling the granaries, the
bishop, like a farmer, cares for the fields under his charge), thinks of man as
a farmer improving the earth in partnership with God.^^ In a letter to Valen-
tinian Augustus in the autumn of 384, he writes that the world was much
more beautiful when it was furnished than at the beginning of creation.
"Formerly, the earth did not know how to be worked for her fruits. Later
when the careful farmer began to rule the fields and to clothe the shapeless
soil with vines, she put away her wild dispositions, being softened by domes-
tic cultivation."^^

These statements of the early Church Fathers set the stage for a famous and
rather surprising passage in Augustine's City of God, surprising because his
name is often associated with an ascetic denial of the world, and because of
his tendency to make an almost insuperable gulf— which only the Church is
capable of bridging— between sinful man and a perfect God. Augustine, how-
ever, generously praises human intelligence, skill, and creativity, granting of
course that he owes them to the Creator. These capacities have enabled man
by which human society has come into being. God has given
to create the arts
the soul a which reason and understanding, asleep in infancy, awaken
mind in
with maturity and attain knowledge: thus the mind is capable of instruction,
of understanding the true, and of loving the good. The soul can make war on
error and other inborn vices, conquering them "by fixing its desires upon no
other object than the supreme and unchangeable Good."

And even though this be not uniformly the result, yet who can competently
utter or even conceive the grandeur of this workof the Almighty, and the
unspeakable boon He has conferred upon our rational nature, by giving us even
the capacity of such attainment? For over and above those arts which are called
virtues, and which teach us how we may spend out our life well, and attain to
endless happiness— arts which are given to the children of the promise and the
kingdom by the sole grace of God which is in Christ— has not the genius of man
invented and applied countless astonishing arts, partly the result of necessity,
partly the result of exuberant invention, so that this vigour of mind, which is so
active in the discovery not merely of superfluous but even of dangerous and
destructive things, betokens an inexhaustible wealth in the nature which can
invent, learn, or employ such arts? What wonderful— one might say stupefying
—advances has human industry made in the arts of weaving and building, of
agriculture and navigation! With what endless variety are designs in pottery,
painting, and sculpture produced, skill executed! What won-
and with what
derful spectacles are exhibited in the theatres, which those who have not seen
them cannot credit! How
skilful the contrivances for catching, killing, or tam-
ing wild beasts! And for the injury of men, also, how many kinds of poisons,
weapons, engines of destruction, have been invented, while for the preservation
or restoration of health the appliances and remedies are infinite! Who could . . .

26 Springer, Nature- Imagery in the Works of St. Ambrose, pp. 77, 82, and passim.
27 St. Ambrose, Letters. Letter 8 (53 in the Benedictine enumeration), p. 47; see also
Letter 49 (43), pp. 254-264.
300 Interpreting Piety and Activity

tellthe thought that has been spent upon nature, even though, despairing of re-
counting it in detail, he endeavoured only to give a general view of it? In fine,
even the defense of errors and misapprehensions, which has illustrated the genius
of heretics and philosophers, cannot be sufficiently declared.^^

Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus {ca. 390-458), in his work on Providence,

had skillfully adapted the classical finalistic arguments to Christian theology,
hoping in this way to win over the intellectuals who still rejected the Church
despite its political triumphs.^^ Man is depicted as some classical writers de-
picted him, as a triumphant doer and transformer whose hands and arms—
their significance and preciousness lay in their being instruments in the ser-
vice of intelligence— plow up the land, sow it, dig ditches, cut the vine, reap
the harvest, bind the sheaves, and winnow the grain. The arms have enabled
the human spirit to embellish the earth with flowery meadows, rich harvests,
spacious woods, and a thousand routes over the sea. Wisdom coming from
God enabled man to invent the tools of mining and agriculture, the arts bor-
rowing from one another what is useful to each. The architect borrows the
tools he needs from the blacksmith, the blacksmith gets his shelter from the
architect, and both take their nurture from agriculture, but the agriculturaHst
too needs his horse and his tools. If one gets back to beginnings one sees how
God has granted man the use of things he needs: man has thus become a miner,
a builder of cities, a sailor joining the land to the sea. It is part of God's care
for the world that man not only lives, but Hves well.^^
The most striking early statement of man's stewardship of nature because
he is the earthly representative of the divine appears in Cosmas Indicopleustes'
The Christian Topography, written probably between 535 and 547. He com-
pared the creation which took place before the appearance of man with the
preparation that goes into furnishing and decorating a house before living in
it. God had gathered in this house all His manifold and diversified works.

When the preparations were complete, God acted like a king who "when
he has founded a city and completed it, places there his own image, tinting
and embellishing it with various colours. ." The image God placed in His
. .

house is that of man, whom He selected to complete and to adorn it. Since
man is an image of God, the angels hover around him as guardians, minister-
ing to him. For a like reason the whole creation serves him: the familiar uses
of the sun, air, fire, and water to man are listed, and the utilitarian view of
nature is neatly meshed in with God's and the angels' care for man, who is
the "bond uniting all the creation in friendship"; "the dispensation under

28 City of God, Bk. XXII, chap. 24.

29 On the probable reasons for writing this work, see Azema's introduction to his
French translation of Theodoret's Discoitrs sur la Providence, pp. 30-32; see also Gil-
son's remarks, HCPMA, pp. 596-597.
30 See the fourth discourse entire, 613-616D on the hands and arms; 616A-D on the

arts which change nature; 61 7A on mutual borrowings in the arts; 620A-B, man as a
builder; and also Azema's discussion of the passages, p. 164, note 76.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 301

which he lives is a school for his own instruction, and for that of all rational
beings." The notion of the creation as a school for mankind we have already
met in St. Basil; in the late eighteenth century Herder uses it in describing the
role of the earth in the education of the human race.
In his exalted position, man is "the king of all things on earth and reigns
along with the Lord Christ in the heavens, and becomes a fellow-citizen of
heavenly beings, and unto whom as the image of God all creation ministers
while under subjection to God, and preserves its affection and gratitude
it is

toward Creator."^^
its We
need not press the point further regarding this
early Christian concept of man as a modifier of nature, as an agent of God in
furnishing and finishing the creation. Most of these expositions appear in the
apologetic and homiletic literature— apologetic because it had to meet the
still cogent criticisms of the pagans, homiletic because it was devoted to ex-

plaining the new faith, sometimes as St. Basil explained it in simple terms,
sometimes as Theodoret explained it on a level requiring a deeper knowledge
of classical science and philosophy. In defending their new religion, many
Christian thinkers felt they could not ignore the charge that it meant a full
renunciation of the world, nor could they fail to recognize the industry, ac-
tivity, and accomplishments of man. One senses that the Christian position is

being made with a certain urgency by TertuUian. We

are accused of being
useless in the affairs of life, he says, but "We sail with you, and fight with
you, and till the ground with you; and in Hke manner we unite with you in
your traffickings— even in the various arts we make public property of our
works for your benefit. "^^
These ideas were both inheritances from classical thought and fitting sup-
plements to scriptural teaching. The classical inheritance was built on the role
of the mind, the eye, the hand in invention, which in turn led to environ-
mental change with the aid often of the domesticated animals, even if in their
daily life these thinkers disdained manual work as the occupation of slaves. In
the Christian teaching, human activities were in accordance with the biblical
injunction "to fill the earth and subdue it." There was no incompatibility be-
tween the purposes of God and the workings of man, for man was finishing
and furnishing the earth with God's help and encouragement.
The strength of this interpretation is evidenced by its reappearance in the

31 Cosmas, The Christian Topography (trans. J. W. McCrindle), Bk. 3, 169, pp.

104-105, Bk. 5, 210, p. 167. On the date of composition, pp. x-xi; scattered throughout
the work are many reminders of classical and early Christian ideas of man, matter,
and the earth: the theory of four elements, pp. lo-ii, 20-21, 85-86; the antipodes, pp.
14-15, 136-137; the nature of the earth and of paradise, p. 33; conventional ideas of en-
vironmental influence, 41; the idea of a scale of being, p. 108; the refinement of human,
compared with the grossness of animal, copulation, p. 109; the youth and importance
of the arts, the youth of the world, pp. 124-125; the klimata, pp. 244-252; comment on
Rom. 1:20, pp. 293-294; and against eternal recurrence, p. 301.
32 TertuUian, Apology,
42, ANF, Vol. 3, p. 48.
302 Interpreting Piety and Activity

writings of St. Man is a partner of God, applying his intelligence to

Thomas.
own uses.
his When God put sinless man in paradise he intended that this first
man dress it and keep it as a labor of love; it was not the labor of sin it later
became.^^ Dressing and keeping paradise "would have been pleasant on ac-
count of man's practical knowledge of the powers of nature."^^ Dressing and
tillage are thus kept distinct from sin and the Fall. St. Thomas implies that
there is divine approval of man's work and the uses to which he puts the earth
even after the Fall.

4. Philosophies of Work
The monks of the Western monasteries, however, had a different outlook
from that of the apologists and homilists, and their experiences became the
foundation for new interpretations of the changes men make in their environ-
ment. Their attitudes were less classical and less bookish than those of the
early Church Fathers and St. Thomas. They had their justification in theol-
ogy and in the dignity of daily tasks. The rule of St. Benedict and earlier
writers on monasticism, like St. Basil and St. Augustine (and later St. Thomas
Aquinas), had also given such marked con-
this dignity to physical labor in

trast with the Labor was dissociated from the Fall in the
classical attitude.

sense that there was a pleasure to be had in work; it was not a penalty of sin
alone. Almost all students of the Western monastic orders emphasize the strong
practical demands which religious, social, economic, and chmatic conditions
in the Latin West, following the barbarian invasions, imposed on their mem-
bers, coloring their ideals; the conditions they faced might be remedied in
part with meditation and prayer, but also required was the use of the axe, the
torch, the hoe, the plow, the dog, and the ox, whether by the monks them-
selves or others working for them. Although one cannot insist on the hard
and fast distinction between the philosophy of the apologists and the homilists
and that of the founders and abbots of monastic orders (one man might be
both), interpretations of man as a modifier of the environment were far more
frequent among the latter than among the former, because their roots were in
the practical everyday problems of monastic life.
It is true that the ideals of Western monasticism came from Eastern mo-

nasticism, which itself had emphasized manual labor. The stress was on the
search for God by the individual, divorcement not only from the life of the
world but from the secularity of the church.^^ Their spiritual works have
33 Gen. 2:15, reading in the RSV: "The Lord God took the man and put him
Cites
in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it."
34 Siimma Theologica, Pt. I, Quest. 102, Art.
3, Vol. i, p. 501.
35 Workman, The Evolution
of the Monastic Ideal, pp. 10-13, i54~i57» 219-220. Work-
man emphasizes that the monks rebelled against the secularization of the church as well
as fleeing from the world; the systematization of work and the revolution in man's con-
ceptions of the place of toil made by St. Benedict; the greater devotion to and more
serious application of the idea of work by monks of the West.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

such titles as On celestial desire. For the contemplation and love of the celestial

homeland, ivhich is who despise the ivorld, Praise of

accessible only to those
the celestial Jerusalem, On the
happiness of the celestial homeland. The irony,
as Workman was fond of pointing out, was that the ideal of labor, later
manifested in economic undertakings, ultimately brought them back into the
world.^^
To St. Bernard, the monk is a dweller in Jerusalem, which might be any-
where, a place away from the world and from sin, where one comes close to
God, angels, and saints. "The monastery is then a Jerusalem in anticipation, a
place of waiting and of desire, of preparation for that holy city towards which
we look with joy."^^

The is a "true paradise," and the surrounding countryside shares in its

cloister
dignity. Nature "in the raw," unembellished by work or art, inspires the learned
man with a sort of horror: the abysses and peaks which we like to gaze at, are
to him an occasion of fear. A wild spot, not hallowed by prayer and asceticism
and which is not the scene of any spiritual life is, as it were, in the state of
original sin. But once it has become fertile and purposeful, it takes on the utmost
significance.^^

If we recall EHade's words on the cosmic city as a divine archetype for the
earthly city, these sentences of Dom Leclercq take on new meaning. When
possession is taken of lands, and their exploitation begins, "rites are performed
that symbolically repeat the act of Creation: the uncultivated zone is first

'cosmicized,' then inhabited."^^

In the development of monasticism in the Latin West, monks were often
led away from an exaggerated emphasis on solitude to new values called
forth by the conditions they faced: the need to expand spiritual care, the ac-
tivity of conversion, the clearing and the building necessary to accomplish
these, theproper setting of the monasteries for water supply and accessibility
and often for the appreciation of beauty and scenery .^^
Even piety has its inexorable practical demands: "a flock of sheep was
needed to provide the parchment for copying a book by Seneca or Cicero."
Wild animals hunted by permits or in the forests owned by the abbey could
supply the leather and skins for the bindings.^^ What began in retreatended
in activity, conversion, clearing, planting, stockbreeding. In the founding of
monasteries away from the cities, there was often a consciousness of trans-
forming the landscape for human needs. The poet Mark (thought to be a
monk at Monte Cassino under Simplicius, the third abbot, ca. 560, or a pilgrim
36 Workman, op. pp. 157, 220-224.
cit., On
spiritual works, see Jean Leclercq, The
Love of Learning and the Desire for God, pp. 27, 94-97, 105.
3^ Jean Leclercq, op. cit., pp. 59-60; quote on p. 60.
3^ Ibid., 136.
p.
39 Eliade, Cosmos and History, p. 10. See supra, pp. 207, 213-214; on God's creation of
a celestial Jerusalem before its earthly counterpart was built by man, pp. 8-9.
McCann, Saint Benedict, pp. 57-64, pp. 47-48.
*^ Leclercq, op. cit., p. 129.
 Interprethig Piety and Activity

visiting Monte Cassino in the eighth century) described such a transforma-

tion of Monte Cassino with the founding of the Benedictine order, a transfor-
mation creating beauty, providing comfort, inspiring piety, and with a moral
teaching.
Lest men should tire who seek thy high abode
Winds round its sides a gently-sloping road.
Yet justly does the mountain honor thee,
For thou hast made it rich and fair to see.
Its barren sides by thee are gardens made,
Its naked rocks with fruitful vineyards laid,
The crags admire a crop and fruit not theirs.
The wild wood now a bounteous harvest bears.
E'en so our barren deeds to fruit thou trainest.
Upon our arid hearts pure waters rainest.
Turn now to fruit the evil thorns, I pray.
That vex the stupid breast of Mark alway.^^

The influence of the Benedictine Rule is a famihar theme in the history of

Western civiHzation; manual labor, once despised as the lot of slaves, be-
comes a guiding principle. Many of the rules are concerned with practical
affairs. The work of God may be performed in the oratory, the monastery,

the garden, or on the road (chap. 7).

The most frequently quoted chapter is the forty-eighth, beginning, "idle-
ness is the enemy of the soul. The brethren, therefore, must be occupied at
stated hours in manual labour, and again at other hours in sacred reading."^^
The Benedictine Rule, however, was not the first, as we have seen, to pre-
scribe manual labor; such a provision was in the orders of St. Pachomius in
Egypt, whose cenoby was an agricultural and industrial colony, and in the
Basilian rule. St. Augustine, whom St. Benedict had cited on the matter, was
outspoken about the desirabihty of monks working. Let us examine his reasons.
St. Augustine makes the point over and over that monks should work with

their hands, not symbolically but literally. In the Retractationes, which gives
reasons for composing the work, he says that some monks in monasteries being
established at Carthage maintain themselves by the work of their own hands,
while others wish to "on the oblations of the faithful" (ex oblationibus
live
religiosorum vivere volebant) By doing no work for their maintenance, they
.

^2 Quoted in McCann, Saint Benedict, pp. 203-204. Latin text in Migne, PL, Vol. 80,
183-186. For other references to the poem, McCann, p. 204, footnote.
^3 "Otiositas inimica est animae; et ideo certis temporibus occupari debent fratres in

labore manum, certis iterum horis in lectione divina" (chap. 48). Manual labor was
liberally defined; it included not only the normal manual labor of the fields and of
general maintenance within the monastery, but such tasks as copying manuscripts. On
the subject of manual work in the rule {De opera manuuni cotidiana), see McCann,
Saint Benedict, pp. 75-76, 140-141. D. Oswald Hunter Blair, The Rule of St. Benedict
(Latin and English with notes). On the sacred groves and other pagan survivals in
Monte Cassino (based on St. Gregory), see McCann, p. 70; on the work of God, pp.
77-78. See also chaps. 19 and 20 of the Rule.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 305

thought— and boasted of it— that they were but fulfilHng Gospel precepts, re-
lying heavily on Matthew 6:25-34 (and on I Cor. 3:5-10). The Heavenly
Father feeds the birds, who neither sow nor reap nor gather food into barns;
neither do the lilies toil or spin. Augustine writes primarily to rebut this
point of view.^^
He makes cannot possibly be missed that all this
the point so often that it

is a false reading, that the appropriate texts are elsewhere, mainly in Paul, the

most cited being II Thessalonians 3:10: *'If anyone will not work, let him not
eat." Paul, he says, wished the servants of God to do manual work whose end
is reward; they should depend on their
a spiritual own and no other hands for
their food and clothing.^^ (See Paul's strong words in II Thess. 3:6-12.)
It is a remarkable document, diffuse and repetitious, sometimes pithy, con-

temptuous of cant, and based almost entirely on the writings of Paul. In it is

the germ of the Benedictine teaching that idleness is the enemy of the soul, and
there are strong words for lazy and arrogant monks who fail to set a good
example for the newcomer. If they wish to be like the birds, then let them
also not store up for the morrow.^^ Nor has he patience with those who ask
how one can find time for labor and still preach the gospel; again he points to
Paul's life and writings. Can one not sing divine hymns while working, like
rowers with their boat songs? Even laborers can continue work while sing-
ing their bawdy songs.^^ "What then hinders a servant of God while working
with his hands to meditate in the law of the Lord, and sing unto the name of
theLord Most High? provided, of course, that to learn what he may by mem-
ory rehearse, he have times set apart."^^
Augustine sees a pleasure in a period of manual work. In a well-ordered
monastery with a rule, a monk can follow his labors with reading, prayer, or
work pertaining to divine letters, for the perils of idleness are great. Look at
the undisciphned young widows who learn how to be idle, to be busybodies
and chatterboxes. (Quotes I Tim. 5:13.)^^
If the poor, who have worked in the world all their lives, come to monas-

teries and then lead lazy lives, what of the rich who renounce all to work at
humble tasks? The rich should not be "brought low into piety so that the
poor may be Hnked up into pride." He sees no sense in this reversal of roles,
the exchanging of daintinesses {et quo veiiiunt relictis deliciis suis qui pier ant
praedioruvt domini, ibi sijJt rustici delicati).^^ The monk seeking excuses for
not working is presumptuous and insincere, and like those who will not
shear off their long hair, lacking in humility .^^ He seems to imply tliat even a

Retractationes, Bk. II, chap. ii,De op. inonach. 2, NPN, Vol. 3, p. 504.
^^Ibid., 3-4, p. 504.
^^Ibid., 30, p. 518.
Ibid., 20, p. 514; 37, p. 521.
Ibid., 20, p. 514.
^^Ibid., 26, p. 516.
^^Ibid., 33, p. 519; text in OCSA, Vol. 22, p. 118.
^^Ibid., 39, pp. 522-523-
 ,

3o6 Interpreting Piety and Activity

monk's life requires variety in prayer, study, and practical activity and that
no lessening of piety need be anticipated because of it. It seems clear too that
the basic justification for this and for the labor rule comes from Paul.
Benedict put Augustine's teaching, or Paul's, in practice. Work meant or-
derly daily activity, not miscellaneous tasks done randomly. Work {opus
secundarium) was subordinate only to the work of God {opus dei), that is,
the performance of the Divine Office, the daily psalmody and prayer. "Pray
and work." According to Herwegen, a recent student of the rule, otiositas
(idleness) meant rest from public, official activity— inactivity without bene-
fit to the commonalty.^^
Let us now look at some accounts of the foundings of monasteries and inter-
pretations made of their significance. According to the venerable Bede, Ethel-
wald, who ruled the province of Deira, offered land to "God's servant Cedd"
(d. 659) to found a monastery. Cedd accepted the offer. "In accordance with
the king's wishes, Cedd chose a site for the monastery among some high and
remote hills, which seemed more suitable for the dens of robbers and haunts
of wild beasts than for human habitation. His purpose in this was to fulfill the
prophecy of Isaiah: 'm the haunts where dragons once dwelt shall be pasture
with reeds and rushes,^^^ and he wished the fruit of good works to spring up
where formerly lived only wild beasts, or men who lived like the beasts."^*
The desire to choose remote sites which would become little paradises and
centers for conversion is well brought out in Eigil's Life of St. Sturm (d. 779),
the first abbot of Fulda monastery and a student of St. Boniface.^^ Boniface
had encouraged Sturm in his desire to become a hermit, giving him assistance
and his blessing. "Go to the solitude which is called Bochonia and see if the
place is fit for servants of God to dwell in, for even in the desert God is able
to prepare a place for His followers."^^ After finding a place with the proper

52 Herwegen, Sinn und Geist der Benediktinerregel,

p. 283. See the discussion of
chapter 48 {De opera manuum cotidiana), pp. 282-293. Herwegen says otiositas ap-
proximates in meaning the German word Musse with the overtones of inactivity and
public irresponsibihty. On the Benedictine Rule and the need for regularity and variety
of occupation, see Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries c. 12^^ to iS3S^ chap. 7.
"It is extremely significant that monasticism broke down directly St. Benedict's careful
adjustment of occupations became upset" (p. 288).
5^ In the King James version, Isa.
35:7, "in the habitation of dragons, where each lay,
shall.be grass with reeds and rushes," and in the RSV, "the haunt of jackals shall become
a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes." Isa. 35:1 could well have fitted in
with monastic aspirations: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert
shall rejoice and blossom. ." (RSV).
. .

5* Bede, A History of the English Church aiid People, trans. Sherley-Price, Bk. Ill,

chap. 23 (Penguin Classics), p. 177.

55 See the collection. The Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, trans, and ed. C. H.

Talbot (The Makers of Christendom series), especially Willibald's The Life of St.
Boniface, and The Correspondence of St. Boniface, for vivid descriptions of missionary
activity of the early Christian church in the West. Eigil's The Life of St. Sturm is
valuable for the light it throws on monastic practical activity.
56 Eigil's "The Life of St. Sturm," loc. cit.,
p. 183.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

soil and water supply, he returned to Boniface, who, after reflection, advised
him to seek another spot because of the dangers of attack by the Saxons. Sturm
searched a second time, reporting again to Boniface, who "was very eager to
establish monastic life in the wilderness. . .
." Sturm said that no suitable place
had been found, to which Boniface replied "that the place predestined by God
had not yet been revealed. ."^^ After further exploration, the indefatigable,
. .

psalm-singing hermit, halting only at nightfall and cutting down trees to make
a circular defense to protect his ass, saw a place which he felt was a blessed
one, foreordained by God for such holy use.^^
"As he walked over the ground and saw all the advantages the place pos-
sessed, he gave thanks to God; and the more he looked at it from every angle,
the more pleased with it he became. So charmed was he with the beauty of
the spot that he spent practically a whole day wandering over it, exploring its
possibihties. Finally, he blessed it and turned his face towards home."^^ Boni-
face then went to Carloman, King of the Franks, telHng him, "I believe that it
would redound to your everlasting reward if, God willing, and with your
help, monastic life could be estabhshed and a monastery could be founded in
the eastern part of your kingdom, a thing that has not been attempted before
our time."^^ The king gave the chosen site and on January 1 2, 744, the founders
and the brothers appeared on it. Two months later Boniface visited the site;
it was agreed by all that a church should be built. So the bishop

ordered all the men who had accompanied him to the spot to cut down the
woods and clear the undergrowth, whilst he himself climbed the brow of a
hill, which is now called Mons Episcopi, and spent his time praying to God and

meditating on Sacred Scripture. After a week of felling trees and clearing

. . .

away the brushwood the turf was piled up ready to make lime: then the bishop
gave the brethren his blessing, commended the place to God and returned home
with the workmen he had brought with him.^^

The monks in the new monastery followed the Rule of St. Benedict.
These episodes in the life of St. Sturm illustrate a sequence that probably
was repeated many times: the acquisition of the site from the temporal power,
careful choice of the site with special attention to soil fertility and running
water, the felHng of the trees, a location in a pleasant but remote place which
would permit enclaves for conversion and the life of prayer and meditation.
It is noteworthy that aesthetic considerations probably entered into the site
selection.^^

^Ubid., p. 185.
^^Ibid., pp. 186-188.
p. 188.
^^Ibid., p. 189.
^1 Ibid.^
p. 190.
62 Dimier and Dumontier, "Encore Emplacements Malsains," Rev. du Moyen Age
les
Latin, Vol. 4 (1948), pp. 60-65 have given many examples, taken from P. Leopoldus
Janauschek, Originum Cisterciensium tomus /, in quo, praemissis congregationum domi-
3o8 Interpreting Piety and Activity

How were the monastic and more idealistic

ideals, at least in their earlier

periods, related to the modification of the landscape? Improvements made in

deserted or uninhabited lands became, to the working monks, hearths of spiri-
tual perfection. In fact, the combination of technical skill in agriculture with
the ability to provide spiritual care made the monasteries following the Bene-
dictine Rule very powerful in many parts of Europe.^^ Some of the fervor
inherent in this combination of landscape change and the spiritual hfe can be
sensed in the life of St. Benedict of Aniane in Aquitaine, the leader of the
Carolingian monastic reform, presiding in 817 over the Council of Aachen,
one of whose purposes was to secure a more strict observance of the Bene-
dictine Rule. Of him it was said that he guided the plow with the plowman,
used the ax with the woodsman, reaped with the reapers.^^
Of the monastic orders, the Benedictines, the Cistercians, the Premonstra-
tensians, and the Carthusians were the most active in changing the landscape.
In the charter of charity (Charte de charite) written in 1 1 19 by the abbot
Stephen Harding for Citeaux and its four daughter institutions, Clairvaux, la
Ferte, Morimond, and Pontigny, he prescribed work on the soil, like that
which God in Genesis had imposed on man. Harvesting was one of the most
meritorious works, St. Bernard, the first abbot of Clairvaux, himself directing
the hay harvest.^^ Practical and religious ideals were at work; despite the abuses
to come, a powerful combination of piety and a philosophy of work brought
about lasting landscape changes at an important juncture in the history of
Western civilization. (For a long time the legend persisted that the Cistercians
had purposefully sought out unhealthy lowlands for their monasteries, al-

ciliis adjectisqiie chroiiolo^ico-genealogicis veterum abbatiarum a monachis

tabulis
habitataruvi jujidationes descripsit, of sites well and poorly chosen, most of which
. . .

date from the twelfth century (this book was unavailable to me). In none, however,
was the site purposely chosen for its bad qualities. In many, when it became apparent
that the site was poor, or its air unhealthy, it was moved.
Beaupre, founded in 1135 "in pulcherrimo situ" (Janauschek, p. 38); Marienthal, 1143,
"in valle amoenissima fontibus et piscinis irrigua" (p. 76). Of poorly sited places, Foun-
tains, diocese of York, 1132, "in loco spinis consito ab antiquis temporibus non
. . .

habitato . . , fcrarum latebris quam humanis usibus magis accomodato" (p. 37). And
description of what went on with monastic activity: At Byland, diocese of York, after
its attachment to the Cistercian order in 1147, "fratres nemus viriliter exstirparunt, per

fossas longas et latas magnas aquas de paludibus extraxerunt, et postquam apparuit terra
solida, paraverunt sibi locum latum, idoneum et honestum" (J, p. 104).
^3 See also the long quotation on this general subject of spiritual care and seignorial

expansion being combined in the church in Lamprecht, Deutsches Wirtschaftsleben ijn

Mittelalter, Vol. 1:1, p. 117.
64 The life of St. Benedict of Aniane by Ardo in Act. SS. O. B., saec. IV, pars i,
p. 204
(NA). Quoted in Montal., Vol. 5, p. 198, note 2. Reprinted in PL, Vol. 103, cols. 351-390;
cf. 368 B.
65 AM A, pp. 149, 250-251. See also the story of Herluin, the founder of the abbey of
Bee Goyau, "La Normandie Benedictine et Guillaume
in 1034, le Conquerant," Revue
des Deux-Mondes, 15 Nov., 1938, pp. 337-355; ref. on p. 339.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

though St. Bernard had recommended their establishment in valleys because

there one finds grassy and fertile lands ideal for grain growing.
Its force can be seen from a description of the activities of the Cistercians
in the twelfthcentury in north Germany. The abbot was with the workers
when they started to fell the trees for making the arable. In one hand he had a
wooden cross, in the other a vessel of holy water. When he arrived in the cen-
ter of the woods, he planted the cross in the earth, took possession of this un-
touched piece of earth in the name of Jesus Christ, sprinkled holy water around
the area, and finally grasped an axe to cut away some shrubs. The small clear-
ing made by the abbot was the monks' work. One work
starting point for the
group (incisores) cut down the trees, a second {exstirpat ores) took out the
trunks, a third (incensores) burnt up the roots, boughs, and the under-
growth.^^ Such scenes however, require qualification. Even in the mid-twelfth
century the lay brothers (conversi) of the Cistercians and not the monks were
doing the hardest work; and towards the end of the thirteenth century, oc-
casionally earher, abbeys had begun to abandon direct cultivation by granges
operated by lay brothers (which played such an important role in the eco-
nomic development of the monasteries), resorting to tenant farmers to cul-
tivate the land.^^

5. Animals—Wild and Domestic

Hagiography saturated with legend described the miracles of the monks in

pagan lands, and their relationships with the wild and domestic animals. They
throw additional light on religious motives and religious beliefs directly or
^6 Dimier and Dumontier, op. cit., pp. 60-65 and the numerous interesting quotations
from original sources there cited.
Winter, Die Cister denser des norddstlichen Deutschlands, Pt. 2, p. 171. Winter's
67

source is Dubois, Geschichte von Morimund, pp. 204, 206, a work unavailable to me.

AMA, p. 673. See also Hans Muggenthaler, Kolonisatorische und wirtschaftliche

Tdtigkeit eines deutschen Zisterzienserklosters im XII. und XIII. lahrhundert. This ex-
tremely interesting work decribes the colonizing and economic activity of Waldsassen
cloister in the Egerland on the left bank of the Wondreb in an area bordering on Slav cul-
ture. Today it is close to the Czech frontier. When the Bishropric was established at
Prague in 973, Egerland became a firm frontier against the east. The cloister was founded
in 1 133. The
Cistercians preferred, as expected, a valley for the site and adhered to the
Benedictine Rule. The monastery had active granges; it specialized in viticulture and
garden agriculture. Although the rule forbade eating of meat, it also specialized in live-
stock for milk products, hides, and wool. The monks worked in the forest, kept bees,
fished. The trades included stonemasonry and goldsmithery, despite an original distaste
for magnificent church art. There were the food industries (such as bread making), the
costly installations for mills and breweries, clothes making and cloister tailoring (camera
sartoria). The monks, says Muggenthaler, were shrewd businessmen. The decline oc-
curred in the middle of the thirteenth century owing to the desire for a more com-
fortable life and for luxuries, to a falling off in discipline, and also to the founding of
the mendicant orders, the ensuing competition with them and other orders, and a con-
sequent decline in the Cistercian labor force because the lay elements turned to the
mendicant orders.
310 Interpreting Piety and Activity

indirectly related to environmental change. The monks entered the forests,

says Montalembert (1819-1870), a passionate defender of the monastic or-
ders, "sometimes axe in hand, at the head of a troup of believers scarcely con-
verted, or of pagans surprised and indignant, to cut down the sacred trees,
and thus root out the popular superstition."^^ St. Benedict himself had cut
down the sacred grove at Monte Cassino, a survival of pagan worship in a
Christian land. St. Sturm "seized every opportunity," says the monk Eigil,
his biographer, "to impress on them [the pagans] in his preaching that they
should forsake idols and images, accept the Christian faith, destroy the temples
of the gods, cut down the groves and build sacred churches in their stead."''®
What a wonderful study could be made, from an anthropological point of
view, of the lives of these early saints and of their contacts with the heathen!
Montalembert writes with glowing sympathy of St. Columban whose high-
handed behavior should have prepared him for trouble. These monastic en-
claves in the forest— places of solitude and contemplation, work and agricul-
tural experimentation— apparently became asylums and refuges for wild beasts
hunted by royalty: there is much legend concerning the friendship of monks
for wild animals, including the deer and the wolf In the Hfe of St. Sequanus,
."^^

wolves become laborers helping with the clearing and building.^^ Of course,
friendship with animals had long been part of Christian lore; animals and in-
sects often were held up, as we have seen, as models of behavior. St. Anthony
Abbot had his centaur; St. Mark and St. Euphemia,
Jerome, their lions; St.
her lion and her bear; St. Roch, his dog; St. Clement of Rome, his lamb, and
so forth. Legends gathered around the buffalo, the hare, and the stag, ap-
parently because it was believed that the monks, so close to the animals of the
forest, lived a harmonious life with them. The ancient authors (who record
instances of the taming and the devotion of wild animals) "are unanimous in
asserting that this supernatural empire of the old monks over the animal cre-
ation is explained by which these heroes of penitence
the primitive innocence
and purity had won back, and which placed them once more on a level with
Adam and Eve in the terrestrial Paradise. "^^ Animal behavior revealed the re-
creation of the earth before the Fall. These monks seem to have felt that they
regained a dominance over nature which had been denied men since the Fall,
Their acceptance of such ideas, their devotion, their industry and fanaticism,

Montal., Vol. 2, p. 190; on St. Columbanus, pp. 273-274.

®^

"The Life of St. Sturm," in Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, p. 200.

Eigil,
On the relation of tree conservation to religious belief, see Maury, Les Forets de la
Gaule et de VAncienne France, pp. 7-39. Many references to original sources and older
secondary accounts; much has been written on this since Maury's book was published
( 1867), but it is widely scattered.
Montal., Vol. 2, pp. 200-213, of the first Merovingians.
p. 200; other legends on pp. 216-217, 222. See also Workman, Evol. of Monastic
^2 Ibid.,

Ideal, pp. 34-37-

73 Montal., Vol. 2, p. 212.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

their extirpation ofpagan beHef where possible if involuntary, were power-

ful influences toward change, combining a zeal for conversion with readiness
to make those changes in the natural environment which were required for
the performance of heavenly tasks on earth. Their activity would seem a con-
firmation of Job 5:23: "For you shall be in league with the stones of the field,
and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with you." The friendliness and
docihty of these animals was God's way of showing man how great had been
the obedience of all nature to him before he was banished from the Garden
of Eden, how partial was the control he regained after the Fall.^^
The Breton hagiographical epic, most of which was written after the tenth
century but which was also indicative of conditions after the time of Charle-
magne, abounds in descriptions of the clearing away of undergrowth and wild
forest. St. Armel yokes a doe and a stag to his plow. St. Pol Aurelian and St.
Corentin colonize Leon and Cornwall.^^
The plungeons had obeyed when St. Martin commanded them to leave the
waters for the desert; a raven carried bread to the hermit Paul.^^ The presence
of animals might indicate the sites of monastic foundations. "Innumerable are
the legends which show these wild animals obedient to the voice of the monks,
reduced to a kind of domestic condition by the men of God, obliged to serve
and follow them."^^ Wolves and stags were especially helpful."^^ La Borderie
suggested that legends of wild animals serving men as domesticated animals
originated in the reversion to a feral state of oxen, horses, and dogs with the
gradual disappearance of the Gallo-Roman population. The monks found
them and used them.'^^ "The miracle consisted in restoring to man the empire
and use of the creatures which God had given him for instruments. This re-
domestication of animals which had relapsed into a savage condition is one
of the most interesting episodes in the civilising mission of the ancient ceno-
were widely believed by the zealous monks, what an intoxi-
bites."^^ If this
cating experience it must have been to regain a partial dominance over nature
that had been lost since the Fall!

6. Purposeful Change

The power of the monks and owing to their discipline and as-
their helpers,
sociation together, to change a landscape, mostly by deforestation, was of a
magnitude and fervor far removed from the more modest efforts of the laity.

74 /^/i.,
p. 217.
AMA^ p. 243. See note 4 for further references to secondary French sources.
76Montal., Vol. 2, p. 218.
Ibid.y pp. 221-222. Quote on p. 222.
"^"^

7^ /^i^/.,
pp. 224-226.
Ibid., pp. 226-227.
Ibid., p. 227, based on Arthur la Borderie, Discours sur le role historique des saints
de Bretagne.
312 Interpreting Fiety and Activity

Of the Benedictines it has been said that their farms were model farms and that
personal energy was increased a hundredfold by mutual association and by
discipline.^^
The Christian themes of man's dominion over nature and of the philosophy
of work meshed well with the practical needs of a new civilization, based on
wood and water, which was growing up in western Europe. Orderic Vital,
giving arguments for the transfer of an abbey to Saint Evrul from Norrei, said
it was of first importance that Norrei had no woods, no water in its vicinity:
. . locus iste . monachorum aptus non est, quia ibidem aqua
. . habitationi
deest, et nemus longe deest. Certum est quod absque his duobus elementis

monachi esse non possunt."^^ Places without woods or water were no places
for monks; it was a truth that would apply to virtually all the monasteries of
western Europe, a truth that reveals much about the nature of the environ-
ment, of the use of resources, of the technology, and of the monastic leader-
ship.The monasteries of the countryside had responded to the practical
demands of conversion by creating new enclaves of faith, often becoming
training schools for agriculture, gardening, and forest conservation when and
where it was needed.^^ And these earthly accomplishments were viewed with
pride. "The Church," says Boissonnade of reclamation from the eleventh to
the fourteenth centuries, "in particular, held colonization to be a work of
piety, which increased both her influence and her fortune." The landowning
classes thought of income, the peasants, of bettering their lot by labor. "All
the elite of society placed itself at the head of the movement."^^
Acertain exaltation in changing nature shows itself in widely scattered
areas and periods. From the Carohngian times comes this paean to human ac-
complishment. "Quid quondam Corbeia? quid Brema, modo urbes in Saxonia?
quid Fritzlaria? quid Herschfeldum, oppidum in Thuringia aut potius in Has-
sia? quid Sahsburgum, Frisinga, Eichstadium, urbes episcopales in Boioaria?
quid oppida Galh et Campidona apud Helvetios? quid numerosa alia oppida
S.

in tota Germania? horridae quondam solitudines ferarum, nunc amoenissima

diversoria hominum."^^
The theme of the last sentence is repeated often in the Middle Ages— what
formerly were frightful wastelands suited only for beasts have now become
most pleasant abodes for man. In the remotest wildernesses, new creations,
human counterparts of God's, could be made; God had endowed men with
the zeal and resolution to do these tasks. Indeed, this conquest of the horridae
quondam solitudines jerarum was frequently likened to the work of a creation

See for example Brutails, Roussillon, p. lo.

^1

^^Sauvage, Troarn, quoted, p. 270. The original source is Orderic Vital, Vol. 2, pp.
16-17. See Guizot's ed., Histoire de NonnaJidie, Vol. 2, pp. 14-15, in Collection des
Memoir es Relatifs d P Histoire de France, Vol. 26.
^3 See Boissonnade, Life and Work in Medieval Europe,
p. 65.
^^Ibid., p. 226.
Act. SS. O. B. Sect. 3 (NA), as quoted in Schwappach, p. 37, footnote 3.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 313

itself. Even more lyrical is the well-known description of William of Malmes-

bury (between 1090 and 1096-1143) of the abbey founded on the isle of
Thorney in the English fenlands, combining the rehgious theme of an earthly
paradise and the secular theme of the rivalry of nature and art.
It is the image of paradise (paradisi simulacrum) in which is reflected even

Heaven itself in its loveliness. In the fenlands too are trees abounding, slender
and smooth-barked, struggHng toward the stars. A level sea of herbs, pleasing
by its greenness, attracts the eye, and there is nothing to stumble on as one

hastens through the grassy field. Not even the tiniest part of the land there is
left untilled. Here the nourishment of the soil rises to the fruit-bearing trees,

there the field is bordered with vines, either spreading upon the ground or
lifted high on trellises. Indeed, there is here a rivalry of nature and of art, the
one creating what the other has forgotten. What can one say of the elegance
of the buildings? How marvelous it is that in the midst of the fens such solid
earth supports their firm foundations! A vast solitude is given the monks for
their repose so that in that place they might hold fast to Heaven, where they
more clearly behold their own mortality.^^

7. An Earth to Change

So far we have emphasized religious ideas, but they in fact are often more
concerned with theological questions than with environmental change. Con-
ceptions of the dominion of man over nature, his continuing partial dominion
after the Fall, the re-creation of the antediluvian order by the monks in the
paradises of their new clearings, are interpretations, fundamentally, of man's
relation to God, and only secondarily, to the natural surroundings.
It would be unwise, therefore, to overemphasize the power of these ideas
as guides in interpreting the change which took place during the whole period

of the Middle Ages, just as it would be equally unwise to ascribe all to the
monastic ideal with its gospel of work for monks, founded on the writings
of St. Paul, Basil, Augustine, and the Benedictine Rule. These ideas were
more characteristic of earlier periods, but later, notably in the age des grands
defrichements, with their own ideas, rights, greeds, aspirations, par-
all classes,

ticipated in environmental change. Religious ideals were there, but underlying

them were practical problems also. The story therefore becomes less a purely
religious, more an economic and social, history even with the continuing im-
portance of ecclesiastical bodies. Ideas correspondingly acquire a more secu-
larcharacter because they emerge from conditions created by technology, by
practical knowledge of sowing, grafting, plant breeding, by economic com-
petition, and by social aspirations and the like.

8^William of Malmesbury, De gestis pontificum anglorum libri quinque. Lib. IV, §186,
pp. 326-327, this passage trans, by C. J. Glacken. Cf. Dawson, The Making of Europe,
pp. 200-201.
314 Interpreting Piety and Activity

We should bear in mind the tradition of peasant competence and the im-
portance of lay activity. The were more peas-
lay brethren of the Cistercians
ants than monks; the peasant pioneers and their landlords had impressive roles
in clearing parts of Italy and in canalizing the Po, and deforestation was un-
dertaken by the secular lords of Normandy and the German lay lords.
It would seem therefore that we proceed from a period in which theologi-

cal ideas of man as a modifier of nature dominate to one in which these ideas
are the result of experience, by ecclesiastic and lay alike, in the exploitation of
natural resources.
Attitudes of monasteries, for example, might be indistinguishable from those
of lay institutions as far as environmental change is concerned. As they be-
came larger and more prosperous, network of their economic interests
as the

spread beyond the countrysides in which they were established, their atti-
tudes toward change varied with their economic interests. Some might wish
to preserve their forests, while others were desirous of clearing; some found
themselves at odds with the nobles who resisted forest clearance; some did not
wish to drain land, valuing their ponds and swamps for their fish; others might
want to dry them up and turn them into arable. The old enthusiasm and devo-
tion, based on the Benedictine rule of daily work, lost its force, and the later
history of many monasteries takes on a melancholy character of greed, world-
liness, and corruption.

These attitudes emerge from no single body of thought; the theological im-
plications were always in the background, but new points of view, as with
Albert the Great in natural history, were born of that vast complex of custom
enveloping agriculture, grazing, and forest use. While Albert was a theo-
logian, the discussion which follows shows him to be concerned with the ra-
tional use of the natural environment and improvement of it through practice
and theory.
In his writings on this subject, practical observations based on his own ex-
perience of German farming or on the experience set forth in the writings of
the past, notably those of Palladius in the fourth century, replace the general
and often rhetorical comments of the earlier period. Even when Albert's ma-
terials have been borrowed from earHer writers, he shows an interest in the

practical matters without being immediately concerned with their theological

implications.^^
Albert says that nature, the single principle of all natural things, may be
improved— or worsened— by art and culture. Manuring, working the soil,sow-
ing, grafting, change it greatly. Comparing the characteristics of wild with

On participants in clearings and changes in attitudes by the monks toward manual

labor through the centuries, see G. G. Coulton, Medieval Village, Manor, and Monastery^
pp. 208-222. Coulton warns against exaggerating the amount of field labor done by
monks even in the pioneer ages; see pp. 208-213. On Albert's interest in practical affairs,
see Wimmer, Deutsches Ffianzenleben nach Albertus Magnus, p. 39.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 315

domesticated plants, he says that wild trees are thornier, their bark is rougher,
their leaves and fruit are smaller. The wild grains and
more numerous but
vegetables become and mild tasting when they have been cared
larger, softer,
for under cultivation.^^ The plow and the hoe (aratio et fossio) transform the
desert wild to cultivated land. They open up the earth to receive the seed,
and the fertilizing forces in the earth become active with the breaking of the
soil surface. Through the use of these tools, the energies of the soils are equally
distributed, there being also a mixing of the warm and cold, the dry and moist.
The plow and the hoe break up the earth into smaller parts, but if this is done

in too wet weather, the soil will not spread out well, and if in too dry weather,
the hard clods cannot be broken up.^^
Albert warns of the dangers to soils on slopes; they might become dry and
barren because both moisture and the humus tend to work their way down
to the valley floor. The by such practices as plowing
slopes can be protected
across the slope rather than up and down, by not comminuting the earth
too finely, or by building a stone wall along the lower edge of the field.^^

Albert mentions the necessity of safeguarding the agriculture of the north

German marshlands by by digging ditches
building dikes against the sea and
to lead off surplus rainwater.^^ Making simple polders and drainage ditches,
already old practices here in Albert's time, apparently were striking examples
to observers in the Middle Ages of human efficiency and the productiveness
of human labor.
Of unusual interest is Albert's discussion of the novale and the ager novalis,
that both the newly cleared and the fallow land. He has a theory— appar-
is,

ently widely held in the Middle Ages— that in clearing a patch of forest for
farming, it is necessary to carefully remove all rhizomes of the cutover trees
lest they draw all the nourishment of the soils to themselves.^^ Firing of the
forest to clear it is mentioned. The time-honored custom of allowing a field
to lie fallow, he says, in effect makes new out of old land because its previous
energies are restored.^^
Albert also pointed to the gradual decline in area of natural pastureland
{ager compascuus) and the increase in the meadow {prata), which owed

88 Albert the Great, De Vegetabilibus, Bk. VII, Tr. I, chap, i (Jammy ed., Vol. 5,
pp. 488-489).
Ibid.^ chap. 4, p. 491. Albert uses adaequatio (also meaning the equal division of an
inheritance among heirs, Lex. Man. p. 72) for the distribution of soil nourishment, and
comminutio for breaking up the soil into fine particles.
Ibid., chap. 7, pp. 494-495. The sense of Albert's advice seems to be the same or very
similar to Pliny's: a farmer should avoid plowing up and down the hillside, but should
plow across the slope of the hill "with the share pointing now up hill and now down"
(Pliny, Nat. Hist., Bk. XVIII, 49, 179).
Ibid., chap. 6, pp. 493-494. See also Wimmer, Geschichte des deutschen Bodens,

pp. 103-106.
92 Ibid., chap.
8, p. 495.
9^ Ibid., chap.
2, p. 490.
3i6 Interpreting Piety and Activity

much to human care through drainage and irrigation, the canals draining off
the surplus water, and the nearby brooks, at least once before the beginning
of spring, bringing water to the areas in need of it.^*

He is acquainted, as we have already seen, with the idea that cutting down
trees affects the climate; the statement appears in his discussion of environ-
mental influences and the ability of man to purposefully change unhealthful
places into healthful ones.^^ These practical discussions are in strong contrast
with the writings of Albert's pupil, St. Thomas, whose ideas of man and
nature come from theology and philosophy. Albert's are often mellowed by
the observations of a wandering mendicant monk noticing, on the walking
tours made necessary by the duties of his office, the changes he saw about him
and applying the accumulated agricultural lore of his own and former times
to an attempt to understand them.
It is in these centuries of the high and late Middle Ages that one begins to
hear murmurings that reach such enormous volume in the modern world: the
idea that men can make desirable and undesirable changes in nature.
These changes probably had a corporate or communal, rather than an in-
dividual, character in the Middle Ages. Individuals act as members of a com-
munity with interlocking rights of use which are based on law and tradition.
Legislation, common law, local custom, are inseparable from the reahties of
environmental change. Legislation of this kind is often, of necessity, practical
and secular because concerned with resource distribution. Large areas of
it is

France were governed by the same written and common

in the feudal period
law. In the Midi and in Alsace it is Roman law modified by local customs and
the common law, which in turn may be a fusion of Roman and Germanic
institutions modified by canon law and adapted to French custom. Such
general legislation with jurisdiction over a considerable area was known as
consuetudo pagi, mos provinciae, coustmne du pays; but it was supplemented
and modified by even more local customs, often peculiar to a domain, a
mansus^ even a forest. These are the consuetudo loci, lex terrae. The combina-
tion of the general and the particular enables us to envisage a physical environ-
ment blanketed by a mesh of law, customs, and traditions of varying and dif-
ferent weave.^^

^Ibid.^ chap. 12, pp. 499-500.

Ibid., chap. 8, p. 495; chap. 12, pp. 499-500. I am indebted for the discussion and
for these references to Wimmer, Deutsches Pflanzenleben vach Albertus Magnus, pp.
38-43, 47-48. On Albert's interest in manuring and fertilizers, Wimmer says, "Im
Diingen sieht er nun das Hauptmittel fiir die Uberfiihrung der Pflanzen 'aus dem Zustand
der Wildheit in den der Zahmheit' und spricht iiber die Notwendigkeit und den EfFekt
desselben bereits Satze aus, die fast ein Liebig hatte niederschreiben konnen, und die
jedenfalls die Theorien der landwirtschaftlichen Autoren des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts
vorausnehmen" (pp. 41-42).
On importance and specific significance in forestry, see HufFel, Vol.
their general
1:2, p. 100, who
quotes an old Basque proverb from Lagreze, La Navarre Frangaise
^Paris, 1882): "Chaque pays a sa loi et chaque maison sa coutume" (p. 100).
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 317

Modifications of the physical environment by man may be compared with

technological advances. They often proceed on their own momentum, with
or without a philosophy— or they might create their own. It is in the nature
of environmental change that this momentum should exist, if for no other
reason than that one thing leads to another, and because of the multiphcation
of chores and the accumulation of small changes inescapable from practical
life. A peasant cuts down a stand of trees, not because it is part of his religion
to work or because idleness is a sin, but because he wants to plant his cleared
fields. The scattered notices show that during the Middle Ages interpretations

of change ranged over a wide field: the Alpine woods, torrents, and inunda-
tions; the protective forest; agriculture and forestry; transhumance; selective
use of soils; hunting, domestication, and the chase.
In what follows, illustrations are taken from several places and from dif-
ferent periods. Although this procedure is open to the obvious criticism that
isolated illustrations have little value in interpreting the nature of change over
such a large area over so long a period, they show that certain attitudes did
exist. No coherent body of knowledge, however, like a modem book in con-
servation, came into being.
In the Latin West (and in the British Isles, especially after the Norman
Conquest) the basic attitudes are indistinguishable from the vast complex of
customs and usages concerned primarily with agriculture, forest use, and
grazing. One can see these processes at work, particularly in Marc Bloch's
studies, in the writings of men Hke Robert Dauvergne and Roger Dion, in
speciahzed histories of individual monasteries, and in histories of individual
forests. Circumstances obviously varied from time to time and from place to
place but the many notices often have a sameness about them in their essentials.
Complaints about shepherds' fires, uses of wood for barrel staves, the felling
of oaks for swarms of bees, the granting of free passage for pigs, might not be
characteristic of every place but they were characteristic of types of environ-
mental use for centuries. Often the descriptions become enclaves of awareness,
even if from interpretations. They suggest also the
the writers have refrained
nature of the historical process by which men have become aware of their
power to change the environment. The surviving materials from the ancient
world do not permit this insight— at least to a satisfying degree. In my opinion,
those from the Middle Ages do, to some degree. The process begins with the
isolated and local awareness one finds, for example, in charters, rules, letters,
and hves of the saints; it continues with the partial diffusion of knowledge in
the Middle Ages (by encyclopedic works like Albert the Great's and through
travel) leading ultimately to the awareness that is characteristic of the modern
world, which rests on the opportunity for collection and comparison of in-
stances made possible by the infinitely better dissemination of knowledge that
followed the invention of printing.
We may begin with two preliminary observations: there is a striking dif-
3i8 Interpreting Piety and Activity

ference between the physical environment of northwest Europe and that of

the Mediterranean; and forest clearance is the central theme about which all

other modification of the landscape by human agency revolves.

8. Forest Clearance in Northwest Europe

If monasteries and settlements were to be created, a start in the removal of

forest (using fire and the axe or both) and in the drainage of marshes had to
be made. The woods of northwest Europe were, of course, infinitely greater
in extent, different in species, and finer in quality than those of the Mediter-
ranean, whose trees and scrub, the product of the distinctive Mediterranean
chmate, had been exposed to destructive activities dating from the immemorial
past.
Northwestern Europe Middle Ages was a civilization of wood to a
in the
far greater degree than the Mediterranean region had been. A substantial part
of economic life revolved around the elaborate rights of forest use, with de-
mands on the one hand for clearance to provide the arable, with demands on
the other to save the forest in order to protect old rights of usage or to prevent
torrents and soil erosion. One cannot read the history of the period without
becoming aware of the pivotal importance of the forest and its close ties to
town and country Hfe. In western Europe, there was the unique combination
of an environment requiring great changes for the continuance of civilization
there, and a conscious interest in the tools, techniques, and technology neces-
sary for accomplishing this purpose. "L'Antiquite n'a pas eu I'idee d'un
mechanisme general. II est probable que cette nouvelle conception de la tech-
nique est veritablement nee au Moyen Age."^^
The pubhcation in 193 1 of Lefebvre des Noettes' UAttelage et Le Cheval
de Selle d Travers les Ages greatly stimulated interest in invention and its

relation to social and environmental change in the Middle Ages. Let us set
forth his thesis in broad philosophical terms, omitting the technical discussions
and illustrations upon which they rest for proof. In the front rank of man's
conquests of nature, he says, is his ability to use animal power; controUing and
directing the energies of animals Hke the horse and oxen, in order to use them
as draft animals, has been one of the most difficult problems that man has had
to solve in his struggle for existence. There is, he continues, a fundamental
difiPerence in the use of draft power in the ancient world and in the age be-
ginning in about the tenth century. Animal power in the ancient world was
very inefficiently used, the reason being in the method of harnessing animals.
Of key importance is a change in the role of the horse. In ancient times, collars
of soft leather were placed around the horses' necks in such a way that they
pressed on their windpipes, interfered with their breathing, and severely re-

^^Gille, "Les Developpements Technologiques en Europe de iioo a 1400," JWH,

Vol. 3 (1956), pp. 63-108. Refs.on pp. 6^-66^ quote on p. 77.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

stricted their efficiency and their abiHty to pull heavy loads. In about the
tenth century (dating is by no means precise) the horse began to replace the
ox as a draft animal because of the invention of a new, stiif collar resting on
the shoulder. The transition, he thought, took place under the first Capetians;
he regarded the invention as an immense boon to humanity because he thought
the vastly increased efficiency in the use of draft animals had a direct bearing
on the disappearance of slavery. This idea has been the most controversial of
his findings.
The invention immensely increased men's ability to modify the landscape,
making construction, clearing, cultivation, and the transportation of heavy
materials over long distances easier.^^
It is true that inventions w^ere brought in from elsewhere, but a distinction
must also be made between the place where an invention is made and the place
where it is applied to greatest effect. Water mills possibly originated in the
Mediterranean region despite unfavorable conditions for their year-round
use; most of its rivers either are very low or dry up entirely in the summer.
The environment of northwestern Europe provided much better conditions
for the use of this invention. (The water mills of late Roman times are men-
tioned in the charming verses of Ausonius [died about 395] on the Moselle. )^^
It was an important addition to a civilization in which wood was an indis-

pensable raw material and source of energy (for heating, cooking, charcoal
making, mining, etc.), in which the forest was the locale for such diverse
activities as grazing, hunting, beekeeping. Recent studies of medieval tech-

nology point, moreover, to the so-called Dark Ages as a period of greater

technological competence and activity than had previously been thought.^^^
Particularly intriguing is the invention and the dispersion throughout north-
western Europe and Scandinavia of the hydraulic saw. To my knowledge
little detail is known of the origin of this great invention which was to become

so powerful an agent in changing the environment, especially along river-

banks. Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian historians have stressed the deci-

^^VAttelage et he Cheval de Selle, pp. 2-5, 122-124. On its relation to environmental

change, AM
A, p. 446. Discussion of the origin and diffusion of this invention and modern
critiques of the slavery thesis (including Marc Bloch's) are outside the scope of this
work, but see AM
A, pp. 444-449, and Bark, Origins of the Medieval World, pp. 125-
135 and the references there cited.
9^ Bloch, "Avenement et Conquetes du Moulin a Eau," Annales d^Histoire Economique

et Sociale, Vol. 7 (1935), p. 541. Ausonius, Mosella, V, 362, and now White, Medieval
Technology and Social Change, pp. 80-84.
*°°See Forbes, "Metallurgy," in Singer, et al., History of Technology, Vol. 2, pp.
62-64; Salin and France-Lanord, Rhin et Orient, Vol. 2, Le Fer a I'Epoque Merovingienne
(Paris, 1943). Gille, "Notes d'Histoire de la Technique Metallurgique. I. Les Progres du
Moyen-Age. Le Moulin a Fer et le Haut-Fourneau," Metaux et Civilisatiojis, Vol. i
(1946), p. 89, on the effects of the Norse invasions in bringing in new metallurgical
techniques from Scandinavia. See also White, op. cit., pp. 82-83.
Gille, "Le Moulin a Eau," Techniques et Civilisations, Vol. 3 (1954), pp. 1-15;
ref. on p. 12.
320 Interpreting Piety a?id Activity

sive changes its introduction brought about in the economic history of their
countries. Marc Bloch beheved hydrauhc saw went back to the third
the
century a.d. at least/ first drawing of the valuable
although admittedly the
invention is in the album of Villard de Honnecourt (composed about the
middle of the thirteenth century) moreover, the first mention of the saw, in
;

Du Gauge's dictionary, is later than the date of the album/^^

saws and axes capable of making rapid changes in a
Fire, the small tools like
landscape, and the larger installations like the hydrauhc saw, the water mills,
the use of navigable waterways on a scale unknown to the peoples of antiq-
uity, to say nothing of the artisans and their techniques,^^* were the techno-
logical resources with which environmental change, especially in the twelfth
century and onwards, was accelerated.
Why must one regard the forests and attitudes toward them as the crucial
element in our theme? Because they were involved in both the need for change
and the need for stability. Their disappearance might not grieve either the
agriculturalist or the Alpine shepherd; their preservation might be the hope
of the lowland shepherd, of another farmer, of the royal or noble hunter. But
we much depended on local
cannot identify attitudes with occupations; too
interests. The monks
one place might favor a clearing; at another, they
at
might oppose any clearing or draining, and ferry people over the marshlands
whose waters abounded in precious fish.

9. The Uses of the Forest

Attitudes toward forests are derived from the uses— religious, economic, or
aesthetic— to which they are put. The old Swedish proverb that the forest is

the mantle of the poor suggests its closeness to the hfe of the ordinary man.
From the Merovingians through the end of the Middle Ages, forests had so
many uses that for the moment it is better to consider them in broad categories:
as sources of food and household needs; for grazing, hunting, and beekeeping;
as the locale of small industries and of charcoal making; as valuable primitive
areas in their own right. The intimate relationship is clear in the numerous
customs relating to forest use, in the alarms heard in many countries regarding
misuse of the forests, and in the forests as places of work.
In the period (roughly from the Merovingian through the CaroHngian age),
the list of the uses of the forest in the old German economy is already impres-

sive—and worth summarizing in detail. The people gathered acorns and beech-
nuts. They used the broadleaved trees (like the oak and the aspen) and the
conifers (like the Scotch-fir, fir, larch, yew) for building houses; the oak,
beech, pine, and fir were used for shinghng, the conifers for interior finishing
and partitions. All woods were burned for fuel. Benches, tables, chairs, chests,
102Bloch, op. cit., p. 543.
i03Gille, op. cit., p. 12.
lo^Gille, "Des Dev. Technolog. en Europe," ]WH, 3 (1956), pp. 6s-66, 91.
 Interpreting Fiety and Activity 321

boxes, cupboards, were made out of oak, ash, mountain ash, maple, birch, wild
apple; humbler people used fir. Owing to a lack of potter's clay in quantity,
dishes and kitchen utensils, baking troughs, vats, barrels, dippers, racks, were
made of oak, beech, fir, hnden, and the finer products, especially spoons, of
common maple. Winnowing and grain shovels, wheel rims (fellies), axles,
barrows, flax-breakers, winepresses— later, oil stampers and presses— came from
the beech; and from the elm, wagons, axles, hubs, rims, ladders, harrows, pad-
dles for the mill wheels. The birch was used for cart shafts and ladders, the
privet for spokes, while the roots and the lower end of the trunk of the red
beech were made into the tubs carried on sleds. Hoops and bands around bar-
rels and tubs came from the birch and the willow, rope and cord from the

bast of the linden. The light alder furnished flaihng sticks; it and the conifers,
well borers and the wooden conduits. The alder was also used for this purpose
and for piles in the swampy ground. From the forest came the wood for the
winepress, the plow, the wagon, the stave, the plow handle, the wooden rim
of the wagon wheel, the fence. Twigs of birch, through age-old custom, were
the brooms; pine torches and glowing chips served for illumination. Dugouts
were made of oak trunks, the boat mast of fir, the rudder of beech. From the
ash were made the spear and the shaft of the axe; from the hnden, the shield
and boilers; from the yew, the bow; from the alder, bows, lances, arrows, and
bolts. Drinking vessels came from the rooty wood of the maple and from other
trees. Tannin and various dyes were derived from wood bark; the foHage of

various trees supplied htter and fertilizer, and ash leaves were used for fodder.
One could get a refreshing drink from the trunk of the birch, food from the
wild apple and the wild pear. The linden, ash, birch, alder, aspen, and larch
furnished charcoal. Resins were in demand for calking household wooden
vessels. And the master of the house was laid in his coffin— a hollowed-out tree.

The forest was used for the hunt and the pasturing of cattle and smaller
livestock; it was the place for gathering acorns, beechnuts, and berries. When
the witty Heriger, Bishop of Mainz (913-927), was told of a false prophet
"who with many good reasons had advanced the idea that Hell was completely
surrounded by a dense forest," he laughingly rephed, "I would like to send
my swineherd there with my lean pigs to pasture. "^^^
The classification of trees according to their grazing value apparently was
an early practice among the barbarian peoples of the Latin West. Trees were
classified as productive (fructiferi) or nonproductive (ififructosi, steriles)
most likely because of their mast;and the Scotch-fir and the pines were in-
cluded among the fructiferi in the Law of the Burgundians because their use-
fulness was equivalent to that of the mast-producing trees.^^^

Examples are taken from Heyne, Das Deutsche Nahrungsivesen, pp. 148-151. The
passage relating to Bishop Heriger is quoted in part, p. 151, footnote 153. The poem has
been translated from the Latin into English by Helen Waddell, Medieval Latin Lyrics^
p. 16..
Schwappach, p. 46.
322 Interpreting Piety and Activity

In the laws of the Visigoths and the Langobards there were detailed regu-
lations about swine grazing in the forests, the German tribes giving less at-
tention to There is fuller mention in the Capitulare de villis et curtis im-
it.

perialibus of Charlemagne and in the rules of the cloister of Priim. During

the mast season, the bonded freedmen of that cloister could graze their swine
in turn— to each a week at most/^^ In a notice from the ninth century, the
number of swine that could be fed with mast in a forest becomes the measure
of its size/^^
Beekeeping was also an ancient tradition. Customary law included pro-
visions for the rights of ownership to a swarm that was discovered, and to a
swarm that had flown off and lodged itself in a tree hollow. Beekeeping was
important up to the end of the A4iddle Ages: honey was used as a sweetener
and in the preparation of mead, and beeswax was indispensable for illumina-
tion, especially in the churches. Barbarian laws mentioned honey and wax
before wood among the products of the forest. In France there is a long and
interesting relationship between bees and the oak. Swarms of bees were hunted
in the forests; the kings of France and the ecclesiastical and lay nobles had
officers especially charged with traversing the forest in search ofswarms. The
desire for bees was it was necessary to prohibit the cutting of
so intense that
trees, especially which harbored them. "Au moyen-age on n'hesitait
of oaks
pas a abattre les plus beaux arbres pour s'emparer des essaims."^^^
The use of fire in clearing and of charcoal in industry are characteristic of
all countries and of all periods in the Middle Ages. Firing was a traditional

means— often forbidden— of clearing land. Charcoal making was closely re-
lated to smelting, to glassmaking. Forests might have, as in the Harz, their
tar boilers.^^^ Wood or charcoal was used in salt cooking, iron smelting, tar
boiling, as in Norway even before the introduction of the water-driven saw.^^^

lo. Custom and Use

These uses— the forest histories of individual European countries are full
of illustrations similar to those mentioned here— suggest that a parallel historical
development also took place in the growth of a body of rights, usages, and
customary law which codified and regulated exploitation. This network of
rights and usages is the key to an understanding of preindustrial ecologies; in
it is the vivid detail which abstract formulations like "man and nature" obscure.

107 Ibid.,
p. 48.
^^^Ibid., p. 48, footnote 14.
Huffel, Vol. I I, p. 5, footnote i, and general discussion, pp. 4-7; see also
: De Maulde,
pp. 227-229. On beekeeping, AMA, pp. 528-534.
Schwappach,
m Best survey in A. Bugge, Den
p. 166.
norske Traelasthandels Historie, Vol. i, pp. 12-14
and passim; on the water-driven saw in Norway, see pp. 5-6. See also Sandmo, Skog-
brukshistorie (of Norway), pp. 48-73.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 323

These illustrations of forest use presuppose a highly organized society. As

one reads the long lists of rights and customary usages, immortalized in words
and phrases in which medieval Latin is so rich, one is impressed with the fact
that these usages and uses grew because there was no other way that people
could exist. If the nobles wrung Magna Carta out of King John, they also
extracted a Forest Charter, and more was to come with the concessions in the
long forest charter of Henry III. "The Forest Charter took its place beside
the Great Charter as part of the foundations on which the English social scene
was laid."^^^ It is true that rights and usages may have had an ultimate religious
foundation, but their immediate reason for existence was the needs and de-
mands of everyday life. These uses are like strands which enmesh individuals,
institutions, other usages, until the whole age and its landscape are covered
with them. This body of custom and tradition is the medieval counterpart of
the modern concept of culture.
It is in this body of custom and tradition— in addition to the inheritance of

agricultural lore from the classical period— that one must look for sensitivities
to the significance of environmental change. It is not so important to un-
earth, if this were possible, the earliest laws against deforestation, or for
forest protection; it is more important to see that there occurs within this
entangling net of custom and usage an awareness of desirable and undesir-
able changes being made in the natural environment or an insistence on main-
tainingunchanged an environment that had been satisfactory in the past. These
were essentially lay and empirical observations; the religious ideas of man as a
partner of God in remaking the earth were always in the background, but
they were too bookish and too abstract and general to be applied to everyday
situations.
There are so many might be well
thousands of possible illustrations that it

to choose an example from one area so that the nature of these usages might
be suggested in the briefest possible space. In his study of the forest of Orleans
in theMiddle Ages and the Renaissance, from which the following illustrations
are taken, De Maulde set down a list of about 350 places which enjoyed any
right of use or pasture whatever; the listing of such places requires over forty
pages.
Aluran mayoralty has the right to dry wood {bois mort) in the woods of
St. Benedict (1391, 1396); Ambert priory has free pannage for sixty pigs,
free pasture for sixteen plow cattle, fourteen mules and their foals, and the
right to use wood for general repair, stakes for vines, fence poles, and firewood

(1301, 1322, 1403).^^^ Auxerre Les Brosses and others have the right to dry

^^^Stenton, English Society in the Early Middle Ages, p. 106. See the discussion, pp.
97-119.
There were many classifications of wood, but distinguishing among them is dif-
De Maulde says that usage is confused even in the contemporary documents. Two
ficult;
common types of wood considered useless or harmful were Mortuus boscus ( = French
324 Interpreting Piety and Activity

oaks— half-dry standing, green lying down— for building and burning (1353,
1440, 1497-16 10). Le Breau, la Riviere, Charency, and others have rights of
pasture for animals in exchange for a ??nne of oats per hearth and rights of
pannage (1396, 1559, 1361). Buisson-Aiglant, Puteville, Marchais-Creux have
pasturage at all times except for goats (13 17, 1320); Hotes de Chalette and
Lancy had rights of building and burning (1337). The priory of Chappes, in
consideration of three masses per week for the duke, had the right of fattening
a hundred pigs and a boar in the forest (1361). The abbey of Cour-Dieu had
pasture rights, pannage, use of two or three oaks per year, and of wood to
repair plows in the woods of Cherupeau (thirteenth century). The manor of
Laleu had rights of use in the forest of St. Benedict {eutpres pied) for fire-
wood and construction timber for houses, mills, and bridges (earliest date
1 3 17). A leprosarium had excess to firewood {bois inort), free grazing for

one hundred pigs for each of its two tenants, and rights of pasture (131 1).
The administrators of the Hotel-Dieu, Orleans, had the right to what remained
of the firewood above the needs of the Hotel-Dieu provided they did not
reduce the heat of the poor (1327).^^^
What De Maulde has said of the forest of Orleans is a useful guide in con-
sidering the role of forests elsewhere in Europe in the Middle Ages. The forest
of Orleans furnished raw materials for a large number of small industries, the
basis of the wealth of the rural villages. Forests did not impede commerce, nor
were they useless for industry. The accusation that they were impenetrable
and thus obstacles to civihzation was based on misinformation; forest roads
helped commerce; if they were poor and impassable, they were no more so
than those of other environments.^ It is a point well taken, for some writers
of the Middle Ages and modern students who have copied them give the im-
pression that forests and mountains were the enemies of civilization, dreaded
places where no one went unless he was forced to, that mountains, unappre-
ciated for their beauty, were looked upon as angry barriers to be crossed.
They give the impression of complaining townsmen, and neglect the lively
local history of forest use and transhumance throughout the whole Middle
Ages.
So numerous have these individual rights been that attempts have been made
to classify them into broad groups; it has been suggested that they may be
based on the three needs they must frequently and urgently meet: to provide
food for cattle, firewood, and construction wood.^^^ The first and the most

mort-bois) which meant broadly a non-fruit-bearing tree, and Boscus mortuus ( =

French bois mort)^ which meant dry or dead wood. Du Cange, Art. Boscus. In the
green forest, wood was classified as sec estant (that is still standing) and sec gisant
(lying around). See De Maulde, pp. 142-146. See also Lex, Man.^ Boscus., and Huffel,
1:2, p. 145, sub nomine^ Bois, Boscus.
De Maulde, pp. 182, 183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 195, 201, 202, 208.
De Maulde, pp. 236-237.
AMA, pp. 424-425.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

important of these, jus ad pascendum,^^"^ concerns the rights to feed animals in

the forest, that is, with rights of pannage and of pasture; the second,^^^ jus
ad calejaciendum, ad covthurenduv^, or ad focag:um,^^^ is in general the
right to firewood; and the third, jus ad edificandum, ad construendmn, or
marrenag'um, is the right to obtain wood for repair or construction,^^^ and
including jus ad sepiendu?n, the right to have lumber to build stockades, bar-
riers, and to make vine stakes in grape country/^^

Forests and woods naturally differed from one another in ownership and
types of rights inherent in them. If usages, rights, and common practices are
regarded as customs with the force of law, these usages appear in their true
light as being decisive influences in the rational or the haphazard exploitation
of the forest— or of any other resource which might be dependent on forestry
for its energy, such as mining.^^^

^^^See, for example, Du Cange and the Lex. Man., under Pastio, Glandagium, i.
Pascagium, Pascharium, Pascio, pertaining to swine feeding.
See Lex. Man., under LigJiaricia, the definition based on the Irmino Abbey usage:
"Jus lignorum exscindendorum in silvis ad annum usum pro quo tenentes certam pensi-
tationem domino exsolvebant. .
." See also LagJiagiiim, and Lignarium.
.

See Lex. Man., under Foagimn, 3rd meaning: "Jus capiendi lignum in silvis"; also
known by the French words derived from this Latin word, fouage, affouage. This right
gave each hearth or family group (not an individual) the right to gather dry wood
{bois inort) without restriction, and also occasionally ?nort-bois (wood from non-fruit-
bearing trees) in amounts determined by local usage. AM A, p. 424.
Lex. Man., under Materia, Materiamen, words designating woods suitable for build-
ing purposes.
121 On the existence of the silve palarie, where one obtained pali (meaning both vine

props and stakes), which often were thickets of chestnut trees, see AM
A, p. 425.
122 Yhe word forest, which for centuries has had a very general meaning, being ap-

plied to the most varied types of wooded areas with the most diverse usage and tenure,
originally designated an area of land that need not necessarily be wooded. In the bar-
barian kingdoms which displaced the Roman holdings in the West, during the fifth, sixth,
and the first half of the seventh centuries, the word forest in its modern sense probably
is best rendered by the Latin word silva, an exploited area, also a clearing made in the

forest area; nemus too was used, but it often referred to an unexploited forest as well.
Forestis appears, apparently for the first time, in the texts of the middle of the sixth
century. In a diploma of Childebert I, dated in 556 (whose authenticity, however, has
been suspected), the king designated a fishing reserve on the river, calling it his forestis^
its general meaning being something set aside or reserved. (Mon. Germ. Dip. I, pp. 7,

41 ff. See also Heyne, Das deutsche N

ahriingswesen, pp. 153-154, note 160; Huffel, 1:1,
p. 302, note 3, dates it ca. 558 under Childebert II.) It has been suggested that forestis
(forestas or forastis) originally designated the waters or the forests or the wooded lands
outside the boundaries of villas, often belonging to the king or high dignitaries; this
name suggests a derivation from the Latin word foris, meaning out of doors or abroad.
In France at least the use of forestis to designate wooded terrain possibly dates from 648;
in a diploma Sigebert II grants a canton of the Ardennes forest (in foreste nostra nun-
cupata Ardiiinna) to construct there an abbey later called Malmedy-Stavelot (Huffel,
1:1, pp. 302-303).
The forestis originally was undeveloped and outside the boundaries of the manor,
whose inhabitants were denied use of it {ibid.). The inhabitants had rights to the waters
and woods within the manor, the king or the lord, sole right to the waters and woods
without. "It was his forastis, his forestis dominica. Often this epithet dominica is added
 :

326 Interpreting Piety and Activity

The reservation of choice forest areas for hunting grounds is a type of

forest use that has been mentioned frequently in modern histories of forestry.
The argument is that there was unwitting conservation, not because the need
for such conservation was understood, but because royal or noble enthusiasm
for hunting enforced exclusions of destructive intruders. In France, these
policiesengendered hatreds against the forests and their royal and noble
owners that reached a climax in the French Revolution. Although there is no
doubt that forest landscapes were maintained which would otherwise have
been destroyed, this emphasis does less than justice to the history of forest use
and to the complexities in customary practice and usage, especially in the
later Middle Ages.
Three such examples, gruerie, afforestatio^ and baliveau, illustrate the in-
fluence of law or custom in preserving or changing a landscape. In his study
of the forest of Orleans, De Maulde said, ''La gruerie est le fondement de tout
ce que concerne les bois." The essence of the practice was that an owner was
not permitted to exploit a forest at his own pleasure; it was subject to the super-
vision of the central authority, an officer of the king supervising sales and the
operations they involved. The right of gruerie often accompanied the right of
grairie, that is, the exclusive enjoyment of subsoil rights, of pastures, and of

the hunt.
Gruerie is known in the Middle Ages under two names (and their variants)
gruagium and danger; De Maulde found traces of it in the twelfth century, and
that it was in full vigor at century's end. Under gruerie, owners could sell
their wood only with formal permission of the prince. In November, 1202,
Philippe-Auguste permitted the canons of Saint-Liphard de Meung to sell
theirwood for three years at Bucy; in 1235 a charter of the chapter of Saint-
Verain de Jargeau announced the king's permission to sell two hundred arpents
of wood, the chapter deciding, entirely voluntarily and as a concession, that
the king would receive two-thirds of the sale.^^^ The same charter suggests

to the word documents beginning in the seventh century." By the ninth

forestis in the
century the forestis the forest belonging to the king or some exalted person, reserved
is

to the chase and where no cultivator (colon) could enter to cut wood or to take game
(HufFel, 1:1, p. 304).
In .Germany the word has had a similar history. Before the end of the eighteenth
century foresta {forestis, foreste) designated the royal forest or one conferred on a noble
by the king as contrasted with other wooded lands; later it had the meaning of a wooded
area (Bannforst) in which hunting rights were denied to all except the king or those
allowed by him to hunt there. Royal forest holdings in which hunting rights were not
reserved were usually called silva or nemus (Schwappach, pp. 56-59, and the references
to other literature, footnote 8, p. 56. See also his "Zur Bedeutung und Etymologic des
Wortes, *Forst,' " Forstwissenschaftliches Centralblatt, 1 884, p. 515).
123 -phe two important notices, printed in De Maulde,
p. 36, are as follows:
Ego prior de Flotans, et fratres ejusdem loci, notum facimus presentibus et futuris quod
dominus rex francorum concessit nobis quod nos venderemus nemus nostrum quod est circa
domum nostram ad faciendam ecclesiam nostram; tali conditione quod de cetero non poteri-
 Interpreting Piety and Activity ^ly

that originally gruerie represented the expenses of guarding the forest and
were a levy on the woods corresponding to that levied on agricultural produce.
The right of the king to grant permission for sales is acknowledged by the
prior of Flotin in 1202; with Saint- Verain de Jargeau it has become a tax.^^*

Although he was hostile to it, De Maulde credited gruerie with accomplish-

ing a near miracle with the forest of Orleans, a "masse si homogene, si dense,
ait pu se conserver dans tout le moyen age avec son integralite aussi com-
plete. . .

Under afforestatio, certain forested tracts, reserved and forbidden of access,

were protected from the waste and improvidence arising out of the continual
daily exercise of common rights and usages for the period required for healthy
forest production.^^^
The reasons for afforestatio apparently were little different from modern
motives; they were related to forest preservation and to economic gain. At
the beginning of the CaroHngian period, the population was growing, clear-
ings had begun to reduce the areas of the forest, the lords began to regulate
and even to prohibit the exercise of certain rights. Rights of use covered only
the needs of those entitled to them, and areas sufficient to satisfy these needs
were set aside. The rest were prohibited (defensa). Many names were used
to designate these prohibited areas: defends, betal, e7nbannie, haie, plessis. Such
an area was also called a foresta^^'^ and to inclose it was to afforest it.
Early in the history of western Europe, as the Capitulary of Louis the
Debonair (818) forbidding the lords from creating new forestae makes
clear, there was a struggle between those possessing traditional rights of use
and desiring to exercise them and those who wanted to limit them or to change

mus vendere predictum nemus uUo modo absque mandato domini regis. Actum anno Domini
millesimo ducentesimo secundo, mense novembri.
Omnibus presentes litteras inspecturis, Simon decanus, totumque capitulum Jargogilense,
salutem in Domino. Noverint universi quod nos de ducentis arpentis nemorum nostrorum de
Monlordino que illustris Francorum rex nobis concessit ad vendendum, volumus et concedimus
quod de denariis venditiones dominus rex percipiat duas partes, et nos tertiam. Actum anno
Domini millesimo ducentesimo tricesimo quinto, mense novembri.
Further discussion in De Maulde, pp. 36-55. The right existed until the revolution;
the National Assembly from its earliest days had demanded its suppression, pp. 54-55.
On gruerie applied to non-navigable streams, see p. 55. De Maulde (p. 33) was no
friend of the custom, regarding it as transferring "d'un maniere quelque peu socialiste et
barbare" rights of proprietors to communal state ownership represented by the ducal
administration. See also Lex. Man., article Dangerium, whose definition relating to
forestry is taken from Du Cange. "In re forestaria, dangerium dicitur jus quod rex habet
in forestis et silvis Normanniae, in quibus proprietarii caesionem facere non possunt in-
consulto rege, aut illius officialibus, sub commissi poena quam danger vocant." De
Maulde points out, pp. 32-33, that the practice is not confined to Normandy as Du
Cange says. Note also the usage in forestis et silvis.
De Maulde, p. 32.
126 ^Af^, p. 432.
127 See Huffel, 1:2, pp. 81-82; p. 81, footnote 2.
i28/Z;ii., p. 82.
328 Interprethig Piety and Activity

them. Even if these struggles had Httle to

do with forest conservation per se,
the theme is and defeats are reflected in the land-
a stimulating one. Victories
scape. The partisans of change won out: it is the contrast between the clearing
in the forest at the beginning of the Middle Ages and the spot of forest in the
arable at the end.
Reforestation (or afforestation in themodern sense of the word) through
natural regeneration was accomplished by leaving behind small trees or sap-
lings often after an area had been cut over. Du Cange defines the term for this
practice as baivarius (or bayvellus), as "arbor ad propagationem sylvae
rehcta'V^^ the word has come down
French in the forms of baiviaux and
in
baliveau, usually translated as staddle. According to Huffel, baivarius was
very ancient in France; in the old texts trees were often called estallons
(=r etallons, stallions.) In the French forest ordinance of 1376, the purpose
of baliveau is clearly to "repeople" the forest, warnings being given and penal-
ties provided for failures to comply. From eight to ten stallions were required

for an arpent (from sixteen to twenty per hectare). Balivage is repeatedly re-
quired in the royal forest ordinances during the Middle Ages, the old texts
mentioning also the frequent failures to comply with the minimum number of
trees to be left. And in the French forest ordinance of 15 16 the baliveaux are
hke studs carrying the seeds needed to repeople the forests; the ordinance ex-
presses the wish that a sufficient number of the beautiful trees be spared for
the purpose.^^^
Baliveaux were probably the only effective means of reproduction in a cut-
over forest. The practice was important too because rights of pannage ruined
the possibility of natural reproduction; if the pigs were gone, the trees left
after sale could reseed the clearing.^^^
There are notices from the sixteenth century (possibly representative of
earher abuses too) indicating that neither buyers nor sellers could be relied
upon to spare these trees for reseeding or to be conscientious in their choice
of the trees to remain; baliveaux were designated by the timber marks of a for-
estry official— some fleur-de-lis marks were discovered in baliveaux felled in
the nineteenth century. The grand master or deputy forester often added
Du Cange,
Lex. Man., under Baivarius. According to HufTel, the origin of the word
is unknown. Seehis discussion, "Les Methodes de TAmenagement Forestier en France,"
Ann'ales de VEcole Natio7iale des Eaux et Forets, Vol. i. Fascicule 2 (1927), p. 15, note 2.
^^^Ibid., pp. 15-16:
Pour ce qu'au temps passe les maistres, en faisant et vendant ventes de bois, ont par inadver-
tance ou autrement oublie a faire retenue de baiviaulz ou estallons pour la repueple des
forez . .ordene est que doresnavant en toutes ventes sera entendue la retenue des bayveaulx
.

et estallons, de huit ou dix en I'arpent; et ce seront tenus les maistres de mettre en leurs
lettres . et s'il n'y est mis, si sera-t-il sou entendu (et si cettee mention est omise elles sera
. .

neanmoins sous-entendue). Si lesdits maistres oublient ou delaissent a faire cette retenue . . .

ce sera en leur peril et en seront, avec les marchans (meaning here both buyer and seller)
chargiez de faire restitution. . . .

Quoted from Vol. 6 of Recueil des Ordonnances des Rots de France de la 5® Race.
De Maulde, p. 452.
Ibid.., p. 424.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 329

a countermark to that of the master of the guard, and the buyer who cut down
such a marked bahveau exposed himself to a serious penalty. De Maulde has
listed the names of trees which reached "colossal dimensions." Many of them,
especially in the sixteenth century, were famous. Certain regions were named
after the trees. Often these great relict trees were in fields far from forests.
So great was the respect given them, so remote was the possibility of cutting
them down, that they became landmarks for the bounding of inheritances, a
custom perpetuated in the Orleans and neighboring pays, with equal penalties
in the fifteenth century for removing a boundary marker or cutting down a
tree used as one.^^^ The trees, left for natural reproduction, became objects
of beauty in their permanence, becoming living legal documents. In the Middle
Ages— as in contemporary life— the multiplicity of rights set bounds to the ex-
ploitation of natural resources. One writer has said that attempts to Hmit these
rightsseem almost as old as the rights themselves. One senses an uneasy truce
throughout the Middle Ages between these two tendencies. Rights of usage
were not empty legalisms; they were expressions of the necessity of eating
and having access to food on the land. Viewing the A4iddle Ages as a whole,
itseems that the tendency was toward more precise definition and delimitation
of these rights with time.^^'*
Conflicts of interest involved in the modification or preservation of the
landscape^^^ necessarily were For the most part it was not a
local in nature.
question of conservation in the modern sense of the word, although, as will be
pointed out in more detail later, the need for a balance between the forests and
the arable, and for forest conservation, was recognized. The cultivators in their
expansion met up with the opposition of the forest intendants and similar of-
ficials who, in defending the woods, defended also their hereditary ofiices,

which existed only because of the forests they supervised. The monks could
have been on either side. When they were clearing the woods, they often
conflicted with the forestarii. The Bollandists' lives of the saints have preserved
anecdotes illustrating conflicts with these forestarii. The monks and their
helpers, under the Benedictine Rule, cleared perhaps for seven hours a day and
their clearings naturally lessened the importance of an area as a wooded land.
Vaudregisile, count of the Palace under Dagobert I, became a monk; he was
the first abbot of Fontanelle. He began to deforest lands near the mouths of
the Seine, forests given him by Erchinoald, mayor of the Palace, the queen
Bathilde, and King Clovis II. One day while Vaudregisile was supervising the

^^^Ibid., pp. 455-45<^-

These remarks are inspired in part by those in AM A:
La multiplicite des droits, I'antiquite et remprecision de leur origine, le caractere empirique
et infiniment varie de leur determination sont a I'origine de nombreaux abus, d'empietements
incessants, de contestations sans fin (pp. 430-431). De telles pratiques etaient tellement dom-
mageables a la conservation et a I'exploitation rationnelle des forets, que les tentatives des
proprietaires pour limiter ou reglementer les usages sont presque aussi antiques que ces droits
eux-memes (p. 432).
See also Darby, "The Clearing of the Woodland in Europe," MR, pp. 193-194.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity

clearings, the forestarius of the royal forest approached with the intention of
killing him with his lance. At the moment of striking, the arm of the assassin,

suddenly paralyzed, is locked immobile in its raised position until the abbot,
by a prayer to heaven, returns to the forestarius the use of his limb. This fas-
cinating tableau probably was inspired by many acts of prosaic violence un-
touched by rescuing miracles. Another anecdote from the same period (the
seventh century) reveals, by a pun on the word foris, the antagonism between
the monks who were clearing the woods and the forest warden (forestarius).
The sharpness of the bitter rebuke is owing to one meaning of foris ("outside
of") and the derivation of the word forestis (and, by extension, forestarius)
from foris. "Recte quidem forestarii dicti sunt," said the bishop, "isti quia foris
stabunt extra regnum Dei." "Indeed they are correctly called forestarii because
they will stand outside the Kingdom of God."^^^ If God was on the side of the
defricheurs this time, there were also other times when He was guarding their
lands from the axe and the torch.
Even those who liberally gave their lands to the monks might mistrust their
zeal for deforestation, restricting rights of future clearance. Jean, the Bishop
of Orleans, in 1 1 2 3 gave woods to the abbey of Cour-Dieu, but only for
meadows. In 7 1
1 1 , his successor, Manasses, gave wooded land, with a home,

to the abbey at Pre-Cottant, for feeding animals, for an abbey garden, but not
for cultivation.^^'

1 1 . The Great Age of Forest Clearance

During the period of the great however (roughly from the

forest clearance,
eleventh through the thirteenth centuries), the Church encouraged an active
Christian life for its adherents; new lands gained from the pagan East could
be acquired in their own names and in the name of God. Replacing heathen
with Christian customs often indirectly caused changes in the landscape. In a
thirteenth century description of the Prussians, which conveys the spirit of
an active Christianity, zeal for clearing, and resistance to it, they are described
as illiterate, ignorant of God, worshippers of all kinds of creatures. "They
also had fields, woods, and waters which were holy to them, so that they neither
plowed nor fished nor cut wood in them. . .
."

In an imperial confirmation (1226), Frederick II approves the grant by

Conrad, duke of Masovia and Kujavia, to Brother Hermann and his brothers
of the Teutonic order of Culm in the land of the Prussians, the emperor taking
notice of the active piety of this master {In Erwagu?ig der tatbereiten From-
migkeit dieses Meisters). Not only was the grant approved but they could

Based on Huffel, 1:1, p. 332, footnote 2.

The two texts, quoted by De Maulde, pp. 109-110, are as follows: "Quantumcum-
que nemoris circumadjacentis extirpando in usum pratorum vertere voluerint ."; and . .

1 171: "Domum de Prato Constancii ... ad suorum nutrimentum animalium, ad hortos

ibi excolendos, ad prata facienda excepto quod ibi agriculturam non exercebunt."
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 331

also with God's grace conquer in Prussia with rights to mountains, plains,
and lake as an ancient imperial right/^^ The ecclesiastical lords
rivers, forest,
had viewpoints differing from both the heathen and the feudal barons. "They
were," according to Huffel, "more cultured and they had more refined man-
ners than the rude feudal barons, they were less exclusively preoccupied with
following the wild beasts to the depths of the forests. They wanted to con-
struct convents, to erect magnificent churches and cathedrals that we still

admire today."^^^ Aedificare meant not only to erect a building, but also to
deforest and to improve land.^^^ They accumulated books, objects of art,
jewelry, pontifical ornaments. They tried to attract newcomers to their do-
mains and to justify to them the dictum so widespread in the Middle Ages that
"one has a good life under the cross."^^^

On the other hand, there might be a good case for not changing a land-
scape, because of the economic advantages of continuing it either in its natural,
or in a relatively unimproved, state. For example, in 1068 Roger de Mont-

gomeri gave the Benedictine monastery of Troarn in the valley of the Auge
in Normandy a marshland {sclusa) for its own use.^"*^ In the eleventh and
twelfth centuries it apparently was still a wasteland without significant reve-
nues except from fishing and hunting. In 1295 attempts were made to dry up
the marsh by constructing dikes and drainage ditches, the monks also con-
structing dikes near the coast to obtain additional land and to protect it from
the sea.^^^
The swampy pastures of the valley of the Auge and the rights to the grass
and to were highly valued by the monks.^^* In the thirteenth and four-
fish

teenth centuries, they acquired more meadows, especially marshy pasturelands

from the sea.^^^ The value placed on this grass is indicated by the seriousness
with which the monks regarded thefts of it. They had exclusive rights to
swans, which they valued highly— the swans were also symbols of their lord-
ship of the marsh. The keepers of the swans had the right and duty to follow
them to whatever place they had escaped to. In 13 14 a certain Simon Legier

See "The German Push to the East," trans, by H. F. Schwarz from Biihler, ed.,
Ordensritter und Kirchenfiirsten^ pp. 74-75, in Ross and McLaughlin, eds., The Portable
Medieval Reader, 421-429 (references on p. 427). On Culm, "Kaiserliche Bestatigung
der Schenkung des Kulmerlandes an den deutschen orden (1226)," Biihler, pp. 72-73;
Port. Med. Reader, trans, p. 425.
Huffel, 1:2, p. 137.
^'^^
Ibid., p. 138, footnote i. Lex. Man. gives these meanings of aedificare: to edify, to
be of use, and with the reflexive se, to choose a domicile, to cultivate a field, to sow.
Ibid., pp. 137, cf. 137-138.
i^^Sauvage, Troarn, p. 255. Roger de Montgomeri donna a son abbaye de Troarn,
des 1068, "totam sclusam Troarni a terra usque ad terram." Footnote 3, Preuves, II.
. . .

"Le mot 'sclusa' nous parait I'analogue, en ce qui touch les marais, des mots 'foresta,'
"
'garenna.'
^"^^Ibid., pp. 255-258.
144 /^ic/., 258.
p.
i«/^ii., p. 258.
332 Interpretmg Piety and Activity

was fined forty livres for having cut grass "in exclusive Troarno" and for
having chased the swans from their reserve/^^
The monks used many plants of the marsh for forage, for litter, in cooperage,
furniture making, house covering; they also extracted turf for fuel/^^ In 1297
turf extraction in the marsh of Terriers was regulated by the monastery; after
1297, it is no longer mentioned in the acts of the monastery, possibly because
of its rarity The abbey exercised its hunting and fishing rights on the marsh
—the estuary of the Dive was a nest of wild birds— and had a virtual fishing
monopoly By the end of the thirteenth century the abbey also had seven
mills on the arms of the Dive/^^ The abbey had forest holdings to which it
owned exclusive rights. Its house gardens flourished and its enclosures,
bounded by trees or a hedge, were devoted to crops or to meadow; vines grew
on the sunny slopes.^^^ With the exception of the gardens, the meadow, and
the vines, the economic life of the monastery was based on preserving the
environment in its natural state, a pohcy which met with difficulties in the pre-
scriptions of the Duke of Normandy at Caen (in response, in part at least, to
the complaints of the inhabitants); the monks appealed to the king, and sub-
sequently some of the rights which they had been deprived of were restored/^^
The between those who wished to preserve primeval landscapes
conflict
and those who on deforestation was often a conflict over rights; it was
insisted
not a question of resistance to change or eagerness for change, of the preserva-
tion of old beauty or the creation of new. The common welfare might be
involved, for deforestation of an area might nullify age-old rights. One
example dates back to the ninth century. The residents of the royal fisc of
Tectis [Theux] intended to divide up and deforest the forest of Astanedum
[Staneux, near Spa?] where they enjoyed rights of use. A diploma of the
emperors Louis and Lothaire [829] held that they enjoyed the forest land
in common and that they could not deforest.^^^ Adjustments might be made

p. 259.
/^iJ., p. 260.
^"^^Ibid., p. 261.
^^^Ibid., pp. 262-263.
word flet here translated as arm is "un bras d'eau
Ibid., p. 267. Technically the
d'importance quelconque, mais d'ecoulement peu rapide" (p. 256, note 5).
15 pp. 274, 276-277.
152 Pqj- 267-270: In 1295 Guillaume du Grippeel, Viscount of
details, ibid., pp.
Caen, ordered the destruction of some fisheries, enlarging and cleaning out of the arms
of the river, the cleaning of the bridges, the maintenance of landmarks (reperes), the
reinforcement of dikes, etc. The monks complained to the King, who ordered legal
remedies for some of the torts committed against the abbey. Three royal orders,
man dements, were involved, Philippe le Bel and Louis Hutin, Feb. 24, Oct. 10, 13 14, and
Jan. 18, 1 3 15 (pp. 267-268).
Huffel, 1:2, p. 79, footnote i. Huffel's source is the Cartulaire of Stavelot-Malmedy;
this act "est le plus ancien, a notre connaissance, qui consacre par ecrit la jouissance en
commun d'un droit d'usage forestier par un groupement rural."
 Interpre wig Piety and Activity 333

through compromise. In 1 2 1 9, the archbishop of Rouen met with the opposi-

tion of the Lord and the men of Saint-Aubin-Le-Cerf on his plan to deforest
a part of the forest of AHhermont and found a new parish there, the com-
plainants holding that their rights of usage would thereby be diminished. The
consented to the clearing and in exchange the archbishop ceded them a
latter

canton of the forest for their exclusive use, plus eighty livres, granting exemp-
tion of all duties normally payable for enjoying the rights of usage.
In the Middle Ages the exercise of rights of use was a powerful means of
maintaining a landscape or of changing it; but this exercise had httle to do
directly with evaluating the consequences of human use of the land. There
is, however, evidence that such interpretations were often made. Men were
aware of their influence on the forest, on wildlife, on the pasturelands and
the soils. They recognized their creativity when they built dikes to hold the
sea, planted grasses to fix the sand dunes, and planned useful and beautiful
gardens.
The antiphonal themes of forest clearance and forest conservation are dis-
cernible certainly in the times of Charlemagne; in all likelihood they are much

older. Lay and ecclesiastical administrators ahke seem to be self-conscious

and purposive directors of environmental change.
We
further decree, said Charlemagne in his Admonitio Generalts to all
bishops (789), following that which the Lord has commanded in the law [i.e..
Exodus 20:8-10] and which my own father of blessed memory had also
ordered, that labor not be performed on the Lord's Day: that men neither do
work in the countryside, nor care for the vineyards, nor plow the field, nor
mow or gather the hay, nor build a fence, nor stub in the woods, nor fell
trees (nec in silvis stirpare vel ar bores caedere), nor work in stone, nor build
houses, nor work in the garden, nor indulge themselves in pleasures, nor go
hunting.^^^
In the Capitular e de Villis {Capitulary of Manors and FariJis) there are
provisions for the proper pasturing of stallions for the good of both the horse
and the pastureland; instructions to the royal officers of each district to have
in their jurisdiction a wide variety of artisans, including fishermen, bird-
catchers, workmen who know how to make nets for hunting, fishing, and bird-
snaring; provisions for the accounting of revenues from all these activities;
instructions for the extermination of wolves, including the number taken, the
surrender of their pelts, and seeking out the young in May, killing them with

The is Delisle, Etudes siir la condition de la classe agricole en Nor-

basic source
mandie en moyen age, pp. 156-157, cited in Huffel, 1:2, pp. 140-141, footnote 2, where
additional examples are given.
Charlemagne, "No. 22: Admonitio Generalis. 789. m. Martio 23," Mo7i. Ger. Hist.
Capitularia Regum Francorurn, ed. Boretius, Vol. i, §81, p. 61. Certain exemptions
follow, and there are similar prohibitions for women's work.
334 Interpreting Piety and Activity

powders— probably poisoned— or by capturing them with hooks, or by using

pits and dogs; instructions for the proper selection of plants and trees for the
gardens/^^
One of Charlemagne's decrees has often been cited as evidence of willful
deforestation: "Whenever men competent for the task, let them be
there are
given forest to cut down improve our possessions."^^^
in order to
The thirty-sixth article of the Capitulare de Villis, however, is the most
significant from the point of view of our theme: "That our silva and foresta
be well guarded: and where there is a place suitable for clearing have it done,
not allowing the woods to increase in the fields."^^^

The chapter sums up an important characteristic of the civilization in a few

sentences: the foresta seems primarily to mean an area reserved as a refuge for
wild animals; the plan calls for a balance between forest and arable, the pro-
tection of game for royal hunting, and income from pannage. The officers
of the royal manors and farms are to observe carefully the woods and the
reserved forests {silvae vel forestes) Those districts suited to agriculture
. may
be deforested, but harmful clearing should not be permitted in which districts
ought to remain wooded. Protect the royal game; take care of the falcon and
the hawk for the chase; pay what is owed (literally, censa nostra) for the
enjoyment of forest rights. If the royal officers, the mayors of the palace, or
their men take their pigs to the forest for its mast, they should be the first to
pay the fee, the deciiim, one-tenth of all pigs taken to the royal forest, thus
setting a good example.
Perhaps too much can be read into this famous chapter— and it is all too
easy to do so. It has been interpreted as the first conservation measure, and
also as one which gave the signal for deforestation and put the stamp of
approval on it.^^^ Granting its restricted apphcation, as commentators have

Capit. de villis, art. 13, on pasturing horses {uDaraniones)\ 69, on wolves; 45, on
artisans; 62, on revenues; 70, on plants. See also Du Cange, articles on waranio, admis-
sarius eqims, ejnissariiis eqims.
"Ubicumque inveniunt utiles homines, datur illis silva ad stirpandum, ut nostrum
servitium inmelioretur." 77: "Capitulare Aquisgranense," art. 19, in Mon. Ger. Hist.
Capit. Reg. Franc, ed. Boretius, Vol. 2, p. 172.
Cap it. de V illis, 36. Meaume, Juris. Forest., p. 8, par. 21, thinks the C. de V. a
domestic regulation applicable only to the villae of the prince and that its importance
has been greatly exaggerated. Meaume makes the interesting observation (par. 22) that
Pecquet, the famous grand master of waters and forests in the Dept. of Normandy in
the reign of Louis XVwas the first to invoke the capitularies in support of the opinion
that Gaul would have been so overrun by forests in the ninth century that one of the
first concerns of Charlemagne would have been to favor clearings and to prohibit new
forest plantings. Pecquet's fame rests on his commentary and discussion of the French
Forest Ordinance of 1669 (Les Lois Forestiere, Paris: 1753. NA). Meaume calls him
"excellent forestier, mais fort mauvais historien."
159 Pqj- a discussion of this chapter, see Maury, Les Forets de la Gatde,
pp. 102-103,
who cites Meaume's opinion that it was applicable only to royal holdings and that
Charlemagne did not want the forests invading the cultivated areas, a real danger because
those enjoying pannage rights were interested in the extension of the forests. Charle-
 hiterpreting Piety and Activity 335

pointed out, may there not be a groping here for a balance between the forest
and agriculture, between grazing and agriculture, because the forests were so
vital for grazing pigs? The laws of the barbarian peoples clearly show the role
of pigs and other domestic animals in the forest economy. These capitularies
—and those of Charlemagne's successors— may well acknowledge that growing
populations, the multiple use of forests, and the demand for productive crop-
land were interrelated.
The passage is as significant for the interpretation it has evoked as for its

intrinsic importance. To some German historians of the nineteenth century,

it was evidence epoch was one of great and wide-ranging
that the Carolingian
colonization and consequent environmental change. Halphen, however, has
disputed this view, considering the extent of Carolingian colonization and de-
forestation to be exaggerated and only a continuation of trends already set
in motion by St. Columban and his disciples from the sixth to the eighth
century. The taming of nature, he adds, may have progressed a little more in
Carolingian times through the establishment of new ecclesiastical foundations
and by conquest.
Interpretations of environmental change appear with increasing frequency
in the period from about the end of the tenth to the fourteenth century. I am
not interested, however, in compiling, for their own sakes, lists of complaints
of harmful practices or exultant notices reporting the conquest of a new en-
vironment; it is show by illustrations the beginnings of
more important to
scattered and unrelated recognitions of the power of human agency in chang-
ing the physical environment. This is a period in some ways like the Caro-
lingian, an age of colonization and clearance, following one of virtual anarchy.
The Scandinavian invasions and thepressure of the Magyars had brought about
widespread internal disorder; Europe was surrounded by barbarian peoples
and the higher civilization of Islam.

The synod of Trosle in 909 give us some idea of the despair of the
acts of the
leaders of the Prankish church at the prospect of the universal ruin of Christian
society. "The cities," they wrote, "are depopulated, the monasteries ruined and
burned, the country reduced to solitude." "As the first men lived without law
or fear of God, abandoned to their passions, so now every man does what seems
good in his own eyes, despising laws human and divine and the commands of the
Church. The strong oppress the weak; the world is full of violence against the
poor and of the plunder of ecclesiastical goods." "Men devour one another like
the fishes in the sea."^^^

magne's successors apparently continued the policy of prohibiting both the establishment
of new forests and the deforestation, without permission, of already forested lands. See
also AMA, p. 242, on Charlemagne's precursors.
See Louis Halphen's discussion of Inama-Sternegg's Deutsche Wirtschaftsge-
schichte. Vol. I, pp. 275-280, and Alfons Dopsch's Die WirtschaftseiitwickluJig der
Karolingerzeit vornehmlich in Deiitschland, and his comments on De Villis, cap. 36, and
the Capitularia, art. 19, in Etudes Critiques sur VHistoire de Charlemagne, pp. 240-245.
Dawson, The Making of Europe, pp. 225-226. See also AM
A, pp. 244-245.
336 Interpreting Piety and Activity

In the eleventh century, however, observations of landscape change begin

to increase; in my opinion there has been a continuity of such observations
from those times to the present. In these matters, hov^ever, there is in the
Middle Ages not one history but innumerable local histories, as any student
who has read monographs of the historical geography of small areas of France,
Germany, or Switzerland has observed. The observations appear also in the
celebrated Weisthiimer,^^^ and in histories of local forests, like Plinguet's
history of the forest of Orleans and the enlightening work of De Maulde on
the same subject. In what general work on the Middle Ages do we have a de-
tailed history of an Alpine valley? Yet it is this kind of local history that gives
us an appreciation of the nature of environmental change through time.
The theme of forest conservation (or perhaps more correctly, the theme
of a balance between agriculture, industry, and forestry) is really an expres-
sion of the fact that the history of forestry in the Middle Ages is inextricably
intertwined with many other histories, especially of agriculture, grazing, min-
ing, and viticulture. The Carolingian belief in the beneficence of forest clear-
ance (with the exception of the statement that royal forest land unsuited for
other uses should be permitted to remain in forest) was superseded in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries by an opposite belief: the clearing, not the
forest, had to be justified. The shift in favor of the forests probably had humble
beginnings in the careless waste of simple housebuilding and in the deforesta-
tion of the most accessible places.^^^
According to Grand and Delatouche, beginning in the twelfth century an
imperious need was felt for forest protection, a need associated with increases
of the rural population, the growth of new towns, and the establishment of
industries which needed wood for fuel and construction, and with the clear-
ing of forests by fire. The tree was the raw material of the cabinetmaker, the
joiner, the cooper, the wheelwright, and from its wood were made the agri-
cultural tools, the fences, and the charcoal for the forges and the glassworks.
Pleas for conservation arise out of this very sensitive position of the forest.
It had to be cleared to make room for the town, the vine, the crop, but if it

vanished, the hfe's blood of the economy vanished too.

have already mentioned the varied and extensive uses of the forest in the
I

medieval period (and which continue into modern times) that sharply dis-
tinguish the forest of those times as a cultural environment from one in our

The Weisthum was a custom or precedent written down and often having the force
of law. See also Pfeifer, "The Quality of Peasant Living in Central Europe," in MR,
p. 245. There are many such collections. Perhaps the best known of the greater collec-
tions are the Oesterreichische Weisthiimer, collected by the Vienna Royal Academy
of Sciences, and Grimm's Weisthumer, in 7 volumes, collected by J. Grimm and pub-
lished by the historical commission of the Academy of Sciences of Munich, at Gottingen,
1840-1878.
On these themes, see Schwappach, p. 154; Heyne, pp. 148-159; AMA, p. 433.
 hiterpreting Piety and Activity 337

own. The most convincing evidence known to me of this dehcate balance be-
tween the forest, the arable, the town, and industry is in two Weisthumer
from the city of Erfurt, one of 1289, another of 1332, the last being known
also as the Bibra-Biichlein}^'^ In this Weisthu?n, there is a list of products of
the Thiiringerwald which brought into Erfurt. There were brooms made
are
of twigs, or large bundles of twigs bound together for sweeping; various types
of containers, tubs, or barrels; well-buckets; hoops, kegs, and various types of
wooden measuring vessels for milk, salt, and other uses; the wheelbarrow;
various kinds of braided materials, especially from the willow and used for
binding grapevines to the stakes; bast; various kinds of mats and roofing ma-
terials, perhaps woven from tree bast or bundles of twigs, and so forth; troughs,
keys, a specially prepared type of grass or reed girdle made of selected kinds
of foHage; wooden drinking vessels; a kind of long-handled dipper; possibly
hop poles or vine stakes; kneading troughs; wooden rollers, logwood, maybe
bowstrings; crossbows; split wood; poles; spear shafts, ax handles or helves,
possibly asword sheath or a girdle; wood fibers for sieves; harrows, hollowed-
out conduits which apparently carried beer in various stages of manufacture
from one part of the brewery to the other; wooden siphons; swine-feeding
troughs; wooden cribs or possibly stalls; thick wooden wheel disks with holes
bored in the center, perhaps for wagons or mill wheels; other wooden wheels;
grain measures; chests; sieves; various wooden vessels; wooden pushers to
shove bread into the oven; and saddles.
There are also examples of direct governmental encouragement of forests,
even to the extent of ordering the changing of land from agricultural to forest
uses. The German kings Albert I and Henry VII in the fourteenth century
ordered various formerly forested lands which had been converted to agricul-
ture returned to forest; the order of 1304 affected the Hagenauer Forest and
the Frankenweide near Annweiler, and in 1309 and 1310,^^^ the Niirnberg

164 This discussion is based on the text of Das Bibra-Buchlein as edited by Kirchoff in

Die altesten Weisthumer der Stadt Erfurt, #2, 14, pp. 42-47. I have followed Kirchoff 's
notes and discussions of the meanings of the words. On the Bibra-Buchlein, pp. vi-vii;
the meaning of kunes, rendered here as hop poles or vine stakes, is doubtful, pp. 43-44,
footnote 36. There is discussion of the Weisthum in Schwappach, pp. 164-165.
^^^The texts on which this is based (not available to me) are from J. D. Schoepflin,
Alsatia diplomatica Vol. 2, No. 829, Spicilegium tabulariim litter aruvique veterum
Frankf, 1724, p. 500; and L. C. von Wolkern, Historia diplomatic Norimbergensis, p.
224, No. 68, dated 1309. The text from Alsat. Dipl., Vol. 2, No. 829 (about 1304) is as
follows:
Mandamus, ut nuUus hominum nemus nostrum et imperii dictum Heiligvorst deinceps vastare
vel evellere radicitus aut novalia aliqua facere audeat aliqualiter vel presumat. Sed volumus ut
de pertinenciis et juribus ipsius nemoris apud antiquiores homines circa metas nemoris resi-
dentes diligens inquisitio habeatur, et ea que per inquisicionem habitam inventa fuerint dicto
nemori pertinere, sine sint culta vel inculta, nemori predicto attineant et inantea non colantur,
sed pro augmento nemoris foveantur.
The text from Hist. Dipl. Norimb., p. 224, No. 68 is especially interesting: "Mandamus,
quatenus sylvam nostram et imperii sitam prope Nuremberg ex utraque parte ripae,
338 hiterpreting Piety and Activity

royal forest. It has been suggested that natural regeneration and seeding from
neighboring stands were the means of restoring the forest, and that environ-
mental conditions (such as forest meadows) unfavorable for the distribution
of the seed were discouraged as much as possible. (Artificial planting of
stands was a later development.) No new clearings could be made in the Hag-
enauer Forest; the replacement of the arable by forest lands should be fos-
tered. The Niirnberg ordinance required the restoration to forest of the lands
on both shores of the Pegnitz River which had in the past fifty years been
cleared and transformed into cultivated fields.

In his history of German forestry, Schwappach finds that the first scattered
and locahzed regulations against deforestation begin in the twelfth century
and grow continually more numerous until by the end of the Middle Ages
forest protection is the rule, permission to clear, a special exception.^^^ The
motives behind these laws prohibiting clearance seem to have been the desire
to protect the reserved forests (Bannforst) possibly because they were royal
hunting grounds, to prevent new mast and
clearing, to protect sources of
pasture. It is difficult to determine if the older prohibitions were in the in-

terest of hunting alone or of other forest uses as well, for hunting was more
than a pleasure; it was an important source of food even for royalty. Clearly a
balance between the forest— a source of energy, tools, utensils, and of plant
and animal food— and cropland yielding food was desired. According to
Schwappach, this tendency to encourage a forest economy by prohibiting
clearings first appears in a privilege of the Archbishop Eberhard of Salzburg
(1237) who, in the interest of salt production, forbade the transformation of
cleared-over forest lands into arable fields or meadow, in order that the forest
could grow there again. In Albert's ordinance of 1304 prohibiting novalia
and destructive activities in the Hagenauer Forest and ordering the return of
many of these lands to woods, the same author discerns a transition from
purely negative prohibitions to positive measures for forest care.^^^

In Henry King Rudolph's ordinance of 1289

VII's sharper restatement of
with reference to the protection of the Niirnberg royal forest, it was said that
"harm had come to him and to the city of the kingdom in the destruction of
the forest of the kingdom and its transformation into cultivated land." In this

quae.dicitur pegniz, a quinquaginta annis citra per incendium vel alio modo quocunque
destructam seu vastatam, ac postmodum in agros a quibuscunque redactam in arbores
et in sylvam, sicut solebat esse primitus, auctoritate nostra regis redigatis" (about 1309,
repeated in 13 10). The texts are in Schwappach, pp. 181-182, footnote 4.
Ibid.^ p. 154.
^^"^
Ibid., pp. 154-155.
The source,
not available to me, is Hansiz, Germania sacra. Vol. 2, p. 339: "... illud
quoque concedentes, ut succisis nemoribus patellae ipsorum deputatis sive de-
juris eis
putandis nuUi liceat fundum eorum nemorum excolere vel pasturae animalium usupare,
ut ligna in eisdem fundis possint recrescere" (about 1237, froni Schwappach, p. 156,
note 31).
^^^Ibid,, p. 156.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 339

remarkable document, the transformation of forest to cultivated lands is re-

garded as a calamity! It reminds one of Evelyn's castigation of agriculture as
the enemy of the forest in the seventeenth century. In 1310, the same king
ordered all those to whom the provisions of the document applied to swear
on All Souls' Day a corporal oath— that is, to be in contact with holy relics—
and in the presence of the imperial judge in the town (the Schultheiss) who
had close relationships with the council, with law enforcement, and with the
mayor, to restore the forest to its former condition and to tolerate no acquisi-
tion by outsiders through purchase or by any other means of rights of forest
use of any description/^^
In 1 3 3 1 King Ludwig of Bavaria promulgated more regulations concerning
,

the forest (Forst) and the royal forest (Reichswald) on both sides of the Peg-
nitz River in Niirnberg. Once a year all officials, foresters, and beekeepers
from both banks of the Pegnitz were to be summoned by the council, to ap-
pear before it, and to swear to the Holy One to adhere to decisions resolved
upon as being good and useful for the kingdom and the city and to censure
any act considered harmful to the forest. Only a forester had the right to
authorize removal of wood from the forests. Officials, foresters, and their as-
sistants might permit only those to remove wood from the forest or might sell
only to those who had enjoyed such rights from olden times. The highest
forestry administrative official was duty bound to reside in Niirnberg, and
rights in the forest could not be sold by him or by anyone else because such a
sale was harmful to the city or to the kingdom. These regulations bind up
the fate of the forest with the people and the city, to make the city and its
forested surroundings one. "Am Schluss unserer Periode [that is about the
middle of the fourteenth century]," says Ernst Mummenhoff, an historian of
Old Niirnberg, "erscheint der Wald als ein Unzertrennliches mit der Stadt
verbunden."^^^
This is the most dramatic of all the efforts, known to me, in the Middle
Ages to preserve local forests in the environs of an important city; the con-
ditions described here suggest an understanding of the complex interrelation-
between town and forest.
ships existing
Even more remarkable— for whatever reason— is the active participation of
which he
the clergy in the cause of forest conservation. In 1328, the year in
was chosen for his office, the Bishop of Bamberg had to swear that he would
take the forests of the bishopric under his faithful protection, and that he
would not permit the inauguration of new clearings, a ceremony and oath
repeated in the choice of a bishop in 1398.^^^ Further evidence of the increas-

^^^
Mummenhoff, Altniirnberg, pp. 55-57. On the precise meaning of Schultheiss at
this time, see pp. 13, 20-21.
Ibid., p. 58.
i72/Z,/i.,p. 61.
i^^Wimmer, Geschichte des deutschen Bodens, p. 133.
 Interpreting Piety a?id Activity

ing concern for forests is shown in the 1 5 1 forest regulations enacted in vari-
ous parts of Germany in the period from 1482 to 1700.^^^
Important and deHcate relationships also existed between the forest and
industry. We
may take as an example glassmaking, so important throughout
Central Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Large amounts of
wood were needed in all stages of manufacture. These glassworks were located
in the forests because it was cheaper to build them there than to pay transport

costs of such a bulky source of energy. The migration of industry from one
cleared part of a forest to the other, as happened in the Black Forest, was com-
mon before it became more stabilized. Glassmaking, like mining, highlighted
the role of the forest as a source of energy and as the locale of industry.^^^
Similar demands were made where mining and smelting took place. The
Catalan forge of the peasant needed charcoal and ore. The smelter required
nearby areas rich in wood. Operations of this kind already were going on
modestly during the migrations of the barbarians; deforestation for this and
other reasons took place in the Carolingian age.^^^ Similar migrations in the
forests occurred with the setting up of sawmills, which began to multiply
rapidly on watercourses at the end of the fifteenth century.^^^ Sawmills, first
mentioned in the German lands at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning
of the fifteenth century, were springing up in the Austrian and Bavarian Alps
and in the Black Forest.
Mining, including salt mining, accentuated these overall trends by gradually
bringing more remote environments within the economic network. Mining
also demanded great quantities of wood. Since there were no modern ex-
plosives,rock had to be broken up by heating— the fuel source was wood-
followed by dousing with water to split and crack it. According to Schwap-
pach, the Harz and Hallein forest areas were specifically designated for mining
and salt mining about 1237. In the German lands miners apparently had gen-
erous access to the use of wood.^^^
In this sense, viticulture too was an industry, for it was dependent on the

^^'^Of interest also is the older work (1802) of Anton, Geschichte der teutschen
Landwirthschaft vojj den altesten Xeiten his zu Ende des fiinfzehnten Jahrhunderts,
Vol. 3, pp. 429-489 on forestry, covering the period from 1 158-1350.
See Dirscherl, "Das ostbayerische Grenzgebirge als Standraum der Glasindustrie,"
Mitt, der Geo. Gesell. in Mwichen, Vol. 31 (1938), pp. 103-104. Note the discussion of
the Black Forest, pp. 103-104, the Spessart, Steigerwald, Thiiringerwald, the Silesian
Bergland, the Fichtelgebirge, east and west Prussia, and Pomerania, pp. 103-108.
Guyan, Bild und Wesen eiiier Mittelalterlichen Eisenindustrielandschaft im Kanton
Schaffhausen, p. 64. See also pp. 58-60, 65.
AMA, p. 439, citing Ch. Guyot, Les forets lorraines avant ij8p, Nancy, 1886.
Schwappach, p. 142. Harz and Hallein from Hansiz, Germaniae Sacrae^ Vol. 2, p.
330; and T. Wagner, Corpus luris Metallici (Leipzig 1791), about 1484. See Nef, "Min-
ing and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation," CEHE, Vol. 2, pp. 436-438; and Gille,
"Les Dev. Technolog. en Europe," JWH, Vol, 3, pp. 91-92, on the influence of the
Germans on mining and mining techniques.
 .

Interpreting Piety and Activity 341

forest for stakes and various plant fibers which bound the vine to the stake.
One can in fact discern two different themes, the vine as an enemy of the
forest because it displaces the tree, and the forest and viticulture as com-
plementary, with forest areas being set aside (as with mining) for the needs
of viticulture.
It is easy to see therefore, from these examples, why the literature of the
forest reaches back so far and why reflections on desirable and undesirable
changes in the environment accumulated as various types of environments
came into use for different purposes.

12. Alpine Valleys

An attractive theme in the geography of the Middle Ages is the settlement of

the high Alpine valleys because of the liberty and security they afforded; some
of the settlers were interested in protective forests, which in modern times,
especially in France, have received so much attention in relation to torrent
control. (In an Austrian Weisthumer, placed at Flaurling in the valley of the
Inn in the fifteenth century, cutting down trees in certain districts is prohibited
so that no harm will come either to the church or to the neighbors from the
stream. )^^^
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Frangois Arnaud made a study
of the valley of the Ubaye, a left-bank tributary of the Durance in the de-
partment of Basse Alps; it was included in Demontzey's well-known work on
the extinction of the Alpine torrents in France.
The valley of the Ubaye had enjoyed almost complete independence since
the thirteenth century; it attracted "comme un eldorado de liberte" refugees
from neighboring feudal areas. Its population had become so dense that de-
forestation and the cultivation of cereals had been pushed to the extreme limits.
The local government, moreover, struggled to avoid the disastrous conse-
quences of deforestation and of turf removal (degazojinement)
These settlements in the Middle Ages were organized into communes
{mandements or consulats) which were more populous and greater in area
than the contemporary French commune. Each mandement had a council
{capitulwn) composed of the heads of all the families, whose official acts
,

were known as capitulations. A consul or syndic chosen by the council was

charged with the strict supervision of these capitulations, being assisted in the
tasks by sworn overseers called jurats.

^^^HufTel, 1:1, p. 134; Oesterreichische Weisthiimer, III, p. 26. "Mer, her richter,
off en wir, das (iemant) in der lent hinder des pfarrers kabasgarten im poden hinein
nach pis a den vodern schrofFen weder daxen noch klain holz nicht sok schlachen pel
umb, damit der kirchen und den nachpaurn von dem pach kain schad widerfar" (quoted
in Schwappach, p. 181, footnote 2).
i^^Huffel, 1:1, pp. 134-135.
342 biterpreting Piety and Activity

The oldest capitulations (reprinted by Arnaud), those of Meyronnes and

Larch of August 29, 141 4, regulate the pastures and the use of wood in pri-
vately owned property These provisions, examples of which are given here,
tell their own story:
Prohibition against cutting wood or having wood cut within the boundaries
of the mountain; this apphes even to proprietors on their own meadows.
Prohibition against pasturing sheep, or any other animals, at Adrech (above
Larch) and at Adrech de Plan above Saint-Ours from St. John's Day to St.
Luke's Day (from June 24 to October 18).
Everyone is prohibited from taking out both dry and green wood.
Strangers to the communities of Meyronnes and Le Larch are prohibited
from pasturing their livestock on their lands (clearly aimed at eliminating the

transhumants).
Residents of the two communities are prohibited from having flocks of
sheep of more than six trenteniers (180 beasts) without permission of the
consuls.
Pasturing either large or small livestock in new meadows less than ten years
old is forbidden.
It is forbidden to have more than six head of cattle per inhabitant without
permission of the consuls.
It is forbidden to allow animals to graze in the mountains before St. John's
Day (June 24). The
capitulations of January 9, 1436, provided for severer
penalties including punishment in the pillory and the carcan as examples to
others.
These capitulations show that much was understood about the relation of
deforestation to torrents, about the dangers of excessive grazing and grazing
during the wrong times of the year and in the wrong places, and about the
necessity of strictly regulating transhumance.
During the Middle Ages men were aware of the destructiveness of domesti-
cated animals, but this had to be weighed against their indispensabihty. The
goat, an extreme example, often was as important an animal as the pig.^^^ Its
destructiveness, however, was more dreaded than that of any other domestic
animal, and the greatest care was taken to watch it. Du Cange has cited a

Frangois Arnaud, "Notice historique sur les Torrents de la Vallee de I'Ubaye," in

Demontzey, VExtinction des Torrents en France par le Reboisement, pp. 408-425. This
area has been recently restudied by Therese Sclafert, Cultures en Haute-Provence. De-
boisements et Pdtiirages au Moyen Age. Les Hommes et la Terre, IV (1959). See esp.
Part II, chap. 4, "La Protection des Bois et la Lutte contre I'Erosion," pp. 181-212, where
many illustrations are given, including those published by Arnaud, pp. 184-185.
182 "Si elle [the goat] ne fut generalement pas la bete ideale des exploitations agricoles

ni I'element le plus normal des troupeaux, en revanche, son prix modique, sa sob-
riete, sa rusticite refractaire a la tuberculose, sa fidelite familiere, son peu de volume, la
qualite et I'abondance relative de sa lactation ont fait de la chevre, autrefois plus que de
nos jours, la providence des petites gens" {AM A, p. 505).
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 343

Norman text in which goats did not have the right of bannovium (Hterally
the time when animals are allowed to graze in the common fields) but must
be carefully guarded they nibble the young shoots of the trees, the copse,
lest

the hedge, and the vine. "Around 1080, persons with rights to use the forest
of Langon, in Anjou, could drive neither sheep nor goats into the woods.^^^
There was a similar strictness in the Midi: in 1337, the proprietor of seven
goats which were found browsing in the forest of Saint-Parquier, paid the
same fine as if he had cut down an oak."^^^
The history of the regulation of forest grazing by custom, usage, or law
probably is very old; none is known to me in the Greek and Roman period
except that agricultural writers were concerned with the depredations of ani-
mals in cultivated fields, but not in mountain pastures or in the forests. There
is however a notice in the capitularies of Clotaire II (614 or 615) prohibiting

the swineherds of the royal villas to graze pigs in ecclesiastical and privately
owned forests, but this may have been an economic measure controlled by
the supply of acorns.
In the history of German forestry there are examples of the prohibition of
sheep and goat grazing dating back to the twelfth century. *'What right do
goats, sheep, swine have to the Vorholz," one W eisthum asks. "They have no
right," is the reply, "but pigs are permitted at mast time."^^^ In the Dreieicher
Wildbajjn (ca. 1338), the shepherd could drive his flock into the forest only
throw his staff. Neither were Austrian Weisthiimer silent on
so far as he could
goats; they were allowed to graze only in the remote parts of the Alpine
forest.^^^

In the Lex. Man., "Bannovium: Tempus quo licet pecora pasci per agros com-
munes." See Du Cange, article, Fraiterius, and A, p. 505. AM
Translated from AMA, p. 505, whose source is the Cartulaire de Saint Aubin, Vol.
I, p. 262.
p. 505, whose source "Comptes de
185 /i^MA, is la Senechaussee de Toulouse," in His-
toire du Languedoc, Vol. X, c. 783; Saint-Parquier, cant, de Montech (Tarn-et-Ga-
ronne).
Edict of Chlotharii II, ca. 614 or 615, chap. 21: "Porcarii fisales in silvas ecclesiarum
aut privatorum absque voluntate possessoris in silvas eorum ingredi non praesumant."
23: "Et quandoquidem pastio non fuerit unde porci debeant saginari cellarinsis in publico
non exigatur" (Capitidaria, ed. Boretius). See also Huff el, 1:1, p. 278, note i.
Refers to Lower Saxony. See Grimm, Weisthiimer, p. 259, Item 6; Schwappach, p.
169, footnote 47.
W
An Austrian eisthum from Amt Obdach about 1391 provides, "Es sol auch kainer
unset underthanen in dcm ganzen ambt Obedach nit gaisz haben bei der straff" (Oes. W.,
Vol. VI, 274). The same collection, referring to Alpine goat grazing in Altenthan about
1437, says, "Wer gaisz hat, soli sie wie vor alter an die grasze wald und holzer, dasz si den
hann nit kraen horen und niemand schaden thun treiben" (Vol. i, 30). The reference
to the shepherd is in Grimm's Weisthiimer, VI, 397, 6: " auch sal ein gemein hirte
. . .

nicht verrer mit seinen schafen und ziegen in den wait farin, dan he mit sime stabe gewer-
fen mag, and sal alle zit da vor sten und werinde sin heruz" {Dreieicher Wildbann about
A.D. 1338). These texts are quoted in part by Schwappach, pp. 169-170.
344 hiterpreting Piety and Activity

These and many other similar regulations are evidences of a genuine con-
cern for the well-being of the forest as a habitat of hving things. It had to
be preserved as a breeding ground for the wild animals needed for the hunt
and as pasturage for the domestic animals. According to Maury the provisions
in Salic law to protect forests really intended the preservation of the domestic
animals; and in protecting grazing lands for pigs, sheep, goats, it guaranteed a
suitable environment for birds and bees, protecting the trees against reckless
destruction by those with rights of usage.^^^ There are indications too that
when a forest had been cut over, care was taken with the young regrowth;
how widespread this practice was cannot be ascertained. De Maulde, for ex-
ample, cites an agreement between a Lord Bouchard de Meung and the com-
manderie of the Hospital de Saint-Jean-de-Jerusalem at Orleans (approved in
1 1 60 by the bishop of Orleans) concerning the clearing of a forest to build

a village, further clearings to come with the bishop's consent as the population
grew. Peasants had rights of use in these forests for their cattle, but if a clear-
ing was made, those cut-over areas in which the regrowth was taking place
were denied to the animals.^^^ The same author cites some ancient texts con-
cerning the forest of Orleans in which all animals except goats (capris tamen
exceptis) are allowed to graze; to the latter, access is persistently denied.^^^
It is possible that man's realization of his power to make radical changes in
the environment by means of his influence on the breeding, housing, and wan-
dering of domestic animals comes late, even though grazing at will on open,
flat, or mountain lands is a very ancient example of man's ability to make
changes in the physical environment through controlled concentrations of
animals at selected places. Regulating the multiplication of animals and their
densities has vast cumulative effects. These slower ecological processes were
less apparent than the immediately visible effects of clearing through purpose-
ful firing or cutting. Of course it is true that the habits of the animals could
be readily observed. Goat damage to young trees, to the young shoots of
trees, and even to an entire stand of trees was not difficult to discover. Forest
fires, moreover, were often started by shepherds, accidentally, or intentionally
to secure a finer growth of grass. The shepherd, the domestic animal, and fire

thus became a powerful combination.

In many countries, the activities of the woodcutter and the herder have
been associated with forest fires. In his history of the forest of Orleans, De
Maulde has cited interesting notices from the parishes of Vitry and Courcy,

Maury says that in the SaHc law the legislation protecting forests really intended
to preserve the domestic animals; in protecting grazing lands for pigs, sheep, goats, it
also guaranteed a suitable environment for birds and bees, protecting also the trees
against reckless destruction by those v/ith. rights of usage (Les Forets de la Gaule, pp.
90-91).
De Maulde, pp. 11 4-1 15.
Ibid.y p. 149, and footnote 6.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 345

dating from the middle of the fifteenth century. A fine of five sous was levied
for lighting a fire in a forest with dry wood, a distinction being made between
starting a fire at the base of a dry oak or one still green. A fire started against
an oak which is more dry than green increased the fine by five sous regardless
of the season. If the oak is more green than dry, the fine is increased to fifteen

sous parisis.
Forest were controlled through custom, those having the right to burn
fires

for pasture having also the obHgation to fight fires. They were put out by

beating with brooms, by backfiring, and by trenching. The dangers of burn-

ing were recognized, but so was the role of fire in creating new fertility.
In the same work, De Maulde cites evidence showing an acute realization
in the fourteenth century of the tragic effects of indiscriminate deforestation.
The cutover areas or vagues, were overgrown with broom {genet) and heath
following deforestation. Texts of the thirteenth century distinguished be-
tween woods and the places where woods should be but were not, between
the real forest and the confusion of bramble. In the fifteenth century, the
word alaise was used to define part of a forest, detached from the rest, some-
times by extensive stretches of vagues, and forming a well-defined region of
its own, created not only by neglect but by the animals that nibbled and

trampled the sprouting seedhngs, preventing regrowth.^^^

13. Soils

The possibility of improving the soils through human agency was recognized
in the Middle Ages. Soil theory, based on the doctrine of the four elements,
was empirical in nature. The importance of fertilizers was also realized as is
shown by the discussions of Albert the Great and Pietro Crescenzi (Petrus
de Crescentis [ 1 2 30-1 3 1 o] whose Opus Ruraliinn Commodorum had profited
,

from Albert's work). Marhng seems to have been one of the chief means of
improving soils, animal manures playing a subordinate role (and a lesser part
than in modern times) owing to the smaller size of the animals and their fre-
quent grazing in open fields, meadows, and forests.^^^
Of greater interest is a theory mentioned by Sclafert in her study of the de-
forestation of the southern Alps: in the eyes of the peasant, whose harvests
were often so precarious, the trees of the forest— useless vegetation— were his
enemies, attracting to themselves all the juices of the soil (''attirait a elle tous les

Ibid.^ pp. 87-91. The on young seedlings is from a letter of patent in 1543.
notice
For Middle Ages, especially in France, see
a discussion of fertilizers during the
AMA, pp. 261-269. See also Bertrand Gille, "Les Developpements Technologiques en
Europe de iioo a 1400," JWH, 3 (1956), p. 96, on differences between the Middle Ages
and classical antiquity in agricultural methods, at least as they appear in the Roman
writers on agronomy, marling, fallowing, and in the agricultural writers such as Walter
of Henley (thirteenth century), Petrus de Crescentis (fourteenth century), and others.
346 Interpreting Piety and Activity

sues de la terrepour nourrir un vegetation inutile") Among the monks,

some believed in the theory, while others opposed cutting down forests for
this reason. Albert the Great had warned against leaving rhizomes of cut-over

trees in the soil. (See p. 315.) In the later Middle Ages, when more land was
obtained by draining marshes and from other kinds of reclamation, perhaps
the conflict between forest and the arable was less intense.^^^

14. Hunting

Hunting had a varying relationship to agriculture: there are indications in the

late Middle Ages of a shift away from an emphasis on the preservation of
wildlife (even though there might be no closed season for the privileged few
who could hunt) to the preservation of crops and domesticated animals sub-
ject to the depredations of the wild animals. Furthermore, hunting is a sensi-
tive subject in the Middle Ages because of its relationship to theology, and
the official attitude of the Christian Church was at odds with an apparently
widespread and irresistible infatuation with hunting. One could expect of the
Church, as with many religions, a counsel of compassion and pity and even
friendship with the wild beasts. In Christian doctrine, sparing them, refraining
from cruelty to them, was part of the duty of man, and was performed in the
name of humanity.^^^ Christian hagiography is full of instances of friendship
with small animals and even with large predators. Myths and legends woven
by later writers around the lives of their favorite saints had them in their
forest retreats, striking up friendships with the animals, or as Montalembert
has said, retraining feral animals. This Christian hagiography may indeed be
a form of protest against heartless killing of wild animals.^^^ St. Jerome had
said there were numerous examples in the scriptures of holy fishermen, but
not a single example of a holy hunter; Ambrose, that the just had never
St.

been found among the hunters; and Pope Nicholas I had declared that only

reprobates are given to the chase. These sentiments were expressed before
Saint Hubert, Bishop of Liege, became, in the eleventh century, patron saint
of hunters.
Such was the passion for hunting in the Middle Ages that the Church vainly
held its clerics from it. In principle, the only hunting actually prohibited was

Sclafert, "A Propos du Deboisement des Alpes du Sud," Annates de Geographie,

Vol. 42 (1933), pp. 266-277, 350-360, ref. on p. 274.
Anton, Geschichte der teutschen Landwirtschaft^ Vol. 3 (1802), has given many
interesting details from older documents which illustrate this theme, pp. 185-216. See
also AM A, pp. 260-264.
i^^Dom Leclercq, "Chasse," in Diet. d^Arch. Chret. et de Liturgie^ Vol. 3, col. 1087.
Montalembert's discussion is particularly interesting because of his sympathy-
amounting to hagiolatry— with the monks. See Vol. 2, pp. 226-231.
198 Pqj. general discussions of hunting and the chase, see AMA^
pp. 547-618 (Le gibier
et la chasse) and the pertinent chapters of Schwappach.
Leclercq, "Chasse," loc. cit.
 Interpretifig Piety and Activity 347

the chase with horn, shouting, and dogs, and falconry, because of the luxurious
and worldly display they symbolized. Kings and councils reportedly tried to
control the ecclesiastical zeal for hunting. In the Council of Agde (506) the
clergy was forbidden to hunt with dogs or to possess hawks. In Carolingian
and later times there were repeated prohibitions against the use of dogs, hawks,
falcons, and various other birds of prey, and of sentinels.^^^ The basic objec-
tion to hunting and the reasons for trying to control it— among the lay and
clergy alike— was that it embodied atavistic instincts which should be kept
at bay.^"^ The utilitarian argument in favor of hunting apparently was very
strong, and this attitude is understandable once it is realized that hunting was
more than a pleasurable pastime; it supplied food, even for the highly placed;
it controlled species harmful to crops and to domestic animals; it furnished
pelts, furs, and hides for gloves and the bindings of monks' books, the latter

need often being advanced as a justification for clerical hunting, especially of

the chamois. Hunting caused a notable, if temporary, change in the landscape:
the large managed forests were crossed by wide roads favorable both to the
habitat of the wild life and to the ease of the hunt.^^^ Under the circumstances,
it is easy to understand recurring opposition to deforestation on the part of
the large royal, noble, or ecclesiastical landholders during the Middle Ages.
National historians of European forestry have repeatedly vStressed the role of
hunting in forest conservation.

La chasse, [says Huff el of French forest history] en dehors meme du role utile
du gibier pour I'alimentation, a tou jours tenu une grande place en foret. Nos
rois, chacun le sait, etaient restes, comme leurs premiers ancetres, des chasseurs
passionnes. La conservation, atravers les siecles, d'un immense domaine forestier
royal, ducal ou seigneurial s'explique surtout par le soin jaloux avec lequel les
souverains menageaient le terrain de leurs chasses: c'est au culte de nos rois pour
le "noble deduit" que nous devons, en grande partie, de posseder dans le domaine
national cette partie infiniment precieuse et la plus riche de nos forets qui provient
de I'ancien domaine souverain.^^^

15. Lesser Themes of Environmental Change

These are the main themes concerning environmental changes, but there are
also minor ones, some of rehgious, some of lay origin, that should at least be
mentioned. One is the garden. In interpreting its plan and purpose, one should
not forget the Christian paradise theme and the monastic cemetery garden.

200 Quotations from original sources in Schwappach,

p. 61. Article 55 of the Council of
Agde (Concilium Agathense, 506): "Episcopis, presbyteris, diaconibus canes ad venan-
dum aut accipitres habere non liceat." On the kinds of animals inhabiting the German
"Urwald," see Schwappach's chapter, Jagdausiibung, pp. 64-70.
See the remarks in AM Ay pp. SS^SS^^ for the many attempts, largely unsuccessful,
to control hunting.
202 AM A, p. 569.
203 Huff el, 1:1, p. 6.
348 Interpreting Piety and Activity

The pleasure garden (not the utiUtarian garden cultivated because its plants
were medically useful) was often conceived of as a simulation of the Garden
of Eden. To cultivate the garden was more than a task for the holy; it was also
a reliving of part of the creation. The experience was aesthetic and religious.^°*
One of the truly great landscape changes in modern times has been marsh,
bog, marine, and lacustrine drainage. This extensive drainage of marsh and
bog lands, however, seems primarily to be a phenomenon of modern times—
mostly since the late seventeenth century— although there are many famous
examples from earlier periods, such as the reclamation of the marsh lands of
the Po (twelfth century on) and the imperially recruited Dutch immigrants'
reclamation in an area of modern Berlin. Desire for land and improvement of
health were the powerful motives. That an empirical relationship existed be-
tween illness and almost still or stagnant water was realized in ancient medi-

cine. In some parts of Europe, health reasons may have been a controlling cause
of drainage. In the old French Mediterranean province of Roussillon, the pur-
pose of drainage was to eliminate the stagnant waters and deadly fevers at
Bages, Nyles, and other places; most of the canals of Salange and of the suburb
of Elne may have been dug for this purpose; subterranean drains may have
been used for the same reason. The Count of Roussillon Guinard had a pond
dried up northeast of Perpignan. And sales were made to the Templars of
Masdeu for drainage purposes.^^^
There are on the other hand instances of the creation of artificial ponds.
Temporary ponds were used in the Middle Ages in the Dombes and in La
Brenne of France (this latter area, more than the Pays de Dombes, still has its
lakes and marshes and bogs), thus combining agriculture with fishing and using
at the same time the fertile soil particles carried in suspension. Barrages built
at the base of the valley dammed up water from the neighboring hills on the
exhausted soil; the newly formed pond was allowed to remain until the soil
was well rested and fertilized. Then the barrage was pierced, the water flowed
off, and the new earth could be plowed. The advantages of this form of migrant

fertility, however, were clearly offset by the health dangers.^^^

16. Conclusion

There were many other activities which involved environmental change, the
establishment of towns, villages, and monasteries: the draining of swamps; the
making of an occasional polder; and— long before Bremontier and his imme-
diate predecessors— a planting of pine to fix the sand dunes of Leiria, Portugal,

See Heyne's discussion, Das Deutsche Nahrungswesen^ pp. 62-100.

Etude sur la Condition des Populations Rurales du Roussillon au
Brutails, Moyen
^ge, pp. 3-4.
See the Comte de Dienne, Hist, du Dessechement des Lacs et Marais en France
avant /y^p, p. 5. The author gives no exact date for these ponds in the Middle Ages.
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 349

in 1325.^^^ Indeed, one meets from time to time in medieval literature an unmis-
takably joyous and lyrical feeling of creating something new. The evidence
isspotty and proves little for the Middle Ages as a whole. A few quotations
cannot be made to characterize a millennium. Nevertheless they are interest-
ing in themselves; even the Church saw the advantage of improvements in life
coming about through changes of the environment. The old saying, already
more than a spiritual mean-
referred to, that one lives well under the cross, had
ing; it could also mean economic well-being through the activities of the mon-
asteries of the countryside. Men of the Church saw themselves as spiritual
leaders in the creation of a new environment; these attitudes appear early in
the activities of the fathers in the West, in the shift from the love of solitude
and prayer and the desire for release from the world to a mission-
cares of the
ary zeal which included everyday tasks of clearing, building, draining. (The
later history of course was much less edifying.)
The most drawn is the conclusion that can also be
general conclusion to be
drawn of the contemporary period: there were many interpretations, and
these were based on different religious, economic, and aesthetic values, as are
our own.
It is often said that what distinguishes the modern from the medieval and

classical periods is the modern sense of triumph in the control over nature in
contrast with an earlier and unrelenting dependence. Such contrasts rest on an
underevaluation of the extent of environmental change in classical and medi-
eval times, on the belief that an advanced technology and sophisticated theo-
retical science are required for extensive and permanent change, and on a too
sharp contrast between the so-called industrial revolution and the industry
and technology of the past. One may wonder at the failure of the thinkers of
the Aliddle Ages to create a theoretical science comparable with that of Gali-
leo and Newton; fail they did, but they lacked neither an empirical knowledge
of forestry, agriculture, drainage, nor a technology permitting them to induce
sweeping and lasting changes in their environment. In fact, they made some
of the most drastic changes in landscapes in human history up to that time.
An ascetic ideal was the original stimulus in evolving a philosophy of man
as a creator of new environments. The early saints purposefully retired from
the world, and they fancied that by their clearings they were re-creating the
earthly paradise, reasserting the complete dominion over all life that existed
before the Fall. The attractive force of these retirements, both to other monks
and to the laity, and organized efforts at conversion led to Christian activism,
in which taming the wild was a part of the religious experience. One of the
many great roles St. Bernard played was to increase the Church's potential for
landscape change. Under his influence one can see the Cistercian order chang-
ing from remoteness and renunciation to a role of active Christianizing of new

Gille, "Les Dev. Technol. en Europe de 1000 a 1400," JWH, 3 ( 1956), pp. No
source is given.
35© Interpreting Piety and Activity

and old lands alike. The success of such undertakings depended on practical
knowledge and sense like that expressed in the Instituta capituli generalis of
1
1 34; 'Victus debet provenire de labore manuum, de cultura terrarum, de
nutrimento pecorum."^^^
In the age of the great defrichements, lay ambition and church ambition
alike called for activity and change as a part of economic expansion and of
conversion. The result was a yearning, to use a modern expression, for con-
trol over nature. In the later Middle Ages the interest in technology, in
knowledge for its own sake whether to improve thinking or to better the
human condition, in clearing, and in drainage and the like betrayed an eager-
ness to control nature.^^^ As in all epochs of human history, modification of
the physical environment is linked with ideas, ideals, and practical needs. The
period of great cathedral building embodied a religious ideal; it also meant
vast quarrying; probably more stone was removed from the earth in this
period than in any comparable period of the past. In the three centuries from
1050 to 1350 stone quarried in France built eighty cathedrals, five hundred
large churches, and tens of thousands of small churches. The Christian duties
of conversion and lay expansion and colonization meant firing, clearing, burn-
ing. The grain and the grape have their practical, their cultural, and their
religious history.^^^

Quoted in Muggenthaler, Kolonisatorische und ivirtschaftliche T'dtigkeit eines

deutschen Zisterzienserklosters im XII. iind XIII. Jahrhundert, p. 103.
See White, Medieval Technology and Social Change, p. 79; and Nef, "Mining and
Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation," CEHE, Vol. 2, p. 456.
In 191 3, Herbert Workman published The Evolution of the Mojiastic Ideal., in
which he advanced the thesis that Eastern monasticism had degenerated into "Gnostic
extremes" and "idle self-centeredness," that St. Benedict's contribution was that he
added objective remedies for the vices of this earlier Eastern subjectivism. In essence St.
Augustine had done this in his treatise on monks written earlier. St. Benedict, Workman
continued, did not see the momentous consequences of this fusion of the monastic ideal
with a philosophy of work. "Benedict did not see— the deserts in which they lived pre-
vented the early monks from seeing— that the introduction of labour was destined, in
the long run, to draw back the monk into the world from which he had fled, or, rather,
to draw the world after him to the centres of light and peace which his labours created
in the wilderness" (Evol. of the Monastic Ideal., p. 157). Important as this development
might be for the history of Western civilization (even so unsparing and consistent a
critic of monasticism as G. C. Coulton praised St. Benedict and the Benedictine Rule),
Workman argued that the combination was fatal to the ideals of monasticism as they
were at first envisaged. In fact, he constructs a theoretical history of a monastic order
which is cyclical in nature; first, there is the enthusiastic desire for solitude of an original
founder who goes to the dark forests, wastes, or deserts; if he gains a reputation, his
presence has an attractive force on other monks, the group now attracting more and
more, including lay people, so that what had started out as a makeshift hut became an
abbey. The tiny enclave became an organized community, and axes and spades cleared
the woods and the swamps, and "by the alchemy of industry turned the sands into wav-
ing gold, and planted centres of culture in the hearts of forests" {ibid., pp. 219-220).
The combination, he claimed, was fatal because of the conflict between renunciation
 Interpreting Piety and Activity 351

The life of Albert the Great provides a clue. He shared with his contem-
poraries and the Christian thinkers of the past a belief in a designed earth, in
nature as a book revealing the artisanry of God, in the need to know nature
for religious and practical ends; he thought also of the role of the environ-
ment and he saw the force of clearing, of burning, of do-
in cultural matters,
mestication, of manuring. That is what it was, a chain from theology to
manuring.

and the wealth which accumulated with toil, leading to worldliness, corruption, decline,
with the process again being repeated in another ascetic beginning (ibid., pp. 220-224).
Workman was a Methodist minister and a very devout Christian. See also the critical
and sympathetic introductory preface to this edition by David Knowles, O.S.B. On the
cathedrals, see Gimpel, The Cathedral Builders, p. 5.
 PART THREE

Early Modem Times

 Introductory Essay

I . Introduction

There is considerable justification in this history of ideas for discussing the

Renaissance and the age of discovery together. During the Renaissance, in-
terest in classical learning farexceeded that shown by learned men of the
Middle Ages: the sources were clearer, they came from the classical world
more directly, and there were more of them. The pages of Leon Battista
Alberti's (1404-1472) Ten Books on Architecture are eloquent witnesses of
direct study. How thoroughly he has read most of the authors who even in-
directly contribute to his work and with what a critical eye he has studied
Vitruvius! Along with this interest in the ideas of the ancient world there was,
if we are to judge the writings of men like Le Roy and Sebastian Miinster, an

awareness that something new had appeared in human history, an awareness

increasedby the results of the age of discovery.
Furthermore, judging by the memoirs of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Pope
Pius (1405-1464), in the Renaissance it was possible to combine a love of
II

scenery with historical associations, seeing in the fusion the beauties of land-
356 Part Three: hitroductory Essay

scapes altered and unaltered by man. Let us look at these memoirs a little

more closely.
There is wildness in his Italian landscapes, but reminders of human activi-
ties—the olive grove, the vineyard, the ruin— are never far away. The pleasure
of a scenic view is often experienced as part of a pontifical duty, a signatura,
a meeting of cardinals. In "the sweet season of early spring" he follows the
Mersa upstream to the baths; the "indescribably lovely" country immediately
around Siena, "its gently sloping hills planted with cultivated trees and vines
or plowed for grain," overlooks "delightful valleys green with pasture land or
sown fields, and watered by never-failing streams." Birds "sing most sweetly"
in the thick forests growing naturally or planted by man. Human intru-
sions—country seats and monasteries— are on every Sienese hill. The party
ascends the eel-filled Mersa, progressing from an intensively cultivated en-
trance "thickly dotted with castles and villas" to the wilder country near the
baths. There, about the twenty-second hour, it wascustom to go to the
his
meadows, sitting on the greenest and bank to hear
grassiest parts of the river
embassies and petitioners, his path to the baths strewn by flowers brought
by peasants' wives.
He spends a summer at Tivoli in order to avoid sweltering and unhealthful
Rome. On the way, a conversation about the Trojan War continues on to
the geography of Asia Minor. Later, at his leisure, he wrote a description of
Asia, "quotingfrom Ptolemy, Strabo, Pliny, Q. Curtius, Julius Solinus, Pom-
ponius Mela, and other ancient authors passages that seemed to him relevant
to an understanding of the subject." How revealing is this passage— the classi-

composed in cultivated landscapes dotted with ruins! It is like Alberti.

cal essay
Ruins are all about in Tivoli; Pius thinks the temple on the cliffs above the
Aniene may have belonged to Vesta and he notes traces of a once splendid
amphitheatre.A part of the Aniene diverted through the city "serves mills,
workshops, and fountains and adds greatly to the beauty of the place." About
three miles from the city is which was built
the magnificent villa of Hadrian
like a big town. "Time has marred everything": ivy now covers walls which
once were decorated with embroidered tapestries; briers and brambles grow
in the proud places of purple-robed tribunes; queens' chambers are the lairs
of serpents. Between the villa and the city are beautiful vineyards, olive
groves, trees, including the pomegranates, growing among the vines. The huge
and towering masses of aqueducts still stand; even as ruins they attest the
costliness of their construction.
On the visit to Subiaco, the man-made landscape— the beauty of the vines,
the usefulness of river diversion, achievements such as the new vineyards,
"heavy with ruddy grapes which had been quarried out of the rock"— again
There is in Viterbo a commingling of city ("there is
attracts his attention.
hardly a house without its spring or its garden") and countryside. "Almost
every day at dawn he would go out into the country to enjoy the sweet air
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 357

before it grew hot and on the green crops and the blossoming flax,
to gaze
then most lovely to see with its Of Mt. Amiata in the Sienese
sky-blue color."
territory he wrote that it is "clothed to the very summit with forests," the
upper part, often cloud-capped, is in beech, below the beech are the chest-
nuts, and below them the oaks and cork trees, the lowest slopes being in vines,
cultivated trees, tilled fields and meadows. It reminds one of Lucretius's des-
cription which has already been quoted. (V, 1 370-1 378; see p. 140).
The landscape is redolent of the human past. He visits Lake Nemi via the
Appian Way whose pavement is still visible. "The road was in many places
more beautiful than at the height of the Roman Empire since it was shaded on
the sides and overhead by leafy filbert trees which were at their greenest and
most flourishing in that month of May. Nature who is superior to any art has
made the road most delightful."
In this work there are hints of what is to come in greater volume in the
following centuries: aesthetic appreciation of nature, the evocative power of
landscape, historical associations, ruins whose present aspect, far different
from that of their efllorescence, assume a role as ruins, creating a different
kind of man-made beauty. Most striking of all is Mt. Amiata; nature and art

are alive on the mountainside.^

These ideas came out of the Mediterranean past; others came from the age
of discovery. Although it is not my purpose here to review the well-known
consequences of that age, it might be well to say something about the intel-
lectual resources which men could use in interpreting the findings made avail-
able to them by the travels and the voyages. One of the well-worn themes of
European and world history is the expansion of the intellectual horizons made
possible by the age of discovery and especially by the voyages of Columbus.
We need not elaborate on this theme except to say that the broadening and
deepening of the intellectual life of mankind as a result of the age of discovery
came about not quickly but slowly and that our most sensitive accounts and
appreciations (Giovanni Botero and Father Lafitau, for example) come long
after the age of discovery. It is equally important to recognize that men did
not greet with empty minds the age of discovery and the questions it raised
regarding the relationships of man to nature. The ideas whose history we have
been discussing could still do yeoman service.

2. The Age of Discovery

The idea of a designed earth, as we shall see, was a commonplace of Renais-

sance thought, embodying, as did the conceptions of the medieval theologians,
both the classical concepts and those derived from the Old Testament. What
^ Although it is an abridgment, the references here are to Memoirs of a Renaissance
Pope. The Commentaries of Pius II, trans, by Florence A. Gragg and edited with an
intro. by Leona C. Gabel, because of its far greater accessibility. The unabridged trans.
358 Part Three: Introductory Essay

greater proof of the wisdom, the power, and the creativity of God, then, could
one ask for than these unexpected tidings from the New Lands? The lushness
of the vegetation, the great expanses of the wet tropics, the sight of peoples liv-
ing in a manner which demanded immediate answers to questions regarding
human and the migrations not only of man but of domestic animals
origins
more difficult problem than the former), were but a few
(the latter in fact a
of the observations that evoked wonderment. The tales of the voyagers far
surpassed in extravagant description anything the theologians and the philoso-
phers had written on the evidences of the existence of God as seen in the
works of creation. The world was larger, more full of wonders, and much
more of it was habitable than had been thought. "I kept a diary of noteworthy
things," said Amerigo Vespucci, "that if sometime I am granted leisure I may
bring together these singular and wonderful things and write a book of ge-
ography or cosmography, that my memory may live with posterity and that
the immense work of Almighty God, partly unknown to the ancients, but
known to us, may be understood."^
The discovery of the existence of the antipodes, of climates and environ-
ments different from the dry deserts, the Mediterranean, and northwestern
Europe reinforced ideas of the God-given fullness, richness, and variety of
nature. And secular ideas of chmatic and environmental influence could be
equally serviceable. While it is true that in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries men began to realize that a reading of history and of the
reports from the voyages and travels often cast doubt on climatic explana-
tions, it is nevertheless true that they remained favorite explanations, if not
for cultural differences, at least for cultural behavior. If one knew nothing of
tropical diseases or their causes, if one's knowledge of the daily life and physi-
cal activities of primitive peoples was of a very superficial sort, consisting of
elementary observations of physical characteristics and subjective appraisals
of character, what was more logical than to interpret the spectacle of sleepy
natives lying in the shade in the hot warm cHmates as creatures held in thrall-
dom by their cHmate? The age-old ideas of environmental influence, far from
being discredited, actually increased in effectiveness— not only in the voyages
to the New World but in the travels through Eurasia and in the reports about
Persia and China.
Even the idea of man as a modifier of his environment acquired a dramatic
character in the new lands. Men could see with their own eyes the changes-
some of them temporary it is true— that they could make with fire and clearing
in what many considered virgin lands unchanged since the creation. They

by Gragg and Gabel is in Smith College Studies in History^ Vols. 22, 25, 30, 35, and 43.

The Siena country, pp. 154-155; Asia Minor, pp. 190-191; Tivoli, pp. 193-194; Subiaco,
p. 213; Viterbo, p. 261; Mt. Amiata, p. 277; Appian Way, p. 317.
2 Amerigo Vespucci, Mundus Novus, Letter to Lorenzo Pietro di Medici, trans, by

George N. Northrup, p. 12.

 Part Three: Introductory Essay 359

could apply experiences and theories which had emerged in scattered locali-
ties in Europe regarding the and drainage. Later on, espe-
effects of clearing
cially in the eighteenth century, the literature on man's changes in the New-
World environment began to grow, and men could realize both their power
to change the earth and the value of apparently primeval landscapes as out-
side laboratories for the pursuit of nature's secrets. In a Relacion of Diego de
Esquivel (November i, 1579) on the Indians of the province of Chinantla,
there is a remarkable passage about health and clearing and the drying of the
land in the New World. The author contrasts the present with the past con-
ditions of the Indians, the theme being that their populations have decHned
and thus also their ability to control the growth of swamps and jungles and
forests:

They live less long and have more illness than formerly because the country
was then more thickly populated with Indians who cultivated and tilled the
land, and cleared the jungle. At the present time there are great jungles and
forests which make all the region wild, swampy and unhealthy. The Indians
being [now] so few, and scattered over more than fifty leagues of territory, and
the region being damp and rainy since it rains eight months in the year, and
they are not able to clear the ground so that the winds play over it and dry it
as of old.^

There was a quickening of interest in things both human and divine as new
questions were asked about the peoples of the world. It was realized early
after the discoveries that revised interpretations of the history of the human
race were now required. New chapters in the population history of mankind
since the days of Noah and had to be written to bring the customs
his sons
and the characteristics of the newly found peoples within the protective cover
of the divine design; to account for the differences (perhaps through climatic
explanations) between these people and the more familiar types of Europe,
western Asia and North Africa; to explain how, through the manipulation of
their environment, they were able to live and clothe themselves. Inquiries
would have to be made regarding their innate inventiveness. Was it the prod-
uct of human intelligence and local circumstances (what was later known as
the psychic unity of mankind) that enabled men everywhere independently
to put nature to their own uses?
On June 4, 1537, P^^l ^
issued the bull, Sublimis Deus, directed to all
Christendom (universis Christi fidelibus), declaring that God in his love for
the human race created men that they might participate in the good enjoyed
by other creatures, that He had endowed them further with the capacity to

3 Diego de Esquivel, "Relacion de Chinantla," in Francisco Del Paso

y Troncoso, ed.,
Papeles de Nueva Espana, 2nd. Ser., Vol. 4 (Madrid, 1905), pp. 58-68, passage on p. 63.
Translated into English (from which the quotation is taken) and included as an appen-
dix to Publication 24 of the Instituto Panamericano de Geografia y Historia, Bernard
Bevan, The Chinantec and Their Habitat, Mexico (?), 1938, p. 139.
360 Part Three: Introductory Essay

attain the Supreme Good, to behold it face to face. Since man was created in
order to enjoy eternal life and happiness—but only through faith in Jesus
Christ— he must also possess the nature and faculties enabhng him to em-
brace that faith. "Nor is it credible that any one should possess so little under-
standing as to desire the faith and yet be destitute of the most necessary facul-
ty to enable him to receive it." words, "Go ye and teach
Quoting Christ's
all nations," Paul further declared that Jesus had made no exceptions, "for
all are capable of receiving the doctrines of the faith." (Onm.es dixit, absque
omni deletu, cum omnes fidei disciplinae capaces existant.) Basing the bull
on the text, Euntes docete gentes, Paul said that the Indians of the West and
South "and other people of whom We have recent knowledge," should not
be treated as dumb brutes, created for our service and assuming them to be
incapable of conversion. Enslaving them cannot be justified. The Indians are
truly men, capable of understanding the faith which, according to our in-
formation, Paul continued, they wish to receive. (Attendentes Indos ipsos, ut
pate veros homines, nan solum Christianae Fidei capaces existere, sed ut nobis
innotuit, ad fidem ipsam pro-mptissrme currere.) Neither the Indians nor any
other peoples later discovered by Christians are to be deprived of their liberty
or their property, even though they live outside the faith; any enslavement is
null and void. Twenty-five years after the Lanjos of Burgos (1512), the sus-
tained denunciations of slavery by Bartolome de las Casas, Bernadino de
Minaya, and Juhan Garces, and their affirmations that Indians were human
beings, finally secured the Subliviis Deus of Paul III. Even it did not put an
end to the notion that the Indians, on a low scale of savagery, were worthy
of nothing better than serving their Christian masters.^
It is difficult to generalize about the opinions held of primitive peoples by
observers immediately after the age of discovery. It is true that many were
dismissed as wild, naked, and ferocious barbarians or cannibals.^ It has been
said that conceptions of the native peoples progressed from the early period
when they were regarded as barbarians to the time when they were studied
as primitives.^ Certainly there is a growing sophistication in observation from

^ TheLatin text and an Engl, trans, of the bull, Sublimis Deus, is in MacNutt, Barthol-
omew de las Casas, pp. 427-431. On Las Casas' activity, see pp. 182-199. See also Lewis
Hanke, "Pope Paul III and the American Indians," Harvard Theolog. Rev., Vol. 30
(1937), pp. 65-102, and esp. pp. 67-74 Spanish attitudes toward the Indians, on De
Minaya, and Bishop Garces; pp. 94-95 on Las Casas and the bull. Hanke thinks Paul
III does not deserve the praise usually given him as a friend and protector of the In-
dian; no pope, he argues, in view of the Catholic faith and of canon law, could have
refused to issue the bull. See also the discussion in Ludwig Freiherrn von Pastor, Ge-
schichte der Papste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Vol. 5, Geschichte Papst Pauls III,
13th ed., pp. 719-72 1 Engl, trans.. History of the Popes, ed. by Kerr, Vol. 12, pp. 518-520.
;

^Miihlmann, Methodik der Vdlkerkunde, pp. 18-19.

^Plischke, Hans, Von den Barbaren zu den Primitiven. Die Naturvolker durch die
Jahrhunderte.
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 361

the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, but many of the early descriptions,
Acosta's for example, do not give the impression that the authors beheve they
are dealing with barbarians and cannibals. Although it is not possible here to
give an account of the writings about the peoples of the newly discovered
lands and the attitudes toward them held by their conquerors, two common
ones were (i) that they were addicted to idleness and vice, characteristics
which could be corrected by conversion and acceptance of the Christian
faith and by living close to the Spanish, from whom they could learn the
acceptable customs, and (2) that although they were creatures of God they
had been under the control of the Devil, and that it was now part of God's
design, through missionary activity leading to conversion, to bring all the
newly discovered peoples under the Christian faith. The Laws of Burgos
illustrate many of these points well. They reveal the fear of idleness, the
desire for conversion of the heathen, a recognition of their characteristics as
peoples in their own right and of the nature of cultural contact and imitation,
even an acknowledgment of the need to respect Indian customs.^
Father Lafitau (i 670-1 740), the French Jesuit missionary to the Iroquois
who made the first extensive study of the ethnology of the Indians using the
comparative method, makes some interesting comments on the works of his
predecessors, and in doing so epitomizes the conventional attitudes toward
the people of the New World. He criticized those who thought these people
lacked any sentiment of religion, knowledge of the divine, laws, or govern-
ment, who thought that their only human characteristic was their form. Even
missionaries and other men of good will, he said, had circulated inaccurate
and false opinions hke these.
Even though he is volume of Moeiirs des Sauvages
writing late— the first

Ameriquains, Comparees aux Moeurs des Frevtiers Temps appeared in 1724—

he expresses the orthodox CathoHc attitude to the New World and its peoples.
The age of discovery, he said, was not the chance discovery it might seem; on
the contrary, had been reserved by God among the treasures of his provi-
it

dence in order to enlighten, with the light of the faith, the multitudes held in
slavery by the Demon, multitudes shrouded in the darkness of error, in the
shadow of death, plunged in all those horrors which created brutal ferocity
and all the errors of idolatry. So surprising indeed was their appearance, even
to the learned, Lafitau continues, that the first questions asked about them
were whether they were of the race of Adam, and if they were the issue of our
first parents— our faith does not permit us to doubt it— at what time, how, and

whence had they come? Very early, therefore, the problem of diffusion, of
migrations and migratory routes, became of importance in reconciling the
new discoveries with the bibhcal accounts of the creation, the Deluge, of the

Simpson, The Laws of Burgos of i $12-1^1^.

362 Part Three: Introductory Essay

multiplication of the descendants of Noah, of God's grace and care for the
world, even if hegemony to such a late date in
the persistence of the Devil's
the New World
went unexplained.^
Many men of the time were well aware of the significance of the age of
discovery both in overthrowing older opinions and in broadening men's
horizons. It is a New Amerigo Vespucci, because the ancients
World, said
had no knowledge of it; was no land to the south of
the old ideas that there
the equator, or if there was, that it was uninhabitable, have been proved false—
"for in those southern parts I have found a continent more densely peopled
and abounding in animals than our Europe or Asia or Africa, and in addition,
a climate milder and more delightful than any other region known to us. ."^
. .

Similar expressions appear in the comedy by Lope de Vega, El Nuevo Mundo

Descubierto par Cristobal Colon (early seventeenth century), in which Co-
lumbus, cast in the role of a self-conscious discoverer of the New World, re-
buts the classical notion of the uninhabitability of the torrid zones. If people
can live in cold Scythia, they can live in a burning climate as well. He is going
to look for the people in the antipodes. Why should there not be people who
stand opposite us on the other side of the earth? Do not people known to us
live sixmonths of the year in night and is not Norway a cold country? These
comments, of which Lope de Vega's are but one example, are indicative of
the awareness of the corrections needed in the supposed distribution of earthly
environments, concerned chiefly with the simple questions of latitude and
climate, and the antipodes.
Francisco Lopez de Gomara likewise is harsh on the geographical theories
of the ancients which the experience of modern voyagers had now refuted.
He surveys classical ideas about the plurality of worlds and finds them un-
founded. The earth is round, not flat; not only is it habitable, it is inhabited.
His critical historical discussion of climatic zones reveals a wide acquaintance
with classical thought. He points out the adaptability of man to climatic ex-
tremes, for man is made had commanded Adam and
of the earth, and God
Eve to increase, multiply, and exert their dominion over it. In the Scriptures,
he finds evidence that the existence of the New World was known. Recon-
ciling the new discoveries and observations of the widespread distribution of
man with the Bible is another example of the resiliency of old ideas in the
presence of new facts. Noteworthy too are his short histories of thought con-
cerning the antipodes and the habitability of the tropics. Even more striking
are the noble opening lines of his great work: the beauty and diversity of the
world are now laid open to intelligent men to study and to understand its
marvels. "Es el mundo tan grande y hermoso, y tiene tanta diversidad de
cosas tan diferentes unas de otras, que pone admiracion a quien bien lo piensa

8 Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, Vol. I, pp. 27-29.

9 Amerigo Vespucci, op. cit. (see n. i above), p. i.
7, 10. Act III, Scene 11.
10 Act I, Scenes i, 2,
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 363

y contempla. Pocos hombres hay, si ya no viven como brutos animales, que

no se pongan alguna vez a considerar sus maravillas, porque natural es a cada
uno el deseo de saber."^^

3. Sebastian Munster

Often we obtain a truer sense of prevailing ideas and their relationships to

one another if we examine selected works as a whole, especially if they are
published sufficiently after an era such as the age of discovery to allow for
maturation of theories and observations and their fusion with the old. I have
chosen three such men, Sebastian Munster, Joseph de Acosta, and Giovanni
Botero. All of them were involved in the new thought which came as a
response to the new discoveries; all of them wrote with an awareness of
European ideas, of their importance in interpreting the new knowledge, and
of the revisions they themselves now must undergo.
Sebastian Munster, born in 1489 at Nieder-Ingelheim (between Mainz and
Bingen), became a Franciscan monk he was
(a Alinorite) in 1505. In 1529,
converted to the Protestantism of the Swiss Reformed faith. He was an Hebra-
ist, a cartographer, an editor of classical works (Pomponius Mela and Solin-

us), but he is remembered as a cosmographer whose fame rests on the Cosmo g-

raphey, the most impressive of the early compendia of geography published
after the voyages of discovery. This world-famous book, first pubHshed in

1544, was the culmination of eighteen years of work with the help of 120
scholars, artists, and persons of rank. The editions which followed in 1545,

1546, 1548, were changed very little, but that of 1550 contained many cor-
rections and supplements and included many fine woodcuts of towns and
cities, and maps which added luster to the work's fame. The book, with the

supplements added after Munster 's death from the plague in Basel in 1552,
was very influential in Germany, indeed in many other parts of Europe for
over a century.^^
This exceedingly long work is divided into six books of uneven length and

Francisco Lopez de Gomara, Historia General de las Indias, in Biblioteca Autores

Espanoles^ Vol. 22 (Vol. I of 2 vols, in Historiados Primitivos de Indias).
^2 Viktor Hantzsch, "Sebastian Munster. Leben, Werk, Wissenschaftliche Bedeu-

tung," in Abhandlungen der kdnigl. Sdchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (Phil-

hist. Kl. ), Vol. 18 (1898), No. 3. Hantzsch mentions the superiority of the Wallis
(Valais) description and the poverty of the New
World materials. Two essays by Mar-
garet Hodgen have captured the flavor of this period: "Sebastian Muenster (1489-1552):
A Sixteenth-Century Ethnographer," Osiris, Vol. 11 (1954), pp. 504-529; and "Johann
Boemus (ft. 1500): An Early Anthropologist," American Anthropologist, Vol. 55 (1953),
pp. 284-294. See also Miss Hodgen's masterly chapters v-vii on collections of customs;
the ark of Noah and the problem of cultural diversity; diffusion, degeneration, and en-
vironmentalism, in Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Also
of great interest is Rowe's Ethnography and Ethnology in the Sixteenth Century. See
also generally, Gallois, Les Geographes Allemands de la Renaissance; and Francois de
Dainville, La Geographic des Humanistes, Paris, 1940, esp. pp. 85-87.
364 Part Three: Introductory Essay

quality. Book I is a general outline of physical and mathematical geography

concluding with an account, based on the Bible, of the dispersion of the hu-
man race after the Flood. Book II. probably the best, is on southern and west-
ern Europe; it is notable, as Hantsch says, for its sharp and liyely delineations
of customs and folk character, with observations about land productivity, soil
and material culture. Book III. on Germany, is the longest; Book
fertilirv',

IV on northern and eastern Europe. Book \, on Asia and the New Islands
is

(the New World), and Book W, on Africa.

The most significant general observation to be made about this cosmog-
raphy, first published over fifty years after Columbus's first voyage, is that
Book V on Asia and the New \\'orld is poor. In it are cuts showing a dog-
headed man, a headless man \^'ith his face in his chest, Siamese twins, a one-
leeged man with a giant foot, the same cut being reproduced in Book VI
on Africa. Aliinster mentions briefiy the voyages of Columbus and of Ves-
pucci, adds a notice or two describing the bodily constitution and way of life

of the Indians, even though a literature now existed in German on the voyages.
Miinster himself had helped his friend Grynaeus on the Xoms orbis, which
contained Columbus's first three voyages, those of Pinzon, A'espucci, the
travels ofMarco Polo and his successors.^"* He ignores the conquest of Mexico
and Peru, which had attracted universal attention at the time, the AA'elsers'
colonization of \^enezuela (Charles had granted the Santa Ana de Coro to
the rich Augsburg banking firm in 1527 and it soon sent out colonists to the
valley of the Orinoco), German fortune-hunters in the New AA'orld. the
Fugger colonial undertakings in Chile and the South Seas, and flourishing
settlements of German traders in Brazil. In editions published after his death,
the Hterature on America and the collections of voyages made by the Frank-
furt copper-engraver Theodor de Bry and the Niirnberg publisher Levinus
Hulsius. "inexhaustible sources of knowledge of the east and west Indies,"
seem to have gone completely unnoticed by the editors.
Wh^t was Miinster's philosophy of geography, his conception of its mean-
ing and significance? To him, knowledge of geography meant deeper learn-
ing and understanding of practical affairs and of religious matters.
Geography, he thinks, is important to the historian. Miinster himself makes
constant if conventional use of historical materials. Strabo was his model and
he was flattered when friends referred to him as the German Strabo. Cos-
mography, the description of the world and everything that is in it. opens up

^3 Hantzsch. op. cit., p. 52.

^'^Xotiis orbis was

issued in separate editions at Basel and Paris in 1532. Grvnaeus
wrote the preface, but the compilation was made by John Huttich, Grvnaeus subse-
quently revising it. See Justin W'insor's introduction to Vol. I, of Narrative and Critical
History of America, xxiv-xx\'ii, also with portraits of Grynaeus and Miinster.
^5 Hantzsch. op. cit., pp. 56, 68.
16 Ibid.,
p. 59.
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 365

the hidden secrets of Holy Wm and reveals the forces of a wise and judicious
Nature. One learns of new customs, and the path of exploration leads to
knowledge of new animals, trees, plants.
Aliinster shows a remarkable awareness of environmental change as being
part of cultural history. Patriotic Germans like him, who knew German his-

torv well, were struck bv the contrast between the Germany bydepicted
Strabo and Ptolemv and that of their own times which, he says, is as cultivated
as Gaul or Italy. He contrasts the German improvement throughout time
with the deterioration in the environment of the Holv Land but without
further explication.
In his outhne of cultural history, Miinster says that as civilization advances,
clearing and draining go on, towns are born, castles rise on the hills. Earth-
works and dams control the water. Man finishes the creation. Gradually by
cultivation, with settlements, castles, villages, fields, meadows, vineyards, and
the like, the earth has been so changed from its original state that it can now
be called another earth.
Even though he failed badly to give his eager readers riches from the voy-
ages and travels to the New A^'orld, he was not unaware of their implications,
for they also were part of the design. A\ e can gaze with wonderment at the
creation, for each land is given something not found in the other. The Creator
has so marvelously apportioned his gifts in order that men can learn that they
and their land always need one another.^"
Aside from this- conventional theology, Aliinster's geography is descrip-
tive, not theoretical. He is struck by the advantage of Europe's position. Fol-
lowing the ancient division of the Old AA'orld into three regions separated
by the Don, the Mediterranean, and the Nile, Miinster comments that Europe
is the smallest, but it is fertile, it has a temperate climate for fruits, grapes, and

many kinds of trees. It is inferior to none and can be compared with the best.
It is built up with wonderfully attractive cities, castles, markets, and villages,

and the strength of its peoples is far superior to those of Africa and of Asia.^^^
He speaks too of the broadening of man's geographic horizon since antiquity
with the colonization of western Europe, and now \y\x\\ the new discoveries;
this vision is suffused, however, with the melancholy air of the transitoriness

of things supported by Solomon's observations about novelty.

It is generally agreed that the best description in the work is that of AA'allis
(Valais); it is based on the work of Johannes Kalbermatter, a provincial gov-
ernor under Bishop Hadrian of Sion, and can stand comparison with a modern
description. This famous canton of Switzerland is now known mainly for its

resorts and skiing, the Alpine passes, the Matterhorn and Zermatt, with its

two cities on the Rhone, Martigny (German Martiuach) and Sion (German

^"
The above paragraphs are based on CosiJiographcy, "\'"orrede."
Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 16; Hantzsch, op. cit.j p. 51.
366 Part Three: Introductory Essay

Sitten). The valleys and the alps (the alpine meadows), the wild animals,
including bears and boars, the summer pasturing of cows, sheep, goats, are
briefly mentioned. Nothing is lacking in this enclosed land with its grain,
fruit, meat, and wines; there are kind words for the exceptional quality
fish,

of the red wine of Sion and Sierre (German Siders), so black one can write
with it, more words on the mountain pastures, goat cheese, butter, the cattle
sold in Italy, the fish in the rivers. Medicinal herbs and roots (the prevalence
of goiter and its possible causes), turpentine, ores and mining, hot baths,
round out this stocktaking without statistics.
In this sixteenth century description, one of the most beautiful and charm-
ing landscapes of Europe comes to life. It is longer, more complete, and
more accurate than is the description of the whole New World.

4. Jose de Acosta

Since we know from the Scriptures, says Acosta, that all men descended
from the first man, how then did men reach America and by what means?

Acosta eliminates at once a second ark and intervention by an angel; the

peophng of the New World came about through natural causes according
to the rule of reason. He then considers the possibility of coming by sea
and whether such a voyage might be purposeful or accidental. We must
not think, he says, that the art of sailing is confined to us; these early people
may, like us, have possessed navigation and pilots. Solomon had taken masters
and pilots from Tyre and Sidon. Acosta, however, is not of the opinion that
such a voyage was purposeful, mainly because these early people lacked the
lodestone and the compass, and it would be impossible to cross the Atlantic
without the latter. The ancients navigated, he says, by the sun, moon, stars,
by observing landmarks and differences between lands. For these reasons, he
thinks, the discovery, if it was by sea, was by chance (most likely being
blown by the winds), for such accidental discoveries happen in our time.
Furthermore, much invention and discovery have been accidental rather
than the result of the industry of man, though Acosta adds that discovery is
accidental only in relation to man, for such discoveries come about only
through the Creator's will.
But Acosta rejects this possibility of accidental discovery by sea, because
of the difficulty in explaining how animals reached the New World, espe-
cially the carnivores, foxes, tigers, lions, which are of no profit to man. An
occasional animal might be transported, but the presence of larger predators
causes Acosta to conclude that the peopling of America by both man and
beast took place by land; somewhere— in the north or in the south— there is

either a joining of the New World with the Old or a narrow body of water

19 Bk. Ill, chap. 43, "Von Fruchtbarkeit des Lands Wallis."

 Fart Three: Introductory Essay 367

separating them. The absence of beasts on islands far enough offshore to

prevent them from swimming to the mainland convinces him further that a
land passage was the only plausible explanation for the movement of life

from one continent and foxes are found on

to another. Tigers, bears, boars,
the mainland but not in Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, Margarita, or Dominica,
the only beasts found on these islands being those introduced by the
Spaniards.^^
From the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, many be-
lieved that the native Americans were of the stock of the lost tribes of Israel.
Many of the early priests, including Las Casas, believed it; Acosta did not.^^
Questions about the animals of the New
World, Acosta said, had long per-
plexed him. Men might carry a hen with them from place to place even as
they do today. It is more difficult to account for the origin of beasts found
now in the Indies but not in Europe. If they were created in the New World,
there was no need for Noah's ark. Neither was there any need to save birds
and beasts if they were to be created a second time in the New World, and
if this later creation took place, it could not then be said that the world was

made and finished in six days. If Noah preserved all the beasts, it follows that
even if they are not now found in the Old World, they came from there.
Why should none of their kind remain in the Old World when they are
found in the New as travelers and as strangers? If the alpaca, guanaco, and
the sheep of Peru are found in no other place in the world, who carried them
here? Why are they here when there is no trace of them elsewhere? If they
have not come from elsewhere, were they created in the New World? Perhaps
God has made a new creation of beasts? "^Por ventura hizo formaron Dios
nueva formacion [sic] de animales?" What applies to the alpacas and the
guanaco applies also to a thousand kinds of birds and beasts of the forest
known neither to us nor to the Romans or Greeks. Acosta finally concludes
that all animals indeed did come from the ark, that they dispersed in environ-
ments proper to them, that they died out in other places, but survived in the
New World. This is not an uncommon occurrence, he adds, there being
examples from many nations in Asia, Europe, and Africa. The elephant, he

20 Acosta, Historia de las Indias, Bk I, chap. 16, 19, 20.

21 See The Apocrypha, trans, by Goodspeed, "The Second Book of Esdras," xiii, 39-
47. In 1650 Thomas Thorowgood published the first discussion in English, Jeives in
America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that Race, Leading New England
divines of the seventeenth century accepted the theory. In 1768 Charles Beatty found
traces of the lost tribes among the Delawares repeating the Indian story that they long
ago sold "the same sacred book to the whites with which the missionaries in the end
aimed to make them acquainted." In the early nineteenth century there was interest in
similarities between native languages and Hebrew, and between the customs of the Indians
and the ancient Hebrews. Here I wish to do no more than call attention to this difTu-
sionist literature. These notes are based on Winsor, "Pre-Columbian Explorations," being
chap. 2 of Vol. I of Winsor, ed., Narrative and Critical History of America, pp. 115-
117, with extensive bibliographical references. See also Acosta, op. cit., Bk. I, chap. 23.
368 Part Three: Introductory Essay

says, is found only in the East Indies but he too came out of the ark as did
the alpaca and the guanaco.^^
Thus very early the problem of the diffusion of man and the beasts was
closely tied up with Christian theology. The diffusion of man meant the
diffusion of his customs. Acosta's observations show how theories of diffusion
and independent invention and even nineteenth and twentieth century con-
troversies about the Old World origins of New World civilizations could
come into being.

5. Giovanni Botero

Giovanni Botero, a Jesuit-trained scholar writing during the Counter-Refor-

mation, published three major works, Greatjjess of Cities (1588), Reason of
State (1589), and Relazioiii Universalis the first part of which appeared in
1 59 1. The Greatness of Cities, the most interesting and charming of these
works, also has some of the most stimulating ideas; the Reason of State,
written, its author says, to counteract the influence of Machiavelli, belongs
which Plato's
to a genre of political treatises— often addressed to a ruler— of
Laws, Thomas's On Kingship, Dante's On Monarchy, and Machiavelli's
St.

Frince were the outstanding examples up to that time. The Relazioni is a

compendium of geographical facts of much less theoretical interest.

Botero says that a prince must excel in eloquence in order to properly rule
his subjects, but it cannot be "subtle or convincing or impressive" without
knowing the works of nature which underhe the works of man.

Nothing awakens the intellect, illumines the judgment and rouses the mind to
great things more than a knowledge of the disposition of the world, of the order
of nature, the motions of the heavens, the qualities of simple and compound
bodies, of the generation and corruption of matter, the essence of the spirit and
its powers, the properties of herbs, plants, stones and minerals, of the behaviour

and sensations of animals and the production of imperfectly blended substances:

rain, mist, hail, thunder, snoM% meteorites, rainbows, the origin of springs, rivers,
lakes, winds, earthquakes, and the ebb and flow of the sea.^^

If this seems much to expect of a prince, Botero has admirable shortcuts at

hand, for various kinds of learned men can surround him, teaching him
through edifying conversation.
In order to rule well, a prince must understand his subjects. A man's
nature, characteristics, and temperament are formed by geographical situa-
tion, age, fortune, and education; many have written on education, and
Aristotle has written on age and fortune. Botero therefore will confine him-
self to geographical situation.

22 Acosta, Bk. IV, chap. 36.

23 Reason of State, Bk. II, chap. 2.
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 369

What follows is a restatement of the case for the superior influences of

temperate climates; in the universe as in everything the ideal lies between
the two extremes. Botero makes the usual sweeping generalizations that are
characteristic of these echoes of classical antiquity. The classical ideas are
there, but the regions to which they are applied have changed. For example,
peoples of the north (excluding those of the extreme north) are bold but
lack cunning; they are physically vigorous, simple and straightforward, but
frequently they are under the influence of Bacchus. The northern peoples
now live in Transylvania, Poland, Denmark, Sweden. The southerners, as
one would expect, have the opposite characteristics: they are cunning but
lack boldness, they are thin and dry, and given to the influences of Venus.
The peoples of the temperate lands combine the best qualities of each.
More interesting is Botero's analysis of religion and climate. As a Jesuit
writer during the Counter-Reformation he naturally had opinions on the
non-Christian religions and on the new schisms within the Christian Church
created by the Reformation. The southerners, as they appear in his vague
language, are largely the peoples of the non-Christian world, in which he
includes India, and the "dominion of the Saracens." "Southerners are much
given to speculation and are greatly influenced by religion and superstition:
astrology and magic originated among them, and priests, gymnosophists,
brahmins and wise men have been held in esteem by them." After some un-
flattering remarks about the Koran, Botero adds, "It is also remarkable that
the most subtle and speculative of the heresies which have troubled the
Church of God have had their origins in the south; those that are more gross
and material have originated in the north." Botero illustrates the statement
with specific examples and offers in effect an environmental explanation for
the cause of the Reformation. The northerners

deny the authority of the Vicar of Christ because being stout of heart they are
immoderate lovers of liberty; and because their temporal rule, being either re-
publican or monarchical, is decided by their own will and choice, they desire
in the same way to choose their own form of spiritual government. The captains
and soldiers of the northern countries rely upon force rather than skill in war,
and in disputes with Catholics their representatives trust to strong words rather
than argument.

Botero's other environmental ideas are of interest only because they illus-

trate the continuity of an old tradition. The correlations are applied to the
northern hemisphere, but he says they could be applied equally to those in
the southern. We have seen that in the classical period it was realized that
latitudinal differences alonewere not considered adequate explanations of
differences among and meteorological differ-
peoples. Longitudinal, terrain,
ences also existed. Botero continues in this tradition by making distinctions
between peoples who live in the east (they are easygoing and malleable in
character) and in the west (they are proud and reserved), in windswept
370 Part Three: Introductory Essay

lands (they are restless and turbulent), in quiet restful places (they are tran-
quil and mild too), in mountains (they are wild and proud), in valleys
(they are soft and effeminate), in barren lands (they are industrious and
diligent), in fertile lands (they are idle and refined), in maritime lands (they
are alert, sagacious, and prosperous in business), in the interior lands (they
are sincere, loyal, easily contented ).^^
Botero's use of environmental ideas illustrates their resiliency and adapt-
abihty to new historical circumstances; he is also concerned, however, with
potential human achievement, with cultural contact, with population growth
and its and resources. In the nineteenth century,
relation to cities, disease,
these topics probably would have been discussed together under a heading
like the reciprocal influences of man and the environment. In Botero's work
they are scattered and the expositor gives them their unity and coherence.
It is wrong, however, to emphasize the environmental aspect of this thought

without discussing the other and more vigorous ideas which bear the stamp
of personal observation, thought, and feeling.
Botero discusses the evil influences coming from the intrusion of the "soft
ways" of Asia into Greece and their subsequent catastrophic results on Rome,
and the fate of the kingdom of Portugal "whose downfall was brought about
not by the Moors but by the soft ways of the Indies." These are more than
sermons on temperance; they assert that one people can be be influenced by
direct or indirect contact with another, and give an entirely different impres-
sion than do the simple climatic correlations of heat with cunning and cold
with boldness. Later Botero paraphrases inexactly Polybius's idea (without
mentioning him) of the effects of music in changing a people whose original
condition was caused by climate.^^
Botero also makes interesting observations about population and environ-
ment. He advocates a large population, but stresses the advantage to a country
of having a dense one as well. Italy and France have their own mines of gold
and silver, but they possess more of these metals than any other European
country because their dense populations attract money, through trade and
commerce, from all parts of the earth. "Where there are many people, the land
must be well cultivated, and the land provides the foodstuffs necessary for
life, and the raw materials for industry." If Spain is a barren land, its condition

is owing to the sparseness of its inhabitants; neither the nature and quality of

the soil nor the air itself has changed; it is the decrease in the number of the
inhabitants and the decline in the cultivation of the land, comments which
are followed by an analysis of the historical reasons for the decline in the
population.^^
Botero asks whether the fertility of the soil or the industry of man is the

24 Ibid.,
chap. 5.
chap. 17; Bk. V, chap.
25 Ibid., 4.
26/^;i.,Bk. VII, chap. 12.
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 371

more important to make a state great and populous and unhesitatingly answers
that it is human industry: "Firstly, the products of the manual skill of man are
more in number and of greater worth than the produce of nature, for nature
provides the material and the object but the infinite variations of form are
the result of the ingenuity and skill of man."^'^
Botero's description of the divine plan as manifested on earth is illustrated
in his warmed-over version of the traditional contrasts between land and water.
God created water not only because it was a "necessary element to the perfec-
tion of nature, but more than so, for a most ready means to conduct and bring
goods from one country to another." The Creator, in his geographic plan,
distributed his blessings throughout the earth in order that men would have
need of one another and that "there might grow a community, and from a
community love and from love an unity between us."^^
A prince must not hesitate to change the physical nature of his country.
Warmth and dampness are indispensable to success in agriculture; therefore,
"the prince must also contrive to assist nature by leading rivers or lakes through
his country." He praises Milanese governors for the canals drawing off the
waters of the Ticino and the Adda. A prince "must keep alive and flourishing
whatever serves to make his country fertile and productive of all that it can
provide." Neither should he hesitate to import seeds, trees, animals, from other
countries. Land should not be converted to parks, as in England, if the people
must bear a shortage of grain to have them. The practical means of accomplish-
ing these noble public works are less enchanting; Botero thought slaves, galley-
slaves, criminals, beggars, strays, and vagabonds might do the labor, but
soldiers and ordinary people (as in Switzerland) had engaged in it too. He
speaks of the cultivation of the Pontine Marshes and land improvements
made by rulers more solicitous of the future of their country than immediate
advantage. The raw materials of a country are there to be used, and in Botero's
mind human skills create them. "Nature gives a form to the raw materials and
human industry imposes upon this natural composition an infinite variety of
artificial forms; thus nature is to the craftsman what raw material is to the
natural agent."^^
To Botero, population policy is closely related to the welfare of a state,
to the improvement of itsand to monogamy. Marriages do not insure
lands,
the multiplication of the human species, for the young must be cared for. He
attacks polygamy among the Turks and the Moors and praises Christian
monogamy. Through envy and jealousy "the wives hinder one another's preg-
nancies, or injure by sorcery the children who have already been born." A
father who has children by several wives dilutes his love; he lacks interest in
their education or the means to rear them.

27/Z7iJ., Bk. VIII, chap. 3.

28 Greatness of Cities, Bk. I, chap. 10.
Reason of State, Bk. VIII, chaps. 2 and 3.
372 Part Three: Introductory Essay

Plague and disease keep populations stable.

What benefit has Cairo multitudinous population, when thousands of

from its

them die of plague every seventh year? How

does Constantinople benefit from
its populousness if every third year the contagion almost deprives the city of

its inhabitants? Plague and disease arise in fact from the closeness and discomfort

of the dwellings, the filth and dirt of living conditions and lack of care on the
part of the government to keep the cities clean and the air purified, and other
similar causes. All these things make it diflicult to rear children, and although
great numbers are born, comparatively few survive or grow to be men of any
value.^°

Botero's discussion of city life, in contrast with the crudities of the tradi-
tional environmental correlations in which he himself shows that
indulges,
he believed the and character of a
life people could be shaped by the manner
in which they Theseus could easily persuade the rural people living in
lived.
dispersed villages to join in with Athens because he could show them the
advantages of such a union. Like other Christian writers Botero was concerned
with the propagation of the faith in the New World; he was therefore in-
terested in the pattern of settlement and in the possibilities of the native peoples
living in more densely settled places and closer to the centers of Portuguese
culture:

Those people [in Brazil] dwell dispersed here and there in caves and cottages
(not to call them houses) made of boughs and leaves of the palm. And forasmuch
as this manner of life, to live so dispersedly, causeth these people to remain in
that same savage mind of theirs, and roughness of manner and behaviour, and
bringeth therewith much difficulty and hindrance to the preaching of the Gospel,
to the conversion of the infidels and the instruction of those that travail pain-
fully, to convert them and to bring them to knowledge and civility, the Portu-
guese and Jesuits have used extreme diligence and care to reduce and draw them
into some certain place together more convenient for their purpose, where living
in a civil conversation they might more easily be instructed in the Christian
faith and governed by the magistrate and ministers of the King. .^^ . .

The argument here is an argument for conversion through imitation

brought about by culture contact. More sophisticated, too, than the tradi-
tional environmental ideas is Botero's analysis of the reason that people live
in. cities. Clearly an admirer of the display and magnificence of cities as op-
posed to rural life, Damascus, Brusa, Cordova,
he praises places like Antioch,
and Seville, and the practical reasons men have for Hving in them:
"Men are also drawn to live together in society through the delight and
pleasure that either the site of the place or of the art of man doth minister
and yield unto them. The site attracts by the freshness of the air, the pleasant
view of the valleys, the pleasing shade of the woods, the commodity to hunt,
and the abundance of good waters. ." Belonging to human art are "the
. .

3° Ibid., chap. 4.
31 Greatness of Cities, Bk. I, chap. 2.
 Part Three: Introductory Essay 373

straight and fair streets of a city, the magnificent and gorgeous buildings,"
and other "wonderful things as delight and feed
the theaters, races, fountains,
the eyes of the people with an admiration and wonder at them."^-
In Greatness of Cities, Botero returns to a theme he mentioned in Reason
of State, that cities "once grown to a greatness increase not onward according
to that proportion." Citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Botero says that Rome
had 3,300 men able to do military service when it was founded by Romulus.
By the end of his 37-year reign the number had increased to 47,000. About
150 years later, in the time of Servius Tullius (578-534 B.C.), there were
80,000 men. Gradually the population grew to 450,000. Botero then asks why
the population of Rome stopped increasing and why the population of Milan
and Venice has remained unchanged for 400 years. He dismisses the explana-
tion that plagues, wars, and famines are the cause, because they were even
more severe in former times than they are at present. "For war is now drawn
out of the field to the w^alls, and the mattock and the spade are more used
than the sword."
He is not content, without further probing, with the simple explanation
that it is the will of God. God so disposes, but He acts through secondary
causes in governing nature: "My question is with w^hat means that Eternal
Providence maketh little to multiply, and much to stand at a stay and go no
further." The answer is that the population of a city, or of the whole earth,
will increase to the number permitted by the food supply. Cities increase
partly by "the virtue generative of men" and partly out of the "virtue nutri-
tive of the cities." The virtue generative is constant through history; if there
were nothing to interfere with it, "the propagation of mankind would in-
crease without end, and the augmentation of cities would be without term.
And if it do not increase in infinite I must needs say it proceedeth of the defect
of nutriment and sustenance sufficient for it."^^
These famous passages, which long have had their place in pre-Malthusian
theories of population, are based on a different kind of environmental theory
—not one involving distinctions among hot, cold, and temperate regions, but
a theory of the total environment seen in terms of its capacity to produce
food and thus directly to control the population of a single place or of the
\\-hole world. This environmental theory, the earth as a limiting factor, in
contrast with the older environmental theories used mainly to explain cultural
differences, is, I believe, a modern idea. It is true there are hints of it in the
Middle x\ges, and in antiquity overpopulation was a traditional explanation of
the cause of migrations. Botero can easily advance the theory within a re-
ligiousframework. The numbers of the world's people and the amount of
food available to them are determined by the Creator's design, but this desis^n
can be discovered by observing regularities and secondary causes, by means

Ibid., chap. 6.

^^Ibid., Bk. Ill, chap. 2.

374 Part Three: Introductory Essay

of which one can arrive at more satisfying answers than are forthcoming from
simple rephes that the balance between population and food supply is an
evidence of the wisdom of God.
These three men were quite conscious of the questions concerning man
and his environment raised by the age of discovery and by the changing life
of Europe. Sebastian Miinster is still on the edge of wonderment but he sees
vaguely the excitement of old cultures in new environments. Acosta sees
clearly the environmental conditions which might govern the diffusion of
the human race within the guidelines imposed by Genesis. Botero discusses
all the ideas whose history we have been tracing. New uses are found for old

environmental theories. New and brighter raiment appears on the divinely

planned earth, for the divine tailor had more cloth than anyone suspected.
It was being seen too that influences more complex than the physical environ-

ment might affect a people. And in Botero the need for a ruler to change the
natural order in order to advance civilization is clearly expressed, as is the
essentially modern idea that there are environmental limitations upon popula-
tion growth.
 Chapter 8

Physico -Theology:
Deeper Understandings of the Earth
as a Habitable Planet

I . Introduction

Ideas of final causes have flourished with undiminished vigor inmodern times,
greedily soaking up new proofs from the hitherto unexplored portions of the
earth, from new discoveries in astronomy, from the insights into the structure
of organic and inorganic matter revealed by the microscope. Bacon's The
Advancement of Learning, Kant's Critique of the Teleological judgment,
and Goethe's views on teleology caused some to pause, but "following in the
footsteps of the Creator," by composing treatises on natural theology illustrat-
ing design in the plant, insect, animal, and inorganic world, continued un-
abated, especially among the English, to the time of Lyell and Darwin. One
of the most famous of these later productions, the Natural Theology of Paley,
was far inferior in breadth and perception, with its overburden of utilitarian
argument, to the works of Ray and Derham.
376 Fhysico-Theology

For the Renaissance thinkers the chief inspiration of the themes came from
Plato's Timaeus and Cicero's De natura deorum. In Petrarca's long, almost
apostolic, tribute to Cicero, even in his affectionate scolding, one sees how
impressive to Petrarca were the classical arguments from design so masterfully
set forth by Cicero/
Many different men— whether they were Jesuits or not— could exist under
the protective shade of the Jesuit text that one seeks God in everything ("Ut
Deum in omnibus quaerant"). In 1592 at the Jesuit college of Coimbre the
question arose in a treatise on the four elements whether the earth had been
created with or without mountains; the answer was that had been created
it

with mountains because of their usefulness and beauty. Mountains in fact

later became a keystone in the teleological arch for an earth designed as a
habitation for man; mountains meant rain, rivers, alluvium. Running water—
from small rivulets to the great rivers of the earth— presupposed the existence
of mountains, for how else could vast quantities of water flow downhill?
Mountains forced moisture-laden air from the sea to rise and condense. The
particles of the fertile soil of the valleys had been carried down by streams
from the mountaintops now gradually growing barren in the process.^

2. Final Causes and Their Critics

Most of the great names in early modern science did not deny design in
nature nor the validity of final causes, but there were differences in the en-
thusiasm with which these were applied to immediate problems. The Copern-
ican theory had not called the creation into question; the cosmic system was
a product of divine design and order.^ Galileo deftly said that to prohibit
the teaching of Copernican astronomy "would be but to censure a hundred
passages of holy Scripture which teach us that the glory and greatness of
Almighty God are marvelously discerned in all his works and divinely read
in the open book of heaven."^ Kepler, a devoted and mystical believer in the
divine harmony and the music of the spheres, pointed out the wisdom shown
in the earth's inclination on its axis; it caused the seasons and hence was perti-
nent to an appraisal of the fitness of the earthly environment. By its daily
rotation, the earth was warmed more equably, and by its inclination on its axis
—from the point of view of final causes— it became a home well suited to organic

^ Francesco Petrarca, "On His Own Ignorance," trans. Hans Nachod, in

The Renais-
sance Philosophy of AIa?i, ed. Cassirer, Kristeller, and Randall, pp. 80-89; on a compari-
son of Cicero's writings with St. Paul's, p. 85.
p. 91; on mountains, p. 28.
2 Dainville, op. cit.,

3 For example, the prooemium to Bk. 1 of Copernicus' "De revolutionibus orbium

caelestium libri sex," in Nikolaiis Koper?iikus Gesajutausgabe (Munich: Verlag R.

Oldenburg, 1949), Vol. 2.
^ "Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine," in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo^

Trans. Stillman Drake (Anchor Books), p. 196.

 Physico-Theology ^11

life, favoring its wide distribution, by seasonal change, on the earth's surface.*
Newton had strong teleological beliefs, but he was less enthusiastic about the
ecliptic. In his letter of December lo, 1692, he told Bentley, "... I see nothing
extraordinary in the inclination of the earth's axis for proving a Deity; unless
you will urge it as a contrivance for Winter and Summer, and for making the
earth habitable towards the poles. ." Newton's teleology, however, was
. .

grounded and motion of the heavens rather than in the

in the order, beauty,
order of nature on earth.^ Boyle's famous treatise on final causes, pubHshed
after Ray's work, pulled out all the traditional stops, and used the traditional
exclamation points: design in the creation as a whole, in its individual parts,
in the parts of plants and animals; and the creation in the service of human
ends. Leibniz, dedicated defender of final causes, wrote that they awaken
better than do efficient causes, admiration for the beauty of divine works.'^
I shall deal at length with his thought in chapter XII. His idea of the pre-

established harmony of the cosmos he considered a fresh proof of the existence

of God, this kind of harmony being an explanation superior to the artisan
analogy. Leibniz wrote eloquently of the chain or scale of being in nature;
the progress of mankind, as part of the preestablished harmony, is accompanied
by changes in the earth because with the lapse of time mankind cultivates it
more, refines it, cares for it.^
These great names in science and philosophy kept alive the spirit of tele-
ology and design in nature despite the criticisms that were made of it. The
idea of design applied to the earth is but one of the violins in a mighty
orchestra, for teleology has been one of the great preoccupations of Western
theology, philosophy, and science; eminent men such as Bacon, Spinoza,
Descartes, Buffon, La Mettrie, Goethe, and Kant criticized ideas of final
causes, but who that has read the controversies over evolution or the letters
of Lyell to Darwin would say that these criticisms had found their mark?
Bacon had no objection to final causes as such; they were, however, inappro-
priate to the study of natural history.^ Descartes too rejected final causes as
a tool of inquiry, and many of the seventeenth century natural theologians
like Ray criticized him for it. It would be presumptuous to search for final
causes and to think that "God could take us into his counsels." Thus he limits
himself to regarding God as "the efficient cause of all things." It is not only
presumptuous but self-centered of man to deal in final causes, because so many
of the natural phenomena of the past and the present are irrelevant to his

5 Kepler, Epitome astronomiae copernicanae, Bk. Ill, PL

4 = Kepler's Gesammelte
Werke, Vol. 7, p. 209.
^ See Newton's four letters to Bentley, in Opera quae exstant ovinia^ Vol.
4, pp. 429-
442. Quotation on p. 433. On Newton's teleology, see Burtt, The Metaphysical Founda-
tions of Modern Science, rev. ed. (Anchor Books), pp. 288-290.
Leibniz, Selections, ed. Wiener, pp. 132, 318.
^Ibid., pp. 192, 221, pp. 354-355.
^ De Augmentis Scient. Bk. 3, chap. 5, Adv. of Learning (Everyman ed.), pp. 96-97
where he criticizes Plato, Aristotle, Galen.
378 Physico-Theology

experience and to his existence/^ Spinoza wrote as if the search for final causes
was an oafish impertinence, ridicuHng the threadbare examples like the eye
that was devised for seeing. Thus, "nature has set no end before herself, and
that all final causes are nothing but human fictions."
Spinoza's basic objections to final causes are that they are figments of men's
minds, that they are based on an analogy derived from the purposiveness of
human activity. They are reduced to absurdity by the problem of evil, for
do not natural catastrophies kill and maim the good and the bad ahke? A wise
man wants to understand nature, not to gape at it like a fool. Like Hume and
Kant later, he does not know if the parts of nature are really interconnected.
He does not attribute to nature beauty or ughness, order or confusion; these
are products of the imagination. The famous maxim that nature does nothing
in vain he regards as pure anthropocentrism. "The attempt, however, to show
that nature does nothing in vain (that is to say, nothing which is not profitable
to man), seems to end in showing that nature, the gods, and man are alike
mad."^^
One sees in the writings of this period a conflict between two views of
nature, the mechanical and the organic. In the mechanical, the actions of the
individual parts of a whole are explained by known laws, the whole being
the sum of the parts and their interaction. In the organic, the whole exists
first, perhaps in the mind of an artisan, before the parts; the design of the
whole explains the actions and reactions of the parts.^^ The mechanical view,
emphasizing secondary causes, eliminated final causes as active guides in in-
vestigation, relegating them to theology or private piety. In the seventeenth
century writings on natural law, matter, and motion, one frequently reads
attacks on Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, by partisans of final causes who
are, moreover, interested in appropriating to their own uses the new knowl-
edge embodied in natural law. Classical authors are often cited as authorities
against the "mechanical ideas," and Plato, Seneca, and Cicero are constantly
making depositions. Was nature a system based on law, or providentially de-
rsigned, or the product of design for a purpose?
If one wishes to understand the earth as a habitable planet, however, it is
necessary to understand it as a whole. The fundamental physical causes govern
its inclination on the axis, the waves and currents of the winds, the relief.

Furthermore, much of the matter on earth is living, and doctrines of final

causes have always been more convincing and have lasted longer in the life
sciences primarily because life cycles in the living world lend credence to the
belief that the end governs the conception, birth, and life stages of an indi-
vidual existence.

Principles of Philosophy, Pt. i, Prin. 28; Pt. 3, Prin. 3.

11 Spinoza, Ethica, Pt. I, Appendix following Prop. 36; and Correspondence of Spinoza,
i trans. A. Wolf, Letter 32, to Henry Oldenburg.
^2 Fulton, iVfl^z/r^ and God, p. 134.
^3 On this point see Greene, Death of Adam, pp. 12-13.
 Fhysico-Theology 379

3. Deterioration and Senescence in Nature

It is the theme of this chapter that a group of writers, most of them living in
the seventeenth century, and none rank with Newton, Descartes,
in the front
or Galileo, became interested in natural history, physico-theology, and scien-
tific research, that these inquiries were identified with further discoveries of
the wisdom of the Creator in his individual productions of nature and in the
had established among them. Such studies and interpre-
interrelationships he
whole became the basis for modern ideas of the
tations of living nature as a
unity of nature advanced by such men as Count Buffon in the eighteenth
century and Darwin in the nineteenth century. Darwinism in turn led to the
concept of balance and harmony in nature, the web of life, and then to the
recent concept of an ecosystem.
Two older ideas stood in the way of the essentially optimistic idea that the
order of nature on the earth was the result of the beneficent design of the
Creator. The first was that the fall of man had produced a corresponding
deterioration in nature, a view common in the Middle Ages, as we have seen;
interest in it was revived in the seventeenth century because the discoveries
of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton stimulated men interested in theorizing about
the origin of the earth and its physical appearance at crucial periods of its

history: at the Creation, at the time Adam and Eve were living in the Garden
of Eden, at the time of the Fall, the Deluge, and at the time when the earth
was reconstituted after the waters had subsided. Knowledge of gravity, of
comets, of the orbits of the planets, of the tides, created opportunities for far
more colorful and dramatic commentaries on Genesis than had ever been
presented by the less learned and recondite piety of the past. Some of these
theories denied the fitness of the earth's environment, either because it was a
wasteland with superfluous mountains, deserts, and salty oceans, or because
an imperfect earth was more appropriate for sinful and wicked man than was
a perfect one.
The second, possibly inspired by the doctrine of Lucretius, was the idea
of senescence in nature, an application of the organic analogy to the earth
itself. To achieve a philosophy of nature based on the assumption that the
Creator in his wisdom had made a fit environment, it was necessary first to
show that senescence did not exist in nature as a whole, even though individual
life forms were mortal, and that there had been no deterioration in nature
through the sin of man. Then one could proceed to prove that a benign Creator
desired constancy in nature, that the natural order was dependent not on the
sin of man, but on God's will, that God willed a beneficent nature.
The newer vision of the earth was best grasped by John Ray, whose The
Wisdojn of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation is probably the
best natural theology ever written. This vision is not evolutionary; the earth
and all its plant and animal species had been created in their present form from
the beginning, but the importance of their interrelationships was seen, and
380 Fhysico-Theology

the whole could change in outward aspect by natural forces or by the ever-
increasing cultivation of the earth owing to the multiplication of mankind.
Furthermore, this vision of the earth was allied with a hopeful view of the
lot of man, sympathetic, as were its opponents, the critics of doctrines of final
causes, to the influence science and technology could exert in the improve-
ment of society. The adherents of the design argument saw in the new science
the means by which man could fulfill under God's plan and
his destiny,
guidance, to improve the earth as his dwelling place; they saw that new prin-
ciples of scientific investigation meant knowledge of natural law, that the
knowledge of law meant control over nature in the widest possible sense.
There remained, however, strong residues of the earlier conviction that men
were sinful and wicked, that their too frequent moral lapses continually tried
the patience of God. Among those who beheved in the possibihties of im-
proving human society, this thought often took the form of exhortation, that
men should stamp out the evil in themselves, even as their powerful minds
found ever more powerful means of controlling nature.
In order to see how the idea of the unity and constancy of nature was
developed with scientific evidence available at that time, let us look more
closely into these questions of senescence and deterioration.
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars became aware of the
importance of the comparisons that an age makes with those that have pre-
ceded it; every self-conscious and literate age has such a body of thought.
One of the most striking figures of speech used in the seventeenth century
dispute between the ancients and moderns, for example, is that of the modern
knowing more than the ancient because even if he is only a dwarf he is stand-
ing on the shoulders of a giant; the fie^ure of speech, however, has been
ascribed by John of Salisbury to Bernard de Chartres in the twelfth century;
perhaps it goes back even further.^^ In the seventeenth century, many such
comparisons were made. It was not only a question of the literary, artistic,
and technological superiority of the ancients or the moderns; also involved
were the validity of the method of science, attitudes toward nature and toward
natural and revealed religion, and the nature of change in human affairs.
We are not directly concerned with the bearing of this much-studied
quarrel on the idea of progress, but with certain other ideas which were used

John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon, trans. McGarry, Bk. Ill, chap. 4, p. 167; cited
by Jones, Ancients and Modems, p. 293, note 12; C. S. Baldwin, Medieval Rhetoric and
Poetic, pp. 167-168.
On the quarrel, see Rigault, Hist, de la Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes\ Gillot,
La Querelle des Anciens Modernes en France; Jones, Ancients and Moderns;
et des
Burlingame, The Battle of the Books in its Historical Setting. Short but suggestive
characterizations of the quarrel (part of which was satirized bv Jonathan Swift in the
Battle of the Books) in George Hildebrand's Introduction. The Idea of Progress: an
Historical Analysis to the revised edition of Frederick J. Teggart's collection of readings,
The Idea of Progress, p. 12; Bury, The Idea of Progress, chap. 4; Teggart, Theory of
 Fhy sico-Theology 38

as arguments in the quarrel itself. It involved a conflict between two concep-

tions of nature: a nature constant in its operations, or a nature decaying in
time, like a living organism, the latter supported, asHakewill showed, by a
potpourri of miscellaneous evidence of deterioration in nature. The propo-
nents of ancient superiority often believed in the superior potency of nature
in times past, inits lesser force in the modern period because it was more aged;

the moderns upheld the constancy of nature through the unchanging regu-
larity of natural law, asserting there was no observable exhaustion, deteriora-
tion, or worsening of nature. The constancy of natural law, of course, had
been one of the great teachings of Rene Descartes, assuming an orderHness in
natural processes which were independent of and did not require divine inter-
vention. God may have made a chaos at first among his creative acts, but if
"He had established the laws of nature and sustained nature itself in acting
according to custom, all purely material things would, in the course of time,
have assumed the form in which we see them today, without this belief being
"^^
a shght upon the miracle of creation.
Several old ideas may have contributed to the revival of belief in the senes-
cence of nature in modern times. The medieval idea that the fall of man had
also affected nature may have quickened interest in it. Frequently quoted
passages in Esdras and in the Psalms might hade added a bit. It may have started
with the revived study of Lucretius and Columella. The earHest reference to
the theory in England, according to Jones, appears in A blazyng Starve, by
Francis Shakelton, published in 1580.^^ Shakelton beheved the earth had been
changed and corrupted by floods, fire, and the heat of the sun; great catas-
trophes such as earthquakes and inundations of the sea were evidence of the
coming end; another indication, he thought, was the shortening of distance
from the sun to the earth since Ptolemy's time, an indication of change in
the celestial sphere. 'Tor there is lesse vertue in Plants and hearbes than ever
was before. And more feeble strength in every living creature than ever was
before. It remaineth therefore (of necessitie) that shortly there shall be an
ende and consummation of the Worlde, because it is (as it were) subjecte
to olde age, and therefore feeble in every parte. "^^ Even the widening of
knowledge and the deeper understandings that came from the age of discovery
were insufficient to pry Samuel Purchas away from the popular and gloomy
idea: "It cannot be without some great worke of God, thus in the old and

History^ chap. 8; Wodbridge, Sir William Temple, pp. 303-319. For the quarrel as
seen by one contemporary, see William Wotton, Reflections upon Ancient and Modem
Learning (1694), pp. i-io.
Discourse on Method (1637), 5, trans, by Wollaston, Penguin Classics ed., p. 71.
I have been unable to consult the works of Shakelton and Goodman, and the dis-

cussion is based on Jones, Ancients and Moderns, pp. 24-30 (who points out that Bruno
also had the idea), and on Harris, All Coherence Gone, pp. 8-46.
Quoted in Jones, op. cit., p. 25.
382 Fhysico-Theology

decrepit age of the World, to let it have more perfect knowledge of it selfe."

To which Jones adds, "All this in an age which produced Shakespeare,

"^^
Spenser, and Bacon!
The most famous of these works, however, was Godfrey Goodman's The
Fall of Man (1616), which seems inspired more by the Bible than by the
organic analogy from the classical writers.

Evidence of corruption he [Goodman] finds in the evils of his times, in the

sickness, suffering, vices, passions, and unhappiness of man, in the warring of
the elements, in flies, worms, and monsters, in the decay of beauty and wither-
ing of fruit. Nature gives man infinite desires, as if she had an infinite treasure,
but in truth she is barren and defective. ... As man through his fall brought
death upon himself, so he imposed death upon all nature. In general, Goodman's
idea is that the course of man and nature has been one of continual decline from
a perfect state to the decay of old age.

Nature was so bountiful in the ancient age that experimentation was unneces-
sary, while now the inventiveness of man is needed to "Art
satisfy his wants.
serves like a cobbler, or tinker, to peece up the walls and repaire the mines
of nature. The decline is everywhere: there are less fish in the sea; the

earth is losing its fertility; and the heavens know decline and death. (Quotes
Psalm 102:26.)

4. George Hakewill's Apologie

It is possible for a rehgious man, who beheves in the beneficence and wisdom
of the Creator, to argue in quite the opposite fashion. Why should an all-wise
and beneficent Creator so arrange nature that with each new generation man-
kind is faced with its own increasing corruption and a decline in fertility
and the productiveness of nature as well? Broadly speaking, this was the prob-
lem Hakewill addressed himself to.
George Hakewill's Ajj Apologie, or Declaration of the Power and Provi-
dence of God in the Government of the World (first edition, 1627; second,
1630; third, 1635) shows clearly, and with the easy familiarity of a learned
contemporary at home in his materials, the bearing of the supposed deteriora-
tion in nature on geological phenomena, on the appearance of the landscape,
and on religion. It shows how urgent was the need to believe in the constancy
of nature and in the regular operation of its laws if any forward-looking at-
titude toward nature, science, and civilization was to be achieved. How could
man and the civilizations he had created be expected to progressively improve
if the nature which supported him and them was becoming weaker day by

day? Hakewill met all these questions and for the most part discussed them
clearly; his book bears the stamp of greatness.

^^Purchas his Pilgrimage (1613), p. 43. Quoted in Jones, op. cit., p. 26.
20 Quoted in Jones, op. cit., pp. 27, 28.
 .

Fhy sico-Theology 383

In my opinion, no other work enables us to see so clearly, in these forma-

tive periods of modern toward an understanding of
science, the gropings
the nature of the earth, using evidence from geography, geology, earth and
natural history, for it is a book of interpretation and synthesis, not of original
research. Unfortunately it has not achieved a cosmopolitan fame and is men-
tioned little in general histories of thought. In its use of the classics, of the
continental writers like Du Bartas, it becomes an imaginative synthesis of
Renaissance thought of high worth; far lesser figures are textbook immortals.
Perhaps Hakewill has suffered because he had was new to offer, or
little that
perhaps as Jones has said, he did not, like Bacon, look forward in proving his
points, nor did he appreciate as much as did his unashamed imitator Jonston the
impressiveness of modern discovery, invention, and science in general. But
how much underbrush he hacked away! how many bogs and swamps he
drained! how many clearings he made for the sun to reach the ground!
Hakewill thinks there are better means than organic analogies to explain
the stars of the heavens, the earth, and the nature of human accomplishment
throughout history. Decay is not the order of the day; men have accomplished
much, and they have an active role to play in their own improvement and
in that of the earth— which is not decaying while they are striving.
Is it accidental that Hakewill begins his work, as did Columella (see pp.
135 f.), whom he quotes at length later, by protesting against prevaihng opin-
ions of a decay of nature, a decay inherent in things, and against which man
can do nothing? "The opinion of the Worlds Decay is so generally received,
not onely among the Vulgar, but of the Learned, both Divines and others,
that the very commonnesse of it makes it currant with many, without any
further examination."
The rebuttal of this opinion, which requires almost four hundred closely
written pages, is remarkable for the depth and historical range of its learning,

21 For a tribute to Hakewill and a discussion of his influence and shortcomings see
Jones, op. pp. 36-38. Hakewill's ideas were summarized (to use a charitable word)
cit.,

by John Jonston of Poland with far less acknowledgment of indebtedness to Hakewill

than should have been made. His book, A7i History of the CoJistancy of Nature, is really
an outline of Hakewill's work in 180 pages. In the 1635 edition of the Apologie, Hake-
will contemptuously complains of Jonston's plagiarism. Jonston's work was originally
published in Latin in Amsterdam in 1632. I have seen only the Rowland translation cited
here. See Jones, p. 295, note 21. Although there is no question of Jonston's dependence
on Hakewill, idea by idea, quotation by quotation, there is substance to Jones's statement
that Jonston emphasized more than Hakewill had "modern discoveries, inventions, and
science in general" (pp. 38-39, p. 295, note 21). See Jonston's discussion of modern in-
ventions, An History of the Constancy of Nature (1657), pp. 105-115, and Harris, All
Coherence Gone, which describes the controversy over the decay of nature (and its
historical antecedents) with particular emphasis on Godfrey Goodman, the chief advo-
cate, and George Hakewill, the cogent opponent, of the doctrine. The title is from John
Donne's An Anatoynie of the World. Godfrey Goodman's The Fall of Man (161 6) is
exceedingly rare, and I have been unable to consult it.
22 Apologie,
p. I
384 Physico-Theology

the force of its reasoning, and the brisk common sense of its opinions. Hake-
will divides his book into several treatises, whose exhaustiveness is testimony
to the currency of the ideas he combatting and of their appearance in very
is

different disciplines, ranging from arguments for the decay of the heavenly
bodies to the decay of manners and customs. The unifying theme is the as-
sumption by his opponents of a general decay in nature. In the revised edition
of 1635, Hakewill wrote six treatises: on decay in general, on decay of the
heavens and the four elements, of mankind (in length of hfe, strength, stature,
artisanship, and intelligence), of manners and the future destruction of the
earth. The and sixth treatises answered objections advanced since the
fifth

second impression of the book. The range of these topics, each with its full
apparatus criticus, shows how vital was the rebuttal in resolving the question
of the relative superiority of the ancients and the moderns and how crucial
a role the outcome played in the emergence of the idea of progress. Diffused
through the opinions of opponents is the assumption of change for the worse;
sometimes it is of a physical or organic character. In human affairs it often
is of an institutional or moral character.

Of even greater interest are Hakewill's reasons for undertaking a task of

such monumental proportions; they reveal the philosophical, moral, and re-
ligious position of Hakewill and of others who thought like him. Despite the
popularity, lay and scholarly, of ideas of decay, Hakewill could still have
asked himself whether they were worth refuting. He believes they are, for the
following reasons: (i) "The redeeming of a captivated truth"; the truth
must be known, the argument of decay is false; it has gained too many ad-
herents, and it must be challenged and defeated.^^ (2) "The vindicating of
the Creator's honour." Even though, he thought, the earth ultimately will be
consumed by fire, it is inconsistent with the honor, the wisdom, the power,
and the justice of God to create a world and then allow "such a dayly, uni-
versall and irrecoverable consumption in all the parts of Nature. ."^^ "What . .

do they but impHcitly impeach and accuse his Power?" he asks, who complain
of this decay. He answers in the language of the scholastics. God's power
"indeed is nothing else but Natura Natiirans (as the Schooles Phrase is). Ac-
tive Nature, and the creature the workmanship thereof, Natura Naturata,
Nature Passive. ." He quotes approvingly Scaliger's rebuttal of Cardanus:
. .

the dissolution of the world will not come from fatigue, as if nature were an
ass at a mill; the power of Almighty God governs now with the same infinite
command it exercised at the creation. ("Non ex fatigatione mundum solutum
iri, quasi natura sit asinus ad molas, non autem Dei Opt. Max. potestas, quae

eodem natu? gubernat infinito quo creavit.")^^ (3) The "contrary opinion
[i.e., the idea of decay] quailes the hopes, and blunts the edge of vertuous

^^Ibid., pp. 16-18.

^^Ibid.y pp. 18-19.
25 /Z?/ J.,
p. 19.
 Physico-Theology 385

endeavours. "^^ This is the point Lucretius had made: the husbandman should
not complain about poor crops, for he was helpless in the general aging
his

of mother earth. (4) Hakewill saw also the danger of moral corrosion in such
behefs: "It makes men more carelesse as in matter of repentance, so likewise
both in regard of their present fortunes, and in providing for posteritie."^^
Man is exempted from responsibility, his vices becoming the diseases of a
wasting nature. (5) And finally "the weake grounds which the contrary
opinion is built upon."^^
Here we are concerned with only a few of HakewilFs rebuttals, those
regarding his conceptions of the earth, of living nature, and the idea of design.
It however, to mention the reasons Hakewill gives for the prev-
will be well,
alence of the ideas of decay in general. He divides his opponents' proof into
three categories: proof from reason, from human authority, and from Scrip-
ture. Each one is closely examined, criticized, and rejected. The chief argu-
ment, he says, and the one on which all the rest depend is "that the Creature
the nearer it approaches to the first mould, the more perfect it is, and accord-
ing to the degrees of its removeall and distance from thence, it incurres the
more imperfection and weaknesse, as streames of a fountaine, the farther
they runne thorow uncleane passages, the more they contract corruption. "^^
Hakewill's answer in essence is that the works of art, of nature, of grace,
belie this generahzation, that "they all proceed by certaine steps from a more
imperfect & unpolished beeing, to that which is more absolute and perfect."
With the works of grace, we grow in the course of Christianity in knowl-
edge, virtue, illumination, sanctification; we grow in virtue by adding virtue
to virtue and by the increase too of individual virtue. Works of art have small
beginnings, like a weaver beginning his work. An architect with his plan
really begins with rubbish, reaching perfection in the furnishings and decora-
tions of thecompleted building. In nature it is the same; the world came from
chaos, the large trees from small seed. Hakewill seems to have in mind here
the improvement to be expected by experience and the lapse of time and by
the elimination of error, so that creature perfection— human, natural, or di-
vine—is at the end, not the beginning, of things.^^
The second argument from reason, that the whole decays because all of its

parts decay, Hakewill also dismisses summarily. He denies that living nature,
the earth as it is now constituted, would decline as a unit because the individual
and men, are mortal.
plants, animals,
Among the authorities cited by Hakewill in support of these arguments for
decay are Origen, St. Ambrose, Gregory the Great, and Cyprian whom he

^^Ibid., p. 21.
2''
Ibid.^ pp. 23-25.
2^ Ibid.^
P- 25.
29 Ibid.^
p. 57.
^^Ibid., pp. 57-58.
386 Physico-Theology

quotes at length. Although he is respectful of the martyred saint of the third

century who felt that the earth and all about him were declining and dying,
he seriously questions his qualifications as a philosopher or as a "sound Di-
vine." Hakewill sees Cyprian's thought in the hght of the times in which
he was bitter and miserable; it was a time of famine, war, and
lived. Life
mortality. These dreadful times were succeeded by the conversion of Con-
stantine; Cyprian in that reign would have written as triumphantly as he
wrote bitterly of the hardship and tragedy of his own time. The persecution
of the Christians and the words of Scripture leading the devout to the belief
that the second coming of Christ was at hand made them stand "in continuall
allarums and expectation of the day of Judgment, and the end of the world
. .and their thoughts still running thereupon, all things seemed sutable
.

thereunto, and to draw towards that end."^^ Hakewill quotes Lucretius on

decay, then contrasts him with Cyprian, noting that in the i,6oo years since
Lucretius, the ,400 since St. Cyprian, there has been no such decay as would
i

be required to prove these thinkers right.^^ Skillfully he quotes iVrnobius

whose The Case Against the Pagans (see chap. 5, sec. i) defends Christians
from accusations that they have been responsible for many of the world's
disasters. St. Augustine made a like defense exhaustively in the first ten books
of the City of God. Wars and conquests existed before Christianity; the
existence of words for them proved it. In using Arnobius' defense of Chris-
tianity to rebutCyprian and Lucretius, Hakewill says that great natural catas-
trophes, moral crises, all the vicissitudes of things, prove nothing about decay;
they have existed in all periods of history.^^ The third human authority is

II Esdras S'- 51-55,

one upon which Cyprian himself had reHed.^^
Esdras, however, he says, lacks the authority of scripture, and the sacred
writings usually cited in support of the idea of decay. Isaiah 24:2; Romans
8:20-22; and the misunderstood but "most of all stood upon," II Peter 3:4,
Hakewill says lack "exphcation and apphcation." The passages as quoted are
not what they seem, owing to inaccurate translation, faulty exegesis, or failure
to understand the thought in context.^^
Proceeding now to ideas more directly affecting our theme, Hakewill
quickly disposes of the argument that the fall of man caused a deterioration
in nature. The seeds of decay world either before the fall of man
were in the
or after. If the decay of nature had in truth been caused by man's sin and his
punishment, the world could not have been created subject to decay "except
we should make the effect before the cause, and the punishment before the
31 Ibid.,
p. 62.
32 Ibid.,
p. 64.
33 Ibid., of which almost five pages are quoted from Arnobius.
65-70,
pp.
The argument of the Esdras passage is weak and inconsequential,
Ibid., pp. 70-73.
suggesting a decline since ancient times and that this decline is like the life cycle of a
living organism.
35 Ibid.,
pp. 73-74.
 Fhysico-Theology 387

offence, in as much as the world was built and furnished before man was
."^^ Besides, when God had
made, and consequently before he had sinned. . .

completed his creation, he pronounced it good.

Hakewill's argument against the decay of nature consequent upon the Fall
is equally cogent. Sin cannot be a cause of such a decline. Nature's principles

have been established by the Creator. Men and angels may corrupt them-
selves, and other creatures, but neither men nor angels "have, or possibly can
alter the fundamentall lawes of nature in themselves, much lesse in the other
creatures; from whence it inevitably followes, that if upon the fall of man
the principles of nature be corrupted, they are undoubtedly corrupted by the
Author of them, there being none other power of sufficient ability to produce
such an effect."^^
There has been no decay in the heavens, including the sun.^^ If the present
habitability of the Torrid Zone is owing to the old age of the heavens, the
cold zones of earth, Hakewill says, should have become more uninhabitable.^^
Neither has there been a decay of the elements; there are still four of them,
they maintain the same proportions and dimensions; he quotes Du Bartas, in
EngHsh translation, on the association of air, fire, water, arm in arm like
"Countrey-maidens, in the moneth of May."^^ The elements are "all the Hnkes
of th' holy chaine, which tether / The many members of the World to-
."^^ It reminds one of Nature speaking in the Romance
gether. . . of the Rose:

God honors me so much that in my ward

He leaves the lovely golden chain that binds
The elements, which bow before my face.*^

Hakewill's rebuttals of the arguments based on geographical and meteoro-

logical phenomena are revealing because they show the astonishingly miscel-
laneous array of occurrences seriously regarded as evidence of decay; almost
any natural phenomenon was suitable: air pollution, storminess, weather
The dominating thought is that
changes, earthquakes, volcanoes, and so forth.
they occur with increasing frequency and violence in modern times; Hake-
will replies that they have occurred in all periods of world history, and
indeed that the virulence of disease and the violence of earthquakes and vol-
canoes may have been more severe in ancient times.^^
To the argument that there is a possibility the land is being gradually in-
undated by the sea, another indication of decay, Hakewill replies that the

Ibid.,p. S5'
37 Ibid.,
p. 56.
3^ /Z'iii., 75-103.
pp.
Ibid., p. 105.
^^Ibid., p. 118.
Bartas quoted, ibid., p. 119.
"^^
Chap. 81, 64-66. (See p. 241.)
*3 Apologie, pp. 124-137.
388 Fhysico-Theology

areas taken up by seas, rivers, baths, are about the same as they were in
the past; what is lost in one place is recovered in another.^^
He quotes with approval Zanchius' De operibus creationis, Book 4, Thesis
3, on the long-term balance in the hydrologic cycle starting with evaporation

of seawater and ending with the rivers emptying into the sea. God, Zanchius
said, had ordained the changing of one element into another (i.e., of water

into air and water vapor) in order to preserve the earth for beasts and man.
It was madness of Democritus, Zanchius said, to argue that evaporation would

ultimately cause the drying up of the sea. One can be sympathetic with poor
Democritus, however, if his observation was based on the Mediterranean; the
runoff of rivers is a very small part of its gains, evaporation a large part of
its losses.

Hakewill's discussions are based on current geological theory or that de-

rived from antiquity, that ocean water isback to land by secret veins to
led
form springs and rivers.^^ The losses of land to the sea and vice versa offset
one another. There may be frequent changes in small streams or fountains, but
the courses or the currents of the great rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, the
Danube, the Rhine, and the Nile have varied little in history. The medicinal
value of fountains and baths is unchanged. The supply of fish may have
declined, but Hakewill says that he can neither affirm nor deny this statement
of his own knowledge; he reduces this argument to absurdity by saying that
if the number of fish is declining because of the world's decay, then the store
of plants, animals, and birds on earth would be less for the same reason.^®
Hakewill considers the "pretended decay of the earth" as a whole, as he
had previously considered the supposed decay of the plant and animal king-
dom. The rebuttal is based on common sense, natural law, and observation.
God has not everywhere ordained either fruitfulness or barrenness, or that
one or the other will endure forever. Present wastelands and sandy deserts
were fertile lands in former ages, or the conditions might be reversed. Lands
also may be "worne and wasted with tillage" and need time and rest to re-
cover; here too Hakewill shows his kinship with Columella.'*^ In the cycle of
erosion, nothing is lost, but the earth is the scene of great transports of soil
from one place to another, in the wearing down of mountains, in the building
up of deltaic plains. He quotes Blancanus's De mundi jabrica on the diminu-
tion of mountains by flowing rainwater and rivers, and the removal of earth,
building up the valleys by levehng the mountains: in the whole Globe of . .

the earth nothing is lost, but onely removed from one place to another, so that
in processe of time the highest mountains may be humbled into valleyes, and

^^Ibid., p. 139.
See Adams's discussion of origin of springs and rivers, The Birth and Development
of the Geological Sciences, pp. 432-445.
Apologie, pp. 140-144.
47 Ibid.,
p. 37.
 Physico-Theology 389

againe the lowest valleyes exalted into mountains. "^^ Blancanus predicted
that if it will again be inundated by sea as it was
the world lasts long enough,
in the beginning through the relentless processes of leveling brought about
by terrestrial erosion. This is too much for Hakewill, who remarks that
Blancanus forgets the divine covenants of Genesis 9: 1 1; Job 38:8; and Psalm
104:9.^^ The earth is the same, its dimensions are the same, its fertility is the
same, at least since the Flood. The balance is always maintained, the level of
the sea by the rivers of the land, the fertility of the earth by the decay of
organic matter which in life it had nourished.^^

5. Quarrels Over the Ancients and Moderns

AND the Mechanical View of Nature

Later in the seventeenth century, as the quarrel continued in the writings

of Perrault and Fontenelle in France, Sir William Temple and William Wot-
ton in England, one can see the possibilities in combining ideas of design or
environmental influence in support of either position. Fontenelle dexterously
uses environmental ideas with relation to plants, withholds them from mankind;
Sir William Temple finds strong environmental reasons for the original cre-
ative activity of the "Eastern Regions"; William Wotton sees in the quarrel
fresh sources of inspiration for the Christian beHever.
Perrault considered the merits of the idea of a decline of nature in his poem
Le Steele de Louis le Grand (1687) which set off the debate
in France between
the ancients and moderns, leading to Perrault 'sFarallele des Anciens et own
des Modernes^ whose volumes were published from 1 688-1 696. In his poem
Perrault stated flatly there no enfeeblement of nature; we can expect con-
is

stancy in its operations whether we look at the stars, the

powers and in its

flowers, or the productions of great men.

A former les esprits comme a former les corps.

La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts.
Son estre est immuable, & cette force aisee
Dont elle produit tout, ne s'est point epuisee.^^

were again expressed by Perrault in the

Similar ideas regarding nature
Parallele des Modernes. "The Hons and the tigers which rove
Anciens et des
the deserts of Africa to-day are quite as proud and as cruel as those of the
time of Alexander or of Augustus, our roses are as deep a crimson as those

Ibid., p. 147. Giuseppe Blancani— Josepheus Blancanus— Professor of Mathematics

at Parma, 1 566-1 624. NA.
Ibid., pp. 147-148.
^^Ibid., pp. 148-149.
Le Siecle de Louis le Grand. Poeme. Separately paged at the end of Vol. I of Per-
rault's Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes, p. 21.
 Fhysico-Theology

of the golden age; [repeating thoughts already expressed in Le Steele de Louis

le Grand] why should men be excepted from this general rule?"^^
Although the criticism had been made long ago by Hakewill, Fontenelle
dealt cleverly— almost with studied perfunctoriness— with the relationship be-
tween the supposed decline in nature and the relative superiority of the an-
cients and the moderns. The problem can be solved by knowing if the trees
of yesterday were greater than those of today. If the ancients had superior
intellects, then their brains must have been better. Nature is responsible for

trees and brains. Therefore a greater vigor in ancient times would have mani-
fested itself in greater and more beautiful trees and in brainier men. Fontenelle
rejects the notion that nature exhausted herself in the mighty creations of
antiquity. "Nature possesses a kind of paste which is always the same, which
she ceaselessly moulds and remoulds in a thousand different ways, and of
which she forms men, animals, and plants." Fontenelle now shows how the
idea of nature's constancy is compatible with differences observable in nature.
Trees can be equally great in any age; those of every country are not. This
truth applies to men's minds. We
must search for explanations of differences
which can have both physical and cultural causes.^^
William Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning (1694),
however, is the most striking of these works, because his claim to present the
case impartially, even though he sympathized with the moderns, is largely
justified and because he saw the relation of the quarrel to broader questions
of human existence. Studying the question of the relative superiority of the
ancients and moderns would be helpful to religion, throwing light on that
most dangerous of behefs to the faith, the plausible hypothesis of the eternity
of the world. Wotton admits that the histories of the Egyptians, the Chaldeans,
and the Chinese, going back so far into the past, lend credence to this belief,
but he criticizes the proponents of this idea for the ease with which they used
floods and barbarian invasions to obliterate previous records of mankind;
mankind is thus really not young on the earth, but very old. Wotton replies
that the world has constantly improved, that much more is now known than
was known in remote time; there is no evidence either for believing that
human genius was greater in ancient times or that the earth was more vigorous
then. There
no proof of those deluges that supposedly obliterated the
is

records of early humanity. Although nothing is known of conquests before

the time of Moses, they could not have erased all records of civilization. Wot-
ton bases his argument on the consequences of invasions in historical times.
These invasions did not obliterate civilizations; the barbarian invaders ulti-

52 Perrauk, Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes, Vol. I, p. 89. Translated by Leona
M. Fassett in the selection from Perrault in Teggart and Hildebrand, The Idea of Prog-
ress,pp. 191-192.
"Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes," Oeuvres (nouv. ed.;
53 A
la Haye, 1728),
Vol. 2, p. 125. Trans, by Leona M. Fassett in the selection from Fontenelle in Teggart
and Hildebrand, The Idea of Progress, p. 1 76.
 Physico-Theology 391

mately adopted much of the civilization they conquered. In essence Wotton

believes that civilization has never lost anything of fundamental importance,
and that with time more and more improvement is made in it. The evidence
therefore points to the youth of civilization, as it does to the youth of the
world, to the truth of the Bible, to the falseness of the Aristotelian idea of the
eternity of the world which had no need of the Christian Creator. This study
led him, he says, to other studies both useful and pleasurable. "For discoveries
are most talked of in the Mechanical Philosophy, which has been but lately
revived in the World. Professors had drawn in to it the whole knowledge of
Nature. . Paraphrasing Romans 1:20, Wotton says this knowledge of
.

nature exists "in an Age wherein Natural Religion is denied by many, and
Revealed Religion by very many more, [that it] seemed highly important
to be so far known at least, as that the Invisible Things of the Godhead may
be clearly proved by the Things that are seen in the World." [I could dis-
cover,] he added, what was anciently known, what is new, acquiring in the
process opportunities to "furnish my Mind with new Occasions of admiring
the boundless Wisdom and Bounty of that Almighty and Beneficent Essence,
in and by whom alone this whole Universe, with all its Parts, live, and move,
and have their Being."^'* Historical knowledge and knowledge of nature af-
ford proofs and illustrations of the truth of the Christian conception of the
nature of the earth, of history, and of the creation.
Toward the end of the seventeenth century, one influential conception of
nature— against which William Wotton complained and the one which has
been emphasized in histories of science— was the mechanistic view that owed
its widespread acceptance to the prestige of mathematics and to the scientific

and philosophical works of Galileo, Descartes, Newton, and others: the uni-
verse of which the earth is a part is like a great machine and is to be under-
stood in geometrical terms. Nature owes its harmonies to an underlying me-
chanical order which is the most worthy and urgent for study, an order far
removed from the bright and colorful beauties of external nature. Whitehead
thought this conception was characteristic of seventeenth century thought,
but his characterization applies to only one segment of it because it neglects
those in the life sciences who, far from accepting the implications of the
mechanical view, emphasized— with the inspiration and prestige of an idea
probably as old as Western civilization itself— that the earth was a divinely
designed environment, fit for the coexistence of the countless variety of
Their form, beauty, and all those secondary quahties dismissed as
beings.^^
unimportant were really exceedingly important in studying the concrete
realities of natural history. The emphasis on anthropocentrism and teleology,
which later science was to find so distasteful, should not bhnd one to the fact

Reflections, preface, no pagination.

Science and the Modern World, Lowell Lectures, 192$ (Pelican Mentor Books),
pp. ss-s^'
392 Fhy sico-Theology

that it (what the abstract mechanical view had not) an apprecia-

called forth
tion of the beauties of nature, and stimulated study of the interrelationships
(even of secondary quaHties so important in natural history) existing in it.
By so doing, it was argued, one not only learned more about nature but found
in these discoveries further evidence of the wisdom of God. Today, with the
impingement of civihzation on all phases of the natural environment, we prob-
ably are more friendly toward secondary quahties, to the study of external
appearances, to the scientific aspects of natural beauty, to the fundamental,
not the secondary, importance of these interrelationships which formerly
were the subject matter of natural history and are now covered in part by
ecology, in part by aesthetic description.

6. The Cambridge Platonists

The main difference between the modern physico-theologies and those of

medieval and ancient times is not in the fundamental ideas and assumptions—

they are virtually the same— but in the increased opportunity for illustration,
which was more convincing owing modern
to the greater scientific rigor of
times. Xenophon had expressed himself in Hues, the Stoics in scattered para-
graphs, St. Basil in a few homilies, but modern writers have required volumes.
These theologies gathered their evidence from a variety of sources. It may
have been the observation of a country vicar on a stroll; of an amateur scientist
in his garden, in his laboratory, or at his telescope; the report of an experiment
in the transactions of a scientific journal. Physico-theology was contrasted
with revealed theology; was a logical expansion of the physico-theological
it

proof of the existence of God. It also was contrasted with astro-theology

whose concern was the harmony of the cosmos. Generally speaking, in mod-
ern times the favorite topics of phvsico-theologies have been the human body
and its adaptations to its environment, similar adaptations of animals, birds,
and insects, and the harmonies observable on the terraqueous sphere as a
whole. WilHam Derham, author of one of the most famous and most influen-
tial physico-theologies of the early eighteenth century, an enlargement and
supplement of Ray's The Wisdom of God Manijested in the Works of the
Creation, also wrote another book on astro-theology. The physico-theologists,
even the best of them, had the annoying habit of using the same illustrations
and arguments over and over again, leading often to accusations of plagiary.
The clock was one of the most famous of these (if one found a clock or a
watch in an uninhabited place, he would have to conclude it was the product
of design and planning, the analogy then being apphed to the obvious planning
of the heavens and the earth); it was in the Theologia Natiiralis of Nieuwen-
tijdt but it may be older. So hackneyed were many of the ideas and illustrations
that Derham confessed poignantly— and more revealingly than he perhaps
 Fhy si co-Theology 393

realized— that he had purposely avoided reading the earlier works of other
physico-theologists so that he could himself write with more originality!
Many of these writers emphasized the significance of organic interrelation-
ships earth, and their views are not unlike modern ideas of the balance
on the
and order of nature. There are, however, two significant differences. The
destructive interferences of human cultures on the balance and harmony of
nature did not enter into their works, and the harmonies, the adaptations of
organisms to the environment and to each other, were works performed by
God at the creation. The emphasis was therefore on form, adaptation, and
arrangement, not on growth and development as in modern evolutionary
theory.
Ray and Derham, whose physico-theologies were far superior to all the
others in their treatment of the natural processeson earth, were sympathetic
with the Cambridge Platonists, especially the doyen of the group, Ralph Cud-
worth, who developed in The Tnie Intellectual Sy stein of the Ujiiverse the
idea of plastic nature, a "subordinate ministry of God which executes his
laws, Hke the angels which execute the works of Providence." His ideas have
been compared with the later concepts of a vital principle, or the elaii vital.^^
Cudworth's reasons for believing in this plastic nature throw light on his
disagreements with those committed to the "mechanick philosophy" in scien-
tific research.
According to him, this is not a fortuitous creation, nor is it brought into
being by unguided mechanism; on the other hand, God does not do all things
immediately or miraculously. Between God and the creation is "plastick
nature," an inferior and subordinate instrument of God which "doth drudo^-
ingly execute that part of his providence, which consists in the regular and
orderly motion of matter. ..." Plastic nature cannot choose its own course
nor act at its own discretion; a higher providence intervenes to counteract
any defects and may overrule it. The difference between plastic nature and
the philosophy of the "mechanic theists" (he considered Descartes to be one)
was that the latter have God do only "the first impressing of a certain quantity
of motion upon the matter, and the after-conserving of it, according to some
general laws. . .
."^^
Plastic nature acts eveKa tov, for the sake of something.
It is holistic, determining the form and function of the subordinate parts of
nature: "There is a mixture of fife or plastic nature, together with mecha-
nism, which runs through the whole corporeal universe." Cudworth discusses
at length the kinship of his idea with that of the world soul {anima mundi)^
and his indebtedness to early thinkers like Plato. The doctrine of plastic
nature therefore presupposes purpose and design without representing God

5^ Hunter, "The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of Plastic Nature," Harvard Theo-

logical Review, Vol. 43 (1950), pp. 197-213.
True Intellectual System, Vol. i, pp. 223-224.
 .

394 Physico-Theology

as a workingman at his daily tasks. If He were forced to do everything per-

sonally He would be "operose, solicitous, and distractions." Cudworth child-
ishly takes an analogy from the pseudo-Aristotelian De mundo to drive home
his point: Xerxes but he does not do the meanest tasks himself;
is a great ruler,
subordinate tasks are for subordinate officials or offices. If such mean tasks
were unworthy of Xerxes, how much less decorous would it be for God to
do the minor tasks as well.^^
A God with all these duties would discourage belief and encourage the
atheists, against whom the heavy cannonading of Cudworth was constantly

being directed. Ray added the thought that it is not seemly that God would
tend to all the minutiae of creation without making use of a subordinate
ministry. For an omnipotent agent, "The slow and gradual Process that is in
the Generation of Things would seem to be a vain and idle Pomp"; it would
be affectation in the Divine to do that slowly (as in organic growth) which
He could do instantaneously. Plastic nature accounts for sports and mon-
strosities, suggesting that nature is not infallible and is capable— as is human

art— "of being sometimes frustrated and disappointed by the Indisposition of

the Matter. . .
." No monstrosities or irregularities in nature would appear
were they the direct creation of an infallible, omnipotent, and perfect Creator.
Allowing for an intermediary between the Creator and the created avoided
the two extremes of belief, that God was a mere overseer once he had set
things in motion and that God's personal intervention was required in every
creative act, no matter how trivial.^^ "The Cambridge Platonists wish to look
upon nature as plastic rather than mechanical. Instead of resolving complex
reactions into their simple elements, they like to proceed from the whole to
the parts, and show how the one original vital force governing nature is in-
finitely exemplified, yet not lost, in these exempHfications."^^ Such a doctrine
obviously is attractive to religious men with a knowledge of, and an intense
interest in, living nature, as was the naturalist Ray, who believed that each
discovery adds fresh and shining proof of the wisdom of God. Progress in
science also means progress in knowledge of the intricacies of the design.
In turning to philosophers like Cudworth, whose intellectual indebtedness
lay with Plato, Plotinus, and Renaissance thinkers like Marsilio Ficino, Ray
thus embraced the old and traditional interpretation of nature, divorcing him-
self from the doctrine, stressed by Bacon, that final causes have no place in

science. It represented, I think, too, an insistence on the unique qualities of

life, a rejection of the idea that Hfe processes were like those of a machine, an
impatience with the crudities in Descartes' ideas of animal physiology, for to
him they were nothing more than machines.

5^ Ibid.,
pp. 221, 223.
^9 Ray, Wisdom
of God, p. 5 1
soCassirer, The Platonic Rennaissance in England, trans. Pettegrove,
p. 51. Cassirer
stresses the indebtedness of the Cambridge Platonists to the Renaissance thinkers.
 Physico-Theology 395

In An
Antidote Against Atheism (1652) Henry More summarized the
physico-theological arguments of the Cambridge Platonists that were used
more eif ectively by Ray and Derham with their deeper knowledge of biology
and natural history. Despite disclaimers that the world is not made for man,

that God intended that other living things should enjoy themselves, More's
recitation of the advantages of the earth is basically utilitarian and anthropo-
centric. The parallelism of the earth's axis, its steadiness so that it does not
"carelessly tumble," is advantageous in navigation and dialing, the lodestone
and the lodestar being dependent on it.^^ He discusses the possible postures
of the earth with relation to the plane of the echptic: the perpendicular, the
coincident, finally showing the one that actually exists to be the best (in a
scholia. More reproduces a drawing showing the effects of the axis being
coincident with the plane of the ecliptic ),^^ concluding that under the present
dispensation, more of the earth is habitable, there is more seasonal change, and
that "an orderly vicissitude of things is most pleasant unto us, and doth much
more gratifie the Cojiteynplative Property in Man," a thought Ray repeated
almost verbatim without acknowledgement. Following the alembic theory.
More envisages mountains as nature's stillatories, man as the flower and chief
of the globe's products whose materials are needed to exercise his faculties.^^
The clear distinction between land and sea (instead of an ooze of mire and
water), and navigation with its importance to the physical and mental aspects
of life, are other evidences of the usefulness of relief features. More speaks
of the form and beauty of plants: in beholding them man can but acknowledge
a hidden cause, like his own nature, that "is Intellectual, is the contriver and
perfecter of these so pleasant Spectacles in the World," because of form
their
and because their basis is in an intellectual principle.^* The usefulness and
beauty of nature are consistent with man's duty to understand it, to learn
about it, even to control for his advantage. ". Man seems to be brought
. .

into the World on purpose that the rest of the Creation might be improved to
the utmost Usefulness and Advantage. "^^ The earth and its present landscapes
are unthinkable without man and the domesticated animals about him; the
wild and the feral animals chased away into retreats are indicative of his
presence and his power. Even the natural— the wild— is a pleasant subject of
natural history, exercising man's wit and valor. More's idea of man as a pos-
sible improver of the earth goes a step farther than the traditional idea of man
dressing the earth or even completing the creation; man participates (possibly
through plant and animal selection) in the actual betterment of life.
In 1692, Richard Bentley, the famous English classical scholar who had

An Appendix to the Foregoing Antidote against Atheism. Antidote, p. 41.

Scholia on the Antidote Against Atheism, p. 154.
^3 Antidote, pp. 41, 48-49.
^^Ibid., pp. 52-54. Quote on p. 53.
65 Ibid.,
p. 63.
396 Physico-Theology

corresponded with Newton on design, delivered eight sermons, A Confutation

of Atheism, on the lectureship established by Boyle. Bentley was also active
in the quarrel of the ancients and moderns, annihilating some of poor Sir
WiUiam Temple's arguments and thereby incurring the wrath of Jonathan
Swift, in whose Battle of the Books he is an unsympathetic figure. These ser-
mons are among the best attempts made by seventeenth century English
divines to popularize Newtonian science and, with Newton's sympathy, to
marry it to the cozy piety of the argument for design. Bentley was close to
Newton's discoveries and had corresponded with him on scientific and reli-
gious questions.^^ As one might expect, Bentley 's three sermons (VI, VII,
VIII) devoted to confuting atheism "from the origin and frame of the world"
consist largely of a discussion of gravity, the earth's relation to the sun, the
inclination of the earth on its axis, the earth's rotation, and its revolution,
although Newton had written in a letter to Bentley that he was disinclined to
give much weight to the inclination of the earth on its axis as an argument for
final causes.^^
Bentley's discussion is enriched by his classical learning. The order and the
beauty of the systematic parts of the world, their discernible ends and final
causes, the "ro Peknov' or "meHority above what was necessary to be," show,
he says, an intelligent benign agent.^^ Like so many of his religious contem-
poraries, he feared that the revival of classical atomism would breathe new
life into Aristotle's doctrine of the eternity of the world. Neither the hu-

man race nor the world is eternal. Man had a beginning; so did the present
form of the earth and the system of the world.^^ Although "we need not, nor
do not confine and determine the purpose of God in creating all mundane
bodies merely to human ends and uses," all bodies, like the earth, are formed
for the sake of intelligent minds— not for the enjoyment of the brute creation;
therefore the earth "was principally designed for the being and service and
contemplation of man." Consistent with this principle, other planets may well
be inhabited.'^"
Bentley agrees with those who think that the present form and structure
of the earth are best suited for life; clearly he has little patience for theories
like Burnet's (See below, pp. 407 f.) The distance of the earth from the sun,
the periods of its rotation and its revolution, are all well devised to permit
life, the orderly growing of crops, and a periodization in living.*^^ A uniform,
calm, serene climate (as Burnet had thought; see below, pp. 408) is not neces-
sarily conducive to health and longevity, change and variety being prob-

66 See Newton, Opera omnia. Vol. 4, pp. 429-442, and Bentley's Works, ed. Dyce, Vol.
3, pp. 203-215.
67 See above, p. 377. Letter of Dec. 10, 1692; Bentley's Works, ed. Dyce, Vol. 3, p. 207.
68 Confutation of Atheism, pp. 132, 172.
Ibid., pp. 135-136.
"^^Ibid., pp. 174-175-
71 Ibid.,
pp. 181-185.
 Fhysico-Theology 397

ably better for both Following the usual proofs derived from the circulation
of water from land to sea and from sea to land, from the area of the sea
being proportionate to the size of the great rivers whose inflowing waters it
must receive, Bentley meets forthrightly the problem of the physical con-
fusion on earth, that is, the greater difficulty of applying ideas of final causes
to relief, to jagged mountains, to boulder-strewn valleys, to irregular and
asymmetrical coastlines than to biology. (Burnet argued that the earth is

a wreck and not a

a ruin, harmonious habitat.) Bentley ridicules those who
see only chance and confusion in creeks, inlets, bays, and harbors, but his
appraisal is based on their utility to man. It is much better that they be irregu-
lar, ununiform, for this apparent confusion makes much better harbors for

navigation than would straight seacoasts. On the question of the confusion

of the earth's physical geography, Bentley makes two telling replies, one
theological, the other from natural law, each standing on its own feet. The
theological justification is that it is clear enough that the earth is not a para-
dise, a variant of the idea that man cannot expect a better habitat than his
sinful nature entitles him to. . . We reckon it only as the land of our
peregrination, and aspire after a better and a celestial country. The justifica-

tion in natural law is that the apparent confusion in the earth's relief is a
result of the storminess of the sea and wave erosion, of rains washing down
material from the mountaintops, and the great earth displacements caused
by earthquakes and volcanoes. The evidence is based on water erosion on
land, wave erosion, delta building, the hydrologic cycle, earthquake and
volcanic action; possibly if glaciation had been understood (moraines, cirques,
striations, and matterhorns are hard to explain by final causes) a satisfactory
explanation of the history of the earth's landscape could have been achieved
at that time."^^
Intrenched as he is in the argument for utility, Bentley nevertheless stresses
more than most the beauty of nature and the asymmetry of nature. An ir-

regular feature— like a land form— is not necessarily less beautiful than a
regular one. Possibly reacting against the notion that God is a mathematician
acting geometrically, Bentley says.

All pulchritude and all bodies are truly and physically beautiful
is relative;
under all and proportions, that are good in their kind, that are
possible shapes
fit for their proper uses and ends of their natures. We ought not then to believe

that the banks of the ocean are really deformed, because they have not the form
of a regular bulwark; nor that the mountains are out of shape, because they are
not exact pyramids or cones; nor that the stars are unskilfully placed, because
they are not all situated at uniform distance. These are not natural irregularities,
but with respect to our fancies only; nor are they incommodious to the true
uses of life and the designs of man's being on the earth.^^

72/Z;ii.,p. 189.
Ibid.^ p. 195.
^* Ibid.^
pp. 196-197.
398 Physico-Theology

These men did not question that the earth is a divinely designed planet;
but neither did they believe in the senescence of nature nor that the flood
had left the earth in such a wretched and deformed condition that it was only
indifferently suited to human life.

7. Design and the Multiplication and

Dispersion of Mankind

It has been said that John Graunt (i 620-1 674) made four contributions to
statistical knowledge, the first two of which had been previously unrecog-
nized: the regularity of certain social phenomena (including the incidence
of disease) hitherto thought to be ascribable to chance, the excess of male
over female births, the high rate of mortality in early life, and the excess

of the urban over the rural death rate/^ Natural and Political Observations
Made upon the Bills of Mortality, first published in 1662, became, without
any apparent conscious effort on the part of its author, an extremely im-
portant contribution to physico-theology because brought population it

theory, now with statistical support, under the wing of natural theology much
more effectively than had any previous contribution. Graunt's influence
carried far, including Derham and Siissmilch. And we might add, the checks
of Malthus.''
Graunt compared the bills of mortality of London with the rural envi-
ronment of Hants, famous, he said, neither for the longevity nor the
healthfulness of its inhabitants. (Modern statisticians would frown upon the
generalizations Graunt made about rural populations from such a small
sample as Hants.) The bills of mortality, according to Graunt, first appeared
in 1592, being resumed in 1603 after the great plague; he wanted "real fruit
from these ayrie Blossoms," to advance beyond their ordinary uses for
curiosity, for warning the rich about the state of the sickness, and inform-
ing tradesmen what they might expect.^^ His findings regarding male and
female births show, he says, that the Christian religion is more agreeable to
the law of nature (that is, the law of God) than is the Muslim; it signifies
nothing if Muslim law grants a man many wives if there is not a parallel
proportion in nature. Graunt calculates that the births of males to females
are in the ratio of 14: 13 in London, and of 16: 15 in Hants.'''^ He shows that

^5 Hull's introduction to The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, Vol. i, pp.
Ixxv-lxxvi.
"^^
Hull, op. cit., p. Ixxix.
Observations, 5th enlarged ed., 1676, preface, pp. 2, 16; on Hants, p. 86.
^® Ibid.,
p. 86. Willcox in his introduction to a reprint of the first edition of the Ob-
servations says that Graunt's statement that male exceed female births by a i / 1 3 part does
not agree with his figures for births or deaths, that Graunt's figures show the ratio of
the sexes to be different at death than at birth. On the authorship of the pamphlet
(whether it is by Graunt or Sir William Petty) see Hull, op. cit., for the controversy up
 Physico-Theology 399

populations grow despite the plague; according to his computations, the

population can double every 64 years, and Adam and Eve in 5,610 years
"by the ordinary proportion of Procreation" have produced more people
than actually are now living on earth/^ Graunt's work is a businesslike
treatise on the subject with little philosophizing; nevertheless, in it were the
elements of higher generalizations appHcable to the idea of design: the regu-
male and female births could not be capricious; the agreement of
larities in

the Christian religion with the laws of nature is shown in the moral worth
and the reasonableness of monogamy; the multiplication of the human race
from the time of the Flood could now be understood accurately. These ideas
were used by Sir Matthew Hale who, with Siissmilch in the eighteenth cen-
tury, was the most impressive contributor (if we do not include Malthus)
to population theory within the design argument.
Sir William Petty is more interesting for his general views regarding popu-
lation, the capacity of the earth, and the encouragement that should be given
to its peopling; Petty 's discussion shows how easily— and how interestingly—
the question of population growth and distribution can be related to the
broader implications of physico-theology. It is to the honor of God and the
advantage of man, said Petty, that the earth be peopled as quickly as pos-
sible; there need be no worry about any population problem for a thousand

years, or until there is more than one person for every three acres. The more
people there are, the greater the value of each individual. To honor God is to
acknowledge his power and wisdom; if it is true, as is commonly said, that
the earth and the fixed stars are made for the use of man, it is a comfort
only to atheists if three-fourths of it is uninhabited. If the earth is so under-
populated, there is uncertainty and confusion regarding the real purpose of
its creation. Some might believe it a creation of chance, not of design. Peopling

it to capacity would remove any doubts about the purpose of its creation.

The arts and sciences are better cultivated in cities than in deserts. "If there
were as many men on Earth as It could bear, the works and wonders of
God's Wisdome would bee the sooner discovered and God the sooner honored
really and heartily. ... I say that God's first and greatest comand to Man
and Beast was to encrease and multiply to replenish the Earth. Why therefore
should this duty bee put off? "^^ As people increase, so will philosophers, the
lands of the King of England, and the Irish holdings of Sir WiUiam Petty

to 1899, pp. li-liii; on the case for Petty, see inter alia, the Marquis of Lansdowne, ed.;
Fetty -Southwell Correspondence 1616-168'j, pp. xxiii-xxxii; for the situation up to 1939,
see Willcox, op, cit., pp. iii-xiii. Hull concluded the two collaborated, "the essential
and valuable part" being Graunt's, Willcox that it was a joint production but he has far
more respect for Graunt who writes "statistical music" than for Petty who "is like a
child playing with a new musical toy which occasionally yields a bit of harmony" (Will-
cox, op. cit., p. x).
Observations, p. 86.
Petty -Southivell Correspondence, p. 154.
400 Phy sico-Theology

and Robert Southwell! Until the earth has one person for every three acres,
''there is no cause for obstructing the designe," an interesting thought similar
to Condorcet's remark, almost a century later, which so aroused Malthus,
that if it were necessary at some future time to control world population
growth, mankind would then do so.^^ Petty and many other thinkers advo-
cated a propopulationist policy on economic and pohtical grounds; basing
iton religious grounds as well gives it broader significance because it puts
the growth and distribution of the world's peoples within the framework
of design, implying that man's numbers and the resources of the earth will
always be a harmony and a balance.
Sir Matthew Hale's The Frimitive Origination of Mankind (1677) is an
example of a synthesis possible in the late seventeenth century, using the
ideasand knowledge then current regarding the numbers and dispersion of
mankind, man's relationship to other aspects of nature, considering also the
imphcations of his growing control over nature as commanded of him in
the Scripture.
Its opening lines set the tone for the book and reveal the intellectual frame-
work within which Hale is writing. "It is an admirable evidence of the
Divine Wisdom and Providence, that there is that sutable [sic] accommoda-
tion and adaptation of all things in Nature, both to their own convenience
and exigence, and to the convenience, use, and exigence of one another. ." . .

There are intermediate beings in the chain between God and man, but
man, despite his sins and imperfections, bears in greater measure the Divine
image than does any one of the visible creatures known to us.^^ In the ''ad-
mirable gradation of things," ranging from the minerals to the plants, animals,
and man (a participant, though an imperfect one, in angeHc nature), the
lower ranks have "some rough draughts, and strokes, and shadows of those
perfections which are in the superior." There is also a blending within ranks,
taking on many of the characteristics of the lowest manifestations of the
next highest rank. Thus, the lowly minerals "seem to have some shadow of
the Vegetable Life in their growth, increase, and specifick configurations."
The most advanced forms of plant life "seem to come up to the confines
and borders of the lowest Form of Sensible Beings." The higher terrestrial
animals, like the horse and the elephant, "are advanceable by Industry and
discipHnable Acts to a great perfection, and seem to be the next rank of
natures below the animal nature of Man. ..." Man is the highest rank of
visible animals, but "in his intellectual nature he seems to participate of
the angehck nature." (Quotes Psalm 8:5.) Man "participates of the highest
degree of Animals and the lowest degree of Intelligences [i.e., the angels];

^1 William Penn, too, apparently shares his enthusiasm for the

speedy peopling of the
world, for Pennsylvania would share in it too. The Fetty -Southwell Correspondence
i6j6-i68'j, ed. the Marquis of Lansdowne, pp. 143, 148, 153-155, 165.
^2 Prim. Orig. of Man., pp. i, 15-16; other discussions on pp. 310, 349, 371.
 Fhysico-Theology 401

participating of both natures, to keep as it were a continuity between the

Upper World and the lower, and to maintain a communion with them and
between them." This is the key thought in interpreting the relationship of
man to the rest of the creation.^^ Hale, however, also looks at the human race
in another way, which has had an origin, has multiplied its
as a species of life

numbers, has dispersed throughout the world, and in so doing has developed
differences among its constituent peoples. These differences Hale ascribes
to environmental causes. Color, figure, stature, humor, and disposition of
peoples are caused by climate; as examples, he lists the "black, flat-nosed
and crisp-haired" Ethiopian with the "tawny" Moor, the "swarthy, little,
haughty, dehberate" Spaniards, "the spritely, sudden" French, and the "large,
fair-complexioned, strong, sinewy, couragious [sicY' northern peoples. It
is allvery traditional and there is no attempt— except by implication in the
use of the humor theory— to explain how climate could cause these differ-
ences. Within the same type of climate ("more conterminous climates") there
is a great variety in people, the differences being due to other environmental
causes. There are the "strong, sinewy, hardy Men" of the English uplands,
the large and tall men of the marshlands, especially around Somersetshire,
the "commonly sharp-visaged" Welsh living in the mountains.^^
The account in Genesis, the presence of an aboriginal population and of
native plants and animals in the New World raised questions, as did Acosta,
regarding the origin of man, the domesticated plants and animals, and the
diffusion or independent invention of the arts and sciences. The presence
of animals in the New World was a more difficultproblem than that of man,
Hale thought, after reading Acosta's account of the alpacas, the guanacos,
and "the Indian sheep of Peru" (los carneros de Peru). "Cierto es cuestion,"
Acosta had said, "que me ha tenido perplejo mucho tiempo."^^
Hale discusses the arguments for the independent origin of man in the
New World, among them, that America has long been inhabited; the lack
of evidence of pre-Columbian migration because navigation was discovered
too late to account for America's large aboriginal population; hence, the
Americans derived neither from Adam nor Noah, but either had an "eternal
succession" or had multiplied "from other common stocks than what the
Mosaical History imports." Admitting that traditions of the peoples of Amer-
ica might favor this conclusion. Hale nevertheless sees little difficulty in the
possibility of transoceanic voyaging for man, but sees serious difficulties for
the animals. Beasts, especially beasts of prey, could not easily be transported
over the seas; nor is it easy to see how animals known in the New World
Ibid.^ pp. 310-31 1.
Ibid., pp. 200-201.
Ibid., pp. 182-183; Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (1590), Bk. IV,
chap. 36.
86 Ibid.,
p. 89.
402 Fhy sico-Theology

could be taken over seas in order to be preserved in the ark, and then trans-
ported back to theNew World again.^^ Some answer that the Flood was not
universal, or that new creations of animals, known only to America, occurred
after the Flood.^^Hale weighs all the arguments: the possibility that the ante-
diluvian earth was flatter; that the Flood covered only part of the earth; that
the antediluvian earth, growing full of sin, of men, of beasts, needed a deluge
to make room for future inhabitants; that pre-Columbian contacts with the
New World were made by the British, the Norwegians, the Tartars or
Scythians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians, and the Chinese.^^ He concludes
that the New World had been peopled from the Old in successive waves of
migration, all of which occurred since the Deluge but at so remote a time
they could no longer be dated. If the migrations occurred 2,000 years ago,
he said, enough people had been propagated to fill the continent, and the
lapse of time, forgetfulness, degeneration, or change of new plantations
perhaps obliterated the memory of the past.
The storing of America with animals and birds, he added, after examining
the evidence, was also the result of migration. The lack of lions, tigers, and
bears in Cuba, Jamaica, Margarita, Hispaniola, remote from the Spanish settle-
ments, showed that these animals were not native to the New World. Dif-
ferences among animals as among men may be caused by mixtures of species,
by differences in climate and soils; the diversity of life in the New World
is no argument against a common origin. As primitives they may have been
the same, accidental variations occurring in time, and accidental change
coming about "in inuring themselves to a certain Continent or part thereof.
Birds may have flown to the New World, but this feat might assume the
existence of Atlantis. Domestic animals may have come to the New World
in trade; Hale points to the ancient trade in peacocks and apes, and cites
II Chronicles 9:21. Admitting that the domestic animals can be accounted
for in the New World by migration either by means of or independent of
human agency, it is improbable that man
has been an agent in the distribu-
tion of the feral and the wild animals. Hale admits the difficulties, and sup-
poses that ancient land bridges, which were subsequently destroyed by water
or earthquakes, may have existed. In support of this theory he notes the pos-
sibility of a route from China to the Philippines, to Terra Australis, thence
China and the islands between New
to Tierra del Fuego, the possibility that
Guinea and the New World were once one land mass, and that North Asia,
Europe, and America once were joined.^^
Hale's intelHgent and informed exposition of the difficulties reveals, as

^Ubid., p. 184.
For exhaustive discussion, see ibid., pp. 197-203.
^^Ibid., pp. 195-196.
^^Ibid., p. 199. Cites Acosta, op. cit., Bk. I, chap. 21. Prim. Orig. of Man., p. 201.
Ibid., pp. 202-203.
 Fhysico-Theology

did Acosta's (from whom he obviously derived many of his ideas), a rela-
tionship between Judeo-Christian theology and ideas of diffusion and inde-
pendent invention. In many ways the design argument is not hospitable to
diffusionist ideas. It is strong on the adaptation of plants to the climate, animals
to the plants, and the dependence of man on both, differences among them
from place to place being caused by differing environmental conditions.
Nature is purposive, does nothing in vain, and man in each region invents
things called forth by his needs. On the other hand, the account in Genesis
of the Flood, the ark, the subsequent repeopling of the earth, unavoidably
suggests the great influence of migration and diffusion in human history. The
extravagant diffusionism of earlier theories, including tribes of Israel being
in the New World, was one cause of a reaction, especially in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, in favor of the idea of independent invention owing
to the psychic unity of mankind. Many of the problems discussed by Hale
are still here today in another form: the question whether the high civiliza-
tions of the New World are autochthonous (a response to environmental
causes, necessity being the mother of invention, psychic unity) or the result
of pre-Columbian influences from the Old World.
Closely related to the origin and dispersal of the human race is the ques-
tion of the means by which it has gradually increased, allowing the re-
peopling of the world from the eight people who survived the flood: Noah,
his wife, their sons— Shem, Japhet, and Ham— and their wives. The natural

tendency of mankind, says Hale, is to increase. If a father has a first child at

age twenty-seven, a second at thirty, when he reaches sixty (which he adopts
as the length of life for the male) there will be eight in the family (himself,
his wife, their children, and four grandchildren). In about thirty-four years—
the period from the birth of the first son until the death of the father— the
unit will have quadrupled. Conditions were much more favorable in the
ancient times, the long lives after the Flood and the long continuation of sexual
potency allowing the procreation of great multitudes of men.^^
In his calculations. Hale acknowledges his debt to Graunt, and includes a
summary of his work. Graunt's writings "give a greater Demonstration of the
Gradual Increase of Mankind upon the face of the Earth, than a hundred
notional Arguments can either evince or confute. . .
."^^

Hale's attempt to reconstruct the population history of the world, taking

and evidences of longevity in ancient
into account the Bible, Graunt's studies,
and modern times, leads him to a position very similar to that taken later by
Derham, that the growth of mankind and its present numbers give evidence
of an order and regularity that can be accounted for only by design. In all
life there is neither an excess of births to overcharge the earth nor an insuf-

^2 Ibid.^ 205.
p.
Ibid.^ p. 206.
 :

404 Fhysico-Theology

ficiency of them, nor too many deaths to put a "period" to the various species
and thus bring about a total dissolution in nature.
Hale, as did WiUiam Derham later, took his examples from all varieties of
life;he notes the tendency of nonhuman populations to increase. They are,
however, kept in bounds by certain correctives. Here, for example, are checks
on the increase of animals, birds, fish, insects; they remind one of Darwin.

Animals (natural increase much greater than that of men): food; domesti-
cated animals like cats and dogs not used for food but kept within bounds by
destroying the young or by drowning; harmful wild animals; extinction by
man.

Birds (natural increase apparently much greater than that of animals or men)
human food; destruction of harmful birds; natural shortness of life of many
that are heavy breeders; destruction of weaker birds by birds of prey; winter
cold, birds dying either of the cold or of starvation.

Fish (natural increase infinitely greater than that of animals, men, or birds;
their uncontrolled multiplication would lead to overstocking of fish in the
sea): eggs "not sprinkled" (follows Aristotle Hkt. animalium, Bk. VI, 13,
567b); eggs devoured by the male, by other fish, spoilage of eggs; fish eggs
for human food; the prey of other fish; destruction of fish in the sea, rivers,
ponds, lakes, and by birds, freezing and drought; destruction of freshwater
fish by the drying up of lakes, ponds, and rivers, or "tainting the water with
excessive heat."^*

Insects (characterized by greatpower of multiplication and shortness of

life) : lacking checks to their power of reproduction, "the whole Atmosphere,
Earth and Waters would be crouded with their numbers." Observation does
not confirm this crowding because correctives exist: destruction by man;
antipathy of certain animals to insects even though they are not used for
food; food for animals; airs not conducive to putrefaction abate the "prolific
power of their eggs or seeds"; rains, showers, floods, cold, frost, snow, drown-
ing by rain, and so forth. By divine disposition, checks on "these small and
inconsiderable pieces of Nature" permit the preservation of their kind, prevent
an excess which would be "to the detriment and surcharge of the inferior
World. "^^ Hale sees among animals, birds, fish, insects, "a continued invad-
ing and prevalence of the more powerful, active and lively, over the more
weak, flegmatick, and unactive creatures."^^
Analogous correctives exist, says Hale, controlHng the generation and the

^ Ibid., pp. 207-208.

95 Ibid., p. 210.

Ibid., p. 211.
 Physico-Theology

growth of mankind; there are "prunings" to prevent a surcharge of the earth.

Plagues and epidemics, local and universal, have existed in all historical periods.
Famines, though not so severe in modern times because of the industry of
man— "partly by those Supplies that have come by Sea to those Countries
that are in Want but principally by the goodness of God"— were very serious
in former times, especially the simultaneous occurrence of famines and plagues,
or famine following the plague. Wars, because of their frequency at all periods
of history, and their duration, have been powerful checks.^^ Casting aside
apparent or surface causes, wars to Hale *'seem to be in a manner a Natural
Consequence of the over-plenitude and redundancy of the Number of Men
in the world. ."^^ Inundations and conflagrations, local or universal, have
. .

also contributed to the control of human populations. The checks on popu-

lation are governed by providence: they punish sins, and they keep the
numbers of people in the world consistent with convenience and the capacity
of the earth. Mankind has increased in numbers because of and despite the
checks, maintaining the balance of individuals, thus preventing a tragic over-
population, but they have not been severe enough to destroy mankind.^^
The reasons Hale gives for the creation of man last are consistent with his

ideas of the stewardship of man

over earth (see below, pp. 481 f.), with the
diffusion of mankind from a single source of origin, and with his explanation
of the growth of human population from the time of the Flood. The creation
is a procession from the less to the more perfect; it furnishes men with con-
veniences for his use: grass was created before the brutes, and fruits and
food before man. The Creator intended giving man a liberal patrimony, but
His subordinate ruler on earth first needed his furniture. The creation, as
this stewardship would imply, was not merely for man; the inferior world
was principally designed for man, but it would be folly to conclude that it
was intended for his exclusive use. "Almighty God hath the Glory of his
own Greatness, and the Communication of his Goodness as the great End
of all his Works"; consequently, an accommodation and harmony exist be-
fitting man as steward and tenant of God.^^^ Hale (i 609-1 676) is remem-
bered as a jurist; he was lord chief justice of King's Bench and his name is
more closely linked with the history of English common law than it is with
early anthropology; furthermore, he writes like a lawyer. The important
thought is the adaptation of one being to another and to man as a "Steward
and Tenant of Almighty God"; it is the harmony of the whole, not its use-
fulness to man, which reflects the wisdom of God, who acts like a great ruler
with jus disponendi over the human race, whose legal rights have been be-
stowed upon it in the best traditions of English law!^^^
Ibid., p. 213.
^^Ibid., p. 215.
Ibid., p. 226.
100 Ibid.,
p. 328.
For example, ibid., pp. 354-355.
4o6 Fhy sico-Theology

8. Fantasy, Cosmology, and Geology

AND What They Led To

The revival of Platonism at Cambridge, the strong arguments for the con-
stancy of nature, the discrediting of those who saw everywhere evidences
of mortahty and decay in nature or hopeless physical confusion of the post-
diluvian world consequent upon the fall of man, made a new synthesis pos-
sible: the earth is not a mechanical creation that can be understood without
considering final causes; one has to know the purpose for which the Creator
intends things in order to apprehend their significance. Nor can the earth
be understood through a series of deductions from abstract premises, such
as Descartes had made, for natural theology was peculiarly hospitable— alto-
gether too hospitable for its own good— to the visible, to the detailed, to
the secondary qualities, to random and casual observations that could be
made of plants, animals, insects, parts of the body, streams, clouds, snow-
flake formation. If one granted the initial assumption that every natural
phenomenon was the product of design, then the justification for observa-
tion and the gathering of detail was that each bit became additional proof
of the design; such research also opened up hitherto unsuspected proofs in the
discovery of details in little-known fields. Physico-theology has always been
much more successful and has persisted longer— to the intense displeasure of
historians of science— in the life sciences because there are in them so many
opportunities of finding plausible evidence of final causes in the observa-
tion of organic growth, in the relationship of plant and animal life to one
another and to their habitats, in plant and animal communities, in the pat-
tern of distribution of organic throughout the earth. Contemplation of
life

the earth, of its man— and even of the inorganic sub-

plants and animals, of
stances—convinced the behevers in natural theology that in the curiosity,
enthusiasm, and intensity with which they were pursuing knowledge, they
were also by uncovering fresh proofs of His existence and omniscience, con-
tributing to the greater glory of God. The denial of a deterioration in nature
was also an affirmative belief; so was the rejection of the biological analogy,
appHed to nature itself. One need not fear that the earth at one period was
less fertile, less fruitful than at any other. The rebuttals brought the forward-

looking men both contemporary science and in contemporary theology

in
(many times they might be represented in the same man) to the defense of
the physical earth as it is. It was a defense that was not forgotten in the next
century when Herder reassured his readers of the beauties and advantages
of the present-day earth in much the same way as had the writers of the sev-
enteenth century.
During the last two decades of the seventeenth century, four remarkable
works were produced in England, all concerned with the origin of the earth,
all attempting to make full use of the discoveries of Gahleo, Kepler, Newton,
 Physico-Theology

and others in order to achieve a reconciliation of these discoveries with Genesis.

Thomas Burnet's Telluris Theoria Sacra was first published in 1681, the Eng-
lish translation, Sacred Theory of the Earth, following in folio between 1684
and 1689. The first edition of John Woodward's An Essay Towards a Natural

History of the Earth, and Terrestrial Bodies, especially Minerals . . ap-

peared in 1695, the second in 1702, the third in 1723. William Whiston's New
Theory of the Earth, published in 1696, was followed in 1698 by John Keill's
Examination of Dr. Burnet's Theory. Keill, an astronomer, mathematician,
and friend of Newton, had taken the latter's side against Leibniz in the quarrel
over the priority of the discovery of the calculus. These works usually are
mentioned in histories of geology or cosmology as illustrations of the fantasy
period in the histories of these subjects when the earth was universally thought
to be very young; Archbishop Ussher's dating of 4004 B.C. for the creation,
or other estimates close to was widely accepted.
it, To these authors and
others like them, the creation, the Fall, the Flood, and the newly constituted
earth after the recession of the flood waters were the significant events in the
history of the physical changes which the earth had undergone. These works
were more than privately spun out combinations of piety and inventiveness;
they were widely read, commented upon, and some of them, like Burnet and
Woodward, were translated into foreign languages. They were sufficiently
significant for Buff on to analyze the systems of Burnet, Whiston, and Wood-
ward in his Histoire Naturelle.^^^
Here I am only slightly interested in the main purposes for which these
books were written; more compelling are the incidental questions which these
authors discuss: the habitability of the earth; the application of ideas of final
causes to the features of the earth's surface, especially land and sea relation-
ships, mountains, rivers, and valleys; comparisons of the antediluvian with
the postdiluvian world because they throw light on the question of the
effecton nature of the sin of man and on the broader question of correspon-
dences between earth features and the moral stature of man.
Let us begin this story with Thomas Burnet (1635-1715), a clergyman,
whose much respected Sacred Theory of the Earth divided the history of his
benighted planet into three periods, an antediluvian, a postdiluvian, and a
future one which would be physically like the first. Burnet's work is important
because the rebuttals which it evoked emphasized the essential goodness of
the creation, the fitness of the earthly environment, and the reasonableness
of the biological and physical interrelationships existing among natural phe-
nomena. His most famous assertion was that the face of the antediluvian world
had been smooth, regular, and uniform. Although it lacked mountains and
the sea, it was habitable. To critics who said there could be no rivers without

Raven, Ray, p. 42 1, note 8.

See Preuves de la Theorie de la Terre, art. 2 on Whiston, 3 on Burnet, 4 on Wood-
ward, and 5 on other theorists.
4o8 Fhy sico-Theology

mountains, Burnet replied that there were, accounting for the flow of rivers
by the oval shape of the earth; but neither his contemporary nor his present
critics could see how the earth's ovoid shape could cause water to run down
hill. Burnet did not beheve in a deluge within the accepted meaning of the

word; water lay underneath the surface of the land and the smooth earth
fell watery abyss. Evidences from observing the present configuration
into the
of the earth, with proofs from Genesis 8, satisfied him. The imperfections of
the earth— he meant its rehef— were the consequence of land falling into the
watery abyss; earthquakes were evidences of its inner hollowness, which was
also demonstrated by subterranean communication of the seas.
Burnet's antediluvian world was a paradise, contemporary with the golden
age of the ancients and with a perpetual equinox. At that time, the earth did
not tilt on its axis.^^^ The ungenerous divine even denied rainbows to the
antediluvian world. In the so-called Deluge, the earth was so broken up and
so dislodged that it lost its balance and its center of gravity changed, one pole
inclining to the sun and bringing about the obliquity of the earth's axis. As a
consequence, the postdiluvian world was neither so pleasant, so fruitful, nor
so convenient a place as was the antediluvian world; it was too broken up to
be a paradise, and nature, with so much dislocation and poor land, became
hard and niggardly. The soils of the postdiluvian world had none of the spon-
taneous fruitfulness of those of the golden age; the new earth required human
art for its cultivation because of the decay of the soil and the diversity of the
seasons. Changes of season lacked the advantages of a perpetual equinox;
the people of the postdiluvian world were short-lived because of the seasonal
changes and the absence of a stable medium like the smooth earth of the past.
Although the torrid zone was uninhabitable even in antediluvian time, there
was plenty of room in the other zones because there were no seas. The posture
of the earth in its wretched postdiluvian period had, however, to be changed
to make it habitable.
Continuing his speculations to their remorseless end, Burnet thought that
after fire destroyed the present earth, it would again become a paradise like

the first— even and uniform, for would melt everything. Burnet's specu-
fire

lations forced those who disagreed with them to state the case for the ad-
vantages to mankind and to other forms of hfe of the planet as it is at present
constituted and to justify, as part of the Creator's design, the wisdom of having
the earth incline twenty-three and a half degrees from the line drawn per-
pendicular to the plane of the ecliptic. To Burnet, sinfulon anman lived
earth which was a physical ruin, a wasteland;
mountains, seas, deserts had
neither use nor beauty; they were doleful reminders that mankind deserved
no better.^'^^

Sacred Theory, p. i88.

^^"^

For a discussion of Burnet and mountains, see Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and
Mountain Glory, pp. 207-224.
 Fhysico-Theology 409

Woodward disagreed completely with Burnet, but his views were flattering
neither to mankind nor to the globe. Physically, he thought the antediluvian
earth differed little from the present earth and that the ratio of land to sea
was about the same. His proof was based on fossil evidence: shells, teeth,
bones of sea fish, indicated the extensive area of the sea in the antediluvian
period, and shells of freshwater fish indicated rivers; rivers suggested moun-
tains with valleys in between, proving against Burnet that the relief of the
antediluvian world was similar to that of the present earth.
How did the fossils survive the Deluge? Woodward answered lamely that
the Deluge dissolved stone and mineral solids, but did not dissolve shells,
teeth, bones, trunks and other parts of plants and animals.
and roots of trees,

To a critic who asked how and those solutions were possible,

these survivals
he replied that they must have occurred thus because of the widespread dis-
tribution of fossils. The fossil record was used, therefore, to prove the exis-
tence of seas, rivers (and thus of mountains) in the antediluvian earth and the
basic physical similarities of the two earths.
Woodward said the to punish man, and— more
Deluge had two purposes,
important— to alter the earth so that it would have a constitution consistent
with human frailty, its former state being suited to man in a state of inno-
cence. If the antediluvian world was so much like the present, what then

was the difference between the two? Woodward's most interesting answer
reminds one of some of Robert Wallace's and Thomas Malthus's ideas. The
antediluvian world was far more fertile, and so productive that it required
little care or tillage, the plow being a postdiluvian invention.^^^ Man in his
innocence could use the antediluvian earth to this great and edifying advan-
tage, but with the Fall the fertility became a "continual Decoy
of the earth
and Snare unto him," the fertility of the earth granting him leisure which led
only to cumulative opportunities for wickedness and promiscuity. The Deluge
punished man, but his punishment did not require a deluge were it not neces-
sary also "to reclaim and retrieve the World out of this wretched and forlorn
"^^^
State Following the Fall, the lushness of plant growth and the multipH-
cation of animals imposed a burden on the earth which could be eased only
by a deluge. Again his proof was the fossil evidence:
I appeal to the Remains of that Earth: the Animal and Vegetable Productions
of it still preserved; the vast and incredible Numbers whereof notoriously testifie

the extreme Luxuriance and Faecundity of it. And I need but produce these as
Evidences that at the time that the Deluge came, the Earth was so loaded with
Herbage, and throng' d with Animals, that such an Expedient was even wanting
to ease it of the Burden, and to make room for a Succession of its Productions}^^

An Essay Towards a Natural History of the Earth, pp. 107, 244, 251, 254-255.
i^'^
Ibid., p. 83; see also pp. 90, 92.
^^^Ibid., pp. 83, 84.
/Z^/W., pp. 85,87.
^^^Ibid., p. loi.
4IO Physico-Theology

In the Deluge, the organic matter on the earth's surface responsible for its

antediluvian fertiHty (Woodward here seems an early advocate of the humus

theory of soil composition) settled, in the general mingling of all kinds of
vegetable and mineral matter, to the bottom of the flood waters to rest on
soHd rock, "leaving only so much of it near the Surface might just suf-
as

ficiently satisfie the Wants of humane Nature, but little or no more; and even
that not pure, not free from the intermixture of meer steril mineral Matter,
and such as is in no wise fit for the Nutrition of Vegetables. . . The post-
diluvian earth therefore required the industry and the care of man, by culti-

vation and manuring; it became a hard world and nature was niggardly.
In a remarkable passage showing the interrelationships of the Deluge, humus
accumulation, soil erosion, population growth, and final causes. Woodward
argues that there was more to the design than to ^Weti'ench and abridge the
Luxury and Superabundance of the Productions of the Earth'^ and to provide
for a more sparing and frugal production from the soil.^^^ The humus which
settled on the floor of the sea at the Deluge accumulated on the lower strata
of stone and other mineral matter, becoming in effect, with the disappearance
of the waters, a reserve store of soil fertility for posterity. Humus (Wood-
ward calls it "vegetative matter"), decayed shells, teeth, bones, the parts of
dead plants and animals, are a "proper and natural iManure to the Earth."
Had all of the antediluvian humus remained on the surface, it gradually would
have been washed down from the hills. Rocks, mountains, or other elevations,
"especially those whose Surfaces are yearly stirr'd and disturbed by digging,
plowing, or the like," become gradually lower as their surface soils are washed
away by running water and carried to the plains and valleys below. Even
stone— bare or covered with a layer of earth— is not immune; it too "is dis-
solved by degrees, and wash'd also down, in its turn, as well as the looser
Earth."^^^
If this humus had remained as topsoil in the postdiluvian earth instead of
being precipitated during the Deluge, the processes of erosion— Woodward
calls it "deterration"— would have caused soil transport from the higher eleva-

tions to the lower, and with the loss, "decrement," of the humus, only a sterile
and infertile stratum underneath would remain. Even this would not end the
matter. The infertile stratum of the higher elevations would gradually have
been eroded away and would have been "likewise by degrees borne down
successively to the Roots and Bottoms of the Hills, and upon the neighbouring
parts of the Valleys and Plains-, it would, as far as it reach'd, have covered
and buried the upper and vegetative Stratum that was expanded over those
Valleys and Plains, and render'd as much of them as it so covered also frustrate,

111 Ibid.,
p. 89.
112 /^fi.,
p. 238.
Ibid., p. 230.
 Fhysico-Theology 411

steril,and unpuit^uiy^^"^ Meanwhile the population of the earth would have

grown until it was fully peopled, with "all Quarters and Corners of it stocked
with Inhabitants'' who would need every bit of fertile soil for food; there
would now be much less soil, for the earth would have become barren by slow
erosion. "So that they might have e'en starved, had it not been for this Provi-
dential Reserve: this Hoord, if I may so say, that was stowed in the StratJ
underneath, and now seasonably disclosed and brought forth.""^ The ex-
planation rests on the humus theory of the soils (that it is only decayed organic
matter which provides the food for plants), but it is a striking conception
of the gradual leveling of the earth, each fresh denudation of the higher
elevations supplying the precious humus for the valleys and plains, the leveling
progressing gradually as the increasing population of the earth demands more
and more fertile soil. Even among these fantastic theories, the realities of
everyday life are not far away. It is clear that to W
oodward tillage, manuring,
soil fertility, and soil erosion are closely bound up together, and that the rela-

tion of man to the earth is very close indeed.

Woodward also takes issue with Burnet on aesthetic grounds. Burnet was
so obsessed with the idea that the earth is a pile of "Ruines and Rubbish'*
whose mountains have not the "least foot steps of Art or Counsel," a globe
which is a "rude Lump,'' a 'Hittle dirty Planet," that he would grant it neither
order nor beauty.^^^ Woodward sees in the contrasts of sea and land, of hill
and dale, something which "is indeed extremely charming and agreeable."
This is not only his own opinion, he continues, but the common opinion of
mankind, agreed in by the ancients, the moderns, and the heathen alike. The
aesthetic pleasures derived from natural beauty were considered by Wood-
ward and later also by Ray, as another proof of the wisdom of God.
One can see the old stones gradually being moved away. If there is a con-
stancy in the processes of nature, if there is a reasonable order in the post-
diluvian world, and beauty in it as well, a new relationship between man and
nature now seems possible; discoveries in theoretical science and technology
dissipate some of the Man becomes an industrious being working
bleakness.
the none too fertile and in the process improves both himself and the
soil,

earth, providing as well for his future increase in numbers.

Although the author of the article on Whiston in the eleventh edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannic a described him as "not only paradoxical to the
verge of craziness, but intolerant to the verge of bigotry," how is it possible
to withhold one's admiration for the ingenuity of a man who theorized that the
primeval chaos was composed of the atmosphere of a comet; that the revolu-

^^'^
Ibid., pp. 239-240.
"5 Ibid., p. 240.
On Burnet's contradictory attitudes toward mountains, see Nicolson, op. cit., pp.
207-216.
41 2 Fhysico-Theology

tion of the earth around the sun began with the creation; that the rotation of
the earth on and the obHquity of the axis were both caused by a comet
its axis,

striking the earth after the fall of man, the comet being the mechanical means
by which the earth was reconditioned for a now far less noble creature?
To Whiston a perfect earth is incongruous as a home for imperfect man;
the physical nature of the earth must be adapted to the moral stature of man-
kind. One can expect little of an earth whose inhabitants are unworthy of
anything better than they possess. "As to the main Use of this Earth, 'tis to
afford Habitation to a sinful and lapsed Race of Creatures, of small Abilities
."^^^ He ridi-
or Capacities at present, but of great Vices and Wickedness. . .

cules often in eloquent language the idea that the universe has been devised
for man; the creation described in Genesis applies only to the earth, a pro-
bationary place, truly not one of the noblest globes but suited to man as he is

presently constituted.
Although critical in detail, Whiston followed Woodward
most of his in
views about the physical configuration of the antediluvian earth, the main
difference being that Whiston thought the antediluvian earth had less water
and no real ocean.^^^ It was also far more populous because it was more fertile
and there was more land; in estimating its population he was guided by the
calculations of Petty and Halley on the time required for the doubling of a
population.^^^ The postdiluvian world was inferior to the antediluvian be-
cause it was less fertile, owing to the fact that it received less heat from the
sun: after the Deluge the earth's orbit became an elHpse instead of a circle,
solar heat being now
only 96 per cent of that of the antediluvian period.
The earth is both from the waters of the Deluge, which did
also wetter,
not originate on earth, and from waters on or near the surface of the earth,
dampness, he thought, impeding fertility. Both the quantity and the quaHty
of fertile soil is therefore less now than in the antediluvian world. Whiston's
appraisal of the fertility of the earth was somewhat like Woodward's, for
both depicted an earth of struggle and of hardship; the inferior nature of the
earth's productions, however, is consistent with the moral quahties of man.^^^
Fresher, more modest, and less ambitious appraisals appeared in John Keill's
astringent criticism of the modern cosmogonists who are "as wild, extravagant,
and presumptuous as any of the Ancients. ."^^^
For this he blamed Descartes
. .

because "he has encouraged so very much this presumptuous pride in the
Philosophers, that they think they understand all the works of Nature, and

are able to give a good account of them, whereas neither he, nor any of his

Of the Mosaick History of the Creation, p. 57.

Ibid., pp. 60-61, 70-77, 88, 90-94.
119 N^iu Theory of the Earth, pp. 233-237, 256, 264-265, 359-361.
^^^Ibid., pp. 247, 254-255.
^21 Ibid.,
pp. 358-360, 363-365.
122 An Examination of Dr. Burnefs Theory of the Earth, p. 9.
 Physico-Theology 413

followers, have given us a right explication of any one thing."^^^ Keill believes
in final causes; likeRay, he leaves the way open for optimism regarding man's
place in nature because he cannot believe that a wise Creator would make an
earth with no more order than exists in a pile of rubbish.
Keill attacks the folly of beheving that the "Fabrick of the earth" from its
pristine state of chaos to its present condition can ever be deduced from
known mechanical principles and natural causes. To Burnet's argument for
the smoothness, regularity, and uniformity of the antediluvian earth, Keill
replies in the language of final causes, explaining why
mountains must have
existed in the antediluvian world. Mountains were as necessary in it as they
are in our own. In his defense of final causes, and citing Boyle and Ray in
support, Keill says it is now impossible to live or to subsist on an earth without
mountains.^^^
In addition to secondary uses for plant life— for their mineral production,
as a wind direction and thus of weather,
refuge for animals, as determinants of
in constituting internationalboundaries— their greatest importance is that they
are responsible for rivers and freshwater currents. Keill quotes Edmund Hal-
ley on the importance of reHef to rivers and thus to life.^^^ There is, said
Halley, an "equilibre of receipt and Expence in the whole Sea," the sea neither
drying up nor flooding the land because water is evaporated from the sea,
blown thence over the lowlands toward the mountains where it is forced to
rise, thus producing both rain and the water for springs, the same water then,
by means of springs, rivulets, brooks, and great rivers such as the Rhine,
Rhone, and the Danube, being returned to the sea and completing the cycle.
(More water is returned to the sea by dew and rain over its surface, from
plants on land, from surplus rainwater flowing back to the sea.) Like organic
growth, this kind of cycle fits in convincingly with the idea of a microcosm
and a macrocosm and with the argument for design. (See Ecclesiastes 1:7.)
If we may apply final causes to hills, Halley says, the design seems to be "that

their Ridges being placed through the midst of the continents, might serve
as it were for Alembicks to distil fresh Water for the use of Man and Beast,
and their heights to give a descent to those Streams to run gently, like so
many Veins of the Macrocosm, to be the more beneficial to the creation."^^^
In another passage, Halley makes further reference to the alembic. Part of the
water vapor enters caverns in the hills, the waters 'gather as in an Alembick"
*

into stone basins, whose surplus water overflows into springs that then might
form into brooks, rivulets, and lastly into rivers. Halley's reference to the

^^^Ibid., p. 10.
124
pp. 37,46.
See "An Account of the Circulation of the Watry Vapours of the Sea, and of the
Cause of Springs," Royal Society of London Philosophical Transactions, No. 192, Vol.
17 (1694), pp. 468-473-
p. 473.
414 Fhysico-Theology

alembic reminder of the long history of the theory of internal alembics.

is a
Seawater in the depths of the earth was distilled and then condensed in cold
caves and caverns in the higher portions of the mountains from which it then
could emcrge/^^
In Halley's system, accepted by Keill, the evaporation of seawater, the

transportation of the vapor by the winds, the production of orographic rain-

fall,and the river regimes produced by uneven relief of the earth's surface
were best explained by final causes.
Keill also agreed with Kepler that the obliquity of the earth's axis is evi-
dence of the Creator's beneficence. Keill's argument is also traditional, that

the obliquity of the axis has beneficial effects in seasonal change; moreover,
people living northward of the forty-fifth parallel receive more solar heat
annually with the present inclination of the earth on its axis than if the sun
shone always directly over the equator.
"I believe there would be few so fond of changes, as to be wiUing to have
the present obhque position altered for the perpendicular one of the Theorist
[i.e., Burnet], which would render this whole Island no better than a wilder-

ness, and the greatest part of the Earth not habitable. "^^^ The argument that
the obliquity of the axis provided a greater habitable area, and thus more
opportunities for expansion and more intense occupancy of the earth's sur-
face as world population grew was, despite Newton's demurrer, a more con-
vincing proof of design and of the existence of God than was Burnet's gloomy
view based on sin and the Fall.
Keill showed more common sense than had the others in explaining the
reasons why the earth was habitable. To Keill, Burnet's belief that too much
of the earth is taken up by sea showed ignorance of natural philosophy. If
the seas' area were reduced by one-half, so would be the quantity of water
vapor. Mountains had to exist in the antediluvian earth, for like the post-
diluvian earth it also needed rivers and fresh water.
To a modern mind, these works may seem unworthy of discussion. My
own interpretation, however, is that there is here— and this will be seen more
clearly in Ray and Derham— a growing awareness that one must consider an
everwidening series of relationships on earth in order to understand the
processes of nature, and the past, present, and future of mankind, and that,
notwithstanding the ingenuousness of resorting to final causes, one must bring
within one synoptic view the march of the seasons (represented by the argu-
ment over the inclination of the earth on its axis), the circulation of the

See Adams, The

Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences, pp. 434-441,
and the from Kircher's Mundus Subterraneus. Halley's reference to the
illustrations
macrocosm reminds one also of Kircher. See Adams, pp. 435-436.
128 Keill, op. cit. (see n. 122 above), pp. 53-55.
Ibid,, p. 58.
/W., p. 5.
Ibid., p. 77. See his summary and conclusions, pp. 134-139.
 Fhy sico-Theology 415

atmosphere (represented by the evaporation of seawater, onshore winds, and

orographic rainfall), and the importance of river systems (as distributors of
fresh water and as agents of erosion) to all life on earth.
With these discussions of Burnet, Woodward, Whiston, Halley, and Keill
in mind,we can now turn to the work of two men, John Ray and William
Derham, who created, largely by synthesizing the ideas and the discoveries
of others, a religious and philosophical view of the unity of nature that was
based on physical and biological principles and supported by the argument
from design. By modern standards, these ecological principles are crude, but
they are an advance over the utilitarian simplicities of the classical period
and the many conventional pieties of the Middle Ages in their attempt to
understand what Darwin later called "the web of life."

9. Ray and Derham on the Wisdom of God

Ray's The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691)
is an excellent example of a physico-theology which examines the nature of
the earth and the natural harmonies observable on it, and which attempts
at the same time to find a place for man and his works— the inventions, the
techniques, the changes made in the physical environment. (In addition to
technical works on plants and plant classification, Ray wrote about his travels
to the Lowlands, and in The Dissolution of the World he repHed in the spirit
of Hakewill to those who believed in a decline in the powers of nature.)
Ray rejected the behef in the exhaustion and dissolution of the world on
philosophic, religious, and scientific grounds; his objections rested, too, on
observations of the present state of nature, showing similarities with the uni-
formitarianism of the nineteenth century geology. There is nothing in nature,
he said, that argues for or infers a future dissolution, although unlikely acci-
dents (flooding, extinction of the sun, an eruption of a central fire enclosed
in the earth, a dryness and inflammability of the earth under the Torrid Zone,
which could possibly be set on fire by volcanoes, or the simultaneous erup-
tion of all volcanoes) might overwhelm the earth.^^^ Ray mentions the pos-
sibility of the ultimate destruction of the earth owing to the erosion of run-
ning water, using explanations that would seem strange neither to an adherent
of uniformitarianism in nineteenth century geology nor to a disciple of Wil-
liam Morris Davis. The ultimate effect of running water on land is to level it,

wearing down the mountains, building up deltas such as those of the Po, the
Athesis (the Adige), the Nile, and the Brenta. Gradually the deltas would
increase in area, rainwater would accumulate on them, the flat, level plain
would extend itself inland until the sea, assisted by subterranean rivers, would
cover the whole earth. Any end of the world— and Ray clearly was trying
Ray, Dissolution, pp. 39, 44, 148-149.
133 itfid,^
pp. 44-52, citing Varenius and Kircher; p. 49, on wave action on shorelines.
4i6 Fhysico-Theology

to put off the biblical prophecies as far into the future as possible— would
have to be sudden because there is no such present tendency toward dissolu-
tion. Ray believed the earth probably would be refined and purified in the
future, not annihilated, for he could not see the reason for the earth's existence
if mankind is destroyed in the final conflagration.

To Ray a belief in the constancy of nature, in the consistent fertility and

fruitfulness of the earth, not only a logical inference from the divine plan,
is

but is warranted by the evidences of contemporary observation; it is obvious

from the use men make of natural products about them. Ray is sympathetic
too with advances in technology and in the arts and sciences; he is optimistic
(with the usual reservations concerning human wickedness) about the future
of civilization and the technological advances which bring a future state about.
This optimism, self-evidently, could not rest on dismal doctrines of a decay
and dissolution of nature whatever the ancients and their modern sympathizers
might think.
The significance of Ray's work to our theme is that it is an impressive
marshaling of the known knowledge of natural history (including his own
contributions) to demonstrate the unity of nature and from this the wisdom
of God Ray
himself considered his book a work of synthesis:
in the creation.
.all the Particulars contain'd in this Book cannot be found in any one
.

Piece known to me, but He scatter'd and dispers'd in many. ."^^^

. .

The works of creation are those created by God: it is a creation unchanged

and continuous from the beginning. In a passage suggesting the creatio con-
tinua of the Middle Ages, he refers to . . The Works created by God at
and by him conserv'd to this Day in the same State and Condition in
first,

which they were at first made; for Conservation (according to the Judgment
both of Philosophers and Divines) is a continu'd Creation. "^^^
The work begins with the quotation of the twenty-fourth verse of Psalm
104, every theme in the book ultimately revolving around the unifying re-
ligious idea of this exceedingly influential verse. Following naturally the
thought of the psalm, the case is boldly stated for the legitimacy of ideas of
final causes in studying the works of the creation; Ray takes comfort in the
authority of Cicero'sDe fifiibus bonorum et malorum and in the De natura
deorum, rebutting the Aristotehan idea of the eternity of the world and the
atomic theories of the Epicureans. In place of the "atheistical" atomic
theories, Ray
adopts Cudworth's idea of a plastic nature, a subordinate min-
istry which God uses to administer the world. Cudworth considers "plastic
nature" as a vital principle, the word "vital" being used as an antonym of
"mechanical," suggesting the Stoic idea of the logos spermatikos}^^ Like More

134/^/^., pp. 190, 198-199.

Wisdom of God, Pref.
136 Ibid., Pref. ad fin.
137 Ibid., pp. 30-34.
138 See Pohlenz, Die Stoa, Vol. I, p. 353.
 Physico-Theology 417

and Cudworth, Ray is opposed to the "mechanick theists" (he considers

Descartes to be one); he opposes the Cartesian conception of animals as
machines, auto?7iata, as being contrary to the common observation that animals
are sensitive to pain; there no excuse for cruelty to them.^^^ The atomic
is

theists "utterly evacuate," Ray says, "that grand Argument for a God taken
from the Fhaenomenon of the Artificial Frame of things. ."^^^ In the
analogy . .

between art and nature, Ray adds that if human art has reason behind its
conception, how much more must nature have it because nature is so much
superior to art/*^ He quotes the Bishop of Chester, John Wilkins, who saw
in the microscopic investigation of things strong proof of the superiority of
nature over art, contrasting the perfection of nature even in the smallest
details of order and symmetry in plant and animal life, as revealed by the
microscope, with the bluntness and clumsiness of artifacts when seen under
the unflattering magnification of the same instrument/^^
At this time, the theory of the four elements involved no conflict with
theology or science. What Ray says of them, however, shows how strong, even
in a man of his scientific stature, was the legacy of the utilitarian bias in
physico-theology. His discussion of the utihty of fire and his list of its uses
are proud summaries of the technology of his time/^^ The discussion of air
more matter-of-factly mentions its role in maintaining life, including the fetus,
and as the medium of flight. The dramatic role of water, aside from its hum-
drum uses in washing, is sketched with enthusiasm. The size and the place-
ment of the oceans, the distribution of water on the earth's surface by springs
and rivers are evidences of the greatest wisdom. Leaning on Keill's criticism
of Burnet, Ray states, "Might not at least Half the Sea have been spar'd and
added to the Land, for the Entertainment and the Maintenance of Men, who,
by the continual Striving and Fighting to enlarge their Bounds, and encroach-
ing upon one another, seems to be streightened for Want of Room."^^^ Ray
deflates this argument, saying that any large gain of land at the expense of the
sea would yield more area, but the earth would be drier and less productive.
Population capacity of the world thus is closely related to land-sea areas.^^^
To the objection that the earth often has too much water and devastating
floods in consequence, Ray answers that floods return water to the sea after
the earth has had enough. Speaking in modern terms, rain, streams, and
floods are inseparably connected with geological erosion, the hydrological
cycle, delta building, and the formation of alluvial soils, those of the Nile and

139 Wisdom of God, pp. 38, 41, 43, 46, 54-55.

140/Z;ii., p. 42.
'^'Ibid., pp. 35-37.
142 Wilkins, Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, Bk I, chap. 6 — pp. 70-
71; quoted in part by Ray, Wisdom of God, p. 58.
143 Wisdom of God, p. 71.
Ibid., pp. 79-80.
^"^^Ibid., pp. 88-91.
/^fi/., pp. 82-83.
41 8 Fhysico-Theology

the Ganges being especially impressive. The casual justification of floods is a

reminder of the tout est h'len philosophy that is often an unpleasantly com-
placent characteristic of the more hopeful and anthropocentric physico-
theologies; floods were less of a blessing to those experiencing their fury.
Voltaire's satire in Candide of the tout est bien philosophy could have been
applied here to Ray.
Like Woodward, Ray adopted a vitalistic view toward the soil, a thin cov-
ering of the earth's mantle and the source of food, its special importance lying

in the decayed vegetable matter, the humus contained in it.^^^

Moreover, there is some aesthetic appreciation of nature in Ray's work.

"How variously is the Surface of this Earth distinguish'd into Hills, and
Valleys, and Plains, and high Mountains, affording pleasant Prospects? How
curiously cloath'd and adorn'd with the grateful Verdure of Herbs and
stately Trees, either dispers'd and scatter'd singly, or as it were assembled in
Woods and Groves, and all these beautified and illustrated with elegant Flow-
and Fruits. ."^^^ This is more than a conventional and sentimental de-
ers . .

scription of an idealized landscape; it is, I think, a positive reaction to Burnet's

description of the earth's ugliness; the appeal is to the senses and it balances
somewhat the strong utiHtarian bias of so much of Ray's writing.
Anticipating the nineteenth century geologists, who tried to reconcile
structure and mineral distribution with the design of the Creator, Ray's dis-
cussion of the baser metals becomes a panegyric (reminiscent of Agricola) on
the wisdom of God in supplying man with the means of lifting himself out of
savagery, for without them we could have "nothing of Culture or Civility";
they are needed for mowing, plowing, digging, pruning, and
tillage, reaping,
grafting. Without them there would be no mechanical arts or trades, no house-
hold vessels or utensils, no dweUing places, no shipping or navigation. "What
a kind of barbarous and sordid Life we must necessarily have liv'd," he says,
in a sentence illustrating the use of contemporary ethnology in reconstructing
the hypothetical origin of society, "the lndia?is in the Northern Part of
America are a clear Demonstration."^^^ Ray does not explain, however, why
the Divine Wisdom had withheld from the heathen savage what had been
lavishly bestowed upon the English. The usefulness of the four elements, of
the natural resources created by them, the advantages of certain arrangements
in nature (such as the mountains and the plains) are seen as advantages to a
people who have reached the cultural and technological level of late seven-
teenth century England.
As Ray is greatly impressed with the richness and variety of
a naturalist,
plant even more startlingly and unexpectedly revealed after the age of
life,

discovery, "there being in the vast Continent of America as great a Variety

^'^'^
Ibid., p. 83; see Woodward, Essay Towards a Natural History of the Earth, p. 227.
148 Wisdom of God, pp. 87-88.
Ibid., p. 96.
 .

Fhysico-Theology 419

of Species as with us." Concluding a survey of natural history, based on per-

sonal observation in England, on the writings of European and on
students,
travelers' accounts from elsewhere in the world, Ray says that a wise and
powerful artificer was needed to create such variety. Expressing in his own
words "the principle of plenitude," Ray adds that the very richness and lush-
ness of nature are indications of wisdom and power: "... The Almighty dis-
covers more of his Wisdom in forming such a vast Multitude of different
Sorts of Creatures, and all with admirable and irreproveable Art, than if he
had created but a few; for this declares the Greatness and unbounded Capac-
ity of his Understanding."^^^ He is also a fertile God: the visible works of na-
ture prove that He is, and here Ray is writing as a naturalist who believes in
the strength and convincing power of the physico-theological proof of God's
existence. Supernatural demonstrations, inner illuminations of the mind, a
spiritof prophecy, miracles, are proofs that are subject to "Cavil and an
Exception by atheistical Persons," but not the proofs "taken from Effects and
Operations expos'd to every Man's View."^^^ Here Ray speaks in the lan-
guage of Ramon Sibiude. The way to reinforce one's belief in God is to study
Nature, to see the richness and variety of things on earth— and in the heavens
too— and to note the infinite adaptations of living things to their environment.
If one shifts one's attention from these simple and traditional general ideas
to the materials Ray uses as evidence to prove them, it is apparent that he is

interested not only in plants and animals, but and in the rela-
in their habitats,
tion of man and his prowess: his mind
to the earth, considering also his talents
and the faithful executors of its decisions, the eye, and the hand; his use of
tools, and the living agents of human power, the domestic animals. It is the
organic wholeness of things that interests him; one feels his concrete interest
in the pasture, the barnyard, the forest, that he is unwilling to cast aside these
living individual manifestations, covering them up with abstract general laws.
There is a balance, an order in nature; it need not be a mathematical order.
There is a significant passage in his Fhy sico-Theological Observations in
which he criticizes Burnet's belief that mountains are but a confusion in na-
ture. Like those who saw hope for man in his abilities and in his own growing
masterful technology, Ray thought these hopes could be realized only in a
physical environment that itself possessed order; one observes such an order
in mountains— so indispensable to Hfe— but it is an order incompatible with
the dictum that the Creator always acts geometrically. It is not a geometric
order, but a living order beyond the reach of mechanism and of geometry.
Naturally, Ray is at his best in discussing matters close to his own profes-
sional interest. Nature has seen to the propagation and growth of plants be-
cause they are designed to be food for animals; hence the variety of ways in
which they are propagated, the vitality of their seed, their devices for survival.

150/^/ J., p. 25.

Ibid., Pref
420 Physico-Theology

The distribution of plants is correlated with climate and differing human de-
mands of various regions. There is some truth, he says, "that there are, by the
wise Disposition of Providence, such Species of Plants produc'd in every
Country, as are the most proper and convenient for the Meat and Medicine of
the Men and Animals that are bred and inhabit there."^^^ Many interesting
illustrations follow, showing the close relationship between Hfe and the en-
vironment, all of course being adduced as evidence for design. That birds lay
eggs and do not bring forth their young alive is proof of divine wisdom, for
this is a way of preserving them so that "neither the birds of prey, the Serpent,
nor the Fowler should straiten their Generation too much."^^^ In their in-
guided to ends, unknown to them, by a wise
stinctive behavior, animals are
Superintendent.^^^ The migrations of birds and fish, a homely illustration
showing how birds keep from fouHng their nests, the guile possessed by weak
animals, the adaptation of swine to rooting, the different kinds of animal
noises, are other instances of the harmony of form and function within the
environment.^^^
In his discussion of wild and domestic animals Ray shows an interest in their
adaptability to the environment, in population growth, animal fertihty, the
proportions of the sexes and the ratio of births to death. He finds it hard to
believe that keeping the numerical proportion between the sexes is merely a
result of mechanism; it must infer a superintending Providence. The associa-
tion of some animals with man, however, has created a weakness in the animal;
the sheep now needs the "care and Tuition of Man" as a means of survival.
The hog, another homely example of design, has a long snout adapted for
rooting— so adaptable in fact that the wily ItaHans use him to find mushrooms,
a cord tied to the hind leg preventing him from eating what he finds.
What is man's relationship to nature? Essentially it is a harmonious one,
the verdict being based on the design argument and on Ray's optimism which
often contains more than a dash of smugness. Of the uses to which man can
put many phenomena of nature, Ray says, "It may be objected, that these
Uses were not design'd by Nature in the Formation of the Things, but that
the Things were by the Wit of Man accommodated to those Uses."^^^ Ray
seems to regard the objection as quibbhng. Taking the lead from More's
Antidote agaijist Atheism, Ray replies that materials (e.g., stones, timber,
metal) are scattered on the earth "to employ the Wit and Industry of an in-
telligent and active Being"; God has created in man such a being who can
use them and by using them rule over inferior creatures. The Creator would
know all the uses to which men might put them and "to them that acknowl-
Ibid., p. 114.
^^^Ibid., p. 116.
^^"^Ibid., p. 125.
Ibid., p. 159.
Ibid., pp. 137, 139.
i"/Z7ii., p. 160.
 Fhy sico-Theology

edge the Being of a Deity; it is little less than a Demonstration, that they were
created intentionally, I do not say only, for these Uses."^^^ Although Ray dis-
claims belief in the idea that all nature is designed by the Creator for man, he
often forgets his disclaimers in his enthusiasm for the uses of material things
to man. (On Ray's ideas about man as a modifier of nature, see inpa, pp. 483 f.)
If we can assume— and I think we can— that Ray's Wisdom of God is repre-
sentative of a widely held and more hopeful attitude toward theology, sci-
ence, and civilization, the metamorphosis in thought is striking. Ray continues,
less pointedly and less impressively, the positive affirmations of Hakewill. The

earth, formerly a divinely designed planet spoiled and weakened by the sin of
man, emerges as a place of beauty and usefulness whose powers do not decline
with age, as do the plants and animals which it supports, whose relief and
climatic variation are not evidences of wreckage and ruins, of a no-man's-land
of creation but of beauty and order, with man— still sinful it is true, but with
abilities emerging from his social nature and his devotion to God— now given

an opportunity to use the earth and to exploit it, gaining new knowledge in
order to put it to new uses.
Moreover, when Ray considers the planet as a unit, he finds convincing
evidence of the wisdom and power of God in the familiar examples of the
sphericity of the earth, its revolution and its rotation, the parallelism and obHq-
uity of its axis. The seasonal change caused by the obliquity affects the
world of the intellect, for an orderly Vicissitude of Things, doth much
. .

more gratifie the contemplative Property in Man."^^^

This view of man in his relation to the earth is a gracious, almost idyllic,
one: a friendly abode for man has been created by Ray's beneficent Creator,
who is full of hints and advice (often gratuitous) about its use, and grateful
man, endowed with reason and inventiveness, uses the beautiful earth, and
in using it changes it, even if it was not designed especially for him.
The physico-theology of Ray's friend, the Reverend William Derham,
was a worthy supplement of Ray's and became influential in its own right. In
some ways, Derham's book ( 1 7 1 3 ) is a more exhaustive and richer work. Like
the authors of the Bridgewater treatises of the nineteenth century, Derham
gave a series of lectures whose aim it was to illustrate the wisdom of God in
the creation; the series had been provided for in the will of Robert Boyle to
defend the Christian religion from the attacks of infidels and atheists. Der-
ham's influential work was translated into several foreign languages. One can
see its influence clearly in the famous German work on population of Johann
Peter Siissmilch, Die Gottliche Ordnung, whose title reveals its underlying
philosophy, and in Kant's discussion of the physico-theological proof for the
existence of God in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Derham's Fhy sico-Theology Hke Ray's, stresses the utihty and to some ex-
,

/^/i., p. 161.
159/Z7/i., p. 198.
42 2 Fhysico-Theology

tent the beauty of the earth, but there no need of repeating these ideas here.
is

Concepts of the food chain, of the interdependence of all forms of organic

life, the distribution of land forms, the working of physical agents like streams

and winds, the providential position of the earth on its axis, however, are dis-
cussed more elaborately.
One significant advance over Ray's discussion— and the application of the
design argument to population theory endeared him to Siissmilch— was his
consideration of population growth with relation to the earth as a whole. To
Derham, it is self-evident that there is a limit to the number of people the
earth can support. Uncontrolled multiplication of animal life would lead to
starvation or to one animal devouring another. This uncontrolled multiplica-
tion has not occurred because Divine Providence has kept a balance— the sig-
nificant word is Derham's— of population through control of longevity and
with long lives increase
different rates of increase for different species: those
slowly, those with a short Hfe, with great speed. Useful creatures, he thinks,
are also produced more generously than the less useful. (Cites Phny, NH, Bk.
VIII, chap. 55.) In this way Divine Providence achieved a balance of popula-
tions, including human, through the ages. With human populations, extra-
ordinary longevity after the creation and after the Flood was necessary, but
by was becoming fairly well peopled, the life span had de-
the time the earth
creased to 120 years. (Cites Gen. 6:3.) From Moses' time to Derham's, the
period during which the earth became fully peopled, the life span had lowered
again— to about 70-80 years. Derham, however, sees in the regularity of excess
of births over deaths evidence of design to insure a steadiness between the
population and the earth's capacity to support it. In the same way that Malthus
later (1798) wrote of the beneficent nature of the principle of population,
Derham says this admirable provision takes care of emergencies, the peopling
of unhealthful places 'Vhere death out-runs life," compensates for losses at
sea, from war, from disease and plague, and makes it possible to colonize the
uninhabited parts of the earth.^^^
The serious application of the design argument to population theory is one
of the noteworthy developments of the seventeenth and early eighteenth
widely accepted was this population theory based on design that
centuries; so
itbecame an important block in the way of the Malthusian theory just as the
whole design argument became a block in the nineteenth century for the
theory of evolution.
Like Ray, Derham thought the earth an orderly, well-planned place in
which there was "nothing wanting, nothing redundant or frivolous, nothing
botching or ill-made. . .
."^^^
The creation is inexhaustible, so great is the
munificence of the Creator. There is greater breadth, too, in his attitude to-

Derham, Fhysico-Theology, Vol. I, pp. 257-261, 267; on the balance of animals,

pp. 257-270.
Ibid., ^. SI.
 Fhysico-Theology

ward the usefulness of the creation, broader understanding of the changing

values of resources, "So what hath seemed
one age, hath been re-
useless in
ceived in another; as all new the and all the alterations
discoveries in physic,
in diet so sufficiently witness."^^^ Plants Hke the cassava, minerals, and insects
may be useful in one form, poisonous in another. Many forms of life, useless
to man, are indispensable in the economy of nature, the insects of the air and
water being food for birds, fishes, reptiles, other insects. To Derham nature
is so bountiful that man can afford to ignore what seems useless to him, can
judge it by standards other than its utility to him.^^^
Once the focus is taken away from man, the emphasis is no longer on utility
but on the wider interrelationships characteristic of all nature. These relation-
ships may even be unknown to man. Rudimentary ideas of the food chain are
introduced. That the design affects the broadest interrelationships of nature,
that these relationships may exist unknown to man, was seen also by Wollas-
ton, a contemporary of Ray and Derham.

If it should be objected that many things seem to be useless, many births are
monstrous, or the like, such answers as these may be made. The uses of some
things are known to some men and not to others: the uses of some are known
now that were not known to any body jorjnerly: the uses of many may be dis-
covered hereafter: and those of some other things may for ever remain unknown
to all men, and yet be in nature, as much as those discovered were before their
discovery, or are now in respect of them who know them not.^^^

dangerous to speak confidently of times when ideas first emerge. Clearly

It is

the idea of a unity in nature is very old, but some ideas of Ray and Derham
have a kinship with modern ecology, especially with autecology. I am con-
vinced that modern ecological theory, so important in our attitudes toward
nature and man's interferences with it, owes its origin to the design argument:
The wisdom of the Creator is self-evident, everything in the creation is inter-
related, no living thing is useless, and all are related one to the other.^^^
In this grand design of naturewhich Ray and Derham so exultantly and
piously described, God, living nature and the earth, and human knowledge
were indissolubly joined. The Creator had shown exquisite workmanship in
making his creatures, but this great array is not for the careless or the incuri-
ous; it is to be admired by the rational part of nature, that is, man. Derham
spoke for himself, Ray, and many others who shared their hopes for the power

Ibid., pp. 84, 90.

Ibid., pp. 91-94.
Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sec. 5, par. 14, p. 84. Derham, Fhysico-Theology,
p. 890.
The editor of the 1798 edition of Derham's Fhysico-Theology cited a Mr. Sturm
who told of the attempts of the American colonists to exterminate jackdaws because
they harmed the corn; with fewer jackdaws, the worms, caterpillars, and may-bugs in-
creased; and when they stopped the war on the jackdaws they were reheved of the
plague of vermin. Derham, op. cit.. Vol. I, p. 94n.
424 Fhysico-Theology

of knowledge, with the miraculous discoveries of Newton, when he wrote,

''My text commends God's works, not only for being great, but also approves
of those curious and ingenious inquirers, that seek them out^ or pry into
themr^'
Physico-theology in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is in a
minor key compared with the new scientific methodology forged by Gahleo,
Descartes, and Newton; it differs from the physico-theology of the past in
successfully bringing into sharp focus many old examples, adding new ones,
taking advantage of new knowledge and new inspirations, and in being en-
dowed with a more concrete sense of interrelationships among terrestrial phe-
nomena, probably because of Ray's biological interests. Many of these points
of view continued into the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries despite a
widespread disenchantment with ideas of final causes.
The possibilities of explaining the nature of the habitable earth in terms of
the design argument were realized with much greater clarity: its shape, its

relation to the sun, seasonalchange and the obhquity of the axis, the awesome
processes on the earth expressed on a gigantic scale in the meeting of land and
sea, erosion, and the hydrologic cycle. On its surface (and in a very thin layer

of topsoil) was the vegetable mold or humus upon which all life on land was
thought to depend, for the importance attached to humus was due in part to
vitalism, and in part to the belief that humus was the real source of soil fertility.

John Woodward expressed the idea well:

The upper or outermost Stratum of Earth: that Stratum whereon Men and
other Animals tread, and Vegetables grow, is in a perpetual Flux, and Change;
this being the comvion Fund and Fromptuary that supplies and sends forth
Matter for the Formation of Bodies upon the Face of the Earth. That all Ani?nals,
and particularly Mankind, as well as all Vegetables, which have had Being since
the Creation of the World, derived all the Constituent Matter of their Bodies
successively, in all Ages, out of this Fund}^'^

One notices in these works— as well as in the works of antiquity and the
Middle Ages— a strong emphasis on the utihty of living nature, but they are
not free of vacillation; sometimes they embrace a broader view that sees the
whole of which man is a part. More common is the happy listing of the uses of
nature to man with solemn reminders that nature does not exist for him alone;
this attitude is characteristic of Henry More, John Ray, and Wilham Derham;
of Linnaeus in the eighteenth and of Paley in the early nineteenth century.
One must be charitable toward this utilitarian bias even though one tires of its

superficiahties. It expresses, I between theology

think, a significant relationship
and economics, especially in a preindustrial age when the dependence on plant
and animal hfe was more direct, intense, and local than it later was. One could

^^Ubid., Vol. II, p. 394.

^^'^
An Essay Towards a Natural History of the Earth, p. 227.
 Physico-Theology 425

piously look at living nature and be exalted with such evidence of God's wis-
dom; a worldly, calculating, practiced eye could also see its uses.
That aspect of the design argument which saw man as the highest being of
nature without granting that nature existed for man alone, saw physical beauty
and physical evil, and the struggle for existence in nature as part of a design
which transcended human interests, demands, and understanding. The strug-
gle for existence in nature is often depicted with great complacency; but the
descriptions are also adumbrations of an ecological point of view. With the
gradual elaboration of these interrelationships the design scaffolding can be
eliminated; it was in fact largely ehminated by Buffon, Von Humboldt, La-
marck, and Darwin.
Physico-theology was also concerned with man's control over nature. Al-
though Christian thinkers have never kept silent for long about the wicked-
ness and sinfulness of man, these seventeenth century writers, Hakewill, Ray,
Derham, saw beauty and purposefulness in work. Activity was more than the
consequence of sin (see chap. X).
They saw mankind as a whole in its role as a superintendent and arbiter in
nature, but they could still accept, as being consistent with the design, expla-
nations of cultural differences based on climate or a combination of environ-
mental factors. Christian theology gave them a natural interest in cultural
diffusion, stimulated perhaps by the second book of Esdras; the native Ameri-
cans might well be modern representatives of the lost tribes of Israel.
These Christian thinkers, accepting the truth revealed both by the Word
and by the world of nature, so eager for knowledge that they made their own
the saying that the creation existed so that man by his ever-increasing knowl-
edge of it could admire even more the wondrous works of God, naturally in-
terested themselves in the extremely important questions which had so puzzled
Jose de Acosta, concerning the diffusion of man and his culture traits and of
domestic animals and wild beasts throughout the world. If one accepted the
unity of the human race and its origin at a single place, as the Scriptures taught,
then the study of the peoples and the flora and fauna of the New World un-
avoidably brought up the question of cultural diffusion. The question of pop-
ulation growth was unavoidable too, because of the need to explain, in terms
acceptable to Christian theology, the growth in the earth's population from
the Flood to the present. Population had held its own despite wars and plagues;
plants multiplied rapidly but so did animals and men to consume them; "prun-
ings" prevented an overabundance of individuals. (Comparisons between hu-
man and animal populations were inspired also in part by Aristotle's Historia
aniinalium and by Genesis 1:22 and 1:28.) Scriptural exegesis thus posed
questions concerning the length of life, the period of doubhng, the mechanisms
by which the population increased, the checks which had prevented it from
increasing too much.
426 Fhysico-Theology

The most important generalization to emerge was that populations slowly

grew despite checks through wars, plagues, and the like; some such generaliza-
tion was unavoidable, given the knowledge that the population of the world
had sprung from eight people, Noah and his wife, and their three sons and
their wives, assuming that Noah went on the ark with his family a.m. 1657,
and that Christ was born a.m. 3999, four years and six days before the com-
monly accepted beginning of the Christian Era, a.m. 4004.
Graunt's discovery of a regularity in the number of births of each sex with
a predominance of males over females (differing slightly in city and in rural
environments) introduced a concept of mathematical order, balance, and reg-
ularity into population theory that had not been there before. Such statistical
regularity caused a gleam in the eye of every good physico-theologist. What
was a more convincing proof of the wisdom of God than this regularity in
nature discovered by Graunt? There were more male than female children,
but did not men die in wars and drown at sea, and was not the life of a man a
little more dangerous than the life of a female? Was not this discovery, as

Graunt had said, an argument for monogamy, and did it not show the superi-
ority of the Christian religion over the Muslim? Did not this clear capacity of
the human race, despite all the checks, to increase and spread over the world,
confirm the commands of Scripture? Did it not show also that the Creator
was aware had the capacity for providing for the good souls
that the earth
whom He was commanding to increase and to multiply? Rev. WilHam Der-
ham eagerly grasped the physico-theological implications of Graunt's essay,
and Johann Peter Siissmilch, reading Derham, grasped the relevance of the
argument to a general population theory.

10. Conclusion

Many of these men, believing in final causes, devoted to a study of nature

which was likened to following in the Creator's footsteps, or in Sir Thomas
Browne's words, "to suck Divinity from the flowers of Nature,"^^^ were not
in sympathy with the mechanical philosophy with its emphasis on efficient,
secondary causes, nor with Descartes, even if his piety and theism were un-
questioned, because he too proposed to investigate nature without the help
of final causes. Both the "mechanick philosophers" and the physico-theologists,
however, were united (after the nonsense about the lost vigor of nature had
been swept away) in the goal of man's attaining control over nature which
Descartes, in a famous passage of the Discourse on Method (1637), had set
for mankind.
Both the dominant school, molding the scientific method with dexterous

Religio Medici, sec. 16.

 Physico-Theology 427

and impatient fingers, and the subordinate school, doggedly piling up evidence
of design to resemble the showcases of an old-fashioned museum, saw the uses
of knowledge and the need to replace scholastic speculations with it. In this
plea for a science leading to the control of nature with knowledge as deep and
expert as the artisan's, Descartes was showing— as did Sprat, the historian of the
Royal Society, thirty years later— respect for the accomplishments of practical
life, in navigation, in drainage (his residence in Holland must have made him

aware of the power of man and his tools to change a landscape), and in agri-
culture. (See p. 476.)
These roads, however, led in different directions. The road so exultantly
described by Descartes led to an ideal of a purposive control over nature
through applied science, the kind of control which in our own day has been
in such large and triumphant measure achieved.
The road of the physico-theologists was more winding and there were
blind alleys. It led to perennial amateurism, to further philosophizing on the
role of man making his way between God and the brutes, finishing the cre-
ation so that he, and through him the earth, could become more perfect. Much
later, perhaps by the middle of the nineteenth century, when it became ap-
parent that man's stewardship of nature was no longer an accurate description
of his role, there was disillusionment, and with it the realization that men could
relentlessly destroy nature in ways that they did not even suspect themselves
capable of, that many of their efforts were not divinely guided, nor the result
of purposive control, but were casual and meretricious, that they could not
be dignified by identifying them with the Creator's purpose. The real contri-
bution of physico-theology— we shall meet up with again— was that it saw
it

living interrelationships in nature concretely. It documented them. It had al-

ready—before Darwin's "web of life"— prepared men for the study of ecology.
This period sifted and winnowed the chaff of centuries, and after the sifting
and the winnowing was over, the ideas which remained were still recognizable
to the past; new curiosity and knowledge, however, had given them a fresh
gloss. Old notions of the decay of nature were brushed away. Out of fanciful
contrasts of the present with the antediluvian earth, there ultimately emerged
a bolder affirmation than had been made before, that in spite of man's sinning,
the earth as it is presently known is fitted for the coexistence of many kinds
of life, adapted for the interrelationships existing in living nature.
developed to an exalted station the Christian interpretation of man's ac-
It

tivities during his short stay on earth, vaHdating the changes he made in it,

underscoring the correctness of his acts in assuming supervision over animal

and plant life. The earth was his to change, and to perfect in the literal sense
of perficio— to bring to an end, to finish— to complete it, for without a sentient

Discourse on Method, trans. Wollaston (Penguin Classics), chap. 6, p. 84.

428 Physico-Theology

being growing more knowledgeable with time there is little purpose in the
creation.
The great figures of the seventeenth century no doubt created the concept
of nature that Whitehead has described, but many of its minor figures rejected
it. The answers to their questions could come only from concrete study of
secondary from the study of life in its habitat.
qualities, of interrelationships,

God had been geometer for so long. It was now time that be became a
a
gardener, a farmer, a plant and animal breeder, even a wanderer over the
mountain, the heath, the valley and along the riverbank, observing sheep,
goats, weeds, and the trees of the forest.
 Chapter 9

Environmental Theories
of Early Modern Times

I . Introduction

In early modern times, especially after the age of discovery, ideas of environ-
mental influence assumed a much greater importance than they had in classi-
cal times or in the Middle Ages. The volume of ideas was far greater than in
either period and it increased through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
criticism having little effect on their continuous production.
It is possible to cite hundreds of references in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, but only a handful have any theoretical interest; the others show
how widely and how deeply these ideas had entered every field of thought.
They were in the works of political theorists like Machiavelli, Bodin, and
Botero; they were in the work of philosophers like Charron, of poets like Du
Bartas and Milton, and of innumerable travelers.
430 Early Modern Environmental Theories

2. On Leon Battista Alberti

Nothing shows more convincingly the impact of classical conceptions of en-

vironment on the thinkers of the Renaissance than Leon Battista Alberti's
(1404-1472) Ten Books on Architecture, which was first printed in Latin
in 1485. Later they do yeoman service for Bodin, Botero, Du Bartas, Burton,
and many lesser writers. Bodin, in fact, became the most important single dis-
seminator, but many derived their ideas direct from Hippocrates or Vitruvius
or from contemporary works inspired by them.
Like Vitruvius, whom he had read thoroughly and critically, Alberti con-
siders an understanding of the environment to be fundamental to the practice
of architecture; this word, moreover, is not to be taken in a narrow sense, for
Alberti also is much concerned with location and proper siting, whole regions,
gardens, and city and town planning. A sense of public responsibihty, a striv-
ing for the overall effect, a harmonizing of human creations with the natural
surroundings, permeate his philosophy of craftsmanship. He cherishes the
view and the prospect, the unexpected that awaits one in the turning of a
street. The physical environment, healthful living conditions and environ-
mental changes necessary to bring them about, are the broad categories within
which the architect works; these interrelationships will be of continuing im-
portance in the centuries to come. If certain environmental conditions induce
certain kinds of disease, men should alter the environment. Society and its

buildings and the ingenuity which creates them are all involved with the na-
tural surroundings, for he beheves it was the usefulness and necessity for roofs

and walls, and not for water or fire, that first brought men together.^
Alberti has a profound knowledge of the classical writers; his easy familiar-
ity is like Burton's; he values the surviving monuments of antiquity, and they
have a place along with the natural beauty (memories of the past force us to
think of the passage of time, of the destinies of men and things, and we are
filled with wonder and admiration); he remarks on health conditions, men-

tioning the possibility that the environment is responsible for the misshapen and
deformed people of Italy and other countries.^
The ancients exercised great care, he says, in avoiding harmful regions,
and they were particularly sensitive to the need for wholesome air. They
had Hmited ability in improving unhealthful conditions. They might correct
through ingenuity and industry what was harmful in soil and water; but
they were convinced that neither human intelligence nor the human hand
could satisfactorily overcome a badness of air. He documents the importance
the ancients attached to pure air, repeating with approval, possibly out of
Vitruvius, the saying that the Athenians in their dry air had sharper wits than
did the Thebans in their thick and moist atmosphere. Everyone knows, he

^ Ten Books on Arch., preface.

^Ibid., Bk. VI, chap. 4; I, chap. 3.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 431

adds, how great is on generation, production, and the

the influence of climate
maintenance of things. The unhealthy and disease-ridden cities of Italy and
other parts of the world experience sudden changes from hot to cold and cold
to hot; but also he sees the advantage of air movement. He prefers soft breezes
to strong winds, but the latter are better than calm, motionless, heavy air;
winds should come "broken by the Opposition of Hills and Woods, or tired
with a long Journey."^
Alberti follows the classical writers in their concern for choosing favorable
sites; besides natural advantages sites must also offer assurances of peaceful liv-
ing with one's neighbors. Great edifices should not be built in remote places.
The classical idea of the golden mean is very much to his liking. The best re-
gions are neither too warm nor too moist; they will produce high-spirited,
slender, and handsome men. Usefulness, healthfulness, and convenience are
not enough in a building or in a city; men must be aware of beauty and aes-
thetics. Place no building in a valley between two hills, he says, for aside from
self-evident objections, "an Edifice so placed has no Manner of Dignity, lying
quite hid; and its Prospect being interrupted can have neither Pleasure nor
Beauty."'
His ideas are reinforced by his observations. In some Italian cities, which he
will not name, there is not a woman who is not at the same time the mother of
a man and of a monster. So numerous are humpbacks, the squint-eyed, the
crippled, and the lame people "that there is scarce a Family, but what has
Somebody in it defective or distorted." We should look for signs of good or
harmful climates in animals, and inanimate nature. He adduces the
plants,
ancients' opinions on the plague and the effects of thunder and lightning and
recalls Plato's suggestion that a region might be under the influence of spirits;
in certain places men have a tendency to madness. Contagion is possible in
places otherwise healthful which are so situated that they are infected with
plague and corruption by foreigners.^
In his detailed review of classical thought on the location of cities (includ-
ing that of Caesar, Livy, Strabo, Varro, and Herodotus), he shares the distaste
of the ancients for locating near the seashore because of the bad effects of cul-
tural contact with foreigners.^
In his discussion of city planning, the concept is broadened so that the

city is regarded
as an environment in itself. A noble city should have a dif-
ferent plan from that of a modest town, and the demands of warfare must
be considered, too. Health, utihty, dignity, views, and prospects— all are parts
of this environment created by man.^

^Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 3.

^ Ibid., chap. 4; see also Bk. IV, chap. 2.

5 Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 5.

^Ibid., Bk. IV, chap. 2; VII, chap. i.

Ubid., Bk. IV, chap. 2.
432 Early Modern Environmental Theories

3. General Questions Regarding Climate and Culture

It isonly with the more general discussions of climate and culture that we
are concerned here, but theories of cHmatic influence were applied to many
more specific problems, such as peculiarities within a single locality or coun-
try as contrasted with a wider region, or the effect of climate on occupations.
Vegetius' remarks on the recruitment of soldiers were quoted, reviving inter-
est in the relation of climate to war. The celebrated passage from Paul the
Deacon which has already been discussed revived interest in the relation of
climate to population growth, migration and in the northern regions as an
ofpcina gentium. These theories were also related to the idea that the north-
ern peoples, especially the Goths, were liberty-loving.^ Many of these works
of early modern times followed the precedent set by Plato in the Laws and
by Aristotle in the Politics. Although there was a continuity with the ancient
world, the modern works were more than restatements of classical ideas. Too
many questions had been raised by World, by
the discovery of the New
the deeper knowledge of the ancient world, and by the increased knowledge
of the peoples and lands of contemporary Europe. Furthermore, the revival
of environmental ideas in the Renaissance ultimately led to the intensely
interesting and important controversies in the eighteenth century over the
influence of the environment which engaged the attention of many of the
leading political and social theorists like Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire, Her-
der, Ferguson, Robertson, and many others.
Why did theories of environmental influence proliferate so in modern
times? In the first place, there was greater opportunity to apply them. More
environments were known. The oversimplifications of the ancients were dis-
covered by the new knowledge of the equatorial regions and of cultural
differences in similar latitudes. The increase in interest in manners, in the
moeurs, encouraged the study of causes of differences. Finally, the relation
of climate and geographical position to laws became important in a period
when the relations of the Church to national monarchs were under close
scrutiny and when the religious schisms of the Reformation posed>^difficult
questions to political and social theorists.
Does climate, then, have a decisive effect on laws and customs? In the read-
ing of history, with its cruelties, its senselessand continual change, its wars,
intrigues, embroilments, is there anything on which to base an interpretation

^See Taylor, Late Tudor and Early Stuart Geography 1^8^-16^0, esp. the various
chapters on regional, economic, and human geography, and the illuminating chapter on
the urbane traveler. Miss Taylor notes that the English geographers of the time lacked
a philosophy of geography like Bodin's and Botero's (pp. 133-134), and that Cam-
den in his Britajinica follows in a general way the Hippocratic doctrine in explaining
the influence of the environment on the British people (p. 9). See also Kliger's discus-
sion of cHmate and liberty in The Goths i?i England, pp. 241-252. For examples from
Germany, see Meuten, Bodins Theorie von der BeeinfLussung des politischen Lebens der
Staaten durch ihre geographische Lage, pp. 26-28.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 433
of its significance? This was essentially the question raised by Bodin in the
Methodus. Is it more rational to base one's study on the more stable physical
environment and does history therefore become inextricably bound up with
geography? These questions called forth more disturbing ones: Does man
have only a modest superiority over the organic creation? If the distribution
of plants and animals is controlled by the climate, is this control exerted also
on man and does his superiority lie merely in his sensitive reahzation of this
deterministic relationship? Questions like these raised another: Is it possible
for man to resist these deterministic influences? This last question I think is

whole matter. It was asked by Bodin, by Montesquieu, and by

the crux of the
Herder. Polybius had asked it by implication in antiquity and had answered
in the affirmative.
The role assigned to environmental influences in the interpretation of his-
tory thus may be a decisive one. If they were such powerful determinants, had
they reinforced the differences among men, perpetuating their rivalries and
their hostilities? Had chmatic theories become a divider of mankind, playing
a role similar to the late nineteenth century theories of racial superiority?
Theories from classical times were between the too
also revived in the contrast
easy environment— acting like an overly indulgent Mother Nature, making
man soft by her generosity, ultimately defeating him by inducing sloth and
love of luxury— and the hard environment, like a niggardly Mother Nature,
spurring man's inventiveness and his industry, through necessity.
Machiavelli's Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius shows this
classical inspiration clearly. He discusses two classical themes but with modern
settingsand a modern application: the theme of soil and civilization, and that
of government and environment. His position is similar to Plato's in the Laws:
In the enactment and administration of laws consideration must be given to
the diverse characteristics of peoples.
A city needs a fertile soil for strength and greatness. If the fertility of the
soil encourages idleness— as had been traditionally held— laws should be de-
vised to provide the incentive equal to that which an infertile soil might give.
Machiavelli praises lawgivers, like the founders of ancient Egypt and the
modern pashas and their Mameluke militia, who enact laws that offset the
softening effects of the climate. A ruler has power to play human against
natural forces; he can select a fertile spot because laws can overcome any ill

effects caused by the site.^

In the Florentine History, Machiavelli revives Paul the Deacon's idea of

climate being related to the fecundity of northern regions. On the other hand,
he recognized— Venice and Pisa are examples— a certain independence of
his

man from nature, his ability to modify it by making seemingly uninhabitable

and unhealthy areas habitable. Furthermore, he rejects Vegetius' (fourth cen-
tury A.D.) suggestion that soldiers should be recruited from temperate climates

^Discourses, Bk. I, chap, i, iModern Library ed., pp. 108-109.

434 Early Modern Environmental Theories
because they possess in fortunate harmony spiritual and physical courage; in-
stead he advocates recruiting from among the young of the country, pre-
sumably because they will love it and therefore fight for it/°

4. On Jean Bodin in General

Jean Bodin is the most important thinker of the Renaissance on the general
subject of the relation between history and contemporary Hfe and the geo-
graphic environment. He lived in one of the most disturbed periods of modern
European history (the period of the great religious wars), and the problems
of holding society together, of a monarchy's ability to do it, of national
sovereignty, of making laws general enough yet wise enough to take account
of local differences, transcended both the thinker and his country. No other
thinker of the period— Machiavelli, Botero, Le Roy, Charron— can match him
either in the breadth of his systematic thinking (his correlations are not
mechanical ones; they have deep roots in ancient and medieval theories of
physiology, body-mind relationships, physics and cosmology, astrology, and
numerology) or and thoroughness with which ideas and ob-
in the industry
servations, scattered hither and there through the centuries, have been gathered
together and given— if not a satisfying unity to the modern mind— at least an
inner coherence thanks to the medieval conception of the cosmos upon which
they are based.
We would not err greatly, in fact, if we wrote the history of environmental
theories around the names of Hippocrates, Aristotle, Ptolemy, Albert the
Great, and St. Thomas, summarizing the results of over two thousand years
of speculation in the syntheses of Bodin. From Bodin one can easily see the
way to Montesquieu, for if we ignore the ponderous, scholastic style of the
former and the clear fresh epigrammatic style which so effectively concealed
the lack of originality of the latter, it is clear that both men were concerned
with the same types of problems (their great differences were in their answers)
whose general nature is implicit in this question: How
govern is it possible-to
a people, in a small region or throughout the whole world, when they so
clearly differ in customs, traditions, laws, color, physique, and mental out-
look? The problem is expressed beautifully and accurately in the English of
the Knolles translation (1606) of Bodin's Republic: "Let us now shew what
may be particular to some [Commonweales], through the diversitie of peo-
ples humors, to the end that we may accommodate the publike weale to the
is the language of the Republic; in the Meth-
nature of the place. ."^^ This
. .

odus, the work of earlier years, there is a broader philosophical and historical
consideration of the significance of the physical environment.
The Republic was published in 1576, the Methodus in 1566. What is strik-

Florentine Hist., I, i; DeWarte delta guerra, Lib. i, {Opere, ed. Panella, Vol. 2,

p. 492).
"R^p., Bk. V, chap. i.
 ;

Early Modem Environmental Theories 435

ing about both works is their rehance on classical and medieval ideas, con-

temporary European travel and opinion within Europe, and the slight
consideration given to the ethnology of the New World. The deep learning
in the classics is manifest on every page of Bodin's discussions of environment
{Airs^ Waters, Places of Hippocrates, Plato's Laws, Aristotle's Politics, Vi-
truvius' On Architecture, and Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos) Strabo is referred to .

often but does not appear in the theoretical discussions of the environment.
There is much contemporary evidence from the travelers within Europe
whom he has met or read, an obvious interest in Alvarez {Narrative of the
Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia During the Years i^20-2j), and in Leo
the African (The History and Description of Africa) because they have some-
thing to tell him of the southern regions, but the references to the New World
are few and inconsequential, such as Las Casas' talk of the large and simple
Patagonians, and the cruelty of the South Americans.^^ It is revealing that
an important thinker, writing almost seventy-five years after the discovery
of America, still bases his arguments on classical and contemporary European
evidence; no doubt part of the explanation lies in the fewness of the books
and the difficulty of their dissemination, but it is a sobering reminder that the
full fruits of the age of discovery— the newer ideas of humanity, human cul-
ture, the revelation of new environments— were not harvested, except for a
few atypical individuals, until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bodin is interested in national character; the nature and varying degrees
of perfidy, suspiciousness, and treachery among peoples (in peace and in war)
the insensate cruelty of peoples and of individuals among them; drunkenness
and insanity and whether such aberrant behavior has an observable geographic
distribution or if it is found everywhere or if it was dominant in certain areas.
The short sentences of Aristotle's Politics were continuing reminders that
certain physical environments might be favorable to the existence of high
civiHzation; Aristotle said that they were, that they were temperate in nature,
and Greece was his example. The generalization— this was its beauty— did not
eliminate newer choices for the temperate spot. If the favored nation was
Greece in Aristotle's time, why could it not be northwestern Europe or France
in the sixteenth century? One could write an illuminating essay on the reloca-
tions through the ages of the favored temperate region.
Jean Bodin's theories are the product of both the Hippocratic and the astro-
logical traditions. The outstanding thinkers of the later Middle Ages like
Albert the Great combine them and so does Bodin. However, he rejects
Ptolemy's in favor of a simpler and
less popular astrological theory.

Recent research on the sources of Bodin's writings on chmatic influences

Methodus, trans. Reynolds, p. 102; Marian J. Tooley, "Bodin and the Mediaeval
Theory of Climate," Speculum 28 (1953), p. 75.
^2 Brown, The Methodus ad Facilem Historiarum Cognitionem
of Jean Bodin. A
Critical Study p. 14, thinks Bodin may have acquired it from the
^
astrologer Augier
Ferrier, first physician to Catherine of Medici, "philosopher, disciple of Cardan, and
friend and enemy of Bodin."
43 6 Early Modern Environmental Theories
has shown the continuity in his thought of conceptions already developed
in the medieval period. Tooley argues, and in my opinion correctly, that the
general principles of the theory of climatic influences were "too famiHar to
need exposition. "^^ (They could scarcely be otherwise because of the flourish-
ing condition of the classical theory of the humors [especially the refinements
made by Galen], humors of course being the real basis for the correlations
the
between environment and health, physical and mental characteristics.) Me-
dieval cosmologies, with discussions of the four elements, and the encyclo-
pedias, which also discussed them and the humors, continued in popularity
through the sixteenth century.

5. His Divisions of the Earth

Moreover, Bodin rejected the Copernican view of the universe, accepting the
medieval interpretation, based on Ptolemy, that the seven spheres (Moon,
Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) plus an eighth, the
sphere of the fixed stars, revolved around a motionless earth. If one followed
the Aristotelian view that matter could be given form only by an efficient
cause external to it, and the maxim that nature does nothing in vain, it further
followed that the eight spheres must have a purpose. ''To Bodin, as to his
mediaeval predecessors, the conclusion was inescapable; it must be the stars
in their courses that govern the mutations of matter. Moreover, for Bodin,
since he rejected the doctrine that form is latent in matter and the stars merely
elicit it, the stars are actually the source from which the multiplicity of forms

immediately proceeds."^^
Without going it is clear that the amount and in-
into technical details,
tensity of radiationfrom the heavens differed from place to place, and from
these circumstances it was further possible to explain the continual change
in time and the variety of life on earth at any one time.^^ The facihty with
which an expert could do this is amazingly shown in Book II, chapter 3, of
Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos. Astrological principles likewise could explain the op-
eration of the cosmos.
Ptolemy's system, complex in local application, is simple in its basic prin-
ciples. (See also chap. Let us repeat some of them. The inhabited
II, sect. 10.)
world is divided into four parts, into northern and southern by an east-west
line drawn roughly from the Gulf of Issus to Gibraltar, into eastern and
western by a north-south line drawn from the Pontus through the Arabian
Gulf. These two lines divided the world into quadrants, each governed by a
triplicity: the northwest by Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, and ruled by Jupiter on
account of the north wind, Mars joining in on account of the south wind; the

1* Tooley, op cit., pp. 64-83, quotation on p. 65.

Ibid., pp. 66-6j, quotation on p. 66.
^^Ibid., p. 67.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 437

southwest dominated by Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces, ruled by Mars and Venus

by Gemini, Libra, Aquarius, ruled by
in occidental aspect; the northeast,
Saturn and Jupiter in oriental aspect; and the southeast, Taurus, Virgo, Capri-
corn, with Venus and Saturn in oriental aspects. Ptolemy then made general
cultural correlations for the quadrant as a whole: the men of the northwest,
for example, are independent, Hberty-loving, fond of arms, industrious, very
warlike, possess leadership qualities, are cleanly and magnanimous, but with-
out passion for women, preferring men. Ptolemy made two refinements in
this general scheme: The more specific characteristics of the individual peoples
are described, depending upon their precise position with reference to the
stars,and special attention is given the people living near the center of each
quadrant. These four centers, one for each quadrant, comprised the center
of the inhabited world; here there was less diversity because the peoples living
in the southeast part of the northwest quadrant and the northwest part of
the southeast reciprocally influenced one another as did those living in the
southwest part of the northeast and the northeast part of the southwest.
Bodin was selective, however, in his use of astrological ethnology, spe-
cifically rejecting the Ptolemaic conceptions. His simpler astrological scheme
is combined with environmental explanations of differences between the
north, the south, and the temperate zones to account for cultural differences.
The Northern Hemisphere, with which Bodin was mostly concerned, is
divided from the equator to the pole into three zones of thirty degrees each,
the forty-fifth parallel being the border between the north and the south. The
longitudinal divisions, much less important in Bodin's scheme, are determined
by a meridian through the Canaries (Hesperides), a traditional prime meridian
on the west, and another through the Moluccas on the east. Although Bodin
realizes that east and west are relative positions and that the roundness of the
earth precludes their meeting, he has them meeting in fact somewhere in
the Americas.
Each of these three regions of thirty degrees each (representing hot, tem-
perate, and cold zones) is subdivided into two subregions of fifteen degrees
each. Bodin, however, beheved that the hottest placeson earth were at the
two Northern Hemisphere, the extremes
tropics, the coldest at the poles; in the
of heat and cold would be represented by the North Pole and by the Tropic
of Cancer. The reason for this belief reveals in itself a very significant attitude
regarding the new knowledge of the extent and diversity of the earth's en-
vironments. If Bodin's thought is representative— and one is tempted to believe
that it is— men in the sixteenth century were more impressed with the discovery
that the equatorial regionswere habitable than they were with the discovery
of the New
World. Bodin says we must eradicate the error of the ancients
(Posidonius and Avicenna excepted) who believed that men could live only
between the tropics and the polar circles. The equatorial regions are healthful;
they possess plenteous rainfall, high mountains, and forests (proved by "fre-
438 Early Modern Environme?ital Theories
quent exploration" and by the testimony of Francisco Alvarez) in the two ;

tropics, however, it is in fact hotter than it is at the equator. It is easy to see

how Bodin made this generalization for the Old World: near or on the equator
there is the lush vegetation of the tropical rain forest type of climate; the
Tropic of Cancer goes through the heart of the burning heat and the virtually
rainless deserts of North Africa/''
Bodin northward the temperate region between the tropic and the
shifted
pole because it is hotter on the Tropic of Cancer than on the equator; follow-
ing this reasoning, he considered the most temperate region on earth to be
from forty to fifty degrees north latitude; within each of the three zones he
thought the eastern part to be more temperate than the west. The temperate
regionis the most comfortable excepting those parts of it in rugged highlands,

swamps, arid or sterile lands.

Bodin says he will discuss mainly the people living between thirty and sixty
degrees north latitude. His reasons are that more is known of these peoples,
little of any other peoples, and, what is most indefensible to a modern mind,

that "by this illustration we shall learn what must be beheved about all."^^
Bodin distinguishes between the body heat generated by peoples living from
the equator to the forty-fifth parallel, and the heat of those living from the
forty-fifth to the seventy-fifth, lands north of the latter parallel being virtually
uninhabited. Receiving less heat from the sun, people in the northern area

must generate compensatory heat within their own bodies. With this theory,
Bodin explains the superiority of northern herds and flocks (the animals are
more active and robust), and it is the same with humans: the greatest empires
have spread from the north to the south. (These directional terms with Bodin
are entirely relative, as is apparent in the following instances: the Assyrians
conquered the Chaldeans; the Medes, the Assyrians; the Greeks, the Persians;
the Parthians, the Greeks; the Romans, the Carthaginians, etc.

6. Bodin's Use of the Humors

In the classical theory of the humors, assumed that habits of mind can be
it is

inferred from physical states created by the humors and that the physico-
mental correlations so discovered among individuals can be applied to peoples.
The body and the mind, however, may be swayed in opposite directions (a
frequent theme in Aristotle's Problems)-, a strong intellect is opposed by a
weak body. When appHed to peoples, this generaHzation explains why the
southern peoples, for example, have intellect but lack vigor, while the
northerners possess opposite qualities. Obviously a rough balancing of quali-
ties is thus achieved among the peoples of the earth, so that a people pre-

Methodus, p. 87; see also Dainville, La Geographie des Humanistes, pp. 25-27.
Methodus, chap. V, p. 97.
Ibid., pp. 92-93.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 439

eminent in one aspect would compensate for this superiority by shortcomings

in another. In a Christian setting,it is only natural that Bodin should ask if

this arrangement is not part of Divine Wisdom.^^

In a bold passage which shows what these ideas could lead to, Bodin says:

This savagery [of the Southerners, meaning apparently the Carthaginians and
the Egyptians, for Bodin has just been discussing them] comes partly from that
despotism which a vicious system of training and undisciplined appetites have
created in a man, but much more from a lack of proportion in the mixing of
humors. This, in its turn, comes from elements affected unequally by external
forces. The elements are disturbed by the power of the celestial bodies, while
the human body is encompassed in the elements, the blood in the body, the
spirit in theblood, the soul in the spirit, the mind in the soul. Although this last
is free all materiality, yet it is very much influenced by the closeness of
from
the association. So it happens that those who are in the furthest regions are more
inchned to vices.^^

This one of the most significant passages in the history of environmental

is

theories because in it, in rude form to be sure, lies the reason that they have
been so important in modern times. The first line of the quotation is the crucial
one: a people may be helpless or partly helpless under the control of its

environment, a theory of causation which could come into conflict with Chris-
tian teaching. It is true that the distribution of the humors, combinations of
which are influenced by the climate, were interpreted as being part of the
divine design, but it is a somewhat different matter to explain cruelty and
savagery as being the result, in large part, of conditions beyond the control
of a people.
It is the question of the relativity of morals, religion, and customs, based
on environmental control, in my opinion, that historically has given environ-
mental theories such a strong hold in Western thought even down to our own
times. The crucial idea is the inevitable identification of cHmatic controls with
cultural inertia: this was Montesquieu. Of
in essence Voltaire's criticism of
what use reform if people are doomed to possess
are attempts at institutional
quahties imposed on them by unchanging environmental conditions? It is true
that in other parts of the Methodus and in the Republic, Bodin left the way
open to retreat from this fatalism, but a close reading of his writing leads one
to believe that he thought it was only with great efFort that people could over-
come the basic controls, and any laxness in their institutions which tended to
overcome the environment would mean a return to the original control.
The theory that different environments create different combinations of
the humors, thus producing different physical and mental characteristics, is
used by Bodin to explain the dominant forms of madness in Europe, the inci-
dence of diseases such as leprosy, varying degrees of fecundity in peoples,

20 /^/i.,
pp. 98-100.
21 Ibid.y
p. 102.
440 Early Modern Environmental Theories

constancies in sexual unions. Men are more potent in winter, more lustful in

summer; sexually capable people do not need to be passionate; lust therefore

indicates a lack of potency. Women exhibit the opposite seasonal behavior. No
evidence is but the harmonious meeting of opposites in any one
given for it,

season, an evidence of the wisdom of God, insures the continual reproduction

of the human race. We
cannot, however, analyze all these specific applica-
tions to individuals or to peoples; but one general observation can be made,
that the appHcation of the theory of humors, with all the contortions and
distortions involved in applying a false theory to a body of fact, is of far less
interest than the variety of questions which the helpless humor theory is

called upon to answer: it m.ust explain the fecundity of peoples, the rise of
religion in one geographic area, the distribution of insanity, of leprosy, of
cruelty in war.
The main idea (we will show the astrological aspect in a few moments) is

based on the division into hot, cold, and temperate zones. The most interesting
and revealing illustrations come in the discussion of the general mental and
physical quahties of peoples.
The people of the south are a contemplative sort, adept in the secret
sciences, the black bile or melancholy dominant among them, causing
prolonged meditation; they have the ablest philosophers, mathematicians,
prophets. 'Trom these people letters, useful arts, virtues, training, philosophy,
religion, and lastly humanitas itself flowed upon earth as from a fountain."^^

The effect of climate on religion, later developed by Charron, is a touchy

subject because it casts doubt on the reality of direct divine intercession in
human and on the truth of a revealed religion. (The relation of en-
affairs,

vironmental to religious ideas is an interesting subject in its own right; even

in the twentieth century the rise of monotheism has been ascribed to the
monotonous sameness and oneness of the burning sandy deserts.) The peoples
of the north are skilled in activities that depend on the senses; they know well
the manual crafts and the arts, and they have mechanical skills. It is notewoithy
that Bodin illustrates this northern skill with the labors of the physician
Georgius Agricola (George Bauer) whose De veteribus &
novis ?netallis lib. it^
was published in Basel in 1546; in this work he tells of his visits to mines
and smelters, his reading on the history of mining and his acquaintance with
men skilled in it, topics which are later exhaustively studied in De re metallica
with its famous illustrations.^'^
Bodin revives an idea of Hippocrates (to be revived again by Montesquieu)
that the three ages of man— youth, middle age, and old age (but not the state
of being moribund)— are analogous to the northern, the temperate, and the
southern regions respectively.

Ibid., p. no.
^^Ibid., p. 112.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories
When I look more closely, the southerners, the intermediates, and the
Scythians seem in a certain measure to have the customs and the humors of old
men, of men, and of youths, expressed neatly in an ancient line: Prayers of the
old, deeds of youth, and plans of grown men. I call them old men who are
not yet decrepit. The Scythians, of course, are warm and wet in the fashion of
young men. The southerners are cold and dry, as befitting old men. Those who
have attained middle life have achieved the proper blending.^^

In astrological terms, in the north, Mars, representing war, is assisted by

the Moon representing the chase; in the south, Saturn represents contempla-
tion,Venus, love; in the intermediate lands, Jupiter is equated with rulers.

Mercury, with orators.

7. Other Problems

Bodin's theory of planetary influences superimposed on the environmental

is

distinctions existent on earth which are largely

a product of moisture and
temperature distribution, both controlled by the sun's heat. Bodin discards
Ptolemy's astrological ethnology after a long refutation, his criticism being
that the triplicities "are clearly at variance not only with previous statements
but even with nature and history." The beginning of the error he traces
itself

to ignorance of places and of geography.^^

The sun is common to all regions; he cites the Chaldean beliefs that "the
power of Saturn controls the understanding, that of Jupiter guides action,
that of Mars directs production." Saturn is said to be cold; Mars, hot; and
Jupiter, moderate between the two.
Cold Saturn and Venus govern in the south. Saturn controls understanding,
presides over the mind, knowledge, and contemplation (as befits black bile);
this is the realm of the secret sciences. Warm Mars and the Moon are assigned

to the north. Mars presides over the arts and handicrafts dependent on skill,
strength, imagination. It is thus the region of the manual crafts. More moderate
than Mars or Saturn, Jupiter along with Mercury guides action in the middle
region: wisdom is embodied in action, embracing all the virtues and reason.
The people under Jupiter and Mercury are best suited for managing affairs;
they are the lawmakers, the originators of custom, governors, men of com-
merce.^^ Both the environmental and the astrological ideas are really based on
the same zonal division that Aristotle made in his Politics. Ptolemy in the
Tetrabiblos, as we
have seen, considers environmental and astrological eth-
nology but does not fuse the two into a single theory. Bodin does because the
zones of astrological influence coincide with the traditional zones based on
solar radiation.

^^Ibid., p. 125.
Ibid., pp. 146-152, quote on p. 147.
Ibid., p. 112.
442 Early Modern Environmental Theories
Bodin's system was ambitious; it was far more searching, exhaustive, and
coherent than anything produced on the subject since Albert the Great's
else

De natura locorum. Although we can neglect the minute details, it is important

to discuss some of the broader problems impHcit in such an effort.
In addition to the cultural distinctions based on latitudinal and astrological
influences, Bodin, following tradition,saw other possible environmental in-
fluences, owing to the longitude, location on rivers, swamps, or mountains
and valleys. These local influences might be in conflict with the zonal cor-
relations.
Cultural differences among people had always
living in different longitudes
been difficult to explain on climatic grounds. The usual contrasts were between
the softness, politeness, love of finery and artistic adornment, of the eastern
peoples and the rough-hewn simplicity and lack of guile characteristic of the
people of northwest Europe. In hilly lands, Bodin saw the possibility of mak-
ing finer distinctions— between eastern and western aspects. "Since the rising
light by its moderate heat purifies the harmful thick heaviness of the air, it
makes the region much more temperate. Moreover, when the sun burns with
its greatest heat, that is, in the afternoon, it sets for the eastern region and rises

for the western." On flat and level places the problem to Bodin is almost in-
superable because there is no rising and no setting, and lands which in the
morning feel the rising sun, in the evenings feel its setting; nevertheless he
believes, and cites biblical and classical authorities as evidence, that the eastern
quarter is more temperate and is better than the western.^^ So caught up is
Bodin in the mystique of longitudinal environmental influences that it does
not occur to him (as it does to him elsewhere) that differences may not be
environmentally caused at all.

The people dwelling in mountains are in a category by themselves; moun-

tain dwellers, regardless of their location, are more
one another than they
like
are like other people of the zone in which they live. "For mountaine^rs^^re
tough, uncouth, warhke, accustomed to hard work, and not at all cunning."
Marshy places, as in Holland and Frisia, produce tall men, but Bodin shows
the traditional fear of marshes in hot lands. People hving in fertile valleys
become luxury-loving in contrast with those of sterile plains. All of these
ideas are abundantly illustrated with examples, mostly from classical and con-
temporary sources; the treatment, however, is traditional, primarily because
of ignorance of the actual distribution of climatic types.^^
In the Republic Bodin appHes his theories to the practical problems of
government. The theoretical basis is the same; variety in peoples' humors re-
quires a variety in their institutions; the ruler must know the humors before
he changes laws and customs. The task of a ruler is likened to that of an

27 Ibid.,
p. 130.
Ibid., pp. 139-140, quote on p. 139.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 443

architect who builds with the materials he can find locally. Furthermore, the
theory of government is related to broader questions of philosophy, religion,
and technology whose zonal distribution is part of a divine plan. For Bodin,
as for Botero and Le Roy, it is easy to reconcile the theory of environment
with the idea of design. In divinely ordained reciprocity, the prudent peoples
of temperate lands are skilled in commerce, in the establishing of common-
wealths, and in the making of laws for others; they are able to judge, persuade,
command. The southern peoples, zealous in their pursuit of truth, teach the
mankind about the abstruse and secret sciences. The northern peoples,
rest of
with their manual dexterity, have taught the world skills in the manual arts.
Indeed, Bodin's work is a masterly summary of about two thousand years
of speculation regarding the influence of the environment on man. His works
brought up certain broad questions in the crucial period of the great religious
wars,when many men were aware of the classical heritage, some consequences
of voyages and travels, and the implications of schism created by the Ref-
ormation.
The most important of these questions is the degree of environmental con-
trol over man. Bodin does not believe that climate is the only influence. "The
fusion of peoples changes the customs and the nature of men not a little."

Fusion and blending are common in the temperate regions because peoples
from the extreme regions have moved there "as though to the region of most
equable climate." Here Bodin shows his appreciation of the role of war, mi-
gration, cultural contact, in molding the life and customs of a people, but he
does not apply the idea on a larger scale to show that the history of migrations
and the difl'usion of physical and mental traits by any means may be more
fundamental explanations than cHmate in understanding human history .^^
Bodin, moreover, says that divine or human training may influence human
nature. "If Hippocrates truly thought that all species of plants can be domesti-
cated, how much more is this true for human kind? Was there ever a race
so huge and savage, which, when had found leaders, was not carried forward
it

along the path of civilization? What race once instructed in the most refined
arts, but ceasing to cultivate the humanities, did not sink sometime into bar-

barity and savagery? "^^ Bodin answers these questions with examples of art
and customs influencing the physical and mental characteristics of men.^^ To
him, the most convincing evidence (he repeats the argument in the Republic)
comes from German history from Tacitus' time to his own. It resembles
Sebastian Miinster's account. (See p. 365.) By their own confession, the Ger-
mans once were Httle better than beasts; like animals, they wandered untutored
in forests and marshes. "Nevertheless, they have now so far advanced that

Ibid., p. 143.
^^Ibid., p. 145.
2^ Ibid.,
pp. 145-146.
444 Early Modern Environmental Theories

in the humanities they seem superior to the Asiatics; in mihtary matters, to

the Romans; in rehgion, to the Hebrews; in philosophy, to the Greeks; in
geometry, to the Egyptians; in arithmetic, to the Phoenicians; in astrology,
to the Chaldeans; and in various crafts they seem to be superior to all peoples."
The moral of this passage seems to be that environmental theories are most
appropriate in explaining an ancient past; when one is concerned with the
complexities of a contemporary civilization they fail. Nothing in Bodin's
previous theorizing prepares one for this flattering description of German
culture of the latter part of the sixteenth century. Nevertheless, he was well
acquainted with trends in German historiography, geography, technology,
and with the implications of the Reformation.^^
In the Republic, Bodin stresses the role of government in changing people
and their dispositions. He will reject "the opinions of Polybius, and Galen,
who held. That the countrey and nature of the place did rule necessarily in
the manners of men"; but he fails to add that Polybius thought much like
himself on this point, that it was possible for the Arcadians through institu-
tionalized music to change their character, which originally was molded by
the harsh environment of Arcadia.^^
Bodin makes a tantaHzing reference to the tendency for genius or talent
to appear in clusters, examples being (i) Plato, Aristotle, Xenocrates,
Timaeus, Archytas, Isocrates, and many other unnamed orators and poets;
(2) Chrysippus, Carncades, Diogenes the Stoic, and Arcesilas; (3) Varro,
Cicero, Livy, and Sallust; (4) Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Vitruvius; (5) "And
not long ago, Valla, Trapezuntius, Ficino, Gaza, Bessarion, and Mirandola
flourished contemporaneously."^"^
The would make an interesting study in itself. Kroeber
history of this idea
deals with the phenomenon in his Configurations of Culture Growth; Teg-
gart called attention to the importance of studying the historical circum-
stances surrounding the appearance of genius in clusters. In the nineteentlv
century Thomas De Quincey discussed the idea at length. In the ancient
world Tacitus wondered why orators tended to appear in groups, and Velleius
Paterculus was well aware of the phenomenon. The abbe du Bos, as we shall
see, was also very interested in this question. "If anyone, then, having col-

lected passages of memorable affairs, should compare with them these great
trajections and ascertain the regions affected or the states changed, he will
achieve fuller knowledge about the customs and the nature of peoples; then,

Ibid., pp. 145-146, quote on p. 145.

33 Rep., Bk. V, chap. i.
In the cosmopoHtan atmosphere of Toulouse, Bodin met and fraternized with students of all
nationalities, and developed that international point of view which will find such eloquent ex-
pression in the Methodus in his pleas for the Respublica mundana. Some of his telling and
accurate observations on national character (found in the fifth chapter of Methodus) owe
much to his student associations (Brown, op. cit., p. 16; see also, pp. 53-54).
^Methodus, p. 152.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 445

also, he will make much more effective and reliable judgments about every

kind of history. "^^ Bodin too saw that the periodic appearance of clusters of
genius and talent required historical explanation. If this line of inquiry had
been pursued, it would have called into question the adequacy of environ-
mental explanations, unless cHmates could conveniently be made to change
with each peak or trough of cultural achievement.
Environmental theories have often posed the question: To what degree
are people or peoples responsible for their Bodin now
good or evil qualities?

is speaking of familiar themes in history, such as a tenacious holding on to

custom, failure to yield one's religion despite torture, and known short-
comings of peoples. Extreme positions are not palatable to Bodin.

Since these vices are, as it were, innate in each race, history must be judged
according to the customs and nature of each people before we can make un-
favorable comments. For the moderation of the southerners is not praiseworthy,
nor is the drunkenness of the Scythians, which is so much criticized, really to be
scorned, because the southerners, through lack of inward heat, are at once
satiated with food and drink; the Scythians, on the other hand, could not easily
restrain themselves even if they wished, for they are impelled by internal warmth
and lack the resources of genius.^^

What of the case for an environmental basis of history, assuming the sta-
bility of the earthly environment amid the ever-changing human scene and
uncertain fortunes of history? Bodin's answer anticipates that given by many
nineteenth century geographers, and especially by Friedrich Ratzel in one
of his more deterministic phases. Historians are unreliable, says Bodin; they do
not write about the right things, and there is much that is changeable and
capricious in human affairs.

Since that is so, let us seek characteristics drawn, not from the institutions of men,
but from nature, which are stable and are never changed unless by great force
or long training, and even if they have been altered, nevertheless eventually
they return to their pristine character. About this body of knowledge the an-
cients could write nothing, since they were ignorant of regions and places which
not so long ago were opened up; instead, each man advanced as far as he could
by inference of probabilities.^^

The original stamp given by climate to a people can be changed only by

effort. In this way Bodin allows for the harsh and inexorable control of cli-
mate and for the ability of a people to divorce itself by conscious effort from

Ibid., p. 152. On the clustering of genius, see Kroeber, Configurations of Culture

Growth; Teggart, Rome and China, pp. 1 1-12 and the references there cited; De Quincey,
"Style," in Collected Writings of Thovms De Quincey, ed. Masson, Vol. 10, pp.
The
194-231; Tacitus, Dialogue on Oratory; Velleius Paterculus, The Roman History, Bk.
I, 16-18.
Methodus, p. 128. On similar discussions in the Middle Ages, see Tooley, op. cit.

(see n. 12 above), p. 79.

^'^
Methodus, p. 85.
44^ Early Modern Environmental Theories
its immediate effects, though the victory is tenuous and the ramparts must
always be watched. Perhaps it is the best statement a sensitive man, learned
and occupied in the theoretical and practical aspects of the law,
in the classics
could make in an age in which discovery, change, violence, were the order
of the day. "Bodin was probably the only writer of the sixteenth century
who had grasped the fact that Europe was changing rapidly. He saw that no
monarchy, however stable, could last for ever, but reahzed that the recogni-
tion of a strong monarchy in the France of his day was the only hope of
escape from political chaos."^^ Bodin's environmental theories are, in part, a
consequence of the political conditions of his time; his critical attitude to

ideas of church supremacy and the divine right of kings prepares the way
for questions of sovereignty, the monarch, his relationships to associations of
people and to individuals. He wrote during one of the most eventful periods
in modern European history: Luther wrote the ninety-five theses in 15 17, the
Council of Trent closed in 1563 after eighteen years of irregular meetings,
and the French civil wars lasted from 1562 to 1598. France had seven mon-
archs between 1548 and 16 10 and "there was scarcely a year when these
monarchs were not coping with foreign war, civil insurrection or both"
(Bruun). Bodin wished to devise a poHtical philosophy consistent with the
relativity of faith in an age of schism; to him the role of the environment in
human affairs showed the need for both tolerance and unity in a centralized
monarchy which should be aware of the variety in local custom.
Even when this is said, the fact remains that in a wider perspective Bodin
was a traditionalist. If one traces theories of environmental influence back
from the present to the thinkers of the nineteenth, eighteenth, and seven-
teenth centuries and then to Bodin, he seems an innovator, a man who thought
deeply about these questions in a recognizably modern setting— after the age
of discovery, after the rediscovery of many writings of classical antiquity,
after the Reformation. however, one approaches Bodin's writings by way
If,

of the past, from Hippocrates, Aristotle, Ptolemy, to Albert the Great and
St. Thomas Aquinas, their traditional— and often painfully garbled— character

is only too apparent. Modern students of Bodin have praised him, making

excuses for the astrology and for the numerology (which I have not even
brought up) as vices of the time; it is said that he was a precursor of Mon-
tesquieu, that his theories were not fatalistic because they left room for other
influences, that they were the forerunners of a body of theory later to be-
come a science. (This claim was made mostly by those who regarded scientif-
ic geography as the study of environmental influences.) Bodin's thought
about environment could by no conceivable means lead to science. The main
interest of his ideas today— aside from their historical significance— is that they
reveal the complexity of historical and contemporary problems in Bodin's
eyes and the inability of two millennia of accumulated lore to be of any real

38 EB, art., "Bodin," 14th ed., Vol. 3, p. 771

 Early Modern Environmental Theories 447

help in explanation. It is true that there were some advantages; the theories by
their concentration on differences and similarities may have led the way to a
new regional geography, they may
have sharpened the eye for cultural ob-
servations. But what kind of guides could such theories be when they rested
on presuppositions fantastically wide of the mark?
This long analysis of Bodin's ideas simplifies one's task because many writers
either borrowed from Bodin, as did Botero, Charron, and probably Du Bartas,
or borrowed, as did Bodin, from a common, widely held body of belief so
admirably organized by him.

8. Further Applications of Environmental Theories

Historically, as we have seen, it has not been a difficult task to reconcile the-
ories of environmental causation with the design argument. If they were

carried too far into ethics or religion, however, they might undermine both
by showing their doctrines to be the result of more local circumstances than
most systems of ethics or revealed religions are willing to allow. The relation
of environment to religion and religious schism was discussed frequently after
the Reformation and through the eighteenth century. We have encountered
such discussions in Botero and Bodin; we will meet them again in Montesquieu
and Voltaire.
In De la Vicissitude des Chases (1579), Louis Le Roy wrote that the variety
of things is in accordance with differences in places and in climates; every
country possesses its own gifts and singularities, distributed by a Divine Prov-
idence careful to create universal good for the world. Divine Providence
cannot persevere in its perfection without such variety "to the end that one
having need of the other they might communicate together and succour each
other."^^ These relationships are not a law unto themselves; it is the Christian
God and not the physical environment nor the stars that is responsible for
them.
Le Roy shows how climatic influences may be part of the argument for
design, but Pierre Charron shows how they can assume a more independent
and challenging character. This is not because of anything new in his climatic
theories, for most of the discussion seems to be lifted from Bodin. Charron
probes deeper than Bodin did, however, into environmental influences on
morality and rehgion, in an inquiry which earned for Charron accusations
of atheism, especially from the Jesuit Frangois Garasse. (Charron's earlier
work was more orthodox.) Charron says that the customs or manners of a
2^ Louis Le Roy,
Of the Interchangeable Course, or Variety of Things, trans. Robert
Ashley (London, 1594), lor-iiv. Cf., discussion of Sebastian Miinster, Pt. Ill, Intro,
essay. Le Roy follows Ptolemy in his astrological ethnology {ibid., I3v-i3r), adopts
the familiar north, south, and intermediate correlations (14V), and refers to ideas ex-
pressed by Servius the Grammarian (about a.d. 400) in his commentary on Virgil's
Aeneid.
448 Early Modern Environmental Theories
people cannot be regarded as either vices or virtues; they are the works of
nature and are most difficult either to change or to renounce. Virtue can
mitigate, temper, and reduce the extremes in favor of the mean.^° More
pointed is his comment that it is a frightful thing to observe the great diversity
in religious beliefs, but frequently also thereis doctrinal agreement among

them. Different doctrines might same cHmate. Furthermore, one

arise in the

religion is often based on another, the younger borrowing from the older. A
man acquires his religion from the environment in which he is born and from
the people living there.^^
Another Frenchman— a Gascon, a poet, a Protestant, and a contemporary
of Bodin, Guillaume de Salluste, Sieur Du Bartas ( 1544-15 90)— shows how
easily environmental theories can become involved in cosmology and sacred
history. His chief works. La Premiere Sepmaine and La Seconde Sepuiaine^
belong to the hexaemeral literature; but in fact they are much more than this,
being an impressive repository of long-held ideas of the four elements, the
humors, environmental influences, astrology, and traditional biblical exegesis.
In one poem, Les Colonies, first published in 1584,^^ Du Bartas explains the
diffusion of the human race after Noah's time and the present differences
observable among peoples. Du Bartas speaks both of the marvelous fecundity
of nature and of the great physical, mental, and cultural variety among men.
The sharp contrasts among the people of the north, south, and the inter-
mediate regions are reminiscent of those made by Bodin in the Methodus.
There are many similarities in their points of view. The peoples of the south
are knowledgeable and contemplative, those of the north possess manual
skill, the prudent peoples in between have abilities in government and admin-

istration.^^ "Et bref, Fun studieux admire la science, / L'autre a les arts en main,

et l'autre la prudence. "^^ Like Bodin, Du Bartas emphasizes the technological

skill of the northern peoples ("Qui fait tout ce qu'il veut de metal et du bois"),

their martial vigor and their fecundity, compared with the southerners.^^
The dispersion of mankind over the earth is in accordance with divine will-
God wishes to lead his children away from the crimes of their birthplaces— in
order that His devout servants will sound His name from Scythia to Zanzibar
and that foreign lands may now be put to human use ("Que les tresors produits
par les champs estrangers / Ne fussent comme vains par faute d'usagers").^^
Du Bartas paints a lively picture of the grandeur of a great city with its

trades, occupations, commerce, and intellectual life; he is aware of the depen-

40 De la Sagesse, chap. 38, and the table on p. 219.

Bk. I,

4^De la Sagesse, Bk.

chap. 5, pp. 257, 351-352.
II,
42 Holmes, "Guillaume De Salluste Sieur Du Bartas.
A
Biographical and Critical Study,"
in Works, ed. Holmes, Lyons, Linker, Vol. I, p. 18.
43 Les Colonies, lines
541-584.
44 Ibid., lines 585-586.
45 Ibid., lines
530-540, 566, 580.
46 /^/(i., lines 623-624.
 Early Modern Environme7ital Theories 449

dence of one country on another through trade which he illustrates with a

including sugar from the Canaries, white ivory from India, and horses
list

from Germany. "Bref, chaque terre apporte un tribut tout divers / Es coffres
du tresor de ce grand univers."^''
Les Colonies ends with fervent praise of the earth as an environment for
man, of the sea as a great reservoir of life and of nourishment for man, and of
France as the pearl of Europe and a paradise on earth. It is a remarkable poem,
contrasting the manners and national characters of people, mostly because of
differing chmates, and at the same time recognizing the mobility and adapta-
bility of man who lives by divine command on an earth well suited to him.
Historians of Enghsh shown
Literature, especially students of Milton, have
considerable interest in Du
whose work was translated into English
Bartas,
by Joshua Sylvester under the title Bartas His Devine Weekes & Workes, the
complete edition, except for minor omissions, being published in 1608.^^ It
has been thought, especially since the publication in 1934 of George C. Tay-
lor's Milton^ s Use of Du Bartas, that the French poet inspired Milton's interest

in theories of cHmatic influence. The most striking passage in Milton (whose

substance is derived ultimately from Paul the Deacon) is in Paradise Lost.
Milton says of "those bad Angels seen / Hovering on wing under the cape
of Hell":
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.^^

One reason for the interest in cHmatic theories in England was the tradi-
tional disparagement, according to the cHmatic theory, of the intellectual
capacity and ability of northern peoples. Often the unhappy British appeared
uncomfortably in the northern rather than in the middle group. All kinds of
mischief were possible. Milton could doubt his own talents, and whole peoples
might be dismissed as without significant intellectual endowment. One flat-
tering aspect was that the Goths, a northern people, were staunch lovers of
liberty, a love induced by their chmate.^^
Climatic theories, mostly variants of the types discussed by Bodin, enjoyed
wide currency in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Their popularity is
noticeable in their frequent application to individual countries or topics.

Ibid., lines 647-648.

For the complex publication history of the Sylvester translation, see Works, Vol.
Ill, pp. 538-539-
Paradise Lost, Bk. I, vss. 351-355.
For the literature on climate
relating to Milton and his times, see Z. S. Fink, "Milton
and the theory of Climatic Influence," Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 2 (1941),
pp. 67-80. This article quotes contemporary writers, studies exhaustively the appearance
of the climatic theory in Milton's works, and comes to conclusions regarding its effect
450 Early Modern Environmental Theories

Montaigne's and Bacon's ideas, for example, are in this category. Montaigne
refers to Vegetius, Plato, Cicero, and Herodotus. Men are not only influenced

by the place, he adds, but like plants, they will assume new characteristics
when they migrate.^^ Less traditional, however, is the cultural relativism re-
vealed in the essay on cannibals, but here Montaigne is not concerned with
environmental questions. Francis Bacon gives three possible reasons for his
theory that wars originate in the martial regions of the north: the stars, the
probable greater continental size of the Northern Hemisphere, and most
likely "the cold of the northern parts, which is that which, without aid of
discipHne, doth make the bodies hardest, and the courage warmest."^^ Else-
where, however, he is far far less traditional. If one con-
more perceptive and
siders "the immense between
difference men's lives in the most polished coun-

tries of Europe, and in any wild and barbarous region of the new Indies he

will think it so great, that man may be said to be a god unto man, not only on
account of mutual aid and benefits, but from their comparative states— the
"^^
result of the arts, and not of the soil or climate.
Fresher breezes, however, were crossing the sea; they came from the per-
sonal observations of the Jesuit father Jose de Acosta. Like the modern alti-

tudinal divisions of tierra caliente, tierra templada, and tierra fria, Acosta

divided the Indies into the low, the high, and the middle lands lying between
the two extremes. The coastal lowlands, very hot, humid, unhealthful, were
uninhabitable in many places because of the dangerous sands and because the
rivers, finding no swamps. Their population, dimin-
outlet to the sea, created
ished by twenty-nine was almost extinct because the Indians had
thirtieths,

been forced to unendurable labor; they had altered their customs because of
the Spanish contact, and had acquired the habit of excessive drinking and
other vices. The lowlands possessed also the cities, points of entry for the
Spanish trade. The highlands, cold, dry, infertile, healthful if not peaceable,
were well populated. These were pasturelands with livestock, whose people,
lacking crops from their own cultivated fields, obtained food by barter and
exchange. The gold mines of the highlands accounted also for the dense popu-
lation. The middle lands, areas where wheat, barley, and maize grew, also
possessed many pastures, much livestock (ganado), and groves. It was the
best of all the regions for health and contentment.^*

on Milton personally and its influence on English society. See also "The Reputation of
Du Bartas in England and America," in Works of Du Bartas^ Vol. 3, pp. 537-543;
. . .

George Coffin Taylor, Milton's Use of Du Bartas, pp. 55-57; Samuel Kliger, The Goths
in England, pp. 241-252; and Elbert N. S. Thompson, "Milton's Knowledge of Geogra-
phy," Studies in Philology, Vol. 16 (19 19), pp. 1 48-1 71.
5^ "An Apologie of Raymond Sebond," Essays, Bk.
2, chap. 12.
52
Of the Vicissitude of Things, 1625.
Novum Organum, Bk. I, Aph. 129.
5* P. Jose de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, Madrid,
1894 (1590),
Vol. I, Bk. Ill, chap. 19, pp. 249-254.
 :

Early Modern Environmeiital Theories 45

9. On National Character

Although an awareness of cultural differences apparently has not been lack-

ing in any age, there was a conspicuous interest in the subject in the seven-
teenth century in England; this was quite unlike Bodin's, over whose en-
vironmental writings there hovered a heavy pall of astrological ethnology.
Neither, however, was it conspicuously theoretical. It was an interest in
national character, observations made by Europeans of other Europeans; and
in the peoples of far-off places like Persia, India, and China. Often these
characteristics were described without causal explanation, but it was also
common to see them as products of the climate.
These writings on national character had their attractive and their seamy
sides. They provided an outlet for curious, active, and open-minded intelli-

gence; sharp observation often resulted in valuable descriptions of the work-

aday world, diet, and regional differences. Their great weakness was their
proneness to bias, to insufferable smugness, often to bigotry. Their crudity
lay in the assumption that it was possible to label nations or peoples quickly
and firmly; peoples had to submit bravely to a single label which summed
them up. Earlier writings on national character had similar shortcomings, and
our own age with its two world wars and many small ones has seen a prolif-
eration of them. Bishop Hall castigated such oversimplification in his Mundus
alter et idem ( 1 605 )

The French are commonly called rash; the Spaniard proud; the Dutch drunken;
the English the busi-bands; the Italians effeminate; the Swethen timorous; the
Bohemians inhumaine; the Irish barbarous and superstitious; but is any man so
thinke that France hath no staid man at all in it; Spaine, no meacock;
sottish, as to
or Germanie none that lives soberly? They are fooles (beleeve it) that will tie
mens manners so firme unto the starres, that they will leave nothing to a mans
owne power, nothing to the parents natures, nothing to nurture and education.^^

Let us look at three examples, all from England and all from the early
seventeenth century: Sir Thomas Overbury, John Barclay, and Sir William
Temple. Thomas Overbury 's Observations in His Travailes Upon the
Sir
State of theXVII. Provinces as They Stood Anno Dom. 160^ (i<^23) is an
example of straightforward description; he is aware of national differences
among people and of differences among groups within a single nation. Hol-
land was a natural choice because of its recent liberation and its unique
geography, partly natural, partly man-made. Sir Thomas Overbury, like Sir
WilHam Temple, remarks upon the favorable geographic position of a coun-
try formed by the deltas of the Rhine, the Maas, and the Scheldt. The Dutch

See Miss Taylor's chapter "The Urbane Traveller," in Late Tudor and Early Stuart
Geography.
Joseph Hall, The Discovery of a New World (Mundus alter et idem), trans, from
the Latin by John Healey, pp. lo-ii; Taylor, op. cit., p. 150.
452 Early Modern Environmental Theories
had replaced the Venetians as conveyors of the goods from the Indies to the
rest of Christendom except England; they were favorably placed for the
European north-south trade and for the trade in the east with Germany,
Russia, and Poland. Their natural slowness is contrasted with the rashness
and changeableness of the French and the Florentines; they are like the Swiss
in their "equality of spirits" which "renders them so fit for a democracy,"
but Sir Thomas does not seem to admire democracies very much.^^
He comments on the national strength, the shape, and the regional diversity
of France. The French have adopted "into themselves the lesser adjoyning
nations, without destruction, or leaving any marke of strangnesse upon them,
as the Bretojis, Gascoignes^ Provi?icalls, and others which are not French;
towards the which unions, their nature, which is easie and harborous to
strangers, hath done more then [sic] any lawes could have effected, but with
long time." Later he describes how
France has achieved a certain cosmopoli-
tanism by the addition to the nation of diverse but related peoples, "For
Picardie, Nor77iandie, and Bretaigne resemble Englajid; Languedoc, Spaine,
Province, and the rest is France. ''^^ Cultural similarities of the old pays
Italic,

around the central French core appear to be the result of contiguity and cul-
tural contact.
The most impressive work on national character of this time is the Icon
Animorum of John Barclay, first published in 1614; a translation from the
Latin to the English was made by Thomas May, and this work, entitled The
Mirrour of Mindes, was pubhshed in 1631.^^
Barclay says that every age, almost, has a particular genius different from
others; that "there is a proper Spirit to every Region, which doth in a manner
shape the studies, and the manners of the inhabitants, according to it selfe."^°
He is looking from a Greenwich hill at the scenes along the Thames and he
is struck by
the natural and the man-made beauty he sees. The charm of a
panorama, the most beautiful of England and possibly of all Europe "un-
awares had ravished" his spirit. It was "soe faire a variety, and the industry
(as it were) of Nature, displaying her riches." Even the beauty of nature,
however, cannot tolerate monotony. Any beauty would "glut and weary"
the beholder unless it were "beautified with contrarieties, and change of en-
dowments, to refresh continually the wearied beholder with unexpected
"^^
novelties.

"Observations," The Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse of Sir Thomas Over-
bury, pp. 228, 230.
Ibid., pp. 236-237.
^^For a Taylor, op. cit.; pp. 134-136. For an exhaustive
less enthusiastic appraisal, see
study of the work "Le Portrait des Esprits (Icon animorum) de Jean
see Collignon,
Barclay," Memoires de PAcademie de Stanislas, ipoj;-ipo6 Ser. 6, Vol.
3 (1906), pp.
67-140.
Mirrour of Mindes, p. 36.
Ibid., p. ^2.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 453

Nature has created a variety of physical environments. Some countries are

on mountaintops, others are in valleys, some suffer immoderate heat, others
extreme cold, "the residue, shee ordained (though not equally) temperate."
The fertility of countries varies also in time; the stars do not have the same
influences (there is some astrology in Barclay). Therefore, "does noe yeare
altogether imitate that that [sic] went before, nor is the exact rule of the
following yeare. "^^
This variety in space and time is typical also of man, created after the
image of the Deity "and for whose sake especially, all other ornaments of
world were framed," who is the greatest exemplar of this beauty of variety.
No diversity is more worthy of wonder than that men born to liberty should
also serve, "their owne dispositions, the fate of the times, wherein they live,

forcing them as it were, into certaine affections, and rules of living." Every
age of the world has a certain Genius, "which over-ruleth the mindes of
men, and turneth them to same desires." Some ages breathe nothing but mar-
tial discipline; then in a few years all "are againe composed to peace, and
quietnesse."^^
Ages of accomplishment (he cites the Greeks and the Roman period from
Augustus to Nero) are paralleled by another force, "that spirit which being
appropriate to every region, infuseth into men, as soon as they are borne, the
habit, and affections of their owne country."^'*
Barclay now begins a lengthy analysis of national character, but the ex-
position, following a sketch of the physical setting of each country, is descrip-
tive. Geography, trade, production, are not linked together causally. Bar-
clay dismisses the barbarian world of Africa and the New World as being
beneath his notice; he spends most of his time on western Europe, beginning
courteously with France (the book is dedicated to Louis XIII) with occa-
sionalremarks of special interest here (the extension of pasturelands caused
the disappearance of wolves, who were now killed off by the hunters). After
France Barclay describes England, Scotland, and Ireland, returning to the
continent to Germany. Of this country he remarks that it was once full of
woods and wild inhabitants and is now beautified with towns, its woods
"which were once great and orespread the country, now reduced to use and
ornament."^^ There now follow descriptions of the United Provinces and
Flanders, loyal to the Spanish throne, and Italy, whose great cultural diver-
sity he ascribes to social causes; despite a common tongue it has a great variety
of customs, owing to the fragmentation of the country into many states, the
diversity of its governments, and the surviving traces of foreign occupations.
He describes the Spaniard, living on poor, arid, and sterile soil, and the Hun-

^2 Ibid.,
p. 43.
63 Ibid.,
pp. 44-45.
^^Ibid., pp. 54-55.
6^ pp. 144-145.
454 Early Modern Environmental Theories
garians, Poles, Muscovites, and other peoples of the north. (The vast forests
of Poland, he says, produce needed wood for heating and are the havens of
animals whose pelts make very precious furs; they also have numbers of
swarms of wild bees.) He uses Paul the Deacon's notion of the north being
a hive of nations as an example of mores changing through the ages. How is
it, he asks, that this seemingly inexhaustible source of men in the Cimbrian

Chersonese (Jutland) no longer exists? Today it has few towns and it is

thinly populated. Barclay's explanation (common among European writers)
is that the Dutch, the Germans, and the Scandinavian peoples, each playing

at various times the leading roles, drink too much. In former times the people
moved because there were too many of them for such a poor soil; with eating
and drinking to excess the people now have so weakened their ability to re-
produce that they can scarcely produce enough for their own needs. In the
final section on national character, Barclay discusses the Turks and the Jews
together because, he says, they are united in the hatred men hold for them.
Barclay's most interesting ideas are that there is certain clustering of hu-
man achievement at various times and that there are also spatial contrasts
among peoples. Barclay fortified Abbe du Bos in his behef in this clustering
of genius.^®
Sir WiUiam Temple's Observations Upon the United Provinces of the
Netherlands (1673) lacks the freshness and speculative boldness of Barclay,
but it suggests, too, causal relationships between environment and national
character. Though these ideas are conventional, there is a subtlety and dis-
crimination in analysis, for example, in his recognition that within the United
Provinces there are classes with different characteristics, but that all of them
also have some characteristics in common.^^
The discussion of the people is preceded by and imaginative descrip-
a clear
tion of the geography of the country, its winds, speculations on the youth of
the Zuider Zee, the flat soil, and the place of human industry in drainage of
the land.^^
In down-to-earth and often blunt words. Sir William Temple describes
Clowns or Boors (the farmers) the Mariners
the social classes of Holland, the ;

or Schippers; the Merchants, or Traders; the Rente eners (those living on rent
or interest); the gentlemen; and the army officers. In incisive sentences he

66 Abbe du Bos, Reflexions, Vol.

2, p. 260, who refers to Barclay's Euphormionis
Lusinini the reason being that in all the editions since the Hess Strasbourg edition of
1623, the Icon customarily was erroneously regarded as being Part IV of the former
work. CoUignon, op. cit. (see n. 59 above), pp. 67-68.
67 On the esteem in which this book was held see
G. N. Clark's introduction to the
Observations, pp. v-x. "What holds the book together," says Clark, "is a method of
interpreting history, a method which is summed up in the dictum: 'Most national cus-
toms are the effect of some unseen, or unobserved, natural causes or necessities.' This
idea and ideas related to it were kindhng much of the best thought of that time, and
Temple must have been in contact with them from his youth" (p. ix).
68 Observations, pp. 89-96.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 455

quickly establishes differences among them. The common characteristic of

all classes is and order in their Expences," public and
their ''great Frugality,
private.^^ Of the people as a whole he says, "In general, All Appetites and
Passions seem to run lower and cooler here, than in other Countrys where I
have converst. Avarice may be expected." Part of the explanation— he con-
siders them much less than passionate in lovemaking— may be owing to the
dullness of the air which, however, may also "dispose them to that strange
assiduity and constant appHcation of their Minds, with that perpetual Study
and Labour upon any thing they design and take in hand." The qualities of the
air may also influence their drinking habits. There follows an entertaining

discussion of drinking and abstentions from drinking in the morning.''^

Less conventional, however, was the observation, which also attracted the
attention of Abbe du Bos, that diet in time could change the character of a
people. After several illustrations relating diet (mostly meat eating) to
bravery. Sir William gives his explanation for the differences between the
ancient warlike inhabitants of Holland and the people living there in his day:

That not only the long disuse of Arms among the Native Hollanders, (espe-
cially atLand,) and making use of other Nations, chiefly in their Milice; But
the Arts of Trade, as well as Peace, and their great Parsimony in Diet, and eating
so very little Flesh (which the common people seldom do, above once a week,)

may have helpt to debase much the ancient valour of the Nation, at least, in
the occasions of Service at Land.'''^

Temple, who was on the side of the ancients in the quarrel over the ancients
and the moderns, was also interested in broader questions of the nature of
civiHzation, the geographic march of history, and environmental conditions
favorable to the arts and sciences. To him, one civilization is built on its
predecessors, an interpretation often more in accordance with modern find-
ings than many nineteenth century views which, hampered by the rudi-
mentary advances in archaeological discovery, often saw, as they did with
classical Greece and the Renaissance, a sudden efflorescence based on favor-
able environmental conditions.
Temple was impressed, too, with the creative accomplishments of the East-
ern regions, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, Chaldea, Persia, Syria, Judea, Arabia, and
India. Greek learning, he said, came originally from Egypt or Phoenicia,
whose flourishing civilizations may have owed much to the Ethiopians, Chal-
deans, Arabians, and Indians. Behind the philosophy of Pythagoras and nour-
ishing it were Memphis, Thebes, Hehopolis, Babylon, and his
his stays in
travels to Ethiopia, Arabia, India, Crete, Delphos {sic). Democritus' philos-
ophy may have come from his travels in Egypt, Chaldea, India, that of Spar-
tan Lycurgus from antecedent civilizations which in turn enjoyed favorable

Ibid., pp. 97-102, quote on p. 102.

Ibid., pp. 106-108, quotes on pp. 105, 106.
"^^Ibid., pp. 111-112; Du Bos, op. cit.. Vol. 2, pp. 288-289.
456 Early Modern Environmental Theories
environmental conditions that encouraged high culture unless a catastrophic
conquest or invasion had taken place.

Besides, I know no Circumstances like to contribute more to the Advance-

ment of Knowledge and Learning among Men, than exact temperance in their
and equality of climate, long tranquillity of empire
races, great pureness of air,
or government: and all these we may justly allow to those eastern regions, more
than any others we are acquainted with, at least till the conquests made by the
Tartars, upon both India and China, in the latter Centuries.

It is as pardonable, he adds, "to derive some parts of learning from thence" as

it is to accept the Indian origin of chess.^^

lo. On Melancholy
These newer enthusiasms for views, prospects, and changes of air emerge
from old theory, but they also have a freshness that comes from alertness to
contemporary life; perhaps Barclay and Burton are the finest examples of the
genre at this time.
In many periods certain works acquire a character transcending their own
subject matter; their breadth and depth of learning make them repositories
of ideas. In our own day, Toynbee'sA Study of History is certainly such a
work; were
so in other eras Cicero's O72 the Nature of the Gods, Hakewill's
Apologie, and Pope's Essay on Man. Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy
belongs in this class because of its massive learning and his deep knowledge of
classical thought and of the continental and English writings of his own time.

On environmental matters, he depends greatly on Bodin and Botero. Burton

confessed to a love for cosmography, and many of his pages bear witness to it,
including the introduction, and two remarkable essays, "Bad Air a Cause
of Melancholy" and "Air Rectified. With a Digression of the Air."*^^
Since melancholy is widely diffused in time and space and since Burton is
a very thorough man with awesome erudition (even the most casual reader
soon discovers this) it is easy to see how such an anatomy could require almost
a thousand pages. Questions concerning the environment arise because the
book is a discourse on certain mental states especially melancholy; it therefore
becomes involved with such topics as the relation of the body to the mind, the
effect of airs and waters on melancholy and its dissipation, on the disposition
in general, and the effect of a change in air and of views. With Alberti, Pius
II, and Barclay he is one of the few early writers known to me who dwell on

the beauty and stimulation of a view. The parts of the work devoted to airs

^2 "An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning," in The Works of Sir William
Temple, Bart, new ed. (1814), Vol. 3, pp. 446-459; quote on p. 458.
Part. I, sect. 2, memb. 2, sub. 5; Part. 2, sect. 2, memb. 3. Burton divides his work
into partitions, sections, members, and subsections. See the valuable index and biograph-
ical and bibliographical dictionary in the Dell Jordan-Smith edition of the Anatomy of
Melan.
 Early Modern Environmental Theories 457

and waters are particularly interesting because they are based on contempo-
rary and on classical medicine, particularly Hippocrates and Galen.
Because the history of environmental theories is so closely related to the
history of medicine, much attention has been given by writers on these sub-
jects to water, running and still. Burton writes vividly about stagnant waters
and their dangers.

Standing waters, thick and ill coloured, such as come forth of pools and moats,
where hemp hath been steeped, or slimy fishes live, are most unwholesome,
putrefied, of mites, creepers, slimy, muddy, unclean, corrupt, impure,
and full
by reason of the sun's heat, and still standing. They cause foul distemperatures
in the body and mind of man, are unfit to make drink of, to dress meat with,
or to be used about men inwardly or outwardly. They are good for many
domestical uses, to wash horses, water cattle, &c., or in time of necessity, but not
otherwise.^*

Sooner or any study of melancholy, food has to be considered; in

later in
his discussion of bad diet as a cause of melancholy. Burton remarks on the in-
fluence of custom on diet; he makes comparisons taken from Bodin between
the diet of peoples of the north and south and their basis in climate. Lemnius,
a Dutch physician and theologian of the sixteenth century and author of sev-

eral books on medicine, he says, "reckons up two main things most profitable
and most pernicious to our bodies; air and diet. ." Examples are given of the
. .

efFects of madness from exposure in hot places, but he has also read Acosta's
description of temperate equatorial lands under the equator.^^ He mentions
the bad air of notoriously unhealthy places— Alexandretta, the port of Saint
John de Ullua in New Spain, Durazzo, the Pontine Marshes, Romney Marsh
—but there is no blind resignation to environmental factors, for men also
"through their own nastiness and sluttishness, immund and sordid manner of
life," allow their air to putrefy.*^^ All this is based on the theory of the humors;

Burton's exposition comes from Andreas Laurentius, a writer on anatomical

subjects "out of Hippocrates.""^^
"The body is the home of the soul, her house, abode, and stay." Mental
states are derived from physical; ". . . or as wine savours of the cask wherein
it is from the body through which it works.
kept, the soul receives a tincture
We men, children, Europeans, Asians, hot and cold climes.
see this in old
Sanguine are merry. Melancholy sad, Phlegmatick dull, by reason of abun-
dance of those humors, and they cannot resist such passions which are inflicted
by them."^«
This deeply learned man, who had never traveled, revealed his obvious
wanderlust in a love of reading travel books. There is very little determinism

'^^Ibid.^ Part, i, sect. 2, memb. 2, subs, i, p. 195.

^5 Ibid.^ subs.
5, pp. 206-207.
Ibid.^ p. 209.
"^"^
Ibid., sect, i, memb. 2, subs. 2, pp. 128-129. See also "Laurentius," p. 1016.
'^^Ibid., sect. 2, memb. 5, subs, i, p. 319.
458 Early Modern Environynental Theories
despite his reliance— and that of the physicians of his age— on the medical
heritage of antiquity. In his imaginary travels, he will look into many prob-
lems of physical geography himself."^^ Whence come different customs and
the variety of life, the differences in distribution of plants and animals be-
tween the old world and the new? There is no better physic than a change of
air.

For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety,
that some count him unhappy that never travelled, a kind of prisoner, and pity
his case that from his cradle to his old age he holds the same still; still, still the
same, the same: insomuch that Rhasis doeth not only commend but enjoin travel,
and such variety of objects to a melancholy man, and to lie in diverse Inns, to
be drawn in to several companies.

He admires views and prospects and seascapes, and every country had them:
the view from "that old decayed castle in Corinth" from which one can see
the Peloponnesus, Greece, and the Ionian and Aegean seas, from the square
top of the great pyramid over the Nile Valley, from the sultan's palace in
Cairo, from Mt. Zion in Jerusalem; he agrees with Barclay that the view from
the Greenwich Tower is one of the best prospects in Europe.^^
In the long member on love and love melancholy, he sees a relation of site
or place to love. "The place itself makes much wherein we live, the clime, air,
and discipline if they concur." He cites Galen's remark that there are scarcely
any adulterers in Mysia, but many in Rome because of its delights, and Strabo
on Corinth which with all its plenty could entertain foreigners; it had a thou-
sand whores. "All nations resorted thither as to a school of Venus." He fol-
lows Bodin in the relation of climate to sexual desire. The fruits of the Nea-
politan soil, the pleasant air, enervate the bodies and alter constitutions, Florus

calling it a contest of Bacchus and Venus, Fohet admiring it.^^

1 1 . Conclusion

By the latter part of the seventeenth century, a learned and critical thinker
like Fontenelle could see that climate did not have the same influence on all

forms of and that human society was far more complex than many had
life

thought. "It certain, at least that, because of the connection and inter-de-
is

pendence existing between all parts of the material world, the differences in
climate which affect plants must needs influence brains also." With brains,
however, the influence is more remote, for one must take into account the in-
fluence of "art and culture." Fontenelle's position is similar to that of Polyb-
ius. The differences originally determined by cHmate can be altered by cul-

tural influences: "As a consequence of the ease with which minds influence

'^^Ibid.^ Part. 2, sect. 2, memb. 3, pp. 407-415.

Ibid., pp. 437-438. Quotation on p. 437.
Ibid., Part. 3, sect. 2, memb. 2, subs, i, p. 661.
 Early Modern Enviromnental Theories 459

one another it comes about that peoples do not retain the original mental
characteristics which they would naturally derive from their respective
climates." Fontenelle in effect ignores the influence of climate because climates
apparently have advantages and disadvantages which offset one another.
In a few short paragraphs, he dismisses the notion of the force of nature
being superior in ancient times, distinguishes between environmental influ-
ences affecting the plant world and man, and calls on men to study their own
minds and customs, not cHmate, in order to explain similarities and differences
among peoples. "The reading of Greek books produces in us much the same
effect as if we intermarried solely with Greeks."^^
The design argument, as we have seen and will see in many other connec-
tions, is hospitable to a wide variety of ideas, for it is human beings who are
discovering the design, who thereafter are following in the footsteps of the
Creator, and any subordinate pattern corresponding with the real or supposed
facts can be included. If it is true that Providence had predetermined a place
for everyone under the sun, establishing the racial, physical, and cultural
differences among people living in different parts of the world, it is also true
that the Creator had so designed man that he could endure extremes of tem-
perature, accommodate himself to miscellaneous discomforts, move contin-
ually from one place to another, as Du Bartas had said. This type of thinking
emphasizing man's adaptive quahties presupposed that the whole earth is in-
tended for his habitat; hence human migration. It presupposes also a plasticity
and human nature. An eloquent and colorful expression of
a malleability in
this thought was written by P. Jean Frangois in his La Science des eaux (1655),

but it expressed a point of view held even earlier than his time. Of man,
Frangois wrote:

He lives with the lions in the extreme heat of the Torrid Zone and with
bears in the frozen wastes of the Cold Zone; he roams in the forests of America
with the moose, and hides underground and in caves in the province of Paraguay,
and lives on the water in many parts of China. In Martinique, he feeds on lizards,
in upper Egypt on the locusts which he has collected and salted, in the island of
Java on snakes and rats. ... In short, the varieties of air, water, and earth, and
of the products growing on them is so great on the terrestrial sphere that animals
and plants are unable to tolerate them and to live. Only man lives and adapts
himself everywhere.^^

How is one to interpret the melange of ideas— simple in conception and un-
certainly applied— which appears in this period? There are different possi-

^2 Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, "Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes,"

(1688) Oeuvres\ quotations are from the translation of Leona M. Fassett in the selection
from Fontenelle's "On the Ancients and Moderns," in Teggart and Hildebrand, The
Idea of Progress, pp. 176-178.
83 I have been unable to consult Frangois' rare and little-known work. I am indebted

for this discussion to Dainville, La Geographic des Humanistes, pp. 276-303, my trans-
lation being from Francois' preface quoted on p. 316.
 .

460 Early Modern Environmental Theories

they could be blended in with astrological ethnology, they could be
bilities:

used simply by themselves, they could be subordinated to the idea of design,

and finally they could embody the idea of adaption imposed upon mankind as
a consequence of its worldwide dispersion.
With the passage of time, astrological ethnology begins to slip away in the
night, but the environmental correlations and generalizations live a hardy life

allthrough the eighteenth century.

Respect for Hippocrates and Galen continues, but they seem now more
and more like consultants than like fountainheads of knowledge because there
is contemporary observation and study of climate, health, men-
a great deal of
tal and physical states, as one can see so well in The Anatomy of Melancholy

Opposed to them is the increasing awareness of other influences and an aware-

ness that the distribution of mankind is evidence of creativity and adaptability
of a high order, as Francois had hinted.
Fontenelle balks at applying the same environmental criteria to men as he
applies to plants and animals. A clustering of ability or talent at certain periods
is noticed, an observation which challenges by implication the uniformity of

climatic influences through time. Abbe du Bos in the eighteenth century, as

we shall see, considered this problem at length. There is an increasing interest
in national character. Temple's ideas of the importance of borrowing, whether
by individuals or by civilizations, suggest the role of imitation and copying,
of the cultural miheu. Environmental theories become more secular, they are
less tied to the design argument, and they are used as explanations of religious

schism. Finally, with Alberti, Barclay, and Burton, the appreciation of the air
of a place, of a change of air, of the effects of views, prospects, seascapes, hint
at the study of the aspects of nature that is to come.
Ideas of environmental influence which appeared in our period were signif-
icant largely because of their volume and because of the variety of uses to
which they were put; it is useless to claim that they contributed anything to
understanding the relation of human cultures and their natural environment.
It is very well to say that the climatic correlations, capricious and foolish as

they were, stimulated study of regions and led to a realization of cultural

differences. These differences had been understood, however, for a long time.
The way to creative understanding did not He through Bodin; a more open
way was through the ideas of Acosta and Francois. The study of the classics,
the reading of travels in the New World and in the Old failed to achieve a
new departure which would make the most of the implications of the new
discoveries: that traces of living men could be found almost everywhere in
the world, that movement, migration, war, invasion, had been a large part of
human history, that men lived and survived in a bewildering variety of condi-
tions in widely different physical environments, and that they used their
land, too, in widely different ways.
 Growing Consciousness
of the Control of Nature

I . Introduction

Men have long been aware of their abiHty to change their physical environ-
ment, but only a few have regarded these changes as part of a broader philo-
sophical, religious, or scientific attitude concerning man's place in nature. I

am not referring to the theme of man's control over nature through the appli-
cation of theoretical science to applied science and technology, nor to techni-
cal improvements and inventions made by artisans which lead to new and
purposeful uses of and demands on natural resources. However, these general
themes cannot be neglected, because of the newer philosophic outlook of the
modern period toward the improvement of life and the importance of prac-
tical activity, especially in the philosophy of Francis Bacon. The theme of

man and his works, has, however, been

man's control over nature, flattering to
concerned only casually with the theme of man as a geographic agent, in
which changes have been apprehended from the point of view of their effects
462 Control of Nature

on the earth and not as evidences of purposeful mastery over environmental

obstacles.
The idea of man as a is a modern one even
geologic or geographic agent
though its sources lie which differed little from those made
in observations
frequently in the Middle Ages, of changes which could easily be made in a
preindustrial age: the clearing of trees; the burning of forests or using them
for grazing or for charcoal making; drainage of bogs and swamps; the heating
of cities whose chimneys made the urban atmosphere warmer than that of
the countryside; agriculture; and occupations in which the ax, the plow, or
fire might be used. These activities had been going on from time immemorial,

but one must look to the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for the be-
ginnings of bolder syntheses. The stimulus for this came in part from successes
in agriculture, drainage, engineering, and other occupations often directly
concerned with the land, whose change in the land
activities resulted either in

itself or in its geographical relationship to another piece of land.^ Scattered

here and there in this period are isolated notices of subjects which today have
become organized bodies of knowledge: air pollution, soil erosion, fertilizers,

forestry, climatic change, ecology. It is and

possible that these observations,
many them unrecorded, were so commonplace that they were common
like
knowledge from which more philosophic generalizations could later emerge.
In the eighteenth century, this was a significant achievement of Count BufTon.

2. Renaissance Philosophies of Technology

In the Renaissance and in writings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

there is a continuation of two different outlooks: one which comes out of
theoretical science, theology, or philosophy and emphasizes man's role in
changing or controlling nature as the expected function of his position in the
scale of being and of his unique ability through his intelligence to interpret
the significance of the creation. Examples of this type are in the writings of
Ficino, Paracelsus, and Francis Bacon. The other outlook has a much less
exalted origin, often being derived from everyday observations without philos-
ophizing or morahzing. These often have been made almost as asides in dis-
cussions of techniques in mining, forestry, irrigation, or engineering; they
may appear in law or legislative history, or from the practical needs of state-
craft.
Let us examine some of these points of view in the Renaissance; they are
indicative more of the possibility of making such observations than they are
of any purposive scientific or philosophic inquiry into the relationship of
human society to environmental change.

^ See especially A History of Technology, Vol. 3, ed. Singer, et al., pp. 12-13, chapters
2, 3, 12, 17, 25.
 Control of Nature 463

The third sign of immortahty, says Marsilio Ficino in the Platonic Theol-
ogy, is taken from the activities of the arts and of government. In this v^ork
the hymn to man may be too fervid, the behef in final causes too unyielding,
but it also is a refreshing affirmation of the creativity of man after the baleful
castigation that mars so much of Christian theology— that man is unworthy,
cursed, full of sin.
Man, Ficino says, is much freer than are the animals which either lack art
entirely or have only one and do what they do fatalistically. Men not only in-
vent—they improve on their inventions. Man "imitates all the works of the
divine nature, and perfects, corrects and improves the works of lower nature.
Therefore the power of man is almost similar to that of the divine nature, for
man acts in this way through himself."^ Man is not only creative; he also binds
the parts of nature together by his art. He is a transformer of materials, a user
of all the elements. "Man not only makes use of the elements, but also adorns
them, a thing which no animal ever does. How wonderful is the cultivation of
the soil all over the earth, how marvelous the construction of buildings and
cities, how skillful the control of the waterways!" It reminds one of Cicero
and the lyrical passages of St. Augustine. "Man is really the vicar of God,
since he inhabits and cultivates all elements and is present on earth without
being absent from the ether." He uses and rules the animals, which despite
their natural gifts of self-protection fight a losing battle with him. In a passage
strongly reminiscent of Philo's remarks (On the Creation, 84-85) which al-

ready have been quoted, Ficino asks,

Who has ever seen any human beings kept under the control of animals, in
such a way as we see everywhere herds of both wild and domesticated animals
obeying men throughout their lives? Man not only rules the animals by force,
he also governs, keeps and teaches them. Universal providence belongs to God,
who is the universal cause. Hence man who provides generally for all things,
both living and lifeless, is a kind of god.^

The more one studies the early history of the idea of man as a controller of
nature, the more one is struck with the depth of this awareness of power, par-
ticularly over the larger animals. Historically, these broader conclusions based
on successes and animal domestication have been of the utmost im-
in plant
portance in shaping attitudes toward other forms of life. Ficino's interpreta-
tion of man's part in modifying the earth differs also from the religious inter-
pretation which came from the monastic orders, especially in the Middle
Ages. With the monks, clearing, the establishment of monasteries, and con-
versions are but different aspects of one activity, the founding of the kingdom
of Christ on earth. Ficino's emphasis is different: those qualities which enable

2 Marsilio Ficino, Platonic Theology, Bk. XIII, chap. 3, selections trans. Josephine L.
Burroughs, /H/, Vol. 5 (1944), pp. 227-239.
^ Ibid., 234.
p.
464 Control of Nature

man to do what he does, to make the changes of the earth he is capable of mak-
ing, and to force the lower orders of life to do his bidding are those qualities
which bring him closest to the divine and which mark him off most decisively
from all other kinds of life. The conclusion is irresistible that it is the unique-
ness of man that enables him to perform the wonders he does perform.
Although it is difficult to see any marked change in the ideas being discussed
from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, nevertheless in the latter period, if
one is to judge from the writings of men like Leonardo, Paracelsus, Agricola,
and Palissy, there is a more self-conscious and self-confident attitude toward
artisanship, invention, and technology. Basically this awareness is an enlarge-
ment of the observation that through human agency things existing in one
form in nature are transformed into another form inconceivable without the
intervention of man. Man is not a creator of raw materials— God is; but man
is a powerful transformer; this, as we shall see, is a leading idea of Paracelsus.

There is little doubt of this growing self-consciousness in the Renaissance

regarding the power of man to transform not only the elements but the land-
scape. The interest in the things of this world was greater than in the Middle
Ages; the rediscovery of the Hterature of classical antiquity included the
technical literature such as Vitruvius' work
and the technology of the
as well,
Middle Ages could be improved and built upon. "Technical achievement re-
ceived special stimulus during the Renaissance period from greater general
preoccupation with active life and from the increased desire of many a far-
seeing craftsman for intellectual enlightenment and a scientific foundation for
his customary rule-of-thumb manual work."^
In technical writings on architecture, mining, canal building, and metal-
lurgy one often finds comments concerned with the broader implications of
transformations being made or of the planning that brings them about. Thus
Leon Battista Alberti's broad conception of the nature of an architect's duties
was based not only on science as he knew it, but on a philosophy of man,
human aspirations stimulating activities which lead to planning and to chang-
ing the landscape. Alberti is quite conscious ofhuman ability— it shows itself
in the long history of artisanship and invention. He observes that one can
beautify nature, including in the adornment the surviving relics of the Italian
past. He is well aware too of the role of plant introductions in the aesthetic
and economic life of a country.^

Why should I insist on the great plenty of Waters brought from the most
remote and hidden Places, and employed to so many different and useful Pur-
poses? Upon Trophies, Tabernacles, sacred Edifices, Churches and the like,
adapted to divine Worship and the Service of Posterity? Or lastly, why should
I mention the Rocks cut, Mountains bored through, Vallies filled up. Lakes

confined, Marshes discharged into the Sea, Ships built, Rivers turned, their

^Klemm, A History of Western Technology, p. iii.

5 Ten Books on Architecture, trans. Leoni, Bk. VI, chap.
4.
 Control of Nature 465

Mouths cleared, Bridges laid over them, Harbours formed, not only serving to
Men's immediate Conveniences, but also opening them a way to all Parts of the
World.6

Leonardo da Vinci was also interested in technology and planning and

their relation to the physical environment. A man who could say, "Every
large river may be led up the highest mountains on the principle of the siphon,"
showed that he understood the relationship of physical theory to applied
technology through a middle term of resolute human activity/ In a country
with a long tradition of land reclamation, river control, and canal construc-
tion, it is not surprising that Leonardo, a canal builder, would often see that
the ability of man to environment was related to water and its con-
change his

trol. Rivers, he said, deposit more soil when they are near populated districts.

Because the mountains and hills are cultivated, the rains can wash away the
loose soil much more easily than they can a hard ground covered with weeds.
Leonardo observed the erosive power of water and its role as a leveling agent.
"The water wears away the mountains and fills up the valleys, and if it had
the power it would reduce the earth to a perfect sphere." Later, applying this
principle, he proposes the purposeful use of running water to fill up the
marshes with the soil of mountains, thus purifying the air as well.^
One finds in Leonardo what one finds also in Paracelsus, Palissy, Agricola,
and Bacon, an admiration for the inventor and experimenter, the skilled of
hand, and a contempt for the pretensions of authority: "If indeed I have no
power to quote from authors as they have, it is a far bigger and more worthy
thing to read by the light of experience, which is the instructress of their mas-
ters. They strut about puffed up and pompous, decked out and adorned not
own
with their labours but by those of others, and they will not even allow
me my own."^
Another attempt, broad and philosophic in scope like Ficino's and Francis
Bacon's, to interpret intelligent and creative man— in his ordinary daily activi-
ties, in health and work with tools which changed his surround-
illness, in the
ings—as a vital part of the cosmos, was made by the celebrated physician and
student of alchemy and natural history, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohen-
heim (Paracelsus). Paracelsus considers a problem which Bacon, steeped in
star lore and in the teaching of Romans 1:20, will also consider, of a unified
conception of man, coming from three different strands of thought: The cre-
ation of man as an event in God's six days' work, the effects of the curse on
man, and the relation of these two events to human creativity.
Paracelsus solves the first problem by using the ancient idea of the macro-
cosm, the whole universe, and the microcosm, man, who has the same elements

^ Ibid., p. X. Quoted in Klemm, op. cit., pp. 112-113.

^ The Notebooks Leonardo da Vinci, ed. MacCurdy,
of p. 775.
^ Ibid., p. 310, quote on p. 31 7, and p. 322.
^Ibtd., p. 57.
466 Control of Nature

within him but in different forms and who way, the pro-
reflects, in a small

cesses characteristic of the whole. In creating man, the microcosm, God plans
that he shall collaborate in the creation, and alchemy becomes a technique, a
method, a philosophy of change and transformation all in one, whose purpose
it is to put the finishing touches on a nature uncompleted at the creation.

The solution to the second problem is breathtaking and bold, and quite out
of keeping with the traditionally gloomy and pessimistic interpretations of the
Fall. During the six days' work all matter was created, but art, that is, artisan-

ship and craft and the "light of nature," was not. This celebrated phrase of
Paracelsus, when applied to man, meant his creative faculty. Man did not
possess this light of nature at the creation; it was bestowed upon him when
Adam was driven from Paradise, man being commanded to work with his
hands, woman to bring forth children in sorrow. Adam and Eve, who in
Paradise resembled heavenly creatures, now become earthly. Since Paracelsus
obviously beHeves that necessity is the mother of invention, "Eve was taught

to bring up her and thus cradles and nursing came into being." As
children,
a creature of earth, man required a reason and an understanding of which he
had no need as a heavenly creature living in Paradise. When man was expelled
from Eden, he received from the angels their knowledge but not all knowl-
edge. Henceforth man also had to ferret out the secrets of nature by craft.
"For he and his children must learn one thing after another in the Hght of
Nature, in order to bring to light that which lies hidden in all things. For al-
though man was created whole as regards his body, he was not so created as
regards his 'art.' All the arts have been given him, but not in an immediately
recognizable form; he must discover them."^^
Furthermore, it is God's will that we do more than accept nature as we find
it. We must "investigate and learn why it has been created. Then we can ex-
plore and fathom the use of wool on the sheep and of the bristles on the sow's
back; so we can place each thing where it belongeth, and can cook raw food
so that it tasteth good in the mouth, and can build for ourselves winter apart-
."^^
ments and roofs against the rain. . .

All things on earth have been given into the hands of man "in order that he
may bring them to the highest development, just as the earth does with all that
it brings forth." This task means striving, exploration, and inquiry; man has

the obligation to improve upon what has been given him. Consistent with his
belief that necessity is the mother of invention and that created things exist to
entice man into activity, Paracelsus says that because created things are made
for man, he needs them and must explore everything in the creation. In Para-

Paracelsus, Selected Writings, pp. 176-177. From "Das Buch Paragranum," in

Paracelsus Samtliche Werke, ed. SudhofT and Alatthiessen, Pt. Vol. 8, pp. 290-292.
I,

Quoted in Klemm, op. cit., p. 144; I am indebted to this work for the references to P.
11 "Die Biicher von den unsichtbaren Krankheiten,"
1531-1532, Sudhoff, Vol. 9;
Klemm, p. 144.
 Control of Nature 467

celsus' philosophy, man is restless, world being

curious, active, his status in the
determined by a God whose must be discovered.
secrets are not visible but
"It is not God's will that His secrets should be visible; it is His will that they
become manifest and knowable through the works of man who has been
created in order to make them visible." God is revealed in his works; so is
man; hence, the need for man to work continually to discover God's gifts to
him.^2
This introduces the third point and leads to an examination of the nature of
human art and creativity, especially as they bear on technology and toolmak-
ing, the means by which man can transform nature. Paracelsus' answers are
reminiscent of the fire and the smoke of the foundry, the clank and the bustle
of the mines, and redolent with the wood and the shavings of the carpenter's
shop, with which he, in his journeys, was quite familiar. Paracelsus believed
what was written in the Bible, that everything was created from nothing; but
the creation, even if entirely accomplished,was not entirely completed. He
believed that the earth was created for man, that it surrounded him as the
flesh of the apple surrounds its core with its seeds. The completion of the cre-
ation is therefore envisaged anthropocentrically: everything was created ex
7iihilo but not in the form in which it is used by man. The necessary completion
of the creation accomplished by fire and its master, Vulcan. "God hath
is

created iron, but not that which can be made from it, not rust or iron bars or
sickles; only iron ore, and as ore he giveth it to us. The rest he commandeth
to Fire,and to Vulcan, the master of Fire. It followeth that iron itself is sub-
ject to Vulcan, and so is the craft thereof." Fire is the powerful agent of
change whether one is smelting ore or baking bread. Neither does God create
medicines in completed form: it is fire which separates the medicine from the
dross.
Thus alchemy, most frequently through the use of fire, is a human creation,
an art, a means of completing the creation. The alchemist is identical with
the artisan. "Thus there are alchemists of wood, such as carpenters who pre-
pare the wood that it may become a house; also the woodcarvers who make
of the wood something quite alien to it, and thus is a picture formed from it."
God creates nothing to perfection, but he commands Vulcan to complete the
process: "Bread is created and bestowed on us by God; but not as it cometh
from the baker; but the three vulcans, the cultivator, the miller and the baker
make of it bread."^^ He has in mind the Greek conception of Hephaestus as a
craftsman's god, as a divine craftsman. In these lines Paracelsus not only ex-
presses his philosophy of alchemy but shows his affinity with the age-old no-

Paracelsus, pp. 182-184; Lebendiges Erbe, pp. 113-116; SudhofT, Pt. I, Vol. 7, pp.
264-265; Vol. 14, pp. 1 1 6-1 17; Vol. 12, pp. 59-60.
^3 "Labyrinthus Medicorum errantium," 1537-38, in The Hermetical and Alchemical

Writings of Paracelsus, trans. Waite; Paracelsus. Selected Writings, p. 185; Klemm, p.

145. See Jacobi, ed., Theophrastus Paracelsus, Lebendiges Erbe (Zurich and Leipzig,
468 Control of Nature

tions of man as a doer, maker, finisher, expressed, as we have seen, in the Stoic
and Hermetical writings.
Like Paracelsus, Georgius Agricola (George Bauer) thought that manual
work was more than ordinary daily activity, that it was embodied in a philoso-
phy as well; he "was another of those truly versatile men of the Renaissance
who combined with humanist learning a mind directed to the contemplation
of Nature and also to practical technological activity."^^ Of special interest to
our theme is Agricola's defense of mining, which, he insists, requires great
skill not only in the craft itself but in prospecting for ores. It is an error to

emphasize its temporary nature, he says, citing examples of mines whose ores
are unexhausted after hundreds of years, in contrast with the permanence of
agriculture. The real problems of health and safety in mines cannot be met by
advocating the abolition of mining because it is dangerous. He is particularly
severe on the opinion that mining is useless because metals perform no funda-
mental service either to the soul or to the body of man.
Agricola scarcely dignifies with a reply a teleological argument that if it
had been nature's design to make the products of mines available to man, the
ores would have been close to the surface. He scorns the notion that the earth
hides nothing, keeps nothing, conceals nothing that is useful or necessary to
man, but "like a beneficent and kindly mother she yields in large abundance
from her bounty and brings into the light of day the herbs, vegetables, grains,
and fruits, and the trees."^^ Because minerals, on the other hand, lie deeply
buried it cannot be argued that they should not be sought after.
In another important passage Agricola denounces the belief— apparently
widely held in his time— that mining is a destroyer of nature. The strongest
argument

of the detractors [of mining] is that the fields are devastated by mining opera-
tions, for which reason formerly Italians were warned by law that no one
should dig the earth for metals and so injure their very fertile fields, their vine-
yards, and their olive groves. Also they argue that the woods and groves are cut
down, for there is need of an endless amount of wood for timbers, machines,
and the smelting of metals. And when the woods and groves are felled, then
are exterminated the beasts and birds, very many of which furnish a pleasant
and agreeable food for man. Further, when the ores are washed, the water
which has been used poisons the brooks and streams, and either destroys the
fish or drives them away. Therefore the inhabitants of these regions, on account
of the devastation of their fields, woods, groves, brooks and rivers, find great
difficulty in procuring the necessaries of life, and by reason of the destruction

1942), and Paracelsus. Selected Wriwigs, Eng. trans. Guterman, for many selections
from Paracelsus on a wide varietv of topics; both have a valuable glossary of terms used
by P.
i^Klemm, op. cit., p. 145.
^5 De re metallica, Bk. I, Hoover trans, p. 7.
 Control of Nature 469
of the timber they are forced to greater expense in erecting buildings. Thus it
issaid, it is clear to all that there is greater detriment from mining than the
value of the metals which the mining produces.^^

To these arguments Agricola made two

one touching upon the
replies,

specific abuses mentioned, the other raising the broader philosophical issue of
the usefulness of metals to man.
Miners do slight damage if any to the fields, Agricola said, because they dig
in otherwise unproductive mountains or in gloomy valleys. Cleared areas, with
the roots of shrubs and trees removed, may be planted in grain, the bountiful
crops of the new fields compensating for losses suffered because of higher
timber prices. Birds, edible beasts, and fish furthermore can be purchased and
stocked in these mountainous regions with the profits from the metal industry.
To all the more general objections to mining (including the one that metals,
especially the nobler and the more valuable, are corrupters of mankind) Agric-
ola replies simply that civilization cannot exist without metals. None of the
arts is older than agriculture, but the metal arts "are at least equal or coeval,
for no mortal man ever tilled a field without implements."^'^ Even though he
respects the honesty, innocence, and goodness of men who despise metals for
the corruption and calamities they have brought upon the human race, to him
they are putting the blame in the wrong place. War
cannot be blamed on the
metals; lacking iron or bronze, men would fight with their hands. Agricola
insistson blaming human nature, not advances in metallurgy, for slaughter,
robbery, and war. To speak ill of metals is to accuse and condemn as wicked
the Creator himself, for by the condemnation of these, men assume that the
Creator fashioned something in vain and without good cause. Pious and sen-
sible men cannot conceive of the Creator being the author of evils.^^

Metals are not concealed in the earth to prevent man from getting at them,
"but because provident and sagacious Nature has appointed for each thing
its place." He ridicules the argument that the metals were concealed because
they were not intended for use by pointing out that man, a terrestrial animal,
goes into the depths of the sea to fish and it is stranger for man to search the
sea than to search thebowels of the earth. Moreover, birds live in the air, fish,
in water, other creatures have the earth, particularly man, so that "he might
cultivate it and draw out of its caverns metals and other mineral products."
Agricola gives a lengthy list of the uses of metals in various occupations where
they are needed directly, or indirectly through metal-made tools to perform
the required tasks. "If we remove metals from the service of man,
all methods

of protecting and sustaining health and more carefully preserving the course
of hfe are done away with." Without them Agricola thinks men could only

16 Ibid.,
p. 8.
I''
Ibid., Pref p. xxv.
^^Ibid., Bk. I, pp. 11-12.
470 Control of Nature

live lives like those of wild beasts. Men should not try to degrade the metals;
as a creation of nature they supply human needs of man, both adorning man
and being useful to him/^
In The Admirable Discourses (1580), Bernard Palissy expressed a similar
philosophy, that once the truth about nature has been discovered men should
do what is necessary to profit from the discovery. Contemptuously disclaim-
ing any knowledge of the classical languages, Palissy scorned also those who
were more interested in written authority than in observation. His attitude
toward authority was similar to Leonardo's.

Once I knew without any doubt that the waters of natural fountains were
caused and produced by rains, I have thought that it was stupid for those who
possess lands barren of water not to learn ways of making fountains, seeing
that God sends waters on sandy lands as well as on others, and that it takes very
little science to know how to catch it. If the ancients had not otherwise studied

the works of God, they would have lived on the pasturage of animals, they
would only have taken the fruits of the fields as they came, without work: but
they wisely decided to plant, sow and cultivate, to aid nature. That is why the
first inventors of some good thing, to help nature, have been so honored by our
predecessors, that they have thought them to be participants in the spirit of
God. [God] wishes us to work to help nature. .^^ . .

Knowledge of the care of nature comes also through observation of its pro-
cesses. In theDialogue on Waters and Fountains, Theory asks if the trees
along the mountain that he wishes to use for a park should be cut down.

Good Lord, no! don't do that: for these trees will be very useful to you in
this matter. There are in many parts of France, and particularly at Nantes,
wooden bridges, where, to break the violence of water and ice against the
pillars of these bridges, great quantities of upright posts have been placed in
front of the pillars, for otherwise they would not last long. In the same way,
trees planted along the mountain, where you wish to make your park, will serve
much to reduce the violence of the waters, and far from advising you to cut
them down, I would advise you to plant some if there were none: for they
would serve to prevent the waters from excavating the ground, and by such
means grass will be preserved, and along this grass the waters will flow quietly
straight down to your reservoir.^^

Alberti, Leonardo, Paracelsus, Agricola,and Pahssy all lived during the

and sixteenth centuries, and they lived in widely scattered places.
fifteenth
They were all unusual men; one of them, Leonardo, was a genius; the others

^^Ibid., pp. 12, 14, 18.

20 The Admirable Discourses, pp. 58-59. Palissy here expounds his theory of the origin
of springs and fountains in rainwater, but see p. 1 3 on the question of Palissy's originality.
On his attitude toward authority see La Rocque's introduction to his trans, of the dis-
courses.
^^Ibid., p. 63. See also his discussion of the multiple uses of land made possible by
careful planning, p. 67, and of the importance of wood, pp. 71-72. "If I wanted to put
in writing how great is the necessity of wood, and how impossible it is to do without
it, I should never be finished" (p. 72).
 Control of Nature 471

were men of great talent. They all had in common an interest in technology,
in artisanship, and in environmental change. They have, moreover, a kinship
with the political theorist Giovanni Botero, who advised princes to concern
themselves with improving their kingdoms through drainage or clearing; they
also have a kinship with Albrecht Diirer, who, hke Leonardo an artist, engi-
neer, and artisan, was interested in improving artisanship by more exacting
scientific and mathematical methods.^^

3. Francis Bacon

Broadly speaking, there was a growing optimism throughout the seventeenth

and eighteenth centuries that man's accumulating knowledge was increasing
his control over nature. There were dissenters who still saw in classical antiq-
uity an early apogee of human accomphshment, or who believed in a senes-
cence in nature or that the curse on man was accompanied by a curse on na-
ture as well. The optimistic trend, however, can be observed in Agricola, in
Paracelsus, and in Francis Bacon whose name is associated with the early his-
tory of the scientific method, with speculation on the application of theoret-
ical science to applied scienceand technology, and with the broad question of
man's control over nature. Bacon has much of interest to say on this last theme,
some that is reminiscent of medieval thought, some that resembles the thought
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.^^
In his plea for an understanding of nature (he uses this word synonymously
with the creation), Bacon warns that men should reahze they are dealing with
a creation of God, not a construct of the human mind.
For we copy the sin of our first parents while we suffer for it. They wished to be
like God, but their posterity wish to be even greater. For we create worlds, we
direct and domineer over nature, we will have it that all things are as in our
folly we think they should be, not as seems fittest to the Divine wisdom, or as
they are found to be in fact; and I know not whether we more distort the facts of
nature or our own wits; but we clearly impress the stamp of our own image on
the creatures and works of God, instead of carefully examining and recognising
in them the stamp of the Creator himself. Wherefore our dominion over crea-
tures is a second time forfeited, not undeservedly; and whereas after the fall of
man some power over the resistance of creatures was still left to him— the power
of subduing and managing them by true and solid arts— yet this too through
our insolence, and because we desire to be like God and to follow the dictates
of our own reason, we in great part lose. If therefore there be any humility
towards the Creator, any reverence for or disposition to magnify His works,
any charity for man and anxiety to relieve his sorrows and necessities, any love
of truth in nature, any hatred of darkness, any desire for the purification of the
understanding, we must entreat men again and again to discard, or at least set

22 See Klemm, op. cit., p. 131.

23 Francis Bacon, 1 561-1626. Advancement of Learning, 1605; Novum Organum, 1620;
New Atlantis, 1629.
 Control of Nature

apart for a while, these volatile and preposterous philosophies, which have pre-
ferred theses to hypotheses, led experience captive, and triumphed over the
works of God; and to approach with humility and veneration to unroll the
volume of the Creation, to linger and meditate therein, and with minds washed
clean from opinions to study it in purity and integrity .^^

Human ignorance is like a second fall of man; form of

it is, like the Fall, also a
failure if the old philosophy can triumph even over the words of God. In the
exhortation to "unroll the volume of the creation," Bacon makes good use of
the old idea of learning in the book of nature.
Bacon's philosophy of man's attaining control over nature by cultivating
the arts and sciences and encouraging invention is not divorced from religion;
it is a vital part of religion, being closely related to the history of the creation
and to the fall of man. Repeatedly he invokes the lesson of Genesis that the
creation of light took place on the first day; when he says that experiments
should imitate the creation of light, human science is exalted by the com-
parison with divine creation. . . We look for experiments that shall afford
light rather than profit, imitating the divine creation, which, as we have often
observed, only produced light on the first day, and assigned that whole day
to its creation, without adding any material work."^^
To Bacon, the fall of man, "the sin of our first parents," was of decisive
importance in the subsequent history of both man and nature, as is apparent
in the eloquent closing lines of the Novum Organum:

For man, by the fall, lost at once his state of innocence, and his empire over
creation, both of which can be partially recovered even in this life, the first
by religion and faith, the second by the arts and sciences. For creation did not
become entirely and utterly rebellious by the curse, but in consequence of the
Divine decree, "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread," she is compelled
by our labors (not assuredly by our disputes or magical ceremonies), at length,
to afford mankind in some degree his bread, that is to say, to supply man's daily
wants.

Not only are separate roles assigned to religion and faith and to the arts and
sciences, but the latter mitigate the physical consequences of the first fall and
of the second fall (that is, the adoption of philosophies that prevent an investi-
gation and understanding of nature.)
How human control over nature? For one thing, it
does Bacon envisage
is and objective position for man, as one would expect from the com-
a lofty
parisons with the creation of light. This position is revealed in the famous
passage on the three ambitions: men may want to enlarge their own power in

24 "The Natural and Experimental History for the Foundation of Philosophy: or

Phenomena of the Universe: Which is the Third part of the Instauratio Magna," The
Works of Francis Baco?2, ed. Spedding, Ellis, and Heath, Vol. 5 (Vol. 2 of the transla-
tions of The Philosophical Works), pp. 131-134. Quotation on p. 132.
25 Novum Organum, Bk. I, Aph. 121.
 Control of Nature 473

own country, an ambition which Bacon thinks vulgar and degenerate;

their
men may strive to enlarge the power and empire of their native country over
mankind, a more dignified ambition than the first, but still covetous; or they
may strive for an enlargement of the power of man over the whole universe,
a sounder and a nobler ambition. Bacon follows the passage on the three
ambitions with one of the most quoted of his sentences:"Now the empire of
man over thingsfounded on the arts and sciences alone, for nature is only
is

to be commanded by obeying her."^^

In the goal for the knowledge that will lead to mastery over nature, Bacon
has little patience with those who think the ancient world superior. The
present is a true antiquity. One expects more from an old than from a young
man; similarly, since the world now is older, its stock has increased, and so
have experiments and observations. Bacon is struck by the recent expan-
sion of man's geographic vision; it must be matched by a comparable growth
in his intellectual vision. The contrast between the fresh air of the voyages
and discoveries and the stale adherence to authority and to classical knowledge
is a fundamental observation in his philosophy. Men must rise to the oppor-

tunities afforded them by the age of discovery.

*'It would, indeed, be dishonorable to mankind, if the regions of the ma-

terial globe, the earth, the sea, and stars, should be so prodigiously developed

and illustrated in our age, and yet the boundaries of the intellectual globe
should be confined to the narrow discoveries of the ancients."^''
The importance of voyages and travels to discovery and invention, in the
interchange of ideas which lead to further mastery over nature, is clear
when the governor of the Neuo Atlantis describes the mission of the three
fellows of Saloman's House, who set out in two ships "to give us knowledge
of the affairs and state of those countries to which they were designed; and
especially of the sciences, arts, manufactures, and inventions of all the world;
."
and withal to bring unto us books, instruments, and patterns in every kind. . .

The governor, remembering the creation of light on the first day, continues,
"But thus you see we maintain a trade, not for gold, silver, or jewels, nor
for silks, nor for spices, nor any other commodity of matter; but only for
God's first creature, which was light; to have Hght, I say, of the growth of all
parts of the world."^^
In Bacon's thought the voyages of discovery, especially those of scientific
travelers, become a standing rebuke to those who uncritically accept au-
thority and precedent in an age conscious of the stimulus that comes from
the broadening of its between
horizons. In fact there seems to be a parallel
the voyages of discovery and invention, for philosophies and sciences founded

^^Ibid., Aph. 129.

27 Ibid., Aph. 84.
28 "New Atlantis," in Ideal Commonwealths, World's Greatest Literature ed., pp.
1 19-120.
474 Control of Nature

on nature grow; those on opinion, neither change nor increase. Comparing

the stationary sciences unfavorably with the mechanical arts, Bacon says that
the latter "are founded on nature and the light of experience, for they (as
long they are popular) seem full of life, and uninterruptedly thrive and
as
grow, being at first rude, then convenient, lastly polished, and perpetually
improved. "^^ Bacon hints here at an ideal series of stages in the development
of technology.
Saloman's House, known also as Solomon's House and as the College of
the Six Days' Works (the latter name showing Bacon's attraction to the sym-
bolism of the hexaemeral creation, beginning with the creation of light) was ,

named, says the governor, after the king of the Hebrews "famous with you,
and no strangers to us"; here some of his works, lost elsewhere, have been
preserved, including Solomon's "natural history which he wrote of all plants,
from the cedar of Libanus to the moss that groweth out of the wall; and of
all things that have life and motion." Saloman's House, as described by the

governor, represents that active aspect of Christian thought which worships

the workmanship of God in the creation, sees at the same time the usefulness
of created things to man. Our king [he said] learned from the Hebrews that
God created the world within six days, "and therefore he instituted that
house, for the finding out of the true nature of all things, whereby God

might have the more glory in the workmanship of them, and men the more
fruit in their use of them, did give it also that second name."^^
Since Saloman's House is such an important institution in New Atlantis,
where the arts, science, ethics, and religion are intertwined to the strength
and the glory of all, one would expect, in addition to more invention, more
research in medicine, more inquiry in the fields of theoretical science, an
active interest in transforming the environment in the service of mankind;
in these proposals, moreover, there no hint that environmental change by
is

man might ever be undesirable. "The end of our foundation is the knowl-
edge of causes, and secret motions of things; and the enlarging of the bounds
of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."^^
In New composts and soils make the earth
Atlantis, a great variety of
fruitful. Salt-and fresh-water lakes are exploited for their fish and fowl;
natural bodies are buried in them, too. Salt water is made into fresh, fresh
water into salt. Streams, cataracts, and "engines for multiplying and en-
forcing of winds" are sources of power. In the orchards and gardens "we
do not so much respect beauty as variety of ground and soil, proper for divers
trees and herbs, and some very spacious, where trees and berries are set,
whereof we make divers kinds of drinks, beside the vineyards." Grafting is

Novum Organum, Bk. I, Aph. 74.

^^Neiv Atlantis, p. 119.
^1 Ibid.,
p. 129.
 Control of Nature 475

much practiced. Gardens, trees, flowers, are made by art to ripen earlier or
later than they would naturally. By art also they are larger, their fruit
sweeter, their taste, smell, color, and figure different. Many are discovered to
have medicinal value. "We have also means to make divers plants rise by
mixtures of earths without seeds, and likewise to make divers new plants,
differing from the vulgar, and to make one tree or plant turn into another."
Parks and enclosures for beasts and birds are used not only for view or
rareness but likewise for dissections and trials, to discover through them
"what may be wrought upon the body of man." Experiments of like kind are
made on fish, and breeding places are set aside for worms and flies.^^
In New Atlantis the human activities which affect the natural environ-
ment are primarily those concerned with agriculture and horticulture (soil
fertilization, plant breeding and selection) and the use of the waters and
the winds as energy to drive the machines of an industrial society in the
service of God and man. "We have certain hymns and services, which we
say daily, of laud and thanks to God for His marvellous works. And forms
of prayers, imploring His aid and blessing for the illumination of our labors;,
and turning them into good and holy uses."^^

4. Optimism of Seventeenth Century Writings

In the spirit of Bacon and Romans 1:20, Sir Thomas Browne says he will
find evidences of Him and pubHck Manuscript,"
in nature, "that universal
the servant of God. The world "was made to be inhabited by Beasts, but
studied and contemplated by Man; 'tis the Debt of our Reason we owe unto
God, and the homage we pay for not being Beasts; without this, the World
is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as

yet there was not a Creature that could conceive, or say there was a World."
Again we meet the thought that it is God-given reason possessed alone by man
that gives meaning to the creation. And the higher man's endowment the
better is this meaning understood. It is not "those vulgar Heads that rudely
stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works" who honor the
wisdom of God, but those "whose judicious inquiry into His Acts, and
deliberate research into His Creatures, return the duty of a devout and
"^^
learned admiration.
Man is an "amphibious piece between a corporal and spiritual Essence";
indeed he is a microcosm, for he embodies in his own life all five kinds of

existence. First he is a rude mass of dull being "not yet privileged with Hfe,"

^2 Ibid.y
pp. 129-132.
3^ Ibid.,
p. 137.
Religio Medici, Gateway ed., Pt. I, sect. 16, p. 27; sect. 13, p. 24. Browne wrote
the RM in 1635 and was first published in 1643.
it
476 Control of Nature

then successively he Hves the lives of plants, animals, man, and finally spirits.
In "one mysterious nature" man with these five kinds of existences com-
prehends the creatures of the world and of the universe; "thus is man that
great and true Amphibium," a spanner of worlds. The embodiment of all
five existences in his fife uniquely qualifies him for his role on earth. God
made the creation for His own glory and then made man as the only being
able to do him homage.^^ His creation on the sixth day changes completely
the meaning of the creative acts which preceded him. If we add (which
Browne did not) the injunctions of Genesis 1:28, man becomes God's work-
man and governor of nature. The most highly gifted men through inquiry
and research will accomplish these tasks the best. Sir Matthew Hale will
expand eloquently on this theme. (See pp. 481-482.)
Like Bacon, Descartes had confidence in the power of knowledge to
control the environment; in fact, the relevant passage in the Discourse on
Method has become almost as famous as Bacon's statement that we can com-
mand nature only by obeying her. Perhaps his enthusiasm for technology as
an ally in the struggle to better the lot of the human race may have been
intensifiedby his studies and observations during his residence in the Nether-
lands, where dramatic transformations of the land by drainage and polder
making were then taking place.
To digress for a moment, one could write an illuminating essay on the
influence of Dutch hydraulic engineering on optimistic interpretations of
modifications of the land by human agency. The first half of the seven-
teenth century was a golden age of accomplishment; even before this, the
expert outside the dikes, Andries Vierlingh, wrote in old age his work on
making dams, dikes, and sluices and "creating new land from sandbanks or
sandy foreshores." Of the work Vierlingh wrote, "It is not really such a
great art, a shepherd might be able to imitate it. But making new land belongs
to God alone. For He gives to some people the intelligence and power to
do it. It takes love and very much labour, and it is not everybody who can
play that game." After the year 1600, windmills became active pumpers on
a large scale. Jan Leegh water (i 575-1 650), the expert inside the dikes, also
writing in old age, had seen the face of the country change in his own life-
time. In the peninsula north of Amsterdam he had by 1640 counted twenty-
seven lakes which had been pumped dry, and he himself proposed draining
the Haarlemmermeer with the help of a hundred and sixty windmills. Finally
Cornelius Vermuyden, commissioned by James I in 162 1 to repair the Thames
wall at Dagenham, remained to supervise the draining of the fens.^^
When, Descartes says, he had acquired knowledge of "certain general

Ibid., Pt. I, sect. 34-35, pp. 52-54.

26 Van Veen, Dredge, Drain, Reclaim, pp. 34-47. The quotes are on pp. 34, 39. On
Dutch activity abroad, pp. 47-59 with maps. See also L. E. Harris, "Land Drainage and
Reclamation," in A
History of Technology, ed. Singer et al.. Vol. 3, pp. 306-308, 319.
 Control of Nature 477

notions in physics," when he realized how much these principles differed

from those of the past which were still being honored, he could not withhold
his knowledge "without greatly sinning against the law which enjoins upon
us the duty of procuring, as well as we can, the general good of mankind."
It is now possible to attain knowledge of "the utmost use" to men, a practical

knowledge which can gain ascendancy over the speculative philosophy taught
in the schools. By means of this practical knowledge, "by ascertaining the
force and action of fire, water, the air, the heavenly bodies, and the skies,
of all the physical things that surround us, as distinctly as we know the various
trades of our artisans, we can apply them in the same way to all the uses for
which they are fit, and thus make ourselves, as it were, the lords and masters
"^^
of nature.
Leibniz, also,saw the possibilities of the arts and sciences contributing to
the advancement of mankind. He repeatedly made proposals for their pro-
motion, including elaborate plans for exhibitions, museums, and academies.
He was impressed with the vastness of human knowledge; it was difficult
to ascertain how much was known because so much valuable knowledge was
unrecorded. He believed in learning from the occupations of daily life, from
men— and children too— at play, whether at games of skill or of chance. "Con-
cerning unwritten knowledge scattered among men of different callings,
I am convinced that it surpasses in quantity and in importance anything we

find in books, and that the greater part of our wealth is not yet recorded."^^
With his ideas of a divinely preestablished harmony, his enthusiasm for the
doctrine of final causes, his conviction that the arts and sciences were on the
march, that, encouraged, they would prevent a return to barbarism, with
his belief that progress was characteristic of the cosmos, Leibniz saw no reason
why the inevitable progress of mankind could not be balanced by a similar
process with relation to the earth, its ultimate perfection being a witness of
the cumulative talents of man:

And in
addition to the general beauty and perfection of the works of God, we
must recognize a certain perpetual and very free progress of the whole universe,
such that it advances always to still greater improvement (cultum). It is thus
that even now a great part of our earth has received cultivation and will receive
more and more. And although it is true that sometimes certain parts of it grow
up wild again or again suffer destruction and deterioration, this nevertheless
must be understood as we interpreted affliction above, that is to say, this very
destruction and deterioration leads to some greater result, so that we profit in
some way by the loss itself.^^

^7 Descartes, "Discourse on Method,"

6, in Discourse on Method and Other Writings,
Trans, with an intro. by Arthur Wollaston. Penguin Books (i960), p. 84.
"Discourse Touching the Method of Certitude, and the Art of Discovery in Order
to End Disputes and to Make Progress Quickly," Leibniz Selections, ed. Wiener, pp.
46-47.
3^ "On the Ultimate Origin of Things" (1697), Leibniz Selections^ ed. Wiener, p. 354.
478 Control of Nature

This is an important passage because it reveals the optimism possible in

the doctrine of final causes and in the idea of a preestablished harmony which
includes the earth as a physical body within this harmony. All changes on
the whole can be for the best; the entire earth will ultimately be cultivated
like a garden. The slow gathering of isolated fragments of information show-
ing that man could cumulatively make undesirable changes in nature, that
these could not be overcome by mere belief in an inevitable progress, unfor-
tunately have proved this assumption, this bold vision of Leibniz, wrong.
The spirit of Francis Bacon and Descartes and their precursors, Leonardo,
Paracelsus, Agricola, and Palissy, continued among many prominent thinkers
of the seventeenth century to whom the industry of man, lifted to a higher
plane of human experience, illustrated a widening control over nature through
the arts and sciences. Philosophically this industry might be considered as an
exercise of the mind and the skillful hand toward desirable ends, theologically
as the activity of a being who was both a steward of God on earth and a
worshipper of the divine workmanship he could see everywhere in nature,
and practically as useful activity which used the earth's resources and brought
order to an otherwise chaotic nature. This vision of man's controUing nature
and changing his environment was to Descartes evidence of a remarkable
achievement, a divorcement from the past, and to Leibniz evidence of a
progress characteristic of the cosmos.
We have already seen the role that Hakewill(and John Jonston of Poland,
a popularizer of hiswork) played in combatting the notion of a decay of
nature sponsored so vigorously by Godfrey Goodman. Hakewill believed
that the earth would come to an end, as predicted in the Bible; how this
end would come about he thought was unascertainable by reason; it would
be brought about by a miracle. Since he did not believe that any processes
now observable on earth were bringing about its decay in the sense that an
organism decays, he became a Columella against Lucretius and discovered
more immediate and plausible reasons for changes taking place in the en-
vironment.^*
The quality of Hakewill's mind and his discernment are revealed in his
discussion of the physical decline of the Holy Land. Hakewill says it has
undoubtedly decayed; possibly its early fruitfulness may have been a special
favor of God. (Quotes Deut. 11:3, Levit. 26, ''If you walk in mine ordinances
and keep ." etc.) The decline there, he concludes after considering Scrip-
. .

ture and the reports of Brocardus' De Terra Sancta (Pt. 2, chap, i), may
be owing to the curse of God or to "their ill manuring of the earth, (from
which the proverbe seems to have growne, that where the Grand Signiors

^°For a comparison between the views of Hakewill and Goodman on the decay of
the world, the earth being designed for man, teleology, and final state of the earth,
see Victor Harris, All Coherence Gone, pp. 82-85.
 .

Control of Nature 479

horse once treades, the grasse never growes afterward), than to any Naturall
decay in the goodness of the soyle." Labor and industry have a dignity in
Hakewill's conception of man's relation to the earth, for human industry
makes things better than unassisted nature could. "And it is certaine that
God so ordained it, that the industry of man should in all things concurre with
the workes of Nature, both for the bringing of them to their perfection, and
for the keeping ofthem therein being brought unto it."^^
The conflict between the older pessimistic ideas regarding the effects of
the curse on nature and modern aspirations for improvement in the natural
surroundings by purposeful and planned industry is well brought out in
Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy
Burton accepts this older pessimistic view of a decay in nature owing to
the Fall, man's sins being reflected in the barrenness of the earth.^^ Among the
secondary causes bringing these conditions about are unfriendly influences
of the though he grants that astrology incHnes but does not compel, the
stars,

air (meteors, bad weather inducing plague, referring to Giovanni Botero's

observations of the unhealthiness of Cairo and Constantinople), earthquakes,
floods, fires, and the animals at war with man. However, he does not take
too serious a view of these calamities visited on man by the elements and by
other forms of life; the knavery of man to man is far worse and cannot, like
the others, be avoided.^^
This conventional pessimism, however, does not mix well with other pre-
scriptions of this authority on melancholy.'*^ Burton in fact is very much
interested in human man's power to control
creativity, in the increase of
nature. Citing Botero's observation with approval (quoted above, p. 371),
Burton says that kingdoms, Hke men, are subject to melancholy. Rulers should
improve the physical environment of their kingdoms to overcome this morbid
state. He admires the Dutch and the improvements they have made in their

country and contrasts the progress achieved by them with the inertia of his
own countrymen.
Yea, and if some travellers should see (to come nearer home) those rich United
Provinces of Holland, Zealand, &c., over against us; those neat cities and popu-
lous towns, full of industrious artificers, so much land recovered from the sea,
and so painfully preserved by those artificial inventions, so wonderfully ap-
proved, as that of Bemster in Holland, so that you would find nothing equal to
it or like it in the whole world, saith Bertius the Geographer, all the world

cannot match it, so many navigable channels from place to place, made by men's
hands, &c., and on the other side so many thousand acres of our fens lie drowned,
our cities thin, and those vile, poor, and ugly to behold in respect to theirs, our

Apologie, pp. 151, 156. Quotes Columella, and Pliny, xviii, 3. Quotes Calvin, p. 157.
Anat. of Melancholy, Part i, sect, i, memb. i, subs, i, pp. 11 3-1 14.
Ibid.y pp. 1 1 3-1 1 7. On astrology, Part i, sect. 2, memb. i, subs. 4, p. 179.
^^See also Victor Harris, All Coherence Gone, pp. 138-139.
480 Control of Nature

trades decayed, our still running rivers stopped, and that beneficial use of
transportation wholly neglected, so many havens void of ships and towns, so
many parks and forests for pleasure, barren heaths, so many villages depopulated,
&c., I think sure he would find some fault.^^

Burton agrees with Botero that fertility of soil is not enough; art and
industry must be added toit. Of Holland he says, "their chiefest loadstone

which draws all manner of commerce and merchandize, which maintains

their present estate, is not fertility of soil, but industry that enricheth them,
the gold mines of Peru or New
not compare with them."^^ He
Spain may
also agrees with Columella that there is no tiredness or exhaustion in the soil;
it becomes barren through laziness; he is interested in the correct manage-
ment of water, in irrigation, in the drainage of fens, bogs, and moors, in
stream pollution, in the relation of water to disease, in running water, in the
settling of water as it flows, and in the history of cisterns and aqueducts.^^
In Primitive Origination of Mankind, Sir Matthew Hale considered
The
the broad questions posed by the multiplication and dispersion of mankind
over the earth, man's place in the scale of being, and the implications of his
growing control over nature. (See supra pp. 400-405.) To Hale man acts as
the steward of God on earth, man is a being who creates order in what without
him would be chaos; he implies that man's works, stimulated by self-conscious
intelligence, and the control man has achieved over the lower forms of life
confer a dignity and value on all life that it would not otherwise have. This
is broader and more defensible than is the view that the earth is made for man.

In an exciting and imaginative discussion. Hale says that man's place in

nature can be known from observation without revelation. The creation of
man seems to have an end or a purpose with relation to the order of nature
on earth. The wild untamable animals need man's coercive power to prevent
their destroying the more profitable and weaker animals. Man can preserve
from extinction the useful but easily destroyed domesticated animals; he
can protect the useful birds; he can war on the beasts and birds of prey. He
can play a similar role in the care of tender and dehcate plants lest they
become extinct or degenerate; fruit trees, herbs, choice flowers, are examples
of his loving care. Man has a duty to protect the world from the ponding of
water in marsh and bog, and from too luxurious a plant growth; his is a
"superintendent industry" correcting their excesses lest the spontaneous plant
production make of the earth a wilderness of trees, weeds, thorns, briars.
Without a "superintendent Cultivation" the earth's surface would grow
marshy, boggy, weedy, "overgrown with excessive excrescences." It is a
frame of mind quite similar to Count Bufifon's in the eighteenth century.

Anat. of Melancholy, Intro., Democritus to the Reader, p. 72.

*6 Ibid.,
p. 74.
^"^Part 2, sect. 2, memb. i, subs, i, pp. 397-398.
 Control of Nature 481

It does not take Hale long to dispose of the question of the curse. This
infertilityand unprofitable excrescence might be the result of man's sin;
God foreseeing sin, also provided a remedy. Man had to work harder after
the Fall, but his employment did not differ from the times in Eden where
God put man in the garden to dress it and keep it.
To my knowledge, there is no more masterly exposition of Christian belief
in the reality of man's dominion over nature as set forth in Genesis than the
following words of Hale:

In relation therefore to this inferior World of Brutes and Vegetables, the End
of Man's Creation was, that he should be the Vice-Roy of the great God of
Heaven and Earth in this inferior World; his Steward, Villicus, Bayliff or
Farmer of this goodly Farm of the lower World, and reserved to himself the
supreme Dominion, and the Tribute of Fidelity, Obedience, and Gratitude, as
the greatest recognition or Rent for the same, making his Usufructuary of this
inferior World to husband and order it, and enjoy the Fruits thereof with so-
briety, moderation, and thankfulness.
And hereby Man was invested with power, authority, right, dominion, trust,
and care, to correct and abridge the excesses and cruelties of the fiercer Animals,
to give protection and defence to the mansuete and useful, to preserve the Species
of divers Vegetables, to improve them and others, to correct the redundance of
unprofitable Vegetables, to preserve the face of the Earth in beauty, usefulness,
and fruitfulness. And surely, as it was not below the Wisdom and Goodness of
God to create the very Vegetable Nature, and render the Earth more beautiful
and useful by it, so neither was it unbecoming the same Wisdom to ordain and
constitute such a subordinate Superintendent over it, that might take an im-
mediate care of it.
And certainly if we observe the special and peculiar accommodation and
adaptation of Man, to the regiment and ordering of this lower World, we shall
have reason, even without Revelation, to conclude that this was one End of the
Creation of Man, namely. To be the Vice-gerent [sic] of Almighty God, in the
subordinate Regiment especially of the Animal and Vegetable Provinces.^^

Matthew Hale was a famous lawyer, far more famous as a chief justice
Sir
and for his work on the English common law than for The Frimitive Orig-
ijiatioji of Mankind. But the lawyer's touch is there, too. Man assumes tasks
that a lawyer thinks should be done, the tasks of the steward, the bailiff.
Hale outHnes the legal obligations of a lord on earth to administer it justly,
fairly, sternly,and without cruelty. The earth is in need of a superior creature
to keep it in competent order, otherwise the balance in nature would be

lost, forests and wilderness would engulf both the earth and man; the useful

animals, the prey of savage beasts, would be on the road to extinction. Man
is capable of this role because of his intellectual endowments, because of the

organum organormn, the hand. He controls nature for the earth's sake and
for his own. The hierarchy of life, the balance in nature on earth, is main-

Frim. Orig. of Ma?i., p. 370; previous discussion is based on pp. 369-370.

482 Control of Nature

tained and kept in order by the agency of man. "Thus the infinite Wisdom
of Almighty God chains things together, and fits and accommodates all

things suitable to their uses and ends."^^

To Hale (and many seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers agreed)
man's control over nature is based on his position in the scale of being; he
enjoys the topmost rung of the ladder, but he is a master whose rights are
circumscribed by obligations, by a noblesse oblige. Man's position is a legal
one; he is also an overseer of nature, like a husbandman with the earth as his
farm, whose activities Hale describes in the language of law and commerce.
Man's "intellectual sagacity and contrivance" qualify him for his superin-
tendency; he can domesticate the larger and more powerful animals— the
horse, the elephant, and the camel— and make the weaker animals subservient
to him. Man's ability to change nature by domesticating plants and animals
seems to have impressed thinkers of this period as it did those of the past;
Buffon also, as we shall see, is much impressed by it. Men's hands, manipu-
lators of swords, pikes, arrows, darts, nets, traps, tools, give them an over-
whelming advantage in struggles against the brutes. Man must continually
exert his mastery over plants and animals; if he does not, he will be over-
whelmed by them, an argument which anticipates the famous Romanes lec-
ture of Thomas Henry Huxley in 1894.^^
Men must actively interfere with brute nature, to use a characteristic
expression of his time, in order to maintain civilization. Nature untouched
by man is a lesser nature and the economy of nature is best where man ac-
tively superintends it. The role of man as a caretaker of nature, a viceroy, a
steward of God with other forms of life, justifies both his
in his relation
place in the chain of being and the accomplishments of his technology— in
clearing, mming, canal building, and many other activities which are perhaps
not revolutionary nor radically divorced from the past, but which produce
cumulative change.
In his History of the Royal Society— ouq might call it a history of Solomon's
House— Sprat shows an equal enthusiasm for man as a changer of nature.
Its dedication extols the value of the vulgar arts, its later pages, the wisdom
of the creator as shown in his works. Sprat praises the practical things, the
homely inventions and discoveries. The idea that man can improve upon
nature by art is a source of pride and of self-congratulation.^^ Man can
make these environmental improvements by plant introductions, by using
animals, by comparative husbandry. There was no romantic primitivism in
men like Sprat, in John Ray, nor later in Count Buffon. CiviHzation through
'^^
Ibid., p. 371; discussion is based on pp. 369-371.
®°See "Evolution and Etliics. Prolegomena" (1894), i'^ Evolution and Ethics and
Other Essays. New York, 1 896.
Sprat, History of the Royal Society, pp. 119-121, 386.
 Control of Nature 483

the arts created an environment having Httle resemblance to the crude con-
ditions of earher periods in human history.
John Ray speaks for many devout Christians who are also self-confident
admirers of and advocates of improvements in their natural surroundings.

If acountry thus planted and adorn'd, thus polished and civilized, thus improved
to the Height by all Manner of Culture for the Support and Sustenance, and
convenient Entertainment of innumerable Multitudes of People, be not to be
preferred before a barbarous and inhospitable Scythia, without Houses, with-
out Plantations, without Corn-fields or Vineyards or a rude and unpolished
. . . ;

America peopled with slothful and naked bidians, instead of well-built houses,
living in pitiful Huts and Cabbins, made of Poles set endways; then surely the
brute Beasts Condition, and Manner of Living, to which, what we have men-
tion'd doth nearly approach, is to be esteem'd better than Man's, and Wit and
Reason was in vain bestowed on him.^^

Moreover, Ray made cogent synthesis, including environmental changes

a
by man within his physico-theology. This synthesis included the following
elements: heavy rehance on teleological explanations of processes in nature,
emphasis on the beauty and usefulness of nature, a vision of man as actively

changing nature under the guidance of God, and the conviction that changes
made by man become part of a harmony thus newly created.
To Ray, mankind clearly plays an active role in nature, and man advances
by increasing his knowledge of the ways he can use the earth's resources.
God designed the earth, providing an abundance for the use of man who,
He knows beforehand, has the necessary reason and understanding to adapt
its offering (while he is adapting himself to it) by means of discovery and

invention to his own uses.^^

In the following passage notable for its elegant smugness, Ray composes
a speech for the Deity who tells man precisely what He has done for him.

I have now placed thee in a spacious and well-furnish'd World; I have endued

thee with an Ability of understanding what is beautiful and proportionable, and

have made that which is so, agreeable and delightful to thee; I have provided
thee with Materials whereon to exercise and employ thy Art and Strength; I
have given thee an excellent Instrument, the Hand, accommodated to make use
of them all; I have distinguished the Earth into Hills and Vallies, and Plains, and
Meadows, and Woods; all these Parts, capable of Culture and Improvement by
thy Industry; I have committed to thee for thy Assistance in thy Labours of
Plowing, and Carrying, and Drawing, and Travel, the laborious Ox, the patient
Ass, and the strong and serviceable Horse; I have created a Multitude of Seeds
for thee to make a Choice out of them, of what is most pleasant to thy Taste,
and of most wholesome and plentiful Nourishement. .^^ . .

52 Ray, Wisdom of God, p. 165.

5^ Ibid.,
p. 161.
1 61-162.
5^ Ibid.,
pp.
484 Control of Nature

There is no suspicion here of the Malthusian "niggardUness of nature,''

or of the Darwinian struggle for existence. "I have made thee a sociable
Creature, [Za)ov ttoXitikov] Improvement of thy Understanding by
for the
Conference, and Communication of Observations and Experiments." Fur-
thermore, God has given man the curiosity to see strange and foreign coun-
tries, to improve his knowledge of geography, politics, and natural history.

I persuade myself [Ray adds after the Deity has had his say] that the bountiful

and gracious Author of Man's Being and Faculties, and all Things else, delights
in the Beauty of his Creation, and is well pleased with the Industry of Man, in
adorning the Earth with beautiful Cities and Castles; with pleasant Villages and
Country-Houses; with regular Gardens and Orchards, and Plantations of all
Sorts of Shrubs and Herbs, and Fruits, for Meat, Medicine, or Moderate Delight;
with Shady Woods and Groves, and walks set with Rows of elegant Trees; njoith
Pastures cloathed "with Flocks, and Valleys covefd with Corn, and Meadows
burthened with Grass, and whatever differenceth a civil and well-cultivated
Region, from a barren and desolate Wilderness.^^

Many of these thinkers from Paracelsus and Agricola to Bacon and Ray
were optimistic because the long-sought-for application of theoretical knowl-
edge to the control of nature was being realized; to them, the difficulties were
in achieving this application of knowledge, not in the consequences of control
once success had been achieved. These thinkers regarded the applications as
beneficent because they were purposive; men knew what they wanted and
what they were about. And many of the dramatic man-made improvements
in the landscape of Europe during this general period were purposive, espe-
cially the widespread drainage activities and canal building, of which the
construction of the Canal du Midi (Canal de Languedoc), under the min-
istry of Colbert and the supervision of Pierre-Paul Riquet de Bonrepos, was
the proudest example.

5. SiLVA AND FUMIFUGIUM

These optimistic conclusions were based on the assumption that human modi-
fications of the land were planned and beneficent, but some men also saw
that certain traditional practices in resource use were wasteful or incom-
patible with other types of use which were emerging out of new economic
conditions. In general, complaints in the early modern period are found in
areas whose economic base is in mining, forestry, or agriculture. Forests
especially were threatened with destruction by demands for wood in mining
and metallurgy, shipbuilding and agriculture, and by the demands for more
cleared land for agricultural purposes.

Ibid., pp. 163-164, 165.

 Control of Nature 485

It is possible to cite hundreds of show

illustrations of these conflicts, to
the existence of similar problems in Germany, Norway, and Sweden, but I
prefer to mention and to discuss at some length two famous documents,

John Evelyn's Silva: or, A Discourse of Forest-Trees (1664), and the French
Forest Ordinance of 166^, which mark, it seems to me, the beginning of a
more reserved attitude toward the modification of nature by man in the
history of Western thought. They are by no means the first, but they are
among the earhest attempts to understand— what is so often emphasized
in modern literature— the unsought for, unplanned, often unnoticed con-
sequences of modifications in the environment undertaken for rational eco-
nomic reasons. Both recognize the influence of the past in the continued
vigor of customary rights of use; both recognize the claims of posterity.
Both are important divides: Colbert's ordinance not only exposed the nature
of centuries-long abuse, but it codified French law and superseded all previous
legislation on the subject, while it has been said of Evelyn's Silva that it looks
back on the old era of forest exploitation, forward to a new era recognizing
the need for conservation.
In a broad sense, Evelyn's work is an appeal for proper understanding
of the relationship of forestry to agriculture, grazing, and industry. In force-
ful, often earthy, language ("And the reader is to know, that if these dry
sticks afford him any sap, it is one of the least and meanest of those pieces
which are every day produced by that illustrious assembly [the Royal So-
ciety]"), frequently testy and haughty ("It is not therefore to gratify these
magnificent fops, whose talents reach but to the adjusting of their perukes,
courting a Miss, or, at the farthest, writing a smutty or scurrilous libel, which
they would have to pass for genuine wit, that I concern myself in these
papers . . ."), he states the case for forest conservation and for considering
forestry as a science, deploring the snobbery of those who consider it un-
worthy of His discourse, he says, is not for rustics who cannot
their talents.
understand such matters, but for gentlemen who can. It is therefore no
horticultural manual written for the barely literate, but a work appealing to
councillors, knowledgeable horticulturalists, and men of science. (Evelyn
was one of the founders of the Royal Society, becoming its secretary in
1662.) His plea for dignifying forestry as a science and field of learning
reminds one of Agricola's earlier plea for mining: it is no discipline for the
ignorant, it knowledge of the sciences and of techniques, respect
requires
for artisanship.There is an occasional quotation from others with a similar
respect for artisanship like Palissy and Francis Bacon. Evelyn defends the
Royal Society against the criticisms of well-placed or well-born but hope-
lessly uninformed triflers; he sees, through its agency, applications of science
to the amelioration of the human condition and to the improvement of the
land. But he is no doctrinaire. If, in his opinion, the ancients have anything
486 Control of Nature

useful to say, he quotesthem at length. The Silva has many quotations from
Virgil's Georgics, from Theophrastus, PHny, and Columella. He makes no
distinction between an ancient and a modern authority, the test to him being
their correctness and pertinence to the discussion.
Although the book recommends forest conservation and afforestation, a
large proportion of the text is concerned with technical details, descriptions

of individual trees, methods of planting or grafting, their uses, and so forth.

In discussing the following themes in Evelyn's Silva^ I should add that they

do not occupy prominent place in the work as a whole.

a
The first is the theme of competing uses of land, including the encroach-
ment of one use on another and multiple use of land. The illustrations, like
those in the French Forest Ordinance, come from agriculture, grazing, and
industry (especially iron- and glass-making).
To Evelyn, the state of the forests is vital to national policy, pertinent to

the interests of the Royal Society. The biggest threat

to the country is the
possibledecay of her wooden walls (a favorite expression of his for the navy)
which are in turn related to the production of timber. The Royal Society can
therefore study the question of timber and national power.^^
There are many causes, Evelyn says, for the drain on the country's forests:
the increase in shipping, the multiplication of glassworks and iron-furnaces,
the "disproportionate spreading of tillage," and the selfish desire of men
"utterly to extirpate, demolish, and raze, as it were, all those many goodly
woods and forests, which our more prudent ancestors left standing for the
ornament and service of their country." Evelyn describes this devastation as
"epidemical," in need of immediate arresting lest "one of the bulwarks of
this nation" be totally ruined.^^
To correct this devastation by letting nature take its course "would cost
(besides the inclosure) some entire ages repose of the plow. . .
." Since a
country must feed itself, an alternative method would be to sow and plant
selected species of the most useful trees. "Truly, the waste and destruction of
our woods has been so universal, that I conceive nothing less than an universal
plantation of all the sorts of trees will supply, and well encounter the de-
fect. . . r''
In addition to the indiscriminate felling of the agriculturalist there is graz-
ing. Evelyn is not opposed to grazing which since time immemorial had been
associated with the forests of Europe, but he advocates more rigor in under-
standing its effects. "It were
wished that our tender and improvable
to be
woods should not admit of cattle by any means, till they were quite grown
out of reach; the statutes which connive at it, in favour of custom, and for

56 Silva, To the Reader, no pagination.

^'^
Ibid., pp. 1-2.
Ibid., p. 3.
 Control of Nature 487

the satisfying of a few clamourous and rude Commoners, are too indul-
gent. . . r"'
The "exhorbitance and increase of devouring iron-mills" could ruin Eng-
land; he suggests they be removed into a new world, "the Holy Land of New-
England. ... It were better to purchase our iron out of America, than thus
all

to exhaust our woods at home although (I doubt not) they might be so or-
dered be rather a means of preserving them.
as to One Simon Sturtivant . . .

had a patent from King James I. 161 2, pretending to save 300,000 i. a year,
by melting iron oar, and other metals, with pit-coal, sea-coal, and brush-fuel;
it is pity it did not succeed." Evelyn admits that if iron-masters were en-
lightened it would be possible by care and replanting to smelt iron and main-
tain forests; his own father had told him this would be possible. But without
this care, "I am no advocate for iron-works, but a declared Denouncer. But
nature has thought fit to produce this wasting oar more plentifully in wood-
land than any other ground, and to enrich our forests to their own destruc-
tion." He quotes from his friend, the poet Abraham Cowley, on the Forest of
Dean: "Woods tall and reverend, from all time appear / Inviolable, where no
Mine is near."^*^

Evelyn is aware of the effect of fencing on natural vegetation; in fact, the

following passage can be compared with Darwin's illustration from the heaths
of Farnham in Surrey. One more than sixty
of his relatives has "a wood of
years standing; it was, before he purchased it, exposed and abandoned to the
cattle for divers years: some of the outward skirts were nothing, save shrubs
and miserable starvelings; yet still the place was disposed to grow woody; but
by this neglect continually suppressed." His kin fenced in some acres, cut all
plant growth close to the ground, and in eight or nine years it has become
better than the sixty-year-old wood; ". and will, in time, prove most in-
. .

comparable timber; whilst the other part, so many years advanced, shall never
recover; and all this from no other cause than preserving it fenced. Judge
then by this, how our woods come to be so decried. "^^
He is familiar with theories owing to clearing and would
of chmatic change
like to see them applied to local conditions. Dense trees and woods "which
hinder the necessary e volition [that is, the action of flying out or away] of
this superfluous moisture and intercourse of the air" make the countries in

which they are found more subject to rain and mist, unwholesome, as in the
American plantations, and as Ireland formerly was, "both since so much im-

Ibid., p. 565. See p. 399, which passage is discussed below.

^^Ibid., pp. 567-568; the theme of removing iron mills, usingNew England, and of
preserving the wooden walls is continued on pp. 577-578. Evelyn translated the quota-
tion from Flantarum, the Latin poem by Cowley. See The Works of Mr. Abraham
Cowley, 3 vols. (London, 1721), Of Plants, Book VI (Silva), where the English transla-
tion differs from Evelyn's, Vol. 3, p. 430.
Ibid., p. 399.
488 Control of Nature

proved by felling and clearing these spacious shades, and letting in the air
and sun, and making the earth fit for tillage and pasture, that those gloomy
tracts are now become healthy and habitable." In his opinion, many "noble
seats and dwelHngs" in England may still be suffering from similar conditions
because of "some groves, or hedge-rows of antiquated dotard trees filling . . .

the air with musty and noxious exhalations, which being ventilated by glades
cut through them, for passage of the stagnant vapours, have been cured of this
evil, and recovered their reputation. "^^
Finally, Evelyn realizes that a landscape changes through time very often
because of the continuous felHng of its trees. Great Britain, he said, like Ger-
many, was once a vast forest, and now the Caledonian forest of old has scarcely
a single tree. Deforestation must be supplanted by more self-conscious con-
servation methods. Evelyn's acquaintance with the forest history of other
countries (particularly Spain, Germany, and France), and his knowledge of
the history of forest law in England give him historical perspective which be-
comes a powerful ally in the argument for arresting long-term destructive
trends. He quotes Thomas Tusser (? 524-1 580), the author of Five Hun-
1

dreth Good Fointes of Husbandry (1573), in the original Gothic script in

support of his claim that enclosure is the way of preserving the land and
getting the most out of it.^^
Evelyn's Silva is usually thought a classic in the history of conservation, but
his vision is even broader. This breadth is owing to his interpretation of de-
forestation as one aspect of continual landscape change through history, of
afforestation as active intervention in fashioning something new, not in re-
turning to an impossible past. His philosophy is one of rational land use, not
only of forests but of all types of lands, a philosophy friendly to the creation
of useful and pleasing landscapes. If His Majesty's forests and chases were
stored with the oak

athandsome intervals, by which grazing might be improved for the feeding of

deer and cattle under them (for such was the old Saltus) benignly visited with
the gleams of the sun, and adorned with the distant landscapes appearing
through the glades and frequent valleys, nothing could be more ravishing. We
might also sprinkle fruit-trees amongst them for cyder, and many singular uses,
and should find such goodly plantations the boast of our rangers, and forests
infinitely preferable to any thing we have yet beheld, rude and neglected as
they are.^^

There is improvement of
a similar eagerness to intervene actively in the
the land by transforming its physical character. If lands are so wet that woods
cannot thrive in them, convert them to pasture, "or bestow the same industry
on them which good husbands do in meadows by draining-^ which instead of

^^Ibid., pp. 30-34. On "evolition," see Oxford English Dictionary under "evolation."
63 Ibid.,
pp. 572, 586-587.
^^Ibid., pp. 85-87.
 Control of Nature 489

those narrow rills might be reduced to a proportionable

(gutters rather)
canal, cut even and taken out and spread upon the weeping
straight, the earth
and uliginous places; nor would the charge be so much as that of the yearly
and perpetual renewing and cleansing of those numerous and irregular sluices;
besides, there is a profit in storing the canal with fish." Such drainage would
make good grass or timber land. "Where poor hungry woods grow, rich
corn, and good cattle would be more plentifully bred; and it were beneficial
to convert some woodland (where the proper virtue is exhausted) to pasture
and tillage, provided that fresh land were improved also to wood in recom-
pence, and to balance the other."^^
Evelyn recalls the words of Melanchton spoken over a century earlier,
"That the time was coming, when the want of three things would be the ruin
of Europe, Lignum, probam Monetam, probos Amicos; Timber, good
Money, sincere Friends.''^^ On this note of urgency "this rustick Discourse,
using the freedom of a plain Forester" comes to an end. Evelyn had made his
plea for the same conscious purposive use and maintenance of the land as
others had made for purposiveness in discovery and invention in general. This
is Evelyn's significance in the broader trends of these ideas; what at first seems

a horticultural manual is in reality a philosophy of land use.

John Evelyn wished to save the trees of England; he also wished to save the
air of London. His Fumifugium, crisp and blunt like the Silva, is a protest
against air pollution; published in 1661, it describes the results of industrial
concentration in a city.
He knows Hippocrates' Airs, Waters, Places, he accepts the influence of
the airs on rebelHon, island peoples, religion, and secular affairs, but he does
not wish to pursue these matters; he is more interested in pure airs, citing the
importance attached to them by Hippocrates and Vitruvius.
London is built "upon a sweet and most agreeable Eminency of Ground"
and the natural fumes from the waters and lower grounds to the southward
are readily dissipated by the sun. It is the sea-coal, not the culinary fires,
whose smoky clouds lie "perpetually imminent over her head."^^ It is the
smoke from the "Tunnells and Issues" of the brewers, dyers, limeburners,
salt and soap boilers and other private trades, "One of whose Spiracles alone,

does manifestly infect the Aer, more than all the Chimnies of London put to-
gether besides." With such belching forth from "sooty jaws," London "resem-
bles the face rather of Mount Aetna, the Court of Vulcan, Stromboli, or the
Suburbs of Hell, than an Assembly of Rational Creatures, and the Imperial
Seat of our incomparable Monarch.""^^ "For is there under Heaven such
Coughing and Snufflng to be heard, as in the London Churches and Assem-

65 Ibid.,
pp. 587-588.
66 Ibid.,
p. 599.
Fumifugium, pp. 13, 17, 18.
68 Ibid.,
p. 19.
 Control of Nature

blies of People, where the Barking and the Spitting is uncessant and most
importunate." "It is this horrid Smoake which obscures our Churches, and

makes our Palaces look old, which fouls our Clothes and corrupts the Waters,
so as the very Rain, and refreshing Dews which fall in the several Seasons,
precipitate this impure vapour, which, with its black and tenacious quality,
spots and contaminates whatever is exposed to it."^^ Remove these nuisances,
he says, which poison birds, kill bees and flowers, prevent the ripening of fruit.
Churchyards and charnel houses contaminate the air and the pumps and waters
near them, to say nothing of the chandlers and butchers responsible for ''those
horrid stinks, nidoroiis and unwholesome smells which proceed from the Tal-
low and corrupted Blood .""^^
to say nothing of cattle slaughtering, the fish-
. .

mongers, the nasty prisons and the common jails within the city.
When the smoke is gone one can see again the glories of a clear day, the
beneficent effects of a fair sky, of air in good temper. For we are composed of
the elements, we participate in their qualities. The humors have their source
in the elements, our passions come from the humors, and the ""Soul which is
united to this Body of ours, cannot but be affected with its Inclinations."^^
He quotes an act of parliament which prohibited heath- and moor-burning
from April through September in several English counties to prevent the
destruction of wild fowl and moor game,
the smoke-laden air from harming
crops, and the spread of fire to crop and meadow land. If such solicitude is
shown for fowl, game, crops, and grasses, "how much greater ought there to
"^^
be for the City, where are such iUultitudes of Inhabitants concerned?
Evelyn has a detailed plan for improvement: square plots planted with
aromatic plants and fragrant flowers and vegetables can replace the smoky
areas, and the ugly tenements can be cleared away. In his dedicatory epistle
to the king he adroitly reminds the monarch of the harm being done to his
buildings, gardens, and pictures, adding that the king's sister, the Duchess of
Orleans, in a recent visit to London "did in my hearing, complain of the
Effects of this Smoake both in her Breast and Lungs, whilst She was in Your
Majesties Palace. "^^ Evelyn is like Alberti; the plan is more than technique. It
is based on a philosophy of man's relation to his surroundings. It is not only a

question of health; aesthetics is involved, and so is the being of man, since the
humors of the body, affected by the air, have their influence on the soul.
This is the earliest account known to me of air pollution owing to indus-
trialization; it certainly is one of the most vivid. Like Graunt, whom he
quotes, Evelyn thinks London more unhealthful than the rural countryside
("almost one half of them who perish in London, dye of Phthisical and Pul-

Ibid., pp. 20, 26, and also 22-27.

'^^Ibid., p. 42.
'^^
Ibid., p. 44.
"^^Ibid., p. 42; text of the act, pp. 39-41.
72 Ibid.,
pp. 2-3.
 Control of Nature 491

monic distempers") but these conditions need not be, for other great cities of
Europe, like Paris, do not have this smoky stench; they are still healthful. No
other great city would tolerate it/^

6. The French Forest Ordinance of 1669

The French Forest Ordinance of i66p, like Evelyn's work in England, is re-
garded as a landmark in the history of European forestry; this pioneering
codification of forest law, influential throughout Europe as well as in the
subsequent history of French forest legislation, was the response to a fear ex-
pressed by Colbert and by Sully earlier that France would die for lack of
wood; such fears had been expressed from time to time since the fourteenth
century. Colbert, particularly concerned for marine timber, easily communi-
cated his fears to Louis XIV. The ordinance was not a bolt out of the blue but
an example of climax legislation, resting on law, custom, and regulation, reach-
ing far back into French history. Its revolutionary character lay less in its

departures from the past than in its and syn-

collating, sifting, rationalizing,
thesizing the confused and miscellaneous body of custom, ordinance, and
rights of use of the past.*^^

The ordinance, from the hands of a distinguished council, was long in

preparation; miraculously, during the eight-year period from 1661 to 1669,
by royal ordinance, no cutting was done in the forests of the king, no one
with rights of use took wood from them, no livestock went into them. "Le roi
savait se faire obeir et il fut obei."^^ The purpose of the ordinance, said Louis
XIV in his proclamation of August, 1669, putting it into effect, was to bring

'^'^Ibid., Preface, pp. 18-20, 25-26, 30, 34.

The text of thelaw with commentary and texts of laws and ordinances which pre-
ceded it even to classical times is in Jurisprudence Generale. Repertoire Methodique et
Alphabetique de Legislation de Doctrine et de Jurisprudence^ etc., new edition edited
by D. Dalloz with the collaboration of Armand Dalloz (Paris, 1849), Vol. 25, this volume
being devoted to Forests. The text of the 1669 ordinance begins on p. 15. An English
translation of it was made by John Croumbie Brown. Freiich Forest Ordinance of 1669
with Historical Sketch of Previous Treatment of Forests in France. Edinburgh, 1883, As
in many of his works which are mostly compilations, but well selected and often draw-
ing on obscure sources difficult to come by in this country, Brown translates several
works describing earlier conditions of the forests and the events leading up to the
ordinance. There is valuable background material in Pierre Clement, Histoire de Colbert
et de Son Administration, 3d ed. (Paris, 1892), Vol. 2, pp. 64-84. As one might expect,
the history of the forest of any country is bound up with the history of trade, warfare,
attitudes toward commerce and agriculture, etc. For example, Clement says, "A partir
de 1572, les temps avaient ete mauvais pour la propriete forestiere. Les guerres civiles
renaissantes, I'augmentation de la valeur des terres, la preference de plus en plus donnee
aux prairies, I'ouverture de nombreux chemins au travers des terrains boises, le develop-
pement de I'industrie metallurgique, firent craindre la destruction des forets" (p. 65).
See also HufTel, Economic Forestiere, Vol. 1:2, pp. 267-291. The quotations which
follow are taken from Brown's translation.
Huff el, op cit.. Vol. 1:2, p. 291.
492 Control of Nature

order into what had become a chaos. A disorder "had slipped (s'etait glisse)
into the waters and our kingdom and become so universal and
forests of
rooted that a remedy seemed impossible." Order had now been restored with
the work of Colbert and the twenty-one commissioners who assisted him
over a period of eight years (1661-1669).^^
Even in the formal language of Louis XIV's proclamation it is clear that
the ancient abuses stood in the way of modern aspirations, in war, in peace, in
commerce stimulated by lengthened voyages throughout the world. In an
early appeal to the needs of posterity the proclamation sounded a note heard
with increasing frequency in the centuries to come, for "it is not enough to
have re-established order and discipline, if we do not by good and wise regu-
."^^ By the
lations see to it that the fruit of this shall be secured to posterity. . .

nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the appeal to posterity had become indis-
pensable to conservation literature.
The ordinance was noteworthy too because it sought to guide the future
management of a whole resource. Although its main provisions affected the
royal forests, they also applied to the holdings of ecclesiastical bodies, civil
corporations and communities for which the government had the right to
prescribe rules, and to individuals with certain legal rights. Within limits it

had a right to prescribe regulations for the exploitation of forests by private

persons.*^^

The ordinance regulated the cutting or puUing up of wood and the pastur-
ing of animals in the forest (Title There was an absolute prohibition
II, 6).
against sheep, goats, ewes, lambs in the forest or even in "lands and heaths, or
void and bare places on the borders of the woods and forests ." (Title XIX, . .

13). Restrictions were imposed on kilns, furnaces, charcoal making, grubbing

and uprooting, lifting or removal of beacons, acorns, and other produce
(Title III, 18). Access to the keys of the chest in the council chamber in
which was deposited the marteau, the hammer-stamp "for marking corner
trees, divisions, border trees, balliveaux or seed-bearing reserved trees, and

others to be reserved" was subject to rigid regulations (Title II, 3). Procedures
were set up for the sale of acorns and beechnuts when they were in sufficient
supply and the sale could be held without injury to the forest.
Estimating the pannage the forest could provide was a group responsibility.
The Forest-Master, the Lieutenant, or the king's Attorney "shall visit the
spot, and in presence of the Garde-A4arteau, and of the Sergeant of the Guard,
they shall prepare a minute of the number of hogs which may be put on pan-
nage in the forests of the Maitrise ." (Title XVIII,
. .) In order to guard the i .

7^ Dalloz, op. cit., pp. 15, 21.

78 Preamble, Brown trans, p. 61.
^9 Dalloz, op. cit.,
pp. is~'^l- On opposition to the law, pp. 29-32, and HufTel, op. cit.,

Vol. 1:2, pp. 293-294.

 Cojitrol of Nature 493

young shoots of timber trees or coppice woods along roads or routes over
which animals travel to broad and deep enough to
forest pastures, ditches
preserve the trees are to be dug and old ditches are to be cleaned out, the
expense being borne by "the communities of usagers proportionally to the
number of beasts which they send on pasturage" (Title XIX, 12).
The twenty-seventh title brings out clearly the delicate weighing and bal-
ancing of rights of use, the needs of conservation, and the requirements of
industry.
Reserved trees and the balliveaux ("the stalHons," the seedlings left for re-

generating the forest) "shall, in time coming be reckoned as part of the capital
of our woods and forests, without the dowagers, donees, contractors, usufruc-
tiers, and make any pretensions to
their receivers, or farmers, being able to
them, or to any fines which proceed from them" (Title XXVII, 2).
On his inspection visits, the Grand-Master must make a note of "all void
places not alienated or given under title of quit-rent or of lease," and so forth,
for resowing, reafforestation, or other suitable use. Owners of woods adjacent
to the royal forest must separate theirs from the royal properties by a trench
four feet wide and five feet deep, maintenance being their responsibility (Title
XXVII, 3-4).
The uprooting of young oaks, yoke elms, or other trees is controlled by
strict regulations, including the king's permission countersigned by the
Grand-Master. Equally severe restrictions prohibit removal of sand, earth,
marl, or clayfrom the forests and the making of lime within a hundred
perches distant of the forests. Delivery of copsewood and small wood, green
or dry, to powder manufacturers or makers of saltpeter is also prohibited
under heavy penalties (Title XXVII, i i-i 3).
Huts built of stakes within the circuit or border or within half a league of
the forest are prohibited; those in present violation will be demolished, and in
the future none can be built within two leagues of "our woods and forests"
(Title XXVII, 17).
Merchant-buyers, usagers, and all other persons are prohibited from mak-
ing ashes in the royal forests and in those of the ecclesiastics and communities
as well (Title XXVII, 19).
Charring and burning trees are also prohibited; so removing the bark.
is

Charcoal pits "shall be put in the most void places, and the most remote from
trees and young new growths," provisions being made for the restoration of
these empty places if so judged expedient by the Grand-Master of the forest.
"Coopers, tanners, turners, sabot makers, and others of like occupations, can-
not keep workshops within a distance of half a league from our forests, under
pain of confiscation of their stock-in-trade, and a fine of a hundred livres"
(Title XXVII, 22-23).
Plucking, knocking down pannage, mast, other fruits, are forbidden. There
494 Control of Nature

are absolute prohibitions against conveying or kindling fires (Title XXVII,

Historical evidence of gradual destruction had created the forest ordinance

of 1669.^^ On the death of Mazarin, it was reahzed that strict measures were
needed to give France a renewed forest. A memoire of 1665 explains the
reasons for the king's action. The royal forests had been wasted for a long
time; there were no provisions for and occasions;
a reserve for great projects
in the majority of provinces they had produced no revenue in forty years.
They had almost been entirely alienated in Normandy, and revenue from
them, formerly approaching a million livres, now scarcely reached fifty thou-
sand.^^
The ordinance symbolizes an awareness of a broader relationship between
men organized in and the physical environment; it epitomizes Bage-
societies
hot's "cake of custom" which intervenes between the exploiter and the re-
source being used. It calls attention to the philosophic attitudes toward the
earth engendered by the Vioeurs. Were the ancient usages and rights dissipat-
ing or even destroying resources, making them progressively inaccessible to
newer and more modern uses, which were now demanding their share, too?

7. Conclusion

In the period roughly from the end of the fifteenth until the end of the seven-
teenth century one sees ideas of man as a controller of nature beginning to
crystallize, along more modern lines. It is in the thought of this period (not
the commands God
in Genesis to have dominion over nature, as the Japa-
of
nese authority on Zen Buddhism, Daisetz Suzuki,^^ thinks) that there begins a
unique formulation of Western thought, marking itself off from the other
great traditions, such as the Indian and the Chinese, which also are concerned
with the relationship of man to nature. This awareness of man's power in-
creases greatly in the eighteenth century, as will be apparent in the works of
Buffon and others. It increases even more dramatically in the nineteenth cen-
tury with the host of new ideas and interpretations, while in the twentieth.
Western man has attained a breathtaking anthropocentrism, based on his
power over nature, unmatched by anything in the past.

Discussion of the law's enforcement and its efficacy is beyond the scope of this essay.
In the early eighteenth century complaints like those which preceded its enactment were
still common. It is believed, however, that without it things would have been much worse,

at least until 1789. The law remained almost intact until 1827. Two frequent criticisms
made of it are the severity of the punishments and its subordination of the interest of
the individual to that of the state. On these points, see Clement, Histoire de Colbert,
Vol. 2, pp. 7S~7^'
81 Ibid., Vol 2, p. 65.
Ibid., Vol.
pp. 71-72.
2,
83 "The Roleof Nature in Zen Buddhism," Er ana s-Jahr buck 19S3-, Vol. 22 (1954), PP-
291-321; see esp. pp 291-296.
 Control of Nature 495

Several trends may be discerned at the end of this period. They keep their
own identities; they are hke the Brenta, the Adige, and the Po, streams whose
sources are far removed from one another, but whose courses roughly parallel
one another as they flow to a common delta.
The religious idea that man has dominion over the earth, that he completes
the creation, becomes sharper and more explicit by the seventeenth century.
Hale's ideas are the clearest; man by his existence is a balancing force in the ex-
istence of other forms of life. He becomes an arbiter, checking the spread of
the wild plants and the wild animals, encouraging the dispersion of the domes-
ticated plants and animals. The encroachments of the wild are soon apparent
in areas from which man has withdrawn his superintendence. Through elimi-
nating natural vegetation, by draining, in frightening wild animals into re-
treats by his presence, through his protection of the domestic plants and
animals, he exercises almost a juridical role over living nature. Men like Hale
had an eye on their own times; they reahzed that cultural landscapes— drained
bogs, cleared lands, lands in grains— and wild lands of forest, scrub, and brush
were explainable only as the result of human activity; hunting, a foray into a
land not held by man directly, showed too that wild animals lived under the
threat of extinction.
These ideas were associated with a belief that man with tools and knowl-
edge was improving the earth as surely as he was improving himself; the two
improvements could go hand in hand. How could mankind progress on an
earth dying of decay, or unimproved by tillage, drainage, and clearing?
Then there are the ideas which one distinguishes only with difSculty from
the first: those from which religion is not excluded but in which religion is
not the dominant motif. If the idea of man as a finisher of nature, a completer
of the creation, leads both to piety and to practical-mindedness, the latter at-
titude alone can encourage a predominantly secular emphasis on achievement
by mind, manual skill, knowledge. Agricola, Palissy, Bacon, and Descartes
represent this point of view.
Finally there is men make undesirable changes in
the antiphonal idea that
nature, changes which and devoid of conscious purpose as far
are reckless
as long-term trends are concerned, purposive for narrower ends. If trees are
felled so that the iron-master can smelt the iron, using conscious techniques
based on science and his trade secrets to manufacture a tool, the whole process
is purposive as far as the iron-master is concerned even if the long-term change

—perhaps deterioration— of the natural environment brought about by him

and others is not. From time to time in the past, evidences of these conflicting
trends in land use appear, but in Evelyn's Silva and in Colbert's Forest Ordi-
nance they are dramatized and become harbingers of more complex and more
widely distributed conflicts.
The idea of a purposive human control of nature, so forcefully expressed
by Bacon, Descartes, and others, has led historically to an emphasis on human
496 Control of Nature

society and its accomplishments, to the possibiUty of improving society by

the purposive apphcation of scientific law to the needs of food, housing, trans-
portation, and the like.

The idea that men can and do make undesirable changes in nature (often
without realizing they do, because these ill effects may not be understood
or may be too slow in showing themselves) on the other hand, led his-
has,
torically to the study of environments disturbed by man, the emphasis being
placed on physical changes on the earth, not on changes in human society.
It is this point of view which has produced much of the literature on environ-

mental change by human agency, and has stimulated historical geography,

ecological studies of vegetation change, and investigations in many other fields
today.
What lay behind this more man as not only
self-conscious awareness of
a part of nature but as an extremely active form of with ambitions for
life

control and change? A proper answer would require volumes, drawing lib-
erally from economic and religious history, philosophy, and the history of
technology; here there are three or four points I wish to make. First, the
observation that there were few contacts between science and technology in
the Middle Ages compared with those in the seventeenth century is correct,
in my opinion. "Only in the seventeenth century (though the idea had been
adumbrated in the Middle Ages) was it reahzed— and even then by few— that
science and the crafts were ahke concerned with natural phenomena and
could aid each other. Gradually it was seen that knowledge of nature conferred
power to control its forces."^^
If there was no great revolution in existing technologies in this period, if

there was no new invention of a prime mover, there was nevertheless a certain
majestic sweep in the geographical expansion of known activities. An im-
portant one was the spread of metallurgy and the concomitant extension of
forest use and forest destruction. A second was the popularity of drainage
and land reclamation, polder building in the Netherlands, draining the fens
in England, controlling the river courses and draining the swamps of Italy, and
draining marshes, ponds, and lakes in France. (In 1891, the Comte de Dienne
published a history, of over five hundred pages, of the drainage of lakes and
swamps of France alone before 1789.)^^ Finally there were the canals and
bridges, conspicuous and dramatic evidence of an elementary victory over
physical handicaps, crowned for this period by the completion under the
ministry of Colbert and the supervision of Pierre-Paul Riquet de Bonrepos
(1604— 1680) of the Canal du Midi (the canal of Languedoc, the canal of the
two seas). Few canals have fired the imagination of men more (at least prior
to Suez and Panama) than this one joining the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

Preface by the editors to Vol. ^ oi A History of Technology, pp. v-vi.

Le Comte de Dienne, Histoire du Dessechement des Lacs et Marais en France avant
1-189 (Paris, 1891).
 Control of Nature 497

Even in the next century, Voltaire, in his Siecle de Louis XIV, said that the
most glorious monument of the reign, because of its utility, grandeur and
difficulties, was "ce canal de Languedoc qui joint les deux mers," and not

the Louvre, nor Versailles, the Trianon, Marli, nor any other construction of
the time.^^
With hindsight, one can now see that the prevailing optimism was based
on ignorance of the extent of both old custom and new technique as potential
forces in changing the environment. Hidden also was the realization that a
great upsurge of world population was beginning, and a real awareness of
the awesome and frightening complexities of man himself.

"Siecle de Louis XIV," in Oeuvres de Voltaire, Beuchot ed., Vol. 20, p. 252. On the
history of the canal, see also Clement, op. cit.. Vol. 2, pp. 97-126.
 PART FOUR

Culture and Environment in the

Eighteenth Century
 Introductory Essay

In no other preceding age had thinkers discussed questions of culture and en-
vironment with such thoroughness and penetration as did those of the
eighteenth century. These men were acquiring a better understanding of
human society than had those of the past; they were moving away from the
study of the individual and of man in the abstract; they were moving away,
too, from the older religious idea, still popular in the seventeenth century,
of man the "amphibious piece," as Sir Thomas Brown had called him. It is

true that these ideas lasted into the eighteenth century, but they could no
longer satisfy those eager for more knowledge about societal bonds, tradition,
national character, the environmental influences affecting the lives of indi-
viduals and of nations, and for deeper understanding of the complexities of
human life, society, and history. More was constantly being learned about
natural history, too; the eighteenth is the century of the greatest natural his-
torians: Linnaeus, Buff on, Bonnet, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Peter Simon Pallas,
and Sir Joseph Banks.
 ,

502 Part Four: Introductory Essay

Furthermore, men avidly made use of the accumulating voyages and travels
which had been and were being published. What is the state of nature, the
primitive stage in mankind's development? What are primitive peoples like?
What influences, according to the travelers, determine the character of far-
off peoples? These questions were asked in the seventeenth century also, but
its thinkers leaned heavily on the classical writers. From the middle of
still

the eighteenth to the early part of the nineteenth century, in the writings of
Buffon, Montesquieu, Herder, and xMalthus (in the second and following
editions of his work) one
sees what a refreshing and inexhaustible well these
voyages and had become. The closing decades of the century mark
travels
the fresh stimulus to nararal history and ethnography coming from Cook and
the Forsters. After Joseph Banks withdrew as botanist on the Resolution
in Cook's second voyage (177 2- 1775), John Reinhold Forster and his son
George were chosen in Banks' place. The son's book, A Voyage Around the
World (1777), not only charmed and inspired Alexander von Humboldt, but
was the harbinger of the coming era of scientific travel undertaken by Hum-
boldt, Darwm, Livingstone, Stanley, Bates, Wallace, and many others.
Interest in the design argument as it was appHed to the constitution of the
earth continued but there was more penetrating criticism of final causes. Many
agreed that the design argument still had a useful place in the study of the
earth, of plant and animal life, and of man's place in nature. The eighteenth
century was a prosperous time for physico-theologies, propitious for finding
the traces of the Creator's wisdom— even in the study of stones and insects.
Many of the great names still were not inhospitable to doctrines of final causes.
Others, rejecting them, retained a strong belief in a balance and harmony of
nature. The writings of Buffon, Hume, Goethe, Kant, and the conclusions
drawn from the Lisbon earthquake, however, cast doubt both on optimistic
impHcations of doctrines of final causes and on their efficacy as tools for ad-
vancing knowledge. The most important works were Hume's T)ia-
scientific
logues Concerning Natural Religion and Kant's Critique of Judgement ( 1 790)
especially the critique of the teleological judgment. Both men explored care-
fully and profoundly the question of teleology both in nature and in man's
relation to it.

Montesquieu's dramatic revival of environmental theories, expressed so

epigrammatically and often so wittily that their traditional character was con-
had Bodin and Botero, of the nature of law and
cealed, raised questions, as
of lawmaking, and of society and social institutions in general. What
human
physical and moral causes were influencing them?
Furthermore, Malthus's first essay on population (1798) propounded an
environmental theory of population growth. It was not the environment of
the geographers or the cosmographers, delineating cultural differences by
climatic type or relief; the physical environment, conceived abstractly as a
limiting whole, affected men and their numbers. Moreover, it was considered
 Fart Four: Introductory Essay

narrowly as arable land available for producing food. Many of the important
thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Montesquieu, Buffon,
Malthus, Humboldt, had something to say about climatic influences and popu-
lation theory. Malthus's bold, forceful, and unrelenting style, however, at-
tracted wider and more general interest in population theory than had the
hundreds of speculations of those who preceded him. A subordinate quarrel
over the relative populousness of ancient and modern nations within the
broader quarrel over the relative superiority of the ancients and moderns be-
came in jfact a great divide; a population theory favoring the sympathizers
with antiquity and assuming senescence in nature was supplanted by one as-
suming a constancy in nature's operations. Two syntheses emerged by the
end of the century, the physico-theological synthesis of Siissmilch, and the
more secular doctrine of Malthus.
Lastly, in the work of Count Buffon, epoch of Des
especially in the last
opaques de la Nature, the idea of man as an agent of environmental change
comparable in power to other agents of geographic and geological change like
the wind and the water, becomes an important concept in understanding the
relation of mankind to the rest of life and to inanimate nature. Although there
were often environmentalistic overtones in BuflPon's thinking, his ideas of
man as a modifier of his environment underscored the weakness of theories of
environmental influence because they emphasized the power and the force
of human creativity.
The great names whichillustrate, and whose thoughts are representative of,

these complex themes are Buffon, Herder, Hume, Kant, Malthus, and
Montesquieu. They built on the past, but the world became a richer place
for their departures. Even today their questions suggest our questions, but it
would be a miracle if they did more than that. For they lived in a world
which resembled the past more than what was to come, at least as far as prob-
lems of human culture and the natural environment are concerned.
 Chapter ii

Final Strengths and Weaknesses

of Physico -Theology

I . Introduction

Natural- or physico-theology had its emissaries in religion, science, and phi-

losophy because it was concerned with fundamental questions such as the

proofs of God's existence, final causes, and orderhness in nature. Physico-
theology was not, as is so often said, primarily concerned with demonstrating
that everything in nature had been designed for man; often its sights were
much higher, for there is between regarding man as the
a vast difference
highest being in the hierarchy of creation while assuming that each being lower
on the scale exists for a purpose which may or may not have any relevance
to man's existence, and regarding the creation as serving man, like a middle-
aged housekeeper in Victorian novels who cares for her bachelor employer.
St. Augustine, as we have seen, made a distinction between gradations of

existence according to nature (the living being ranked above the nonliving,
the sentient above those lacking sensation, the intelligent above the unintelli-
gent) and gradations based on utility to man, for men may prefer for their
 »

Strengths and Weaknesses of Phy sico-Theology

uses the nonliving to the Hving even though the latter is higher on the scale
of nature.^ There was no question of conflict between religion and science.
In natural theology, religion and science were included; often it played a
synthesizing role in an attempt to achieve a grand interpretation of nature
which was not inconsistent with science or religion.
In this chapter, however, we are concerned with a narrower field than the
history of physico-theology with all of its works on insects, rocks, the human
body, and so forth. Our concern with the specific applications of its leading
is

ideas to the study of living nature and to the earth as a habitable planet. Al-
though many important thinkers had opinions on the subjects, in my opinion
the striking contributionswere made by Leibniz, Linnaeus, Siissmilch, Biisch-
ing, and Herder as supporters of physico-theology, and by Buffon, Mauper-
tuis, Hume, Goethe, and Kant as the critics, special places being reserved for

Hume and Kant. The application of design arguments and of teleology to

nature and to the earth had strong defenders and attackers, and the discussions
of the eighteenth century were often far more cogent than those of the nine-
teenth century.
Galileo did not cause teleology to fade away from science while he admired
the handiwork of God in the creation.^ It is true that his scientific method
could do without teleological explanation; the basic forces controlling the
creation could be stated in mathematical terms, and teleology could be put
to one side, or survive in the form of conventional piety. It was not so easy,

however, to ignore its hold on the earth and life sciences from the seventeenth
to the nineteenth centuries. The so-called triumph of "the mechanical phi-
losophy" of secondary or efficient causes is hard to reconcile with the volume
of teleological thought unless one dismisses the latter as the product of second-
class minds of no consequence and of no influence.
The influence of the doctrine of final causes was, as one would expect, more
lasting and vivid in those discipHnes concerned with life, with the relation-
ships of one kind of life to another and of life to inanimate matter, with prob-
lems of the preservation of life, and of death and decay, and with the inter-
relationships among plants, animals, and man. These are also some of the
reasons that physico-theology was so important in the history of geographical
thought and lasted so long in it.

2. On Leibniz

The philosophic and scientific interest in final causes and the liveliness with
which were advocated may be illustrated from the writings
these doctrines
of Leibniz, which span the two centuries. How Leibniz wished to keep what
was useful in the old, how critical he was of the new that he thought had

City of God, Bk. XI, chap. i6; Bk. XII, chap. 4.

1

See Galileo's "Letter to Madame Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany"

2

(161 5), in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, trans. Stillman Drake (Anchor Books)
5d6 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

failed, how he embraced the new that held promise for the improvement of
the human condition! The old he passionately wished to keep was the union
of science and theology and the doctrine of final causes. In the Discourse on
Metaphysics (1686), Leibniz criticized not final causes but partial views sub-
ject to human error derived from them. "I am quite willing to grant that we
are Hable to err when we wish to determine the purposes or councils [sic]
of God, but this is the case only when we try to hmit them to some particular
design, thinking that he has had in view only a single thing, while in fact he
regards everything at once."^ Leibniz argues also for the value of final causes
in scientific work. It is better to consider "God's decree always to carry out
his plan by the easiest and most determined way" than it is to consider sec-
ondary or efficient causes alone.^ Leibniz cites as an illustration Willebrord
Snellius' discovery of the law of refraction. Accepting the doctrine of final
causes purges "from mechanical philosophy the impiety that is imputed to it"

and leads to "nobler fines of thought" as well.^

What was his criticism of the new? To him neither Descartes' nor Newton's
view of nature provided an adequate explanation for the order of the world.
Furthermore, Cartesianism had failed to provide the needed stimulus to in-
vention and to the control of nature. Perhaps he was thinking of important
discoveriesmade by Galileo, Newton, Huygens, of himself, none being Car-
"Car la plus part des Cartesiens [sic] ne sont que des commentateurs,"
tesians.
he wrote to Malebranche, adding that he wished any one of them could have
contributed as much to physics as he, Malebranche, had to metaphysics.^
Leibniz criticized the Cartesians for being sterile, for espousing a philosophy
that did not lead to scientific advance.
Man lives in a nature controlled by final causes, but he can improve himself
and his surroundings; his thought here is akin to the Christian idea of man
being a finisher of nature, using his brains and his hands, imitating on a small
scale the acts of God in the universe. In 1697 Leibniz, as we have seen, (see p.

377), applied the concept of order to the earth, regarding this order as
progressively increasing, with the help of man. He boldly apphed the idea of
progress to the earth as a unit, assuming both an orderhness on earth and an
orderliness in the changes had undergone by man.
it

Leibniz is knowledge of his own age

greatly impressed with the advances in
and the age immediately preceding it. Inventions and discoveries show the
cogency of the design argument. The microscope and the telescope reveal the
intricacy and magnitude of the design; they also reveal order and purpose.

p. 196.See also Herschel Baker, The Wars of Truths pp. 316-317, and chap. 8, "The Con-
quest of Nature."
3 Wiener, Leibniz Selections^
p. 318.
^ Ibid., p. 321.

^Ibid., p. 323-
^ Leibniz to Malebranche, 22 June (2 July), 1679, Preuss. Akademie ed. Vol II, I, 472.
'Quoted in Barber, Leibniz in France, p. 34.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy stco-Theology 507

"Through the grace of God we now possess excellent instruments for examin-
ing the secrets of nature, and in these enquiries we can achieve more in a
single year than our ancestors achieved in ten or a hundred years."'^ In lines
which suggest Whitehead's famous statement that the "greatest invention of
the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention," Leibniz
writes, "The 'organmn organorum^ the 'vraye logique' or 'ars mveniendi'
seems now at last to be discovered; and by means of it our intellect has been
no less improved than our eyes have been by means of the telescope." We
acquire a correct conception of the great edifice of the world and the grandeur
of God's works. Men in our age can illumine His wisdom much more than
could the ancients, whose poor notions did little honor to the Creator. Tech-
nology and invention are closely linked not only with the informed, the in-
quisitive, the intelligent, the dissipators of ignorance, but also with piety and
love of God. Microscopes allow us to see the great world in the small, millions
of things whose aggregate size is equal to a grain of sand.^ "Yet this 'vraye
logique' is also a 'psychologique,' designed not only to increase man's under-
standing of himself, but also to help him to assert his Self and to find his
bearings 'in the turmoil of the age.' " It is a means for the dissemination of
knowledge, the elimination of prejudice and ignorance.^
Leibniz also sees the new opportunities for an infinitely expanded vision of
the scope of life. The researches on spermatozoa of Leeuwenhoek and Swam-
merdam promised new insights into reproduction and biological growth.
Leeuwenhoek denied spontaneous generation, asserting that even the smallest
animals have reproductive powers. Swammerdam's monographs on insects,
the preformation theory, his study of the anatomy of the bee and many other
insects, had heightened the sense of the wonder of life.^^ The theme of the
organic and the living suffuses much of Leibniz' thought; here he is close to
the Cambridge Platonists, to Ray and Derham, sharing their enthusiasm for
final causes.
His windowless monads are "substantial centers of living energy"
(Wiener), their relationship to each other being in accordance with a pre-
establishedharmony of God's devising. Some modern students of Leibniz,
however, have pointed to less idylHc implications in his philosophy than has
formerly been thought. While this may be the best of all possible worlds, it
may not necessarily be best for human beings.^^
Mechanistic explanations are unsatisfactory because they themselves require

^ "Vorschlage fiir eine Teutschliebende Genossenschafft," Werke^ ed. Klopp, Vol. 6,

p. 214. See also Wiener, op. cit.^ p. xxx.

^ Ibid.,
pp. 214-215; Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (Pelican Mentor
Books), p. 98.
^R. W. Meyer, Leibnitz (sic) and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, pp. 123,
208-209; I am indebted to this work for these references.
^°See Nordenskiold, The History of Biology, pp. 165-171. Barber, Leibniz iii France,
p. 108.
11 Barber, op. cit., p. 88.
5o8 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

explanation. In the "Histoire des Ouvrages des Savans" (1705), he insists on

the need for both secondary and final causes. "There are as it were, two king-
doms, the one of efficient causes, the other of final; each of which separately
suffices in detail for explaining all as if the other did not exist. But the one does
not suffice without the other in the general nature of their origin, for they
both emanate from one source in which the power which constitutes efficient
causes and the wisdom which regulates final causes are found united. "^^ These
words might well have been spoken— albeit with less skill— by all believers in
final causes. The law of sufficient reason, assuming God's thought follows
principles familiar to human thinking, is defined by Leibniz in the following
words: "no fact can be real or existing and no proposition can be true unless
there is sufficient reason, why it should be thus and not otherwise, even though
inmost cases these reasons cannot be known to us."^^ The principle is derived
from the assumed order and harmony of the creation, all of whose component
parts have a purpose and a reason for existence. By assuming a preestablished
harmony and the law of sufficient reason, Leibniz concludes that rationality
and morality are uniformly characteristic of the universe.
In his letter to Bourguet (17 14), Leibniz dealt with the familiar question of
chaos and disharmony in nature, admitting that these might appear at first sight
to exist on earth. The chaos produced by the mass of volcanic materials thrown
up by Vesuvius is only apparent; ". whoever would have sensitive organs
. .

penetrating enough to perceive the small parts of things would find everything
organized, and if he could continually augment his penetration to the degree
needed, he would always see new organs which were imperceptible pre-
viously."^^
The world opened up to Leibniz was not the dreary mechanical uni-
that
verse of the closing years of the seventeenth century which Whitehead has
described. There is too much sympathy in him for the organic and the teleo-
logical. To him the world of the senses is alive. The plenitude of nature
entrances him. He desires to do more than to contemplate God's works; he
wishes to use them, to transform them for human welfare.^^

3. Natural History

The teleological view of nature became the philosophical— and theological-

support for the conventional natural histories of the eighteenth century. The
influence of Derham's Physico-Theology, which went through several Eng-

12 Wiener, Leibniz Selections, pp. 193-194.

Monadology, p. 32 (Everyman's Library ed., p. 8). See also the passages in Wiener,
Selections, pp. 93-96.
On
these points, see also Barber, Leibniz in France, pp. 35, 55; Wiener's introduction
to the Selections, p. xxxviii; and Ruth Lydia Saw, Leibniz (Pelican Books), p. 72.
^5 Wiener, Leibniz Selections, p. 200.
Science and the Modern World (Pelican Mentor Books), pp. ss~S^-
See Meyer, Leibnitz, p. 43-44.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 509

lish editions and was translated into German and French, extended far beyond
English borders. De Pluche used it as a source in his natural history which
rivaled Buffon's in popularity; Linnaeus refers to it in his discourse on the
Oeconomy of Nature-, Siissmilch's celebrated Die Gdttliche Ordnung, a study
of population and population theory based on the design argument, praised
and criticized him, and Kant, in his discussion of the cosmological and physico-
theological proofs for the existence of God, referred to the works both of
Derham and of the Dutch physico-theologist, Nieuwentijdt, the latter writer
emphasizing evidences of design in many fields but adding nothing of par-
ticular interest to the ideas concerning the earth and animate nature/^
The problems posed by natural history encouraged both those who worked
within the traditional molds and those who departed impatiently from them
to the study of the secondary rather than the final causes underlying the
order and unity of nature. There was room for De Pluche; there was also room
for Buff on. Men had become interested too in the concrete, in the living, an
interest derived in great measure from the successful accumulation of enor-
mous amounts of material about plants, animals, and man from all parts of the
world, from the zeal for collecting plants and animals and putting them in
gardens and museums such as Kew Gardens and the Jardin du Roy.
The popular interest in natural history is clearly evident in the works of
the abbe de Pluche. His Spectacle de la Nature has been ridiculed for its simple-
minded and naive arguments from and it is true that it ignores the
design,
fundamental problems that Buffon concerned himself with in the Histoire
Naturelle even though the latter work was almost contemporary with De
Pluche. Even with all these shortcomings, De Pluche turned attention to the
regularities of nature, its wholeness, its unity. The work, as Mornet has shown,
rivaled Buff on's in popularity in France in the eighteenth century. There was
also a greater interest in the ordinary and the usual in nature, in contrast
with earlier fascinations with its oddities and marvels.^^ The geometrical view
of nature failed also to satisfy basic curiosities about details of living nature,
which could only come about by discoveries, concrete descriptions, that
might emphasize rather than despise the secondary qualities of color, scent,
and so forth.
Geometry lost its former supremacy
because people came to the very definite conclusion that it added nothing to the
stock of knowledge. All it did was to develop, to add, by deduction on deduc-
tion, to principles already securely established. Thus it had no contact with
reality. Seeing that in real life there is no such thing as surface without depth,

^^Nieuwentijdt, The Religious Philosopher: Or, The Right Use of Contemplating

the Works of the Creator. Trans, from the Dutch by John Chamberlayne, 2 vols. See
his citations from the Scriptures, the watch analogy, and the wide variety of "contempla-
tions," esp.Contemplation 2, sect. 3, based on Romans 1:20, and Vol. 2. Nieuwentijdt's
work one of the vastest compilations of natural theology ever made.
is

Mornet, Les Sciences de la Nature en France au , XV

IW Siecle^ pp. 9, 13-14,
33-34-
5IO Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

length without breadth, nor anything answering to the definition of position

without magnitude, nor anything exhibiting the theoretic regularity which ge-
ometry assigns to things, what we learn from geometry would appear to be no
more than a dream expressed in a number of equations. The idea of explaining
creation in terms of motion and extension was the purest moonshine. It was M.
Descartes who started it, and M. Descartes had had his day.^^

It is true that De Pluche was a popular writer, but the design argument also
continued as a tool in the study of living nature among serious scientists, such
as Linnaeus. Piety and the praise of the Creator's works are the hymns on
Sunday; the practicality and sober appraisal of the earth's resources are the
tasks for the rest of the week. It is the Christian's duty to praise God; it is also
proper to inquire into the usefulness of the plants and the animals. Linnaeus'
interest in natural theology had been inspired by Johann Arndt's True Chris-
tianity}^ In his celebrated lecture on the economy of nature delivered before
the University Academy at Stockholm in 1749, Linnaeus, however, departs
from the traditional standbys of natural theology to a more secular position
which, admitting design, stresses environmental influences in the distribution
of plants, animals, and men and their activities.^^ Linnaeus as a philosopher
of natural history resembles Carl Ritter as a philosopher of geography: neither
was an innovator, but they were epitomizers of the natural theology of their
times.
Even in the eighteenth century it was occasionally necessary to meet the
criticism that the planet only a passably fit environment for life. To Lin-
is

naeus the present relief and position of the earth are evidences of planned
order. He points out the wisdom of the hydrological cycle; he is interested
in plant succession (how an area through natural processes can be transformed
from marsh to meadow); he justifies the relief of the earth both on aesthetic
and on utilitarian grounds, for it is pleasing to the eye and it increases the
surface area of the earth.^^ This veering away, as did Ray and Derham, from
naive simplicities to a blending of natural theology with theories of environ-
mental causation is illustrated in Linnaeus' analysis of life existing on earth.
The Creator decreed that the earth should be covered with plants. Since both
seasonal change and the nature of soils preclude uniformity in the vegetable

20 Hazard, European Thought in the Eighteenth Century from Montesquieu to Lessing,

p. 130. For a contemporary view, see Buffon's criticism of Descartes, Histoire Naturelle,
Generate et Particuliere (1749-1767), Vol. 2, pp. 50-53. See also Ernst Cassirer, The
Philosophy of the Enlightenment, chap. 2.
21 Arndt, a Lutheran theologian, published Vom Wahren Christentum in 1609. This

is a veritable handbook containing accumulations of the ages on physico-theology. See

esp. Bk. 4, "Liber Naturae."

22 On Linnaeus and the natural theology of Arndt, see Hagberg, Linnaeus,
p. 34; see
p. 44 for the influence of Aristotle's History of Animals, and pp. 48-49 for other in-
fluences.
23 "The Oeconomy of Nature," in Stillingfleefs Pamphlets (1791), pp. 44-45.
 1

Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhysico-Theology 5 1

cover, plants differ because each is adapted to its own climate. Utilitarian
and anthropocentric conceptions, however, support Linnaeus' discussion of
grasses and humus. Grasses are widely distributed, for of all plants they are
most necessary for cattle; humus (black mold) is a key substance in maintain-
ing the uninterrupted fertility of the earth through the cyclical process of
birth, growth, death, decay, and the reabsorption of the organic residues into
the earth.^^
Linnaeus also shares in the contemporary speculations about animals and
animal populations: those with the greatest reproductive power are the small-
est. Others are useful or serve as food for other animals. Because each animal
species eats certain kinds of food and because nature sets Hmits to the appetite,
the earth can support all life, and because of this variety
kinds and varieties of
it produces nothing useless or superfluous. Although Linnaeus does not use

these terms, a harmony in nature and a balance in population are assumed.

The limitation in numbers of any one species is evidence of divine intent to
prevent any one species becoming so numerous that it threatens the existence
of man and the other animals. It is a wise provision of nature that there is
variety, not uniformity, in life forms. Following Derham, Linnaeus warns of
the dangers of "overstocking."^^
His cart wheels deep in the track of the tradition which constantly re-
minded man that nature was not created solely for his benefit, Linnaeus says
that the economy of nature was not planned according to individual principles
of economy. Hemakes the interesting point that cultural differences are evi-
dences of this truth. There are among men great variations in the ways of life,
as evidenced in the contrasts between the Laplander, the European husband-
man, and the Hottentot. These human economies, differing among themselves,
are contrasted with "the stupendous oeconomy of the Deity [which] is one
throughout the globe. . .
."^^ Later Linnaeus lapses into more anthropocentric
reflections. It seems, he says, that the three kingdoms, fossil (that is, things
which are dug up), animal, vegetable, are intended by the Creator for man.
Man's ability to make use of nature and to modify it is evidence that he pos-
sesses this divinely endowed creativity. Man has hunted or tamed the wild
animals, he has increased the number of plants, and he has mined the earth.
Finally, Linnaeus sees the earth as a self-renewing and self-cleansing natural
system. The luxuriance of life and the vigor of growth have their counterparts
in decay and putrefaction which are taken care of by animals and insects who

^^Ibid., p. 78.
2^ For a modern statement of a similar idea, of "a general principle [which]
is gradually

emerging from ecological study to the effect that the more complex
the biological com-
munity, the more stable," see Bates, The Forest and the Sea^ p. 261, and Elton, The
Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, pp. 143-153, 155. "Oeconomy of Nature,"
p. 119; Derham, Physico-Theology, p. 237.
26 "The Oeconomy of Nature," p. 121.
512 Strengths and Weaknesses of Phy sico-Theology

whose remains are reabsorbed to become the materials of new

live off the dead,
life.These cyclic processes which keep the earth alive and fresh also make
possible a permanency in nature as a whole, permitting the continuing exis-
tence of these harmonious interrelationships.

4. Population and Geography in the Divine Order

In modem times, population theories have often been based on religion and
on theories of environmental influence. They have relied also on several kinds
of evidence: observations, for example, that food supply offers an effective
check to increases in population, or that wars, disease, plague, death at birth
might be effective checks to the growth
or in early childhood, certain customs,
in numbers. These observations could be— and often were— related to historical
problems posed by events mentioned in the Bible and to the design argument.
Analyses of bills of mortality, which called attention to contrasts in health
between city and country life, the ratios of the sexes and of births to deaths,
were evidences of statistical regularities easily reconciled with the design
argument.
Many of these threads were gathered together by Johann Siissmilch, the
Prussian army chaplain whom many Germans regard as the founder of demog-
raphy. Although overshadowed by Malthus, Siissmilch's work is an intensely
interesting synthesis of population theory, geography, and theology. He will
save the Christian religion against "die neuen und gefiihrlichen Anschul-
digungen" of a Montesquieu. Should not, he adds, a theology be aware of
what is happening in the world about it? The title of the three-volume work,
Die Gdttliche Ordnujig, aptly prepares one for its argument and the tradi-
tional character of its constituent ideas. Siissmilch stresses the importance of
those chapters of Genesis (9: 1-2, 6) that command men to multiply and to
assure dominion over all life on earth, distinguishing between man and the
animals, the latter obeying the less all-encompassing injunction to multiply
themselves, while man— fulfilling God's command— spreads himself every-
where on an earth which is already quite filled up. (Gen. 9:1-2, 6; 8:17;
1:21-22.) Each animal requires and is confined to its own climate, but man
can go where he pleases. The Creator, anticipating the worldwide distribution
of man, provided special kinds of plants and animals for every climate in which
he lives. Theology is thus reconciled with the truths made known during the
age of discovery, whose expanded horizons cast new light on man's place in
nature: his adaptability to many different environmental conditions, the va-
riety of peoples despite the unity of the human race, and the striking distri-
butions of plants and animals, dramatized by the differences in the flora and
fauna of the Old and the New Worlds.^^
It is the blessed command of God, says Siissmilch, that the earth be filled—

Die Gdttliche Ordnung, Vol. i, p. xii, 9-16.

 3

Strejjgths and Weaknesses of Fhysico-Theology 513

but not to overflowing. The German example shows God's care for the
world. The country, whose population increases by a million souls every five
years, without doubt the most cultivated and most populous land in Europe;
is

despite wars, disease, and emigration, its losses are made up because of a 10: 1
proportion of deaths to births.^^ Increase in the world population brings about
cultural diversity, for the earth cannot be filled up everywhere in the same
way. Perhaps the Creator had intentionally joined physical and moral causes
in his plan for the multiplicationand dispersal of the human race. The un-
inhabitable deserts might prevent theworld from being too greatly filled up,
providing at the same time physical barriers to check an easy diffusion of
moral poison, to prevent the destruction of national customs from reaching
harmful proportions, to discourage war and misery. Siissmilch's figures of
speech are often taken from the language of the professional soldier, and he
likens the gradual and orderly growth of population to the march of a regi-
ment.^^
Siissmilch insists that it is possible to reconcile population growth with
sacred and profane history. Indeed, his reconstruction is key
ingenious, the
notion being that the period required for a population to double has varied
throughout time. The people living before the Flood had more food, and the
earth's population was therefore greater. Also, the seas of the antediluvian
world were more narrowly confined and smaller than now; consequently,
there was less sand, and the soils were more fertile, for floods cause disorder
and devastation.^^ After the Flood, the Creator cut down the life span, lower-
ing it in Noah's time, shortening it still more to its present period; He gradually
lowers life expectancy as the earth's population increases. The postdiluvian
world, however, posed problems even for the Creator who had made his
covenant that no more floods would destroy the earth (Gen. 9:11); He could
as he had treated antediluvian man. The poorer environ-
not treat postdiluvian
ment, the large areas of sea and sand, the reduced the capacity
lesser fertility,
of the postdiluvian world. In shortening and lengthening the time for
life

doubling the population, He avoided the evil consequences of a too rapid

population increase. Siissmilch therefore concludes that the biblical account
is well in accord with experience and reason.^^

Siissmilch discusses at length the checks to population growth; often social

and religious factors decisively influence their operation. The Muslim religion,
for example, helps in spreading the plague, for to the true believer death is not
an evil and he need not put obstacles in its path. For this reason, the plague
has a permanent abode in Turkish lands, scarcely a year passing without an
outbreak.^^

^^Ibid.y pp. 20-21, 271-272.

^^Ibid., pp. 29-32, 33-34, 52-53.
Ibid.^ p. 298; Vol. 3, pp. 160-161.
21 Ibid.., Vol. I, p. 299.
Ibid., p. 315.
514 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

Christian theology inevitably calls attention to population questions be-

cause of the increase and multiply injunctions and because of its commitment
tomonogamy. Botero was also interested, as we have seen, in comparing the
influence of theMuslim and the Christian religions on population growth.
(See the introductory essay to Part III.) Does polygamy with its constant
competition of wives and their children for a husband's or a father's attention
act as a check on population?
Clerical celibacy and various kinds of emasculation naturally would con-
cern a writer basing his population theory on the divine order. Siissmilch
severely criticizes these practices in the history of Christianity, singling out
Origen's self-emasculation for special condemnation, acknowledging at the
same time that he was a learned man worthy of respect. Such practices are
evil readings of Matthew 19: 12, and Epithanius rightly called Origen and his

followers heretics; they deserve the epithet because they act contrary to God's
purpose, they harm themselves, and are arch foes of the state. He is equally
firm in disapproving of castration and mutilation in the East, adding that cas-
tration is the oriental counterpart of occidental celibacy, especially in lands
under the laws of the Roman Church. His attitude toward celibacy reminds
one of Jean De Meun's lines in The Romance of the Rose. If God wanted to
remove desire from some men, why not from all? In trying to achieve such
celibacy, Siissmilch says, men forget they are men, forget their mission
{Bestbmninig) in life, ignore the Creator's wish; they want to be more than
men, to be angels, but man's nature is not yet compatible with angelic being.
He asks whether mutilation {V erstunmtelung) is not better than celibacy in
which men have their full vigor, for in emasculation the spiritual being is pro-
tected against the dreadful temptations which cause so much anxiety, cruelty,
and scandal. Clerical cehbacy to him becomes a spiritual castration; it and
actual physical emasculation alike are in conflict with the divine order.^^
In his extensive analysis of war as a check to population growth, Sussmilch,
condemning its destructiveness and inhumanity, remarks upon the recupera-
tive powers of populations, apparent after the Thirty Years' War, and on the
lesser violence of modern war.^^ Similar analyses are made of famines, includ-
ing the eflfects of insects and pests, floods and earthquakes. Are these and
other checks to population growth necessary in order to carry out the divine
order? Are war, plague, hunger, earthquakes necessary to maintain the balance
in population and avoid world overpopulation? Are they in effect secondary
agents acting in accordance with the wisdom of the Creator? There are two
views of this matter, he replies, one that they are indeed, and the other that
they are punishments for man's sin. Most people would agree with the first.^^

Ibid., pp. 371-373; on Origen, pp. 370-371. For another side of Origen, see pp. 184-
186. The Romance of the Rose, chap. 91, p. 244, Hnes 90-94.
pp. 331-335, 336, 339-340-
^^Ibid., pp. 390-391.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology 515

But Siissmilch allies himself with the second view— with the Gottesstraf for

Lisbon theology. In that event of November i, 1755, he writes, we have "einen

Beweis, wie leicht der gerechte Schopf er den Erdboden umkehren konne." The
Creator does not need terrible plagues and famines in order to prevent world
overpopulation because far milder means are available to him.^^ No, they are
punishments. If the Creator governing the divine order wished to control
population growth, he could slowly increase the death rate by increasing the
power of fever or by invoking other gentle (gelinde) ways of assuring higher
mortahty.
In his later assertions that rulers have an obligation to see that the popula-
tion of their countries is consistent with food supply, Siissmilch links popula-
tion policy in the secular world with population theory and history based on
theology. How is from Malthus! To Siissmilch the goodness
different this
of God is revealed in his concern for the multiphcation of life, the wickedness
of man by dreadful visitations which restrict his numbers. To Malthus the
principle of population is also divinely ordained, and the checks are part of
the principle which is beneficent because it insures that no check or combi-
nation of checks will lead to the extinction of the human race.
A similar natural theology, transcending either rehgiosity or simple piety,
appeared in the writings of two other Germans, D. Anton Friederich Biisching
and Johann Gottfried von Herder, both important names in the history of
modern geography. (On Herder, see below, pp. 537-543-)
Biisching is among the first to write a modern compendium of geography;
the Schaffhausen edition of 1767 was in eleven volumes. He has often been
cast aside as an unimaginative fact-gatherer, but recently a German geogra-
pher summarizing the commonly held unflattering views of him defended him
from this harsh verdict.^^
Biisching's introductory essay, Von dem Nutzen der Erdbeschreibung, is

unexcelled as a short statement of the role of geography in natural theology

and in Christian theology in particular, the chief usefulness of geography
being its abihty to further a knowledge of God as a creator and as a preserver

of all things.^^

With elegant compression, Biisching presents, in less than seven pages, argu-
ments for the usefulness of geography ranging from the opportunities for the
subhme contemplation of the Creator's works it affords to the commercial

2^ Ibid.,
pp. 362, 392.
3^ Plewe, "Studien iiber D. Anton Friederich Biisching," in Geographische Forschun-
gen, Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Hans Kinzl, pp. 203-223. Biiscliing's work was
translated into several languages, among them English, Dutch, French, ItaHan, and Rus-
sian; it apparently was very influential throughout Europe (pp. 203-204).
If one fails to understand this function of geography, Plewe remarks correctly,
"bleibt uns nicht nur Biisching fremd, sondern auch die Geographic bis hin zu Carl
Ritter" {ibid., p. 209). See also his remarks on pietism, and Protestant thought, pp.
209-21 1.
5i6 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

transactions of everyday life. Its main use, in effect, is that it furnishes evidence
of the physico-theological proof; the earth on which we Hve may be a very
small part of the universe, but it is full of sublimity, of beauty, and what exists
on it constitutes a proof of God's existence.
Using the ancient distinction between nature and art, Biisching says we
find remarkable works of nature, of art, or of both simultaneously. God is
the creator of the beauty, the loveliness and the splendor of the kingdom
of nature, and he is the creator of landscapes, cities, buildings, arising from
the activity of man. Nature untouched by man and nature modified by man
are equally God's creations. Man thus is merely an agent of God, his skills, a
gift of God and not his own creation.^^
The great natural variety in the earth's climates, vegetables, fruits, animals,
is all available to man. It was a wise provision, too, that there was but one man
originally, his descendants in time spreading over the face of the earth, ac-
quiring differences in outer form, language, customs, and ways of living; God
saw fit to set territorial limits for various peoples and nations.^^ Through His
wisdom, the peoples of the known world have been brought closer together;
they help one another, food shortages and surpluses being distributed by
means of world trade and commerce. (This thought anticipates the statement
commonly heard century that not only had
in the latter part of the nineteenth
the new marvels in transportation— steamships, railroads, canals— brought the
lands of the world closer together but the earth's resources, now available to
all peoples, could free men from their age-old dependence on local resources.)
God has been responsible too for the migrations of peoples; through them
they have become better known to one another and have grown more alike.
If we behold cities, fortresses, buildings, and gardens, we are astounded that
God has bestowed upon man so much understanding, so much power, so many
blessings. A city, a castle, a fortress, is situated on what was, perhaps a very
short time ago, an empty, deserted place, a forest, a rough and forlorn cliff,

an inaccessible bog or swamp. Nature, triumphantly changed by art and forced

by man into these new molds, becomes a wonder in their eyes. But should
they regard this work as theirs? In Biisching's comforting philosophy— man
seems to have little responsibility for good or evil— the answer is "no" because

these are works of God; they could not have been made against Flis will.^^
A good geography is among the most necessary and most useful of books;
only a detailed knowledge of it can enable us to understand the works of cre-
ation. Then, following customary usage, the religious is succeeded by the
utilitarian argument. Geographical knowledge is pleasant, useful, and neces-
sary in our striving to learn about the earth. How can we understand news-
papers and histories, read about wars and journeys on land and sea if we do

^^Neue Erdbeschreibung^ Vol. i, pp. 17-20.

^^Ibid., p. 18.
Ibid.y pp. 19-20.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Phy sico-Theology 517

not know where places are? Geography belongs in the education of the
young. Away with the ghost and witch stories, the fairy tales and other
trifles! Geography becomes the mentor of the ruler, the statesman, the natural
historian, the merchant, and the traveler. And Biisching will not put up with
ignorance among the clerics; the theologian cannot properly understand and
interpret holy writ if he knows nothing of the earth's wonders revealed by
geography.^^
Once again, in Biisching, one sees the force and vigor left in eighteenth
century natural theology. There is room for environmentahstic explanations,
there is room for the creativity of man. God has made the habitats of man,

and the two natures— untouched nature and the landscapes of man— are really
but a single manifestation of His providence and creativity. Geography, the
study of the works of the creation, is for vastly different reasons indispensable
to the theologian and to the merchant alike.^^

5. On Final Causes in Nature

The nineteenth century controversies— over the fixity of species, special cre-
ation, the nature of geological change, doctrines of final causes— associated
with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species have, except in the more
overshadowed discussions of fundamental questions re-
specialized literature,
garding and the order of nature on earth which went on in the
final causes

eighteenth. I need mention only Hume and Kant.

Of the eighteenth century thinkers critical of the design argument and the
teleological view of living nature, the general opinion was that they often
drifted into triviality; they were too centered on human problems, they too
readily identified human needs with natural law. Maupertuis— sympathetic to
doctrines of final causes, impatient with the excesses of its zealots— said, "A
host of natural scientists since Newton have found God in stars, in insects,
in plants, and in water. Some find him in the wrinkles of the rhinoceros' hide
because this animal covered with a very thick hide would be unable to shake
himself without his wrinkles. Leave these bagatelles to those who do not
. . .

realize their own folly." He saw disaster awaiting those who applied the
design argument to the minutest manifestations of nature. In passages showing
a close reading ofDerham, he criticizes "those who see intelligence every-
where; those nowhere." "The organization of animals, the multiplicity and
minuteness of the parts of insects, the immensity of celestial bodies, their
distances and their revolutions are better suited to astonish the mind than to

^2 Ibid.y
pp. 22-23.
^3Biisching (i 724-1 793) published the first volume of Neue Erdbeschreibung in
Hamburg in 1754; ten more followed. This discussion is based on the "newest edition,"
the Schaffhausen of 1767, Vol. i, pp. 17-24. Plewe's article analyzes the contents of the
work and discusses many other interesting ideas in it.
5.8 Strengths a?id Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

enlighten it. . . . Let us search for Him in the fundamental laws of the cosmos,
in those universal principles of order which underlie the whole, rather than
in the complicated results of those laws." He saw that in every age men who
sought for proofs of this kind would find them; he saw also a fundamental
truth about the absorbing capacity of physico-theology: The greater the ad-
vances made in the study of natural phenomena, the greater was the number
of these proofs.^^ Maupertuis, who
headed the expedition sent by Louis XV
to Lapland (1736— 1737) in order to measure a degree of longitude, was plead-
ing for more industry and more rigor in scientific inquiry. Stop the wonder-
ment, away with the apostrophes, to work on basic discoveries!
Voltaire, who had often made fun of Maupertuis because of his vanity about
the discovery that the earth was an oblate spheroid, was, as we shall see, even
more sympathetic than he with final causes. But it was the minute tracing of
God's handiwork in the details of nature coupled with complacent optimism
(which infatuation with final causes could quickly induce) that also provoked

Voltaire's scorn. When

Candide sees the Anabaptist drowning after bravely
saving a sailor, he wants to rescue him, but Dr. Pangloss stops him, saying
that "the Tagus approach to Lisbon had been created on purpose for this
Anabaptist to be drowned in it."^^

One sees in the serious writers on nature,

Buffon and Goethe, an even
like
greater impatience with final causes in studying nature and with the glaring
failure to distinguish between the laws of nature and the conveniences of man.
Count Buffon rejected final causes as tools in the study of nature, even
though some passages in his work do have a teleological flavor. In Des tlpoques
de la Nature, for example, man does not appear on earth until the violent
transformations it has undergone are over and it has quieted down to a point
at which it has become a suitable home for man.^^
More characteristic of Buffon, however, is the remark that the swine does
not seem to have been formed according to an original, particular, and perfect
plan but seems to be composed of the parts of other animals. It has useless
parts or apparently useful parts which it is unable to use. The bones of the

toes are perfectly formed, but they do not assist the animal. He concludes
that nature does not subject itself to the guidance of final causes in the com-
position of beings. If it did, why would there be superfluous parts, or why
would essential parts so often be lacking? To be continually seeking ideas of
purpose means deserting the point of view that asks the honjo of things (le

comment des choses), the manner in which nature acts, and substituting for
this inquiry the vain idea of searching for the ivhy (encher chant a deviner le

pourquoi), for the end which nature has in mind when it acts.^^

de Cosvtologie, pp. 13-14, 28-30, 55, 60-62.

'^'^Essai
Candide, chap. 5.
Des Epoques de la Nature, esp. 5th epoch, ad fin, HNS, Vol. 5 (1778), pp. 189-190.
"Le cochon, le cochon de Siam, et le sanglier," HN, Vol. 5 (1755), pp. 102-104.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology 519

So niggardly are the endowments of the sloths, says Buffon, that the
wretched creatures ("ces ebauches imparfaites mille fois projetees exectutees
par la Natur") have survived only because no one interfered with them. If they
had not inhabited deserted lands, if man and the powerful animals had pre-
empted their habitat, they would not have survived; indeed, some day they
will be destroyed. That they exist is proof that all potentialities of life have
been reahzed in actuality, that all that which can be is. The Creator has not
confined himself to a set number of species; there are infinite combinations-
harmonious and inharmonious. But this plenitude in nature does not prove
the validity of final causes. To admit ideas of final causes for such incongruous
creatures as the sloths, to claim that nature sparkles in them as brilliantly as it
does in its beautiful works, is to see through a narrow tube, and to confound
nature's ends with our own.^^
What happens to the concept of the harmony of nature when the idea of
final causes is abandoned? BufTon's answer is that nature should be envisaged

and studied for itself. In such a conception, environmental factors immediately

assume greater significance. In his De la Nature, Fremiere Vue(1764), BufTon
defined nature as a system of laws estabhshed by the Creator for the existence
of things and for the succession of beings. It is not a thing, for then it would
be everything; neither is it a being, for then it would be God. One can con-
sider it as a living power {puissance vive), immense, embracing and animating
everything, subordinate to a supreme being; began functioning only at His
it

command, it continues on its course only with His consent. The power in
nature is that part of divine power that is manifest to us. "La Nature est le
trone exterieur de la magnificence Divine." It is at the same time cause and
effect, means and substance, design and the finished work. Unlike human art
whose productions are composed of dead things, nature herself is a perpetually
living worker unceasingly active, who knows how to use everything, who
works always on the same foundations, whose store is inexhaustible. Time,
space, matter, are the means, the universe its object, the movement of hfe its

end.^«
Such precepts, no matter how grandiloquently stated and how seemingly
devout, relieve the Creator of the task of taking care of the minutiae, of plan-
ning the detailed and intricate interrelationships of life and matter on earth.
As a result Buff on stresses the adaptability of life to environmental conditions,
notwithstanding his interest in the power of man to modify the environment.
Historically, as we have seen, environmental ideas have been important
subordinate elements in the design argument; harmonious adaptations, with or
without divine care, meant a harmony among all forms in life and a harmony
also between the organic and the inorganic world. In Buffon one sees a shift

^^"L'unau et IVi," HN, Vol. 13 (1765), pp. 38-40; see also "De la maniere d'etudier
et de traiter I'Histoire Naturelle," HiV, Vol. i (1749), 11-13.
"De la Nature, Premiere Vue," HN, Vol. 12 ( 1764), pp. iii, xi.
520 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

taking place; despite the pious protestations, adaptations of life to the environ-
ment are not being brought about by the specific intention of the Creator;
they take place because of conditions and interractions (like the struggle of
life in a limited environment) observable in nature itself v^ithout invoking
final causes at all.

The Baron d'Holbach, who had similar views, wrote with enthusiastic
awareness of the triumphs of mechanistic over teleological explanation in
physics; it is Newton's method in science, not his pious faith in final causes,

that the Baron d'Holbach admires. To him, the idea of order is a human cre-
ation derived from observing the necessary, regular, and periodical motion
in the universe. What man calls confusion is really that which does not con-
form to his ideas of order. "It is therefore, in his imagination alone man finds
the model of that which he terms order, or confusion, which, like all his
abstract, metaphysical ideas, supposes nothing beyond his reach. Order, how-
ever, is never more than the faculty of conforming himself with the beings
by whom he is environed, or with the whole of which he forms a part."^^
When D'Holbach applies these general ideas in the elucidation of the nature
of life, he sees it to be the result of several phenomena, among them the
rotation of the earth and the effects of seasonal change on the life of plants,
animals, and man. Whatever theories one adopts regarding the early history
of the earth and man's occupance of it, "plants, animals, men, can only be
regarded as productions inherent in and natural to our globe, in the position
or in the circumstances in which it is actually found. "^^ If some accident should
occur to the globe, the productions pecuHar to it would change with the new
circumstance, and the human race might even be eradicated. The distribution
of plant, animal, and human Hfe clearly reveals differences; all vary with the
climates. "Man, in different climates, varies in his colour, in his size, in his con-
formation, in his power, in his industry, in his courage, in the faculties of
his mind. But, what is it that constitutes climate? It is the different position
of parts of the same globe relatively to the sun; positions that suffice to make
a sensible variety in its productions." This passage illustrates better than any
other known to me in the writings of natural historians the fact that once the
design argument is eliminated as a fundamental explanation of the distribution
of various kinds of hfe, what often remains is some form of environmental
theory. In an interesting passage discussing man's ability to adjust himself to
nature— his position is like Voltaire's against Pope— D'Holbach says that if the
peculiar physical conditions existing on earth were altered, man would have
to change or disappear. "It is this aptitude in man to co-order himself with
the whole, that not only furnishes him with the idea of order, but also makes
him exclaim. Whatever is, is right, whilst everything is only that which it
can be, and the whole is necessarily what it is, and whilst it is positively neither

^0 The System of Nature, Vol. I, chap. 5, pp. 33-34.

Ibid., chap. 6, pp. 44-45.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 521

good nor bad. It is only requisite to displace aman to make him accuse the
universe of confusion. "^^ The environment not only brings about differences
among men, but accounts for their thinking in analogies.
D'Holbach had no patience with the artisan analogy.

Let us not be told that we

cannot have the idea of a work without having also
that of a workman from his work. Nature is not a ivork [La nature
distinguished
n'est point un ouvrage]; she has always been self-existent; it is in her bosom
that everything is operated; she is an immense elaboratory [sic], provided with
materials, and who makes the instruments of which she avails herself to act: all
her works are the effect of her own energy, and of those agents or causes which
she makes, which she contains, which she puts in action.^^

In rejecting the traditional view that nature is a work whose constituent

parts have purposive and interlocking existences— plants for the antelope that
is harmony coming from wise planning, D'Holbach sug-
the lion's dinner— a
gests aview shorn of final causes in which relationships in nature are based on
natural laws whose operation can be ascertained if men know enough. The
environment of the earth, its relationship to the sun, the variations in the dis-
tribution of solar heat, permit plants, antelopes, and lions to exist. That the
antelope eats plants, and the lion the antelope, is no more mysterious than is
their existence in the first place.

6. Tout est bien

Complacent attitudes toward the earth as a habitable planet were seriously

undermined by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. This frightful catastrophe and
the accompanying tsunami dramatized the problem of evil and the role of
physical catastrophe affecting living things indiscriminately; it also raised
questions about the order and harmony on earth and the fitness of the en-
vironment, and the validity of final causes in nature.

Natural catastrophes and the interpretations to be put upon them in an

age that knew little of the processes at work were as baffling as was the
problem of moral evil. The traditional answer of Christian apologetics to the
problem of physical evil had been that catastrophes causing great suffering
served as lessons and warnings, and in aggravated cases as punishments. If
a natural catastrophe of the character of an earthquake induced doubts in the
minds of men regarding the competence of the Creator in devising such a
faulty structure, the traditional answer— it was Bishop Butler's in the Analogy
of Religion— that human beings could not be expected to comprehend
a creation planned on such a colossal scale.
The two small London earthquakes of February and March, 1750, pro-
52 Ibid.,
p. 45.
^^Ibid., Vol. II, chap. 3, p. 232. See also chap. 5, on theism or deism, optimism, and
final causes, pp. 246-274.
52 2 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

voked much speculation regarding the physical, moral, and religious causes
of earthquakes. The Lisbon earthquake, however, which began at 9:30 a.m.
on November i, 1755, was probably the most terrifying natural catastrophe
and the most widely known in Western history since the eruption of Vesuvius
in A.D. 79.
The earthquake became important in the history of ideas not only because
of the religious interpretation put upon it but also because of Voltaire's
Foeine sur le Desastre de Lisbonne and Candide. The poem was immediately
directed at the tout est bien philosophy of Alexander Pope; both it and
Candide were bitter expressions of contempt for the optimism Voltaire
thought he saw in the philosophy of Leibniz. In the general gloom of the
survivors on the day following the earthquake, Dr. Pangloss explains that
everything had to turn out the way it did. "For," he said, "all this is neces-
sarily for the best; because if there is a volcano under Lisbon, it could not
be anywhere else, since it is impossible that things should not be exactly as
they are. For tout est bienV The tout est bien had come from Pope's An
Essay on Man in the passage beginning, "Cease then, nor ORDER imper-
fection name":

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
A partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite.
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.^^

Although Voltaire was untiring in his criticism of Leibniz, Wolff, and

their followers, the philosophy to which he objected owed more to Pope,
whose belief that this is possible worlds is based on respect for
the best of all

science and on empirical, not a priori, grounds as was that of Leibniz. To

Pope science revealed the all-embracing unity of the world. Here he speaks
the language of the Cambridge Platonists ("See plastic nature working .") . .

and of Ray and Derham.^^ The EngHsh poet, however, was not acquainted
with Leibniz' works, and Bolingbroke, who had inspired many of Pope's
ideas,was contemptuous of the German philosopher. What Voltaire ridi-
culed in Candide were extreme believers in final causes and uncritical fol-
lowers of Pope. Later Voltaire's pessimism seems to have deepened mainly
by the events of the Seven Years' War.^*^ The earthquake and the fame of

5. Essay on Man, Ep. I, x. This epistle also contains the famous

54 Candide, chap.

passages on the chain of being (viii) and the passage beginning, "All are but parts of
one stupendous whole, / Whose body Nature is, and God the soul," etc. (ix).
Essay on Man, Ep. I, lines 281-294, quotation is of lines 289-294; Ep. Ill, i, lines
1-26. Barber, Leibniz in France, pp. no, 174-177, 194.
56 Barber, op. cit., pp. 118, 230, 232; on "tout est bien," pp. 238-241. According to
him. Catholic orthodoxy often associated optimism with deism (pp. 114-115); Pope,
however, aroused interest in Leibniz (p. 122); Wolff's popularity in Germany and the
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 523

Voltaire shoved aside the more fatuous extravagances about harmony in

nature, smug optimism in human and uncritical assumptions of an
affairs,

inevitable improvement in the course of time without, however, giving a

mortal blow to final causes and to the idea of design as the key to an under-
standing of nature.^^
Voltaire himself was no enemy of final causes. The first draft of his poem
on the Lisbon earthquake was written by December 7, 1755, and it was in
final form (after several revisions) by March, 1756.^^ His pronouncements

on final causes were published much later. His essay on final causes which
appeared in the Dictionnaire Philosophique was published originally in Des
Singularites de la Nature (1768). It begins with a long quotation from the
Baron d'Holbach's Systeme de la Nature, attacking them. Voltaire remarks
on the usefulness of the great mountain chains— they strengthen the earth,
they help irrigate it, they confine all the metals and the minerals at their
bases. But he also disapproves of abuses and of carrying matters to absurd
extremes: noses were not made for spectacles, the tides were not, as some
had claimed, attached to the oceans so that ships could go in and out of ports
more easily. Final causes, to be considered valid, require a uniform effect
and invariability in time and in space. Thus the argument that the sea is
created for trade and navigation is erroneous because ships have not existed
at all times nor on all seas. In disagreeing with the Baron d'Holbach, Voltaire
emphasizes that the world of nature is indeed like a work of art, for they
both reveal a sense of purpose. Voltaire is impressed, too, with the argu-
ment that beauty in nature suggests final causes, as do the usefulness and
beauty of the mountain-river-plains triad.^^

In other articles of the Dictionnaire Philosophique, Voltaire expresses similar

ideas. He disagrees with Spinoza, and Lucretius; he thinks it is folly to deny
that the eye is made to see, the ear to hear, the stomach to digest. Nature is
like the arts; there are final causes in both. An apple tree is made to bear
apples, a watch to tell time.^^ It is the geometers (e.g., Descartes), not the

attempts of enthusiastic followers to spread his philosophy to France acquainted the

public with Leibniz' doctrines (p. 141); some of Voltaire's early ideas were similar to
Pope's (pp. 215-216); Voltaire often failed to distinguish between Pope and Leibniz,
he was unfamiliar with the Theodicy, and did not have a profound understanding of
Leibniz (p. 232).
For the London earthquakes, see Kendrick, The Lisbon Earthquake, pp. 1 1-44; the
description of the Lisbon earthquake, pp. 45-70; the "wrath of God theme," pp. 1 13-169;
the importance of Voltaire, p. 183 ff.; Rousseau and Voltaire on the earthquake, pp. 194-
197; Kant's interpretations— he was then under the influence of the philosophy of Leibniz,
pp. 198-200. The part of the book most pertinent to our theme is chap. 7, "Optimism
Attacked," pp. 180-212.
5^ On the history of the poem, ibid.,
p. 180, note 2; pp. 1 84-191.
59 "Des Singularites de la Nature," Oeuvres Completes de Voltaire, ed. Beuchot,

Vol. 44, p. 236; and "Causes Finales," ibid.. Vol. 27, pp. 520-533.
60"Dieu, Dieux," Oeuvres, Vol. 28, pp. 374-375.
524 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

philosophers, who reject final causes; a true philosopher will admit them.
The catechist proclaims God to the children, Newton proves Him to the
Newton's philosophy, he criticizes Descartes
wise.^^ In his popularization of
and Spinoza, citing in rebuttal Newton's faith in final causes as expressed
in the Opticks; what was good enough for Newton was good enough for
Voltaire.^2
Voltaire and the Baron d'Holbach's writings are examples of the debate
over final causes among literary men; both of them are popular defenders
of philosophies that also engage the attention of serious students of nature.
Voltaire's defense of final causes is pitiful; it is the simple argument of
Xenophon; he adds nothing to enrich it as did Ray, Derham, and even Lin-
naeus. The best contemporary criticism of Voltaire and comment on the
pitfalls in interpreting the cosmic and human meaning of natural catastrophes

known to me came from Herder.

Very unlike the conduct of a philosopher was the complaint made by Vol-
taire at the catastrophe of Lisbon, on account of which he almost blasphemously
arraigned the Deity himself. Are not we ourselves, and all that belong to us,
including even our habitation the Earth, indebted to the elements? And when
these, agreeably to the ever-acting laws of nature, periodically rouse and claim
their own; when fire and water, air and wind, which have rendered our Earth
habitable and fruitful, proceed on their course and destroy it; when the Sun,
after having long warmed us with paternal care, fostered all living beings, and
linked them to his cheering visage with golden bands, ultimately attracts into
his fiery bosom the superannuated powers of the Earth, which she can no longer
renovate and uphold; what more happens, than the eternal laws of wisdom and
order require? In a system of changeable things, if there be progress, there must
be destruction: apparent destruction, that is; or a change of figures and forms.
But this never affects the interiour of nature, which, exalted above all destruc-
tion, continually rises as a phenix [sic] from it's [sic] ashes, and blooms with
youthful vigour. The formation of this our abode, and all the substances it can
produce, must have already prepared us for the frailty and mutability of the
history of man; and the more closely we inspect it, the more clearly do these
unfold themselves to our perception.^^

7. Hume
Considering the long period over which ideas of design and doctrines of final
causes have been apphed to conceptions of living nature and of the habitable
earth, considering too the countless repetitions of threadbare examples and

61 "Atheisme," Oeuvres, Vol. 27, p. 189.

62 "Elements de la Philosophic de Newton," Oeuvres, Vol. 38, pp. 13-14. In the
Histoire de Jennie, ou Vathee et le Sage (1775), chap. 8, Voltaire presents arguments like
those in his article on God (Oeuvres, Vol. 34, p. 390).
63 Herder, Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man, Bk. I, chap.
3 ad fin, trans.
Churchill, p. 9.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Phy sico-Theology 525

analogies and the dreary copying of ideas too sterile to justify the effort of
copying, it is impossible to withhold one's admiration from the critiques of
Hume and Kant, both surpassing by far any that had appeared to date, and
probably remaining unsurpassed to our day for their cogency. Kant's ex-
amples are especially striking because he was very interested in geography and
anthropology, and these interests show up in his critique of teleology.
The artisan analogy was based on the assumption that God thought like
man. But Hume saw with great clarity men's limitations in understanding the
creation, the difficulties in interpreting nature that were opened up by the
invention of the telescope and the microscope, and the problem of physical
evil in the light of natural law.
In this discussion I am not concerned with the vexing question of Hume's
own opinions (see note 75) but with the ideas which the interlocutors in
the dialogues express. Philo, the most interesting, provocative, and cogent
of them, says that in everyday speculations one has the advantage of an
appeal to common sense and reason, but this is of little use in theology, whose
questions are too overpowering for human apprehension. Our ideas reach
no farther than our experience; obviously we have none with divine at-
tributes.
Cleanthes' case for the design argument is dignified, well defined, and
conventional. The world is a machine whose intricately adjusted and accu-
rately fitted parts work well together. Adaptation of means to ends is char-
acteristic of all life; thus nature is like the works of the human artificer, but

its results are far more impressive and on a grander scale. If there is an analogy
between the effects observable in nature and the creations of human purpose,
then there can be an analogy between the causes, human and divine respec-
tively, which bring them about. If these statements are true, we may then say
that the Author of Nature acts with a mind like that of man, with the usual
reservation that the divine is infinitely greater. Philo replies that the analogy
will not bear analysis. It is stretching things too far, for example, to suggest
that a house is like the universe.^^ Furthermore, existence of order and arrange-
ment and proper functioning is in itself no proof of design. An animal whose
body does not function properly would pass away; so would the universe.
Order might simply be inherent in matter; one might say that such a consti-
tution allows it and without reference to design.
to function as it does,
Men and animals possess thought, design, and intelligence, but these at-
tributes are no more than one of "the springs and principles of the universe"
and are totally inadequate to explain its principles. "What peculiar privilege
has this little agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must
thus make it the model of the whole universe?" Nature has an infinite number
of springs and principles. Witnessing the origins of ships or of cities and

^'^
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Pt. I, pp. 9-10; Pt. II, p. i8.
526 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

their later developments are experiences too trivial to serve as a guide in

speculation on the origin of the universe.^^
The unrelenting Philo now dissects an argument which many previous
writers had assumed to be the clincher, that is, that the telescope and the
microscope immeasurably widened and deepened men's understanding of the
order of nature and the wisdom of God because they could now behold the
whole spectrum of being from the infinitely vast to the infinitesimally small.
The conventional conclusion— Leibniz himself exultantly agreed with it-
was newly revealed worlds confirmed the design a thousandfold;
that these
they showed an order and patterning in wholly unsuspected realms. Philo
says that this enlargement of the bounds of nature hitherto known to man
makes the problem more difficult rather than easier, the analogy becoming
even more remote.
The arguments of Lucretius and Cicero in the ancient world are now
being brought up to date with the help of modern knowledge. "The further
we push our researches of this kind [microscopy] we are still led to infer
the universal cause of all from mankind, or from any
to be vastly different
object of human experience and observation." Kant came to a similar con-
clusion.^^
And what everyday world is artisanship? Behind the contemporary
in the
human artisan He ages of trial and error, the accumulation of skills, invention,
craft traditions; the human artisan is the carrier of long-accumulated skills
and he is their contemporary embodiment, not an inventive genius himself.
Furthermore, ambitious undertakings are cooperative enterprises; they are
the work of many men. Can the excellences of the work, Philo asks, be
ascribed to the workman even granting the world to be a perfect produc-
tion? "If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity
of the carpenter who framed so complicated, useful, and beautiful a machine?
And what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic who
imitated others, and copied an art which, through a long succession of ages,
after multiplied trials, mistakes, corrections, deliberations, and controversies,
had been gradually improving?" The cooperative nature of human produc-
tivity thus is not helpful evidence in support of the single-handed artisanship
of the Deity. Such an argument invites the possibility that many worlds
"might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity," by groping
trial and error with gradual improvement "in the art of world-making."^^

The rebuttal based on the complex, historical, and cooperative character

of human artisanship and invention presses home again the hopelessness of
explaining the apparent order of nature by comparing it with human capaci-

^^Ibid., Pt. II, p. 23.

Ibid., Pt. V, p. 38. See Lucretius, De rerum natura, Bk. XI, 2, and Cicero, De natura
deorum, Bk, I, chap. 8.
67 Ibid.,
p. 39.
 Strengths aiid Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 527

ties for creating order. Actually, says Philo, if analogies must be made, the

world resembles a vegetable or an animal more than it does a watch or a

loom, and it more probably arose through a process similar to or analogous
with generation than from causes producing the watch or the loom. Neither
is this idea pressed for its own sake, but it shows that "we have no data to

establish any system of cosmogony."^^

Cleanthes complains that Philo places too much emphasis on the inability
of a form to exist unless it possesses powers and organs necessary for its
existence. But how in fact have conveniences and advantages possessed by
man and animals originated? "Two eyes, two ears are not absolutely neces-
sary for the subsistence of the species. [The] human race might have been
propagated and preserved without horses, dogs, cows, sheep, and those in-
numerable fruits and products which serve to our satisfaction and enjoyment.
If no camels had been created for the use of man in the sandy deserts of

Africa and Arabia, would the world have been dissolved?" Cleanthes here
and with other illustrations objects to the stress on the niggardhness in nature;
other facts point to beneficence and generosity.^^ To this, Philo counters,
"you have run into anthropomorphism." As we have seen, one of the earliest
interpretations of domestication was that animals were purposefully de-
signed by a beneficent and generous Creator to function within an economy
dominated by man; this view too assumed a generosity in nature solicitous for
the welfare of man.
And what, says Demea, of the general human consensus that human misery
is commonplace in the world? When he says no one has denied its existence,

Philo corrects him, saying that Leibniz had (on the falseness of this see pp.
507, 522-523). "The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed and polluted.
A perpetual war is kindled amongst all living creatures. Necessity, hunger,
want stimulate the strong and courageous; fear, anxiety, terror agitate the
weak and infirm." Observe, Philo says, "the curious artifices of nature in
order to embitter the life of every living being." The strong are predatory,
the weak are also— and vexatious like the insects; "every animal is surrounded
with enemies which incessantly seek his misery and destruction." Man, Demea
replies, seems in part to be an exception to this rule; by joining together in
society, he can save himself from, indeed master, the large predators. Philo
repHes that man's mastery of the creation does not solve this problem, because
he createshis own problems; a few of them are superstition, man's inhumanity

to man, mental and physical illness, labor and poverty. The effect is to bring
out without anger or pathos the precariousness of human life; man's endow-
ment is enough for survival, but with struggle.*^^
These outspoken passages on human misery lead to the problem of the

68 Ibid., Ft. VII, pp. 47-48.

^^Ibid., Pt. VIII, p. 55.
70 /^iJ., Pt. X,
pp. 62-63.
5a8 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

observer. Again, one is reminded of similar discussions in Cicero and Lucretius.

How would the order of nature be seen (a) by one antecedently convinced
of its reality, and (b) by one not so convinced?
The first of these alternatives is imaginary, the second represents the actual
experience of man. Of the if a person of very limited intel-
first, he says that
ligence, unacquainted with the universe, were assured beforehand that it
had been created by "a very good, wise, and powerful Being," his notion
of what it would be like before he saw it would be quite different from what
we know it by experience to be like. Knowing the attributes of the Divine,
he would never suspect "that the effect could be so full of vice and misery
and disorder, as it appears in this life." When this person, however, is brought
into the world, he might be disappointed in what he saw but he would blame
this on his own inadequacies, retaining his preconception because he "must

allow that there may be many solutions of those phenomena which will for-
ever escape his comprehension." Of the second alternative, representing the
true human no antecedent conviction of a benevolent and
situation, there is

powerful divine intelligence nor is any prior instruction provided; man "is
left to gather such a belief from the appearances of things— this entirely alters

the case, nor will he ever find any reason for such a conclusion." Even if
he recognizes the narrowness of his understanding, this inadequacy will not
help him to form an inference regarding the Divine Being from what he
beholds "since he must form that inference from what he knows, not from
what he is ignorant of."^^
Then manner of Lucretius, even of Burnet, Philo ridicules the dis-
in the
array of nature; if it must have an artisan-creator, it is indeed the work of a

bumbling and incompetent architect, who cannot excuse his poor work by
saying it could be worse. The architect could with proper skill have made
a good plan to start with."^^
Philo concludes that the world might be consistent with the idea of a
powerful, wise, and benevolent Deity, but "it can never afford us an infer-
ence concerning his existence." Considering the earth and life as it really is,

why is it that everyone cannot be happy, why is physical anguish and hard-
ship necessary? The answers are like the ingredients which later are to fashion
the Malthusian and Darwinian theories. Philo says there are four main causes
of human misery and evil: (i) It is part of the economy of creation that
pains and pleasures "excite all creatures to action, and make them vigilant
in the great work of self-preservation." But why not pleasure alone? Is there
any reason why pain should be necessary? (2) The capacity for pain would
not in itself produce pain if the world were not governed by general laws;
but this governance "seems nowise necessary to a very perfect Being." Might

71 Ibid., Pt. XI, p. 72.

'^^Ibid., pp. 72-73.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology 529

not the Deity "exterminate all ill, wherever it were

and produce
to be found,
"^^
all good, without any preparation or long progress of causes and effects?

(3)The economy of nature is characterized by "the great frugality with

which all powers and faculties are distributed to every particular being."
The adjustment of the living parts of the animal mechanism is so fine that it
is doubtful that any have ever become extinct, but endowments are bestowed

upon them by so frugal a hand that any considerable diminution of them

would destroy the life. Nature is a hard, not an indulgent, parent, a "rigid
master" who has given her creatures "little more powers or endowments than
what are strictly sufficient to supply those necessities." An indulgent parent
would have given generously to avoid accidents, and to insure the creature's
happiness and welfare. Why should an all powerful Creator possessing, pos-
sibly, inexhaustible force act so rigidly and parsimoniously? If his power is
in fact extremely limited, it would have been better "to have created fewer
animals, and to have endowed these with more faculties for their happiness
and preservation."^^ (4) Lastly, there is "the inaccurate workmanship of
all the springs and principles of the great machine of nature." Granting that

the universe holds together, that it seemingly functions fairly well, that few
parts of it seem not to serve some purpose, nevertheless carelessness and sloppi-
ness are evident in execution. "One would imagine that this grand produc-
tion had not received the last hand of the maker— so little finished is every
part, and so coarse are the strokes with which it is executed." Here Philo
departs from the traditional view that the divinely ordered creation is un-
finished in order to permit man to finish it through cultivation, making cities,
and other activities.
Winds and rains may be benign, but why have hurricanes and excessive heat?
But this physical evil is a consequence of natural law. Hurricanes, volcanoes,
excessive heat, earthquakes, are explained by causes acting independently of
human life. This is Herder's point in criticizing Voltaire for his poem on the
Lisbon disaster. But why are such operations of nature's laws, conflicting in
their effectson man, necessary at all?
Since natural evil comes about, for the most part, from these four circum-
stances, the interlocutor comes to a conclusion opposed to that of Romans
1:20. What we see cannot lead us to safe inferences regarding either the
artisan or the artisanship of nature.

Look round this universe. What an immense profusion of beings, animated and
organized, sensible and active! You admire this prodigious variety and fecundity.
But inspect a little more narrowly these living existences, the only beings worth
regarding. How hostile and destructive to each other! How insufficient all of
them for their own happiness! How contemptible or odious to the spectator!

73 Ibid.,
p. 74.
74 Ibid., 76.
p.
530 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

The whole presents nothing but the idea of a blind nature, impregnated by a
great vivifying principle, and pouring forth from her lap, without discernment
or parental care, her maimed and abortive children

8. Kant and Goethe

Hume's Dialogues prepare us for Kant who had already discussed the physico-
theological proof and teleology in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), in
which one can already sense Kant's regret that the cosmological and physico-
theological proofs must be rejected/^ His most penetrating discussions of
design, order, and man's place in nature, however, are in the Critique of
7'^
Teleological Judgement
Let us look at some of Kant's which apply to geography.
illustrations
Alluvial deposition is a kind of physical process which might evoke teleo-
logical explanations. Rivers, carrying soil in suspension, create good agricul-
tural land near their banks or in their deltas. High tide, carrying this alluvial
material inland or depositing it along the shore, may rescue it from the
sea, while arable land may be augmented if man can prevent ebb tide from

carrying it off again, and the land increased at the expense of the sea. Nature
is continually building up new lands this way, and the question arises whether

"this result is to be considered an end on the part of nature, since it is fraught

with benefit to man. I say 'to man,' for the benefit to the vegetable kingdom
cannot be taken into account, inasmuch as against the gain to the land there
is, as a set off, as much loss to sea-life.
""^^
Or we may consider the agency
of certain natural phenomena in enabling other phenomena to achieve their
ends. Take as an example, Kant says, pine trees growing on sandy soil. There
isnone healthier for them than that left behind when the primeval seas with-
drew; on this soil, unfavorable for agriculture, many pine forests could grow
—"forests which we frequently blame our ancestors for having wantonly
destroyed." Was the sand then the end nature had in view for the possible
benefit of pine forests? If the forests are presumed to be the end, then so
must the sand, and behind it the primeval sea, and so forth, as subordinate
ends. In a third example, Kant says that if one grants that cattle, sheep,
horses, and the like were for some reason to be in the world, then there had
to be grass to feed them and there had to be special alkaline plants in the

Ibid., pp. 78-79. The Dialogues (published after his death) have long puzzled the
students of Hume. To what degree does Philo express Hume's ideas, considering the
apparent "recantation" of Part XII? Then Pamphilus says in the concluding paragraph
that "Philo's principles are more probable than Demea's, but that those of Cleanthes ap-
proach still nearer to the truth." See Henry D. Aiken's introduction to this edition.
76 Critique of Pure Reason, Bk. 2, chap.
3, sec. 7. See Kant's discussion of environ-
mental theory, his criticism of Leibniz, Burnet, and the chain of being; on the earth
and its figure.
77 On Kant's teleology, see S. Korner, Kant (Pelican Books), pp. 196-217.
Critique of the Teleological Judgement, p. 13 (367).
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology 531

deserts if camels were These and other herbivora had to exist

to survive.
if the carnivora— the wolves, tigers, and lions— were to exist. ''Consequently

objective finality based on adaptability is not an immanent objective finality

of things: as though the sand, as simple sand, could not be conceived as the
effect of its cause, the sea, unless we made this cause look to an end, and
treated the effect, namely the sand, as an art-product."^^ Herbs or plants
may be considered in their own right as organized products of nature, and
may be regarded at the same time as mere raw material if attention is directed
to the animals that feed on them.
The intervention of man in nature, through his use of plants and animals,
casts even more doubt on teleological explanations of nature. The "freedom
of man's causality enables him to adapt physical things to the purposes he has
in view." Man may foolishly decorate himself with birds' plumes, wisely use
domestic animals for transport or for plowing, but these interventions do not
prove that these uses were inherent in their natures. "All we can say is that
if we assume that it is intended that men should live on the earth, then at

least, those means without which they could not exist as animals, and even,

on however low a plane, as rational animals, must also not be absent. But in
that case, those natural things that are indispensable for such existence must
"^^
equally be regarded as ends of nature.
Kant extends his analysis to the distribution of Hfe on the earth's surface
and the relationship of Hving forms to the environment, starting out inno-
cently enough by remarking that snow makes intercourse easier among peoples
in cold countries because they can use sleighs. The Laplander can enjoy his
sleigh because he has a reindeer to pull it and thus bring about the desired
social intercourse. The reindeer, subsisting on the dry moss they scrape out
from under the snow, submit to taming, readily allowing themselves to be
deprived of their freedom. Similar complex interrelationships between man,
animals, and the inorganic environment are found among other Arctic peoples
who depend on sea animals for food, clothing, and fuel, and on driftwood for
their fires.

Now here we have a truly marvellous assemblage of many relations of nature

to an end— the end being the Greenlanders, Laplanders, Samoyeds, Jakutes, and
the like. But we do not see why men should live in these places at all. To say,
therefore, that the facts that vapour falls from the atmosphere in the form of
snow, that the ocean has its currents that wash into these regions the wood grown
in warmer lands, and that sea-monsters containing quantities of oil are to be
found there, are due to the idea of some benefit to certain poor creatures under-
lying the cause that brings together all these natural products, would be a very
hazardous and arbitrary assertion. For supposing that all this utility on the part
of nature were absent, then the capacity of the natural causes to serve this
order of existence would not be missed. On the contrary it would seem audacious

(368).
'^^Ibid., p. 14
80/^iJ.,pp. 14-15 (368).
532 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology
and inconsiderate on our part even to ask for such a capacity, or demand such
an end from nature— for nothing but the greatest want of social unity in man-
kind could have dispersed men into such inhospitable regions.^^

Kant then points out the inadequacies of analogies which liken nature to a
machine or to an Organized nature cannot be considered to be a
artisan.
machine. The cause responsible for producing the watch lies outside it; one
wheel of a watch cannot produce another, one watch cannot produce others
by using or organizing foreign material, it cannot replace parts, correct de-
ficiencies, nor can it repair itself. No doubt Kant purposefully uses the watch
example because it had been a perennial favorite in illustrating the artisan
analogy: it is inconceivable to think of a watch without a maker, and of
nature .and so forth.
. .

But these are all things which we are justified in expecting from organized
nature. An organized being is, therefore not a mere machine. For a machine has
solely motive power, whereas an organized being possesses inherent formative
power, and such, moreover, as it can impart to material devoid of it— material
which it organizes. This, therefore, is a self-propagating formative power, which
cannot be explained by the capacity of movement alone, that is to say, by
mechanism.^2

Then he disposes of the artisan analogy. It is not enough to speak of the

capacity of nature "in organized products" as being an analogue of art,

for in the idea of art there is an artist— a rational being— working from with-
out. "But nature, on the contrary, organizes itself, and does so in each species
of its organized products— following a single pattern, certainly, as to general
features, but nevertheless admitting deviations calculated to secure self-preser-
vation under particular circumstances. . . . Strictly speaking, therefore, the
organization of nature has nothing analogous to any causality known to us."^^
Kant, however, repeatedly asserts that teleology is useful in the study of
nature, if we look upon it as a guide, as perhaps furnishing a clue, by acting,
so to speak, as if the eye were made to see.

The concept of a thing as intrinsically a physical end is, therefore, not a con-
stitutive conception either of understanding or of reason, but yet it may be
used by reflective judgement as a regulative conception for guiding our investi-
gation of objects of this kind by a remote analogy with our own causality ac-
cording to ends generally, and as a basis of reflection upon their supreme source.
But in the latter connexion it cannot be used to promote our knowledge either of
nature or of such original source of those objects, but must on the contrary be
confined to the service of just the same practical faculty of reason in analogy
with which we considered the cause of the finality in question.^*

8i/^zi.,p. i6 (369).
®2 Ibid., 22 (374).
p.
p. 23 (374-375)-
^Ubid., p. 24 (375).
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhystco-Theology 533

With geography and anthropology, it is not surprising that

his interest in
Kant considers ends with relation to man, to cultural differ-
in nature
ences among men, to other forms of life, and to the configuration of the
earth's surface. We are not entitled, he says, to consider rivers as physical
ends because they facilitate international intercourse in inland countries, or
mountains as physical ends because they make rivers possible or store snow
so rivers can flow in the dry season. "For, although this configuration of the
earth's surface very necessary for the origination and sustenance of the
is

vegetable and animal kingdoms, yet intrinsically it contains nothing the pos-
sibility of which should make us feel obliged to invoke a causality according

to ends." Kant same analysis to the question of the usefulness of

applies the
domesticated animals and plants. Cattle may need grass and men may need
cattle to survive. "But we do not see why after all it should be necessary that
men should in fact exist (a question that might not be so easy to answer if
the specimens of humanity that we had in mind were, say, the New Hol-
landers or Fuegians) We do not then arrive in this way at any categorical end.
.

On the contrary all this adaptation is made to rest on a condition that has
to be removed to an ever-retreating horizon."^^
It is a pity that Kant did not expand on his remarks about the New Hol-
landers and the Fuegians. For he implies that the questions he is discussing
are meaningful only if high cultures exist, that civilization is a prerequisite

to the study of meaning in nature. Does this mean that the advances of man
dignify a study which, had man remained in a primitive condition, would
not and could not have been carried on and that nature therefore would be
meaningless?
Pursuing the theme that final causes may be regarded as a guide without
interfering with the principle that nature is to be studied through the inves-
tigation of secondary causes, Kant discusses the unpleasant and the annoying
in nature— a favorite theme, as we have seen, of the older teleology— and their
relation to man. Vermin, he says, may be nature's way of inciting man to
cleanhness; this idea comes close to that of necessity being the mother of
invention. "Or the mosquitoes and other stinging insects that make the wilds
of America so trying for the savages, may be so many goads to urge these
primitive men to drain the marshes and bring light into the dense forests that
shut out the air, by so doing, as well as by the tillage of the soil, to
and,
render their abodes more sanitary." The principle can be applied also to the
appreciation of beautj^ in nature. "We may regard it as a favour that nature
has extended to us, that besides giving us what is useful it has dispensed
beauty and charms in such abundance, and for this we may love it, just as
we view it with respect because of its immensity, and feel ourselves ennobled

^^Ibid., pp. 27-28 (378)

534 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

by such contemplation— just as if nature had erected and decorated its splendid
stage with this precise purpose in its mind. "^^
Kant we
cannot find in nature "any being capable of laying claim
says
to the distinction of being the final end of creation." At first we might look
upon the vegetable kingdom "as a mere product of the mechanism which
nature displays in its formations in the mineral kingdom. But a more intimate
knowledge of its indescribably wise organization precludes us from enter-
taining this view, and drives us to ask: For what purpose do these forms of
life exist?" If we reply that they exist for the herbivora, then we must ask
why the herbivora exist, and the answer would be that they exist for the
carnivora. If we pursue the inquiry further to ascertain the ultimate purpose
of the creation, we answer that it is for man and for "the multifarious uses
to which him to put all these forms of life. He is the
his intelligence teaches
ultimate end of creation here upon earth, because he is the one and only
being upon it that is able to form a conception of ends, and from an aggre-
gate of things purposively fashioned to construct by the aid of his reason a
system of ends." Following a suggestion of Linnaeus, Kant considers the
consequences of taking "the seemingly opposite course." Herbivorous animals
might exist in order to keep the profuse growth of the vegetable kingdom in
check, the carnivora, in order to set "bounds to the voracity of the herbivora;
and finally man exists so that by pursuing the latter and reducing their numbers
a certain equiHbrium between the productive and destructive forces of nature
may be established. So, on this view, however much man might in a certain
relation be esteemed as end, in a different relation he would in turn only rank
as a means." In this last illustration man's role in nature reminds one of Hale's
idea of man as a steward or regulator of nature, except that Hale believes
man assumes the role because he
is at the apex of creation.^^

If we
adopt the principle of final causes for individual forms, we must then
take the next rational step and say that the system of the whole kingdom
of nature is also organized in accordance with the same principle. If there
is such an end in the whole system of nature, it can only be placed in man,
but there is no evidence that this is true. "For, so far from making man, re-
garded as one of the many animal species, an ultimate end, nature has no
more exempted him from its destructive than from its productive forces,
nor lias it made the smallest exception to its subjection of everything to a
mechanism of forces devoid of an end."^^
Again Kant reveals his intense interest in geography and in natural science.
If nature as a whole is a system governed by final causes, the habitats of living

things would have to illustrate the principle. The habitat, the soil or other

^^Ibid., pp. 29-30 (379-380).

87/Z7ii., pp. 88-89 (426-427).
^^Ibid., p. 89 (427).
 4

Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 535

elements intended to support life, show "no trace of any causes but those
acting altogether without design, and in fact tending towards destruction
rather than calculated to promote genesis of forms, order, and ends." This
passage brings up the old question of the fitness of the earthly environment
for life, a question which, as we have seen, stimulated many thinkers of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries following the criticisms of the earth made
by Burnet. Kant takes the position that the present configuration of the earth's
surface, regardless of the convenience and wise contrivance of slope, springs,
subterranean waters, and other desirable attributes, is a result not of design
but of geological history; a closer investigation of them "shows that they
have resulted simply as the effect partly of volcanic eruptions, partly of
floods, or even of invasions of the ocean." The important point here is not
the geological theory adopted by Kant but the statement that the configura-
tion of the earth is the result of historical events, not of final causes. Human
history unfolds itself on a planet with its own history.^^
Kant's analysis of final causes in nature and of the idea of the earth as a
product of design is really a harvesting of thoughts spanning more than two
thousand years; to take a shorter view, it is also the culmination of specula-
tion and study inspired by Burnet in the Sacred Theory of the Earth because
Burnet forced men, at a time when Newtonian science had given them
many new ideas to work on, to think of the form, shape, and position of
the earth and of its fitness for life, a task undertaken with such interesting
results by Ray, Derham, and others. From their attempts to find the wisdom
of God in the creation emerged ideas of interrelationships that were ultimately
to supersede the doctrine of final causes.
Goethe also was very critical of the effects of a teleological interpretation
of nature on scientific inquiry; fundamentally, he too objected to the design
argument because was based on an analogy. When a science, he says, seems
it

to be slowing down
coming to a halt, the fault often lies in "a certain basic
or
concept that treats the subject too conventionally" or in the unthinking and
continued use of an accepted terminology. Although Goethe thought the
"idea that living organisms are created and shaped to certain ends by a teleo-
logical life force," pleasing to some, indispensable to certain modes of thought
("I myself find it neither possible nor desirable to oppose it as a whole"),
it is a weak reed in serious scientific work. The men, difficulties are that
through experience of life, have respect for purposeful activity; their tempera-
ments and situations predispose them to think they exist as an end of the
creation. A word like weeds reveals the nature of their misconceptions.

Why should he [i.e., man] not call a plant a weed, when from his point of view

it ought not to exist? He will much more readily attribute the existence
really
of thistles hampering his work in the field to the curse of an enraged benevolent

89 /^/i.,
pp. 89-90 (428).
 »

536 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

or to the malice of a sinister one, than simply regard them as children of

spirit,
universal Nature, cherished as much by her as the wheat he carefully cultivates
and values so highly.

Goethe makes the same point as did human ends are poor guides
Buffon, that
to an understanding of nature's ends. "And since man values highest, in him-
self and others, those processes which are intentional and purposeful, he will
ascribe intentions and purposes to Nature also, for his concept of Nature
cannot possibly transcend the concept he has formed of himself."
Such a conception of nature, with so much emphasis on purpose and use-
fulness, makes nature seem like a gigantic toolshed. If everything in nature
exists for man, then he assumes Nature is making tools for him, just as he
does for himself. "Thus the hunter who procures a gun for killing game
cannot extol sufficiently the maternal solicitude of Nature in having created
the dog at the very beginning of things, to enable him to retrieve the game."
More original is Goethe's objection that, "Man, in considering all things
with reference to himself, is obliged to assume that external forms are deter-
mined from within, and this assumption is all the easier for him in that no
single living thing is conceivable without complete organization." Its internal
organization is clearly defined, but its external existence is possible only

under environmental conditions favorable to it. In Goethe's hands, the en-

vironment is metamorphosed from a passive medium of life to an active
creative role in conditioning and maintaining it.

. . . We
see moving about on the earth, in the water, and in the air the most
varied forms of animals; these elements, according to popular interpretation,
have been furnished to these creatures expressly in order that they may produce
their various movements and preserve their various existences. But does not the
original life force, or the wisdom of a reasoning creator customarily attributed to
it,gain greater stature when we accept even its power as limited, and grant
that it creates just as well from the outside as well as toward the outside. To say
that the fish exists for the water, seems to me to say less than that the fish exists
in water and by ineafis of water; for this latter statement expresses much more
clearly what is only darkly suggested in the first, namely, that the existence of
creatures called fish is possible only if there exists an element called water, and
that these fish not only exist but also develop there. The same thing holds true
for all other creatures.

Hete too is an adumbration of an ecological viewpoint, including the study

of environmental conditions as they affect fife— which give it form or set
limits to it. The oak cannot be explained by the acorn alone; its secrets are
found too in the wind, the hill slopes, the sun, the soil.^^ Neither Hume, Kant,
nor Goethe had the final word; as we all know, the controversies over Genesis

^0 Goethe, "An Attempt to General Comparative Theory," in Goethe^s Bo-

Evolve a
tanical Writings^ trans. Bertha Mueller, pp. 81-84. The emphasis is in the original. On
the circumstances of the composition— the piece belongs to the early 1 790's— see footnote
32, p. 81. See also, "Preliminary Notes for a Physiology of Plants," pp. 91-93; "The In-
 Strejjgths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 537

and Geology (to use Andrew D. White's expression), over the relation of
natural theology and revealed religion to evolutionary theory, lasted, es-
pecially in England, for the greater part of the nineteenth century. The
most influential and the most embarrassingly shoddy of these works, the
Natural Theology of William Paley, published in 1802, twelve years after
the publication of Kant's critique, was remote indeed from the intellectual
distinction of these men. The protagonists of the design argument in the
scientificworld acted like ministers infatuated with their sermons, while
their opponents, including Darwin, Lyell, and Huxley, seemed to have little
understanding of the historical significance of the design argument and the
questions it had raised in many fields concerning the relationship of man to
nature.

9. Herder

Two men. Herder and Humboldt, it seems to me, are representatives of ideas
held toward the earth as a whole in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries. Herder represents, in his synthesis of the three ideas we have been
discussing, the best in the old that was now to vanish, with hints of the new.
Humboldt represents an approach to nature study which leads into nine-
teenth century thought.
Herder's Ideen zur Fhilosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784-
1791) has long been recognized as a masterful work of synthesis. Ideas con-
cerning the fitness of the earth's environment, widely discussed by the physico-
theologists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; speculations
regarding the influence of cHmate, given new status by Montesquieu (see be-
low, pp. 565-581); ideas concerning the influence of man on the physical
environment— these were brought to bear on two problems: the relation of
mankind, considered as a whole, to the earth as a whole, and the relation of
which they happened
individual peoples to the different parts of the earth in
to be living. As far as the second problem is concerned. Herder belongs in
the company of Buff on, Montesquieu, and Voltaire: all of them were inter-
ested in man and his physical environment, all were interested in voyages
and travels, all revealed by references or citations the intellectual heritage
from which they derived their inspiration.^^
Although it is a great temptation to embark on a long analysis of Herder's
work because his absorbing discussions touch upon so many aspects of man,

fluence of theNew Philosophy" (181 7), in which Goethe expresses his appreciation to
Kant for his analysis of final causes in the Critique of Judgement^ pp. 230-231, and his
famous "Nature (A Fragment)," and his "Commentary on Nature," pp. 242-245.
Because there are many editions of Herder's Ideen^ it is cited by book and chapter.
The standard edition of Herder's works is that of Bernard Suphan, the Ideen comprising
Vols. 13 and 14 of this edition. In the quotations, I have used with minor changes or
538 Strengths and Weakizesses of Physico-Theology

human culture, and the physical environment, epitomizing the

history,
awarenesses of the learned of his time, I will confine myself to pointing

out two significant achievements of Herder: (i) the three ideas that have
been discussed are brought together in a meaningful synthesis, and (2) he dis-
tinguishes between humanity and its relation to the earth as a whole and
individual peoples and their relation to individual parts of the earth, the
latter relationships requiring consideration of the differences among peoples
and the physical and cultural conditions which might explain these differences.
Herder argues that the earth, despite the physical changes it has undergone,
is a fit environment for hfe; he believes that, at least, the most saKent char-

acteristics of the earth are a product of design. In his exposition of geological

history, he follows Buff on (presumably Des Epoques de la Nature), accept-
ing the latter's thesis that man appears after the catastrophic revolutions-
fires, floods, earthquakes— which had characterized the earlier eras of earth
history had taken place. The present earth, says Herder, is perfected— it has
grown old— but it will never be entirely free (Buff on believed this, too) of
the catastrophes that had characterized its past. Consistent with this position,
Herder, as we
have seen, criticized Voltaire for taking a philosophically inde-
fensible position about the Lisbon earthquake because such disasters have
their own individual causes in natural law. The earth is the scene of constant
change— destruction of the old, creation of the new. Man lives uncertainly
on a physically precarious earth for the simple reason that these catastrophes,
with their own laws of causation, unavoidably make it so. Voltaire's criticisms
of God for the Lisbon earthquake therefore are irrelevancies. "The forma-
tion of this our abode [die Bildung unsres Wohnhauses], and all the sub-
stances it can produce, must have already prepared us for the frailty and
mutability of the history of man; and the more closely we inspect it, the
more do these unfold themselves to our perception. "^^
clearly
Despite the catastrophic revolutions— Herder again follows Buffon here—
the fitness of the earth's environment has been preserved. Order and unity
have survived on earth, whose history has been characterized by so many
catastrophic events. "The multifarious variety, that actually exists on our
Earth, is astonishing; but still more astonishing is the unity, that pervades this
inconceivable variety. It is a mark of the profound northern barbarity [ein
Zeiehen der tiefen nordischen Barbarei], in which we educate our children,
that we give them not from their infancy a deep impression of this beauty,
this uniformity and variety of our Earth."^^

corrections (e.g., the possessive pronoun its has been written instead of ifs) the graceful
translation of T. Churchill, Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man. See Clark,
Herder, esp. chap, x, and Grundmann, Die geographischen und vdlkerkundlichen
Quellen und Anschauungen in Herders ^^Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit"
3 ad fin, Churchill trans., p. 9.
92 Ideen, Bk. I, chap.

^^Ibid., chap. 4, Churchill trans., pp. 9-10.

 Strengths and Weaknesses of Phy sico-Theology 539

The old polemics about the inchnation of the earth on its axis being a
proof of design seem forgotten; the advantages of the present inchnation are
self-evident. Herder shows how the design, the inchnation, and environ-
mental differences are related to one another:

The Earth must have which would otherwise

a regular inclination, that regions,
lie in Cimmerian cold and darkness, may
behold the beams of the Sun, and be
fitted for organization. As the history of the Earth from the remotest times
informs us, that the difference of the zones has had considerable influence on all
the revolutions of the human mind and its operations; for neither from the
torrid nor the frigid zones have those effects ever been produced, to which the
temperate zones have given birth: we see with what fine traits the finger of
omnipotence has described and encircled all the changes and shades on the
Globe.94

This strong environmentalistic explanation, however, is not consistently

maintained by Herder.
The earth therefore must be regarded as the theater of the history of man
("Da wir hier die Erde als einen Schauplatz der Menschengeschichte be-
trachten.") In a striking metaphor. Herder says that ^'Nature stretched the
rough but firm outline of the history of man and its revolutions, with the
lines of mountains she drew, and the streams she let flow from them. [So
hat also die Natur mit den Bergreihen, die sie zog, wie mit den Stromen die
sie herunterrinnen liess, gleichsam den rohen, aber festen Grundriss aller

Menschengeschichte und ihrer Revolutionen entv/orfen.] "^^ Herder corre-

lates the configuration with settlements (e.g., riverbanks and the seashore;
typical habitats of the hunter, shepherd, farmer, and fisherman.) The earth's
relief can explain also the persistence of age-old customs and habits, and
changes which peoples have undergone as well.^^ There is divine planning in
the place of origin of the human race, in the location of the mountains, and
in the irregularity of the earth's surface. The Creator placed the main trunk
{Hauptstamm) of the mountain ranges of the old world in the temperate
zone, the most civilized nations living at their base.

There the primitive races could at first live in peace, then gradually draw off
along the mountains and rivers, and become inured to ruder climates. Each cul-
tivated its little circle, and enjoyed it, as if it had been the universe. Thus the
. . .

Creator of the World has ever ordained things better than we could have
directed; and the irregular form of our Earth has effected an end, that greater
regularity could never have accomplished.^^

Man appears on earth— again Herder seems to be influenced by Buffon's

Des Epoques de la Nature— an intruder. "All the elements, rivers and

Ibid.y chap. 4 ad fiji, Churchill trans., p. 12.

^5 Ibid.,chap. 6, Churchill trans., pp. 18, 22.
9^ Herder applies these general observations on the relation of relief to human affairs
in interesting discussions of each of the continents. Ibid., pp. 19-22.
Ibid., p. 22.
540 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

morasses, earth and were filled or filling, with living creatures: and he
air,

had to make room for his dominion by his godlike qualities, skill and power."^^
His skills, originally acquired by observing the animals, allowed him to assume
his place on earth, through time gaining the ascendancy which he now
enjoys.
Herder assumes the unity of the human race. Man is linked with all nature,
he is no independent being; he breathes air, he obtains his food and drink

from the products of nature, he uses fire, absorbs the light, contaminates the
air; "awake or asleep, in motion or at rest, contributing to the change of the

universe; shall he not also be changed by it? It is far too little to compare
him to the absorbing sponge, the sparkling tinder: he is a multitudinous
harmony, a living self, on whom the harmony of all the powers that surround
him operates."^^
Having considered mankind as a whole in its relation to the earth as a
whole, there remains the second question: since many different peoples com-
pose the human race, do the environmental conditions under which they live
influence them and do they in turn influence the environment?
Despite an occasionally expressed sympathy with ideas of climatic influ-
ences, in his more critical moments Herder is dissatisfied with them. Al-
though he admires Hippocrates and Montesquieu, his own views on the
causes of cultural differences are more eclectic; "while some build so much
upon it [climate], in the philosophy of the history of man, and others almost
deny its influence altogether, I shall venture on nothing more than prob-
lems."^°° The old idea that man cannot live in a climate whose temperature
exceeds that of his own blood has to be abandoned, he says, but on the other
hand we do not know enough about body temperature to possess a climatol-
ogy apphcable either to the body or to the mind. Herder also saw the fallacies
of the climatic theories refurbished by Montesquieu (see pp. 565-581).
There is always room for an environmentalistic concept in the design argu-
ment because both lean so heavily on the idea of adaptation. Herder sees
perspicacity in the distribution of the earth's habitable land: the Southern
Hemisphere was created to be the large reservoir of the earth's water in
order that the Northern could enjoy a better climate. "Thus, whether we
consider the World geographically, or climatically, we find Nature intended
mankind to be neighbourly beings, dweUing together, and imparting to each
other climatic warmth, and other benefits, as well as the plague, diseases, and
"^^^
climatic vices.
Herder is well aware, however, that if men are adapted to differing en-

Ibid.^ Bk. II, chap. 3,Churchill trans., p. 36.

^^Ibid., Bk. VII, chap, Churchill trans., p. 164.
i,

Ibid.y chap. 2 ad fin, Churchill trans., p. 172.

Ibid.y chap. 3, Churchill trans., p. 175.
 Strengths and Weakjiesses of Fhy si co-Theology 541

vironments, whether they be physical or cultural, they are also able to change
them. Man's use of fire, steel, plants and animals and his fellow men has had
profound geographical consequences. "Once Europe was a dank forest; and
other regions, at present well cultivated, were the same. They are now exposed
to the rays of the Sun; and the inhabitants themselves have changed with
the chmate." Anticipating a popular theme of the nineteenth century of re-
ciprocal influences of nature on man and man on nature. Herder observes
that an environment changed by man in turn influences him.

The face of Egypt would have been nothing more than the slime of the Nile,
but for the art and policy of man. He has gained it from the flood; and both
there, and in farther Asia, the living creation has adapted itself to the artificial
climate. We
may consider mankind, therefore, as a band of bold though diminu-
tive giants [das Menschengeschlecht als eine Schaar kiihner, obwol kleiner Rie-
sen], gradually descending from the mountains, to subjugate the earth, and
change climates with their feeble arms. How far they are are capable of going in
this respect futurity will show.^^^

More admonitory, more critical of human activity than was Bufifon (see
p. 665), Herder says man should avoid reckless and abrupt changes in the
physical environment. "One should not suppose that human art can with
despotic power at once transform a foreign region into a Europe by cutting
down its forests and cultivating its soil. For the whole living creation is
closely interrelated; one should act prudently in altering this interdependence."
Herder was impressed by Peter Kalm's observations on the efifects of the
European settlement of North America. The Swedish naturalist was struck
by the newness of cultivation, the differences between the European and the
Indian uses of the woods, the Indians scarcely interfering with them except
for small local firings. Kalm agreed with a common belief that the Europeans
had been the first since the creation to put the land under the plow, thus
heightening the contrast between environments changed by man and the
stability of the pristine natural order. The birds have diminished because
Europeans cut down their forest habitats, frightened them away, or extermi-
nated them; the multiplication of mills, the variety of gear, had similarly
reduced the numbers of fish. Clearing and drainage of swamps had changed
the climate. Kalm was most critical of agricultural methods, particularly the
prolonged use of newly cleared land and deforestation. "We can hardly
be more hostile towards our woods in Sweden and Finland than they are
here: their eyes are fixed upon the present gain, and they are blind to the
future." Everywhere Kalm saw evidences of the wisdom and goodness of
God in creating nature in its original state; it was man who was faihng to
use it with understanding. Herder was sympathetic to such religious ideas;

Ibid., p. 176. "Arms" is Churchill's trans, of "die Erde zu unterjochen und das Klima
mit ihrem schwachen Faust zu verandern."
542 Stre?2gths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

no wonder he thought prudence was required in interfering with natural

processes/^^
Like Buffon, Herder was struck with Hugh WiHiamson's essay concern-
ing the warming effects of clearing on the chmate of the middle colonies
of North America, and the healthful effects of drainage/^^ "Nature," says
Herder, everywhere a living whole [ein lebendiges Ganze], and will be
"is
"^"^
gently followed and improved, not mastered by force.
To Herder nature is a kind parent, a teacher of mankind.
What man of understanding, who contemplates the structure of our Earth, and
the relationman bears to it, would not incline to think, that the father of our
race, who has determined how far and how wide nations should spread, has also
determined this, as the general teacher of us all? Will he who views a ship deny
the purpose of its builder? and who, that compares the artificial frame of our
nature with every climate of the habitable Earth, will reject the notion, that
the climatic diversity of various man was an end of the creation for the purpose
of educating his mind?^^^

Herder adds, however, that the place of abode does not affect everything,
for we as living human beings instruct and influence one another.
Man must consider his own history, his traditions, his customs. In his
interpretation of the historical experience of man. Herder concludes that
the principal law is this, ''that every ivhere on our Earth ^whatever could be
has been, accordmg to the situation and njoants of the place, the circumstances
and occasions of the times, and the native or generated character of the
peopled'''
Herder's work is the flowering of a philosophy of man and nature which

Herder's ldee7i, Bk. VII, chap. 5, par. 3. This passage trans, by Glacken. Peter
Kalm, Travels in North America, Vol. I, pp. 51, 60, 97, 152-154, 275, 307-309, covering
entries from Sept. 22, 1748, to May 18, 1749. See also Chinard, "Eighteenth Century
Theories on America as a Human Habitat," Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society, Vol. 91 (1947), pp. 27-57, Glacken, "Count Buffon on Cultural Changes
of the Physical Environment," AAAG, Vol. 50 (i960), pp. 1-2 1; reference on pp. 19-20.
"This is the account given by Kalm," Herder adds, "and however local we may con-
sider it, still it shows, that Nature loves not too speedy, too violent a change, even in
the best work, that men can perform, the cultivation of a country" (Ideen, Bk. VII,
chap. 5, Churchill trans., p. 186).
^o^See below, pp. 659-661 and Hugh Williamson, M.D., "An Attempt to Account
for the CHANGE of climate, Which Has Been Observed in the Middle Colonies in
North- America," Traj2sactio?is of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. i (second
edition corrected, 1789), pp. 336-345. Herder refers to a German translation in the
Berliner Sa?mnlung, Theil VII. On the French translation of Williamson see Glacken,
op. p. II, footnote 39.
cit.,

Ideen, Bk. VII, chap. Churchill trans., p. 187.

5,
Ibid., Bk. IX, chap,
Churchill trans., p. 227.
i,
107 "Dass allenthalben auf unsrer Erde werde,
was auf ihr werden kann, theils nach
Lage und Bediirfniss des Orts, theils nach Umstanden und Gelegenheiten der Zeit, theils
nach dem angebornen oder sich erzeugenden Charakter der Volker" (ibid., Bk. XII, chap.
6, Churchill trans., p. 348).
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhysico-Theology 543

in his time had reached its zenith and was beginning to dedine, even granting
the superiority of his eclecticism over some of the more dogmatic ideas of
men Hke Montesquieu. The design— the fitness of the earth as an environ-
ment, the fitness of humanity to Hve on it, the influence of humanity on the
earth and of the earth on humanity— admirably as it was worked out by
Herder, still was formed in an old mold. When Friedrich Ratzel criticized
Herder, whom he greatly admired, for fantasies about the earth being the
nursery and the cradle of mankind, as if the whole earth— and not just a
few favored parts of it— was like a pleasant estate, Ratzel should have added,
to place his criticism in proper perspective, that Herder was speaking not
for himself but for a tradition which he had enriched and which had glori-
fied this view of nature for centuries.^^^ Herder's work was a glorious sunset;
the sunrises belong to Hume, Kant, Goethe, and Alexander von Humboldt.

I o. Humboldt

If indeed there was such a sunset, what other view of nature was possible
at the end of the eighteenth century, considering the exploration that had
taken place, the interest in natural history, the discussions of final causes?
One can see, I think, such possibilities emerging in the Essai sur la Geographic
des Flantes and the Tableau Physique des Regions Bquinoxiales first published
in French in 1805 by Humboldt and Bonpland. (A full-scale analysis of
Humboldt's ideas on these subjects is beyond the scope of this work; many
of the ideas however developed in Humboldt's later work are mentioned in
these short essays.) The titles of these essays do not suggest the broad philoso-
phy of nature which they express. The Essai sur la Geographic des Flantes
is more than a landmark in the history of plant geography (as it is usually

considered); Humboldt himself obviously considered it a fundamental pro-

gram for the study of nature. His view of nature is more specific and
detailed than earlier ones mainly because he had traveled so widely and had
made many observations personally; it is free of teleological explanations
and takes into account both modifications of nature by man and environmental
influences on him.
Humboldt dedicated the Essai to Goethe, saying he had conceived the
idea of the work in early youth, expressing also his gratitude to George
Forster,who had accompanied his father, the botanist, on Cook's second
voyage (1772-1775). Humboldt had traveled to England with George Forster
in 1790 and had submitted an early draft of a geography of plants to him.
Study of several of the physical-mathematical sciences, he added, had given
him the opportunity to broaden his views, but above all it was the materials

Anthropogeographie, Part II, pp. 3-4.

Tableau Physique, pp. 42-43; Naturgemalde, p. 39.
544 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

he gathered in the tropics which contributed to "I'histoire physique du

globe."^^^ It is with the Forsters' and Humboldt's work that the great world
of the tropics, seen from the point of view of contemporary science, begins
to exertits influence on conceptions of nature. Later we see this continuing

inDarwin and Wallace.

Although Humboldt did not disparage botanical activity— the search for
new species, descriptions of the external form of plants, taxonomy— it was
necessary, he said, to recognize that the equally important study of plant
geography was an segment of general science still existing in name
essential

only.^^^ It is not enough, he says, to study the geography of plants according

to zones or altitude or even in relation to air pressure, temperature, humidity,
electric tension, but to consider them also according to their manner of
living: those which grow singly and are dispersed, and those— like the bees
and the ants among the insects— that are the social plants.^^^
It would be interesting, he continues, to map these areas of plant as-

semblages of the same species; they would appear like long bands whose
irresistible extension lessens the population of states, separates neighboring
nations, and offers greater obstacles than do the mountains and the seas to
communication and commerce. In the German edition, he speaks of these
bands as being "now heath, now grassy plains— the steppes and the savannas."
In showing the relation of these social plants (the assemblages of plants of
one species) to human society, he cites as an example the associations Erica
vulgaris. Erica tetralix. Lichen icmadophila and haematomma spreading out
from the northernmost extremity of Jutland through Holstein and Liineberg
to the fifty-second parallel, turning then west through the granitic sands of
Miinster and Breda, and on to the Channel.^^^ Human modifications of the
heath landscape are described as little enclaves of a substituted plant life

whose fresh greenness— a man-created oasis— is contrasted with the surround-

ing areas of barren heath. Here man's task (in which he has been only partly
successful) is envisaged as a struggle with nature in order to substitute a new
kind of plant life for that which had dominated these regions for centuries.^^^
Contrasting the original cover with man's substitutions, Humboldt says that
a moss, Sphagnum palustre, a social plant, once covered a large part of Ger-

^^-^
Essai, pp. vi-vii. Ideen, German ed. 1807, pp. iii-iv. The latter is not an exact
translation of the former, and contains ideas and illustrations not found in the French ed.
"Science dont il n'existe encore que le nom, et qui cependant fait un partie es-
sentielle de la physique generale" (Essai, p. i).
Essai, pp. 14-15.
p. 17.
"Ces vegetaux, depuis une longue suite de siecles, repandent la sterilite sur le sol
et exercent un empire absolu sur ces regions: I'homme, malgre ses efforts, luttant contre
une nature presque indomptable, ne leur a enleve que peu de terrain pour la culture"
(Essai, p. 18).
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology 545

many; the clearing of the forest by agricultural peoples lowered the humidity,
the bogs gradually disappeared, and useful plants have replaced the moss.
Humboldt contrasts these dreary areas with the vast species variety of the
tropical lands, although even they have the social plants in the higher moun-
tains. Single and scattered species form the dense stands of the tropical rain
forest, whose compared with that of Europe, leads Humboldt to
density,
interesting speculations on the origin of agriculture in the Old and in the
New World. The first traces of agriculture begin when the nomad gives up
his way of life and begins gathering the useful plants and animals about him.
This transition from nomadism to agriculture was late among the northern
peoples. In the tropical regions between the Orinoco and the Amazon— the
German edition uses the old name, Maranon— the density of the forest pre-
vents the primitive people from getting food from the hunt. Fishing, the
fruits of the palm, small cultivated patches, are the subsistence bases of the
Indians of South America.^^^ In the German edition, however, Humboldt
says that the depth and the swiftness of the streams, floods, bloodthirsty
crocodiles and boa constrictors, make fishing profitless and laborious, and
Nature here forces man to cultivate plants. Everywhere the condition {etat)
of the savage is altered by the nature of the cHmate and soil which he in-
habits. These modifications alone distinguish the first inhabitants of Greece
from the nomadic Bedouins, and the latter from the Indians of Canada. Hum-
boldt thus attempts to explain by environmental causation a problem which
had puzzled Lord Kames in 1775: that the assumed universal sequence in the
cultural development of mankind from a hunting and fishing stage to pas-
toralism and then agriculture was not true of the New World.
Pursuing the themes both of environmental change by man and of environ-
mental influences on him, Humboldt points to the efliciency— and caprice—
of human influence in the dissemination of plants throughout the world; man
gathers about him the products of the most remote climates, and his agricul-
ture estabhshes the dominion of foreign-plant invaders, sheltered by him over
the indigenous ones which are pressed into an ever-narrowing space. The
general result of such activity is a monotony of the scenery of highly civilized
countries with large populations.^^''
Humboldt emphasizes overwhelming luxuriance of plant life in the
the
tropical world, but it does lack the tender greens, grassy plains and meadows
of the temperate lands. In one remark with a teleological flavor, he says that

See also Ideen, pp. 16-17.

Essai^ pp. 24-25.
^I'^But in the German edition the statement is different though the thought is the
same. "So modificiren Klima und Boden, mehr noch als Abstammung, die Lage und die
Sitten des Wilden. Sie bestimmen den Unterschied zwischen den beduinischen Hirten-
volkern und den Pelasgern der altgriechischen Eichenwalder, zwischen diesen und den
jagdliebenden Nomaden am Mississipi" {Ideen, p. 17).
Essai^ pp. 25-28.
54^ Strengths and Weaknesses of Physico-Theology

a careful Nature has given each zone its own advantages. Anticipating themes
he later developed at length in his history of ideas concerning nature in the
Kosjnos, Humboldt asks what influence plant distribution— and the sight of
plants— have on the imagination (Phantasie) and artistic sensitivity (Kunst-

sinn). In what does the character of the vegetation of this land or that con-
sist? Does the character of the vegetation conjure up sensations in the soul

of him who contemplates it?^^^ Inquiries of this type are all the more inter-
esting because they are directly related to the mysterious means by which
landscape painting and even descriptive poetry in part exert their influence.
Of all the geographers nourished in the Western civilization, Humboldt in
this passage and involuminous writings on the same subject in later life
his
clearly sees a common ground shared by geography and aesthetics. Subjective,
suggesting aesthetic and psychological theory as well, this field of study has
never been pursued with the ardor shown for other kinds of systematic
geography whether cultural or physical. It is true that many geographers have
often written on themes of nature appreciation and beauty of natural scenery,
but this writing was then as it is today a Hterary rather than a professional
genre. It is only since the creation of so much ugliness in the landscape since
the latter half of the nineteenth century that one sees the great loss to a dis-
cipline like geography which lacks a strong historical base in aesthetics and
art history.
Viewing nature as a whole, the sight of meadows and forests engenders an
enjoyment different from that which the study of an organic body and its
wonderful structure arouses. The detail of the latter excites the desire for
knowledge; the ensemble, the great mass of the former, works on the imag-
ination. How different are the feelings aroused by the fresh green of the
meadow and the dark shadows of the fir! Does the difference in feelings thus
aroused He in the very greatness of the mass, in absolute beauty, or in the
contrast, in the grouping of plant forms? In what does the pictorial advantage
of tropical vegetation lie?^^^

The inhabitant of the tropical lands can enjoy the sight of all plant forms,
an enjoyment in which the European peoples to whom many plant forms
are unknown cannot participate. The Europeans, however, have their own
and perfection of their languages, in the imagination
substitutes in the richness
and painters. With the enchantment of an art imitating nature,
of their poets
the European without leaving his home can rise to magnificent conceptions
of nature, appropriating for his own the discoveries of the bravest explorers.
It is through this abihty to make use of the far-off, the exotic, what is unknown
at home, that we acquire the insights which exert the most influence on our
individual happiness: we can see the present and the past, the varying pro-

Essai^ p. 30, Ideen, pp. 24, 30.

Essai, p. 30; Ideen, pp. 24-25.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology

ductions of nature in different climates, and we are in communication with

all the peoples of the earth. Sustained by past discoveries, we continue into
the future, advancing in the discovery of laws of nature. It is in the environ-
ment of such inquiries that we have intellectual pleasure, a moral freedom
fortifying us against the blows of fate, and which cannot be destroyed by
any exterior force.
The same philosophy permeates the more detailed essay, Tableau Physique
des Regions Equatoriales; it is a program for nature as a whole. "Dans ce
grand enchainement de causes et d'effets, aucun fait ne pent etre considere
isolement," for Humboldt sees a general equilibrium of nature transcending
the play of opposing forces.^^^
In this essay (following the principle of unity underlying diversity and of
equilibrium and balance in nature) Humboldt shows the altitudinal distribu-
tion of plants, animals, even of rocks, on the famous map of Chimborazo,
adding a plea for similar maps for the and equatorial zones
polar, temperate,
and for others showing the contrasts between the Northern and Southern
Hemispheres and the Old and the New W
orlds. It was Humboldt's ambition

to put flesh on the bones of the principle of unity in diversity through world-
wide botanical exploration followed by the publication of the results on suit-
able maps.
Here too he is sympathetic to an old environmental theory (which reap-
pears in various forms in his later writings), the stimulus of hard environ-
ments—first mentioned by Herodotus and advanced in modern dress, more
elaborately and with greater sophistication, by Arnold Toynbee. The degree
of civilization attained by peoples bears an inverse relationship to the fertility
of their soil and the beneficence and luxuriance of the nature which sur-
rounds them: the more nature opposes obstacles to surmount, the more rapidly
are the social factors developed. In essence the theory is a variant of the idea
of necessity being the mother of invention.^^^
Assuming the greater richness and fertility of the wet tropics (a concep-
tion of tropical soils which has lasted in some quarters to the present), Hum-
boldt asks why civihzation developed not there but in the temperate lands.
Why did New World civilization prosper in the high plains of the Andes
and not on the shores of great rivers; why do the Indians prefer to live at
an altitude of 3,300 meters under an unfriendly sky, cultivating their stony
ground, when fertile plains at the base of the mountains he hardly a day's
journey from their huts? Humboldt thinks they remain in these inhospitable
lands because of love of their native land and the force of custom; he compares
settlements at high altitudes here with similar places in Europe, remarking
that in Peru there are cities at altitudes at which in Europe there are only

Tableau Physique, pp. 42-43.

Naturgemalde, pp. 168-169.
Ibid., pp. 139-140;
548 Strengths and Weakiiesses of Fhy sico-Theology

transhumant huts. This is all casual and sketchy but it hints too at a human
geography that cannot be explained by environment alone, that encompasses
customs and cultural inertia, that can profit by comparison of environments.^^^
Humboldt's views of nature were noble as were those of the Forsters and
BufTon, breathing the air of freedom and free inquiry.^^^ He showed what
a gifted, sensitive, well-traveled student of man and nature could achieve
in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; the inspiration of his
example can be traced readily in the writings of many famous naturalists of
the nineteenth century from Skouw in Denmark to the paragraphs of a grate-
ful Darwin. It was probably the best conception of living nature that could
be achieved with existing knowledge before the Darwinian theory of evolu-
tion. It would be a great mistake, however, to think of an easy path in the
history of natural history from Humboldt to Darwin, for we would fail
to take into account the spectacular vigor— if not the intellectual depth— of
believers in the design argument, in final causes within the framework of
Christian theology. Lyell recognized the opposition of the physico-theolo-
gists. In June, 1830, he wrote to Poulette Scrope, "If you don't triumph over
them, but compliment the liberality and candour of the present age, the bishops
and enlightened saints will join us in despising both the ancient and modern
physico-theologians."^"^ The argument of the teleological
vitality of the design
view of nature in geography was clear in the works of Humboldt's friend,
Carl Ritter. A voluminous "following in the footsteps of the Creator" htera-
ture accumulated in the nineteenth century as if Spinoza, Buffon, Kant,
Goethe, Humboldt had never criticized design arguments.

1 1 . Conclusion

Eighteenth century nature study stood on the shoulders of that of the seven-
teenth, but to vary an old figure of speech, it was not a dwarf on the shoulders
of a giant; the two were comparable in strength. The march of thought from
Burnet to Ray created its own grand spectacle de la nature. In the eighteenth
century, within a teleological framework or outside of it, many students
were moved and inspired by the new opportunities for nature study; they
ignored the spirit of Pope's schoolmasterish instructions about not scanning
God and about the proper study of mankind. The exclamation points of
Buffon and Bernardin de St. Pierre and others were not mere rhetoric. Neither
were the ecstatic remarks of Leibniz. The infinitely small and the near, the
infinitely large and the far, brought into view by the microscope and the

Tableau, pp. 1 39-141.

123 more extensive development of these ideas see Humboldt's introduction to the
Cosmos.
K. M. Lyell, Lije of Charles Lyell, Vol. I, 271. See also Gillispie, Genesis and
Geology, p. 133, to whom I am indebted for this reference.
 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhy sico-Theology 549

telescope, now old friends, gave substance and depth to the grand array. In
the hands of the naturalists, organic themes flourished, fed on speculation,
travel, engravings, and plant collecting. Le grand spectacle de la nature under-
lay the philosophy of E)e Pluche, St. Pierre, Linnaeus, Pallas, Buffon, Goethe,
and the Forsters.
Involved in this nature study was also the problem of physical evil. The
tout est bien philosophy of Pope and Dr. Pangloss is frequently discussed with
reference to optimism in the social world, but it is pertinent also in interpret-
ing the processes of nature. The doctrine of final causes obscured the dis-
tinction between the earth and the physical processes which account for its

beauties and convenience, its earthquakes, violent storms, volcanic eruptions,

sHdes, and the human world manifested concretely in the geography of
human settlement. The physical evil visited upon mankind as a result of such
catastrophes depends upon the numbers and distribution of people. People
living in a metropolis that lies on a fault or in a village at the foot of a live
volcano cannot expect their presence to alter conditions that bring about
earthquakes and eruptions.
Furthermore, the relationship of final causes to mental processes was seen
with greater perspicuity by Hume
and Kant than by any of their predeces-
sors. Hume's analysis of the meaning of artisanship and Kant's saying that
the organization of nature has nothing analogous to causality known to us
called attention to the participation of the human mind in constructing a
concept of nature. This truth is quite apparent today in the idea of an eco-
system. In implying that human intelligence gives a meaning to nature which
animals, lacking higher understanding, and plants cannot, Kant suggests that
men may strive for an enlightened and satisfying understanding of the cre-
ation within their own set of values; it seems akin to an existentiahst idea.
One can see in Hume's dialogues what the struggle for existence in nature
means when the web of design is shorn off. Conflict and competition become
meaningless; a niggardly nature is mother
quite in contrast with the bountiful
of design. In the nineteenth century, men will often hear this phrase from
Malthus and others struck by the contrast between the fecundity of life and
the availabihty of food. When the protective cover of design is removed,
lesser ideas escape and assert themselves like children rebelling from their
parents. The idea of progress has similarly concealed supposedly minor failures
in the millennial march of civiHzation. Remove it, and these failures stand on
their own feet. Many trends in civilization no longer appear to be in neces-
sary harmony with one another. The growth of knowledge and the progress
of technology might not accompany progress in ethics and the decline of
warfare; these in turn may not inevitably bring about the better use of the
soils and the preservation of the forests.
By the nineteenth century, the decline of the older physico-theology had
already begun; with Lamarck and Darwin attention is focused on adaptation
550 Strengths and Weaknesses of Fhysico-Theology

to environment. They begin the task, building on this older thought, of

creating a new concept of interrelationships in nature, the web of life; their
successors followed with biotic communities, and finally the ecosystem.
Teleology did not vanish in the mechanistic monisms of the nineteenth
century. A secular version and critiques of it superseded the older theologi-
cally oriented teleology and its critics. The idea of progress, Marxism, the
Darwinian theory, have their own teleologies. Later studies of biotic com-
munities, especially those with holistic overtones, have strong if submerged
links with teleology. For teleological explanation and analysis of apparent
"goal-directed activity" (Braithwaite) are still forces in thought. They can
concern any field.^^^ Does not a linguist ask if a language is evolving toward
greater simplicity of grammar or greater precision in meaning, or if there
is simply a rearrangement superseding the old? Do not such questions con-

stantly recur in attempts to see emergent patterns and evolution in human

society? In the man-earth relationship, Kant was correct, in my opinion,
in saying that teleological explanation breaks down. The caprice of human
acts and a wide variety of motives lead to environmental change. What man
creates on the surface of the earth, the lines, the squares, the contours, the
leveled areas and the entrenched are not consequences of societal evolution as
a whole but of different cultural histories. The matching of earth changes
with societal aspiration could be brought about only by dictatorship of land
use by a world government. But then this would be not teleology but plan-
ning. Some may believe in the teleological development of a culture or of a
society, but it is hard to believe, as did Leibniz, that there is a concomitant and
coordinate change of the earth with the progress of civilization.
Teleology will be with us for a long time because it is an expression in
ever-recurring form of the quest for meaning in man, in nature, and in the
relationship between the two. For as much as we rightly insist that mankind
is part of nature, we must still isolate human activities as a unique force re-

quiring special techniques for study and its own philosophy. It is wrong to
say that the Western tradition has emphasized the contrast between man and
nature without adding that it has also emphasized the union of the two. The
contrasting viewpoints arise both because man is unique and because he shares
life and mortality with the rest of the living creation.

See Braithwaite, Scieiitific Explanatioji, pp. 319-341.

 Chapter 12

Climate, the Moeurs, Rehgion,

and Government

I . Introduction

The sharp, often witty,apothegms of Montesquieu surprised his age, his bold
climatic correlations convincing many of his freshness and originality, but a
lightness of touch did not conceal his knowledge of the classical world, west-
ern Europe, and the post-Columbian literature of travel. So great was Mon-
tesquieu's influence on his contemporaries, and on those who subsequently
read him, that he seemed to appear with fresh tidings— commanding and un-
announced—a hundred and fifty years after Bodin. Voltaire saw this error;
other Frenchmen of modern times— Bodin, Fontenelle, Chardin, and the abbe
du Bos— had written about climate, and Voltaire saw also their kinship with
the thinkers of antiquity. Critical of Montesqueiu but disdainful of his critics,
Voltaire said, "The author of the 'Spirit of Laws,' without quoting authorities,
carried this idea [of chmatic influence] farther than du Bos, Chardin and
Bodin. Certain classes believe him to have first suggested it, and imputed it to
552 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

him This was quite in character with the classes referred to. There
as a crime.
are men everywhere who possess more zeal than understanding."^
Voltaire's point was well taken, for continuities in thought had not been
broken. Ideas of environmental influence, as we have seen, had begun to per-
form important functions. Pierre Charron, for example, showed his disbelief
in revelation, in the truth of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism by
making the climate of Arabia responsible for all of them.^
Furthermore, there had been no lagging of interest in health and medicine.
If Hippocrates— and Galen— had been regarded in the Middle Ages as if he

were a Christian doctor, he had become in the Renaissance, and in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries as well, less a symbol of Christian medicine,
more the archetype of the empirical observer whose observations began with
nature and with nature alone, and he was even believed by some to espouse
atheism.^ Throughout the eighteenth century the extravagant admiration for
Hippocrates continued among the doctors; it was scarcely less among stu-
dents of man for the Airs, Waters, Places.

2. FONTENELLE, ChARDIN, AND Du BoS

If environmental causation was related to rehgion and health, it was also con-
cerned with historical change, with travel and exploration, with the geo-
graphical distribution of human achievement. Let us first look at these men
whom Voltaire mentioned— Fontenelle, Chardin, and the abbe du Bos— to
see what they had to say in the days before Montesquieu tried, in his famous
experiment with the sheep's tongue (see p. 569) to put the investigation of
climatic influences on a scientific basis.
In his essay On the Ancients and Moderns, Fontenelle had tried to bring
some sense into the discussion of the relative merits of both; this had involved
Fontenelle and many more fundamental inquiry into the validity
others in the
of applying the organic analogy to nature as a whole (see above, p. 390). Tak-
ing a position reminiscent of that of Polybius, Fontenelle assumes that the
original mental characteristics of peoples are derived from their climates; these
however are lost later because men influence one another's minds. Showing
an awareness of the force of imitation and culture contact (which Hume pos-
sessed in greater measure in the next century), Fontenelle added:

The reading of Greek books produces in us much the same effect as if we

intermarried solely with Greeks. It is certain, that as a result of such frequent
alliances, the blood of Greece and that of France would alter, and that the facial

^ "Climat," in Dictionnaire philosophique, Morley trans. Text in Oeuvres, ed. Beuchot,

Vol. 28, p. 115.

2 Charron, Of Wisdo7n (1601),
p. 258. See chap. IX, sec. 8.
3 Deichgraber, "Goethe und Hippokrates," Sudhoffs Archiv fiir Geschichte der

N
Medizin und der aturivissens chaf ten. Vol. 29 (1936), pp. 27-56, ref. on p. 27.
 Climate, Moeiirs, Religion, and Government 553

characteristics peculiar to the two nations would undergo some change. . . .

[Since the effects of climate are inconclusive and one influence might offset
another,] it follows that differences in climate may be discounted, provided the
minds in question are otherwise equally cultivated. At the most it might be
credited that the Torrid Zone and the two Polar Regions are not particularly
well suited to the development of the sciences. Up to the present these have
not extended their influence farther than Egypt and Mauritania on the one hand
and Sweden on the other; perhaps it is not wholly a matter of chance that they
have been restricted to the territory between Mt. Atlas and the Baltic Sea; we
do not know that these are not boundaries which nature has imposed upon
them, and whether we can ever hope to see great scientists among the Lapps or
Negroes.

Fontenelle leaves open the question whether there are geographic areas of
conspicuous achievement but he rejects environmental explanations for differ-
ences between the peoples of the ancient and the modern world. Anticipating
Hume again, he continues:

The centuries produce no natural difference between men. The climate of

Greece or of Italy and that of France are too nearly alike to cause any sensible
difference between the Greeks or the Latins and ourselves. Even if they should
produce a difference of some sort, it would be very easy to efface, and finally, it
would be no more to their advantage than to ours. We are all, then, perfectly
equal, ancients and moderns, Greeks, Latins, and French.^

Voltaire, critical of Chardin and the abbe du Bos, quoted the "ingenious Fon-
tenelle" approvingly.
The Journal du Voyage du Chevalier Chardin, especially the Voyage en
la Perse, a famous and influential travel book of the seventeenth century.
was
Sir John Chardin (1643-17 13) was a jeweler and a trader in jewels, occupa-
tions which enticed him not only to Persia but to India as well. His book is
an interesting but matter-of-fact account which stresses business and trade,
often, however, describing with zest the customs of the people. Chardin's ob-
servations furnished apparent proof of the ancient belief in the effeteness of
the East as a whole, of the backwardness of the Persians, and in particular the
unchanging nature of their society. Chardin ascribed these conditions to cli-
mate:

. The hot Climates enervate the Mind as well as the Body, lay the quickness of
. .

the Fancy, necessary for the invention and improvement of Arts. In those
Climates the Men are not capable of Night Watchings, and of a close Application,
which brings forth the valuable Works of the Liberal, and of the Alechanick
Arts. 'Tis by the same Reason likewise, that the Knowledge of the Asiaticks is

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle, "Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes,"

Oeuvres (nouvelle edition, A la Haye, 1728), Vol. 2. The passages here quoted in trans-
lation are on p. 127. I am indebted to the translation of Leona Fasset, made for the selec-
tion from Fontenelle, in Teggart (revised by Hildebrand), The Idea of Progress, A Col-
lection of Readings, pp. 177-178.
554 Climatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government
so restrained that it consists only in learning and repeating what is contained in
the books of the Ancients; and that their Industry lies Fallow and Untill'd, if
I may so express my self. 'Tis in the North only we must look for the highest

improvement and the greatest perfection of the Arts and sciences.^

Of this passage, Voltaire wrote, "But Char din did not recollect that Sadi
and Lokman were Persians, nor that Archimedes belonged to Sicily, where
the heat is greater than in three-fourths of Persia. He forgot that Pythagoras
once taught geometry to the Brahmins."^
Modern travel, the observation and the description of non-European peo-
ples, could thus give verisimilitude to the judgments of antiquity, even though

the places involved were different. Chardin's may not be the first modern
work—it certainly was one of the earliest— to offer an environmental explana-
tion for the "unchanging East" (so popular among European and American
writers even up to World War II), the contrast between China, Persia, and
India on the one hand and western Europe on the other being one between
cultural persistence and cultural change.
The third work mentioned by Voltaire— also important and influential—
was the abbe du Bos' study of genius. The connection with Chardin is direct,
for the abbe cited Homer's eulogy of Ulysses as appropriate to honor Sir
John's accomplishments.^
Du Bos was interested in a question which, as we have seen, had also in-
terested both ancient and modern thinkers: the clustering of human genius,
or of certain kinds of talent at certain periods of history. Or in Du Bos's
words, "Tons les siecles ne sont pas egalement fertiles en grands Artisans."^
Du Bos dismisses moral, that is, social, causes, as adequate explanations of
the distribution of gifted artists in place and time. Moral causes— a happy state

of affairs in a country, the interest of the ruler and the citizen in literature and
the arts, the presence of qualified teachers— create a favorable environment for
the arts but do not really add any more esprit to the artists; they make no
change whatsoever in nature. They provide opportunities for artists to per-
fect their genius, moral causes making their work easier, stimulating them
through emulation and by rewards for study and application. Four centuries,
he says, have been admired by all subsequent ones: the first, beginning ten
years before the reign of PhiHp of Macedon; the second, of Julius Caesar and

^ The Travels of Sir John Chardin in Persia, Vol. 2, p. 257.

6 "Climat," Diet, philos., op. cit.
Reflexions Critiques sur la Poesie et siir la Peinture, Quatrieme edition revue, corri-
gee & augmentee par I'auteur. The work first appeared in 1719. See also Koller, The
Abbe du Bos— His Advocacy of the Theory of Climate. A
Precursor of Johann Gott-
fried Herder. This work has an interesting introductory essay on the place of Du Bos's
work in the history of aesthetics; it also contains translations of many key passages and
in essence is a precis of the environmental portions of the book. I have emphasized,
as Koller did not, the significance of Fontenelle's discussions of climate and of Barclay's
Icon Ajiimorum.
8 Reflex., Vol. 2, p. 128. See chap. IX, sec. 7.
 Climate Moeurs, Religioji, and Government
y 555

of Augustus; the third, of Juhus and of Leo X; and the fourth, of Louis
II

XIV.^ Remarking that men often attribute to moral causes effects which really
are the result of physical ones, Du Bos questions whether the former can ex-
plain periods of artistic efflorescence; often the arts do not flourish with moral
causes favorable to them, and an Achilles does not always have his Homer.
Arts and letters do not reach their perfection by a slow progress, proportional
to the time spent in cultivating them— progress is sudden. Furthermore, moral
causes have failed to hold achievement at its peak level, have been unable to
prevent its subsequent decline/^
Du Bos discusses each of these points at length. In the first place, poetry
and painting have a well-defined geographical distribution: the genuine arts
are confined to Europe, the poleward march of poetry and painting stops at
Holland. (The arts he confines between the twenty-fifth and the fifty-
second degrees of north latitude. Du Bos now combines the ideas of Vel-
leius Paterculus with those of Fontenelle. Paterculus had observed this cluster-
ing effect in the ancient world. Du Bos, however, is more selective in his bor-
rowings from Fontenelle, from whom he quotes the following passage:

Different ideas are like plants or flowers which do not thrive equally well in all
sorts of climates.Perhaps our French soil is not suited to the Egyptian manner
of thinking any more than to their palm trees; and, without going so far afield,
perhaps the orange trees, which do not thrive so well here as in Italy, are an
indication that in Italy there is a certain turn of thought which is not exactly
duplicated in France. It is certain, at least, that, because of the connection and
inter-dependence existing between all parts of the material world, the differences
in climate which affect plants must needs influence brains also.

Fontenelle, however, added— and Du Bos did not quote this— "In the latter
case, however, the effect is less pronounced and less obvious, for art and cul-
ture can exercise a much greater influence upon brains than upon the soil,
which is of a harder and more intractable nature. Hence the thoughts of one
country are more readily conveyed to another than are plants, and we should
experience less difficulty in adopting the Italian genius in our works than in
raising orange trees."^^
Fontenelle continues with his criticism of environmental explanations, com-
ing to the conclusions I have already quoted. And so while Du Bos is lament-
ing that a talented writer like Fontenelle has not pursued this matter further,
he parts company, either intentionally or carelessly, with Fontenelle at the
point where the latter becomes critical of environmental theories, friendly to
moral causes! Du Bos concludes that arts arise by themselves in cHmates fa-

^Ibid., pp. 130, 134-135-

^^Ibid., pp. 146-148.
Ibid., pp. 148, 150-151.
^2"On the Ancients and Moderns," in Teggart and Hildebrand, op. cit. (see n. 4
above), pp. 176-177, translating "Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes," op. cit..

Vol. 2, p. 126; quoted in Du Bos, Vol. 2, pp. 149-150.

556 Climate, Mo ems, Religion, and Govermnent

vorable to them. "Les arts naissent d'euxmemes sous les climats qui leur sont
propres.") He believes sculpture and painting originated in Egypt because its
climate favored their development. Arts will arise in countries suited to them
if they are not introduced; they might appear a little late, but appear they
will. The
arts do not flourish in climates unsuited to them.
DuBos thought the seat of genuine art was Europe, that it suffered in
quality as it became removed from that continent. He granted that other
peoples were inventive; but although the Chinese discovered gunpowder and
printing, this was merely chance! and Europe had so perfected both inven-
tions that it could now give lessons to their Chinese inventors. The abbe dis-
cusses sculpture and painting in Egypt, their further development by the
Greeks and Italians, dismisses as mediocre the art revealed by Chardin's draw-
ings of Persepolis; he is condescending to "d'etoffes, de porcelaine, & des
autres curiositez de la Chine & de I'Asie Orientale," concluding that the artists
of Mexico and Peru were without genius, that if the Brahmans and ancient
Persians had produced a poet of Homer's stature the voyaging Greeks would
have had him in their libraries.^^
This argument is supported by an elaborate theory concerning the power
of air over the body and of the body over the mind and the soul, for during
life the soul remains united with the body. The character of the human spirit

and our inclinations depend a great deal on the qualities of the blood which
nourishes our organs and furnishes the material which permits their growth
during infancy and adolescence. The qualities of the blood, in turn, depend a
great deal on the air which is breathed; they depend even more on the quality
of the air in the place where a person has been reared, because it has deter-
mined the qualities of the blood during infancy. These qualities of the air thus
have contributed to the conformation of the organs, which in turn through
necessary linkages contribute in maturity to the qualities of our blood. It is
for these reasons peoples living under different climates differ so greatly in
spirit and inclinations.^^

The qualities of the air are dependent on the qualities of emanations from
the earth which the air envelops. Since earth emanations are different, the air
is different. mixed body, subject to varying fermentations; the ema-
Earth is a
nations therefore vary, changing the air and influencing the nature of peoples.
Du Bos observes that in France certain generations are more spiritually in-
clined {plus spirituelles) than others. These differences among generations
living in the same climate, he says, have the same cause as do the differences
among peoples living in different climates. Physical causes determine the cli-
matic variations, and these determine the quality of the harvest from one year
to another. There is an organic linkage, cyclical in nature, involving the air,

'^^
Reflex., Vol. 2, pp. 151, 156-157, 159-162.
1* Ibid.,
pp. 238-239.
 Climate y Moeurs, Religion, mid GovernmejJt 557

the earth's surface, man, and the other forms of organic life. The air we breathe
brings to the blood in the lungs the qualities infused in it; the air also deposits
on the surface of the earth matter which contributes the most to its fertility.
Men in working the soil— digging it up and manuring it— really are recogniz-
ing that the soil is much more fertile when a large number of particles have ab-
sorbed the matter from the air. Men eat some of the earth's products, leaving
the rest to animals, whose flesh they subsequently convert to their own sub-
stance by eating it. The qualities of the air are also brought to the waters of
springs and rivers by snow and rain, which are always infused with part of
the corpuscles suspended in the air.^^

This explanation assumes a complexity in the composition of the air permit-

ting a largenumber of combinations with varying influences. Since the at-
mosphere is composed of air, emanations absorbed from the earth, animalcules
and their seed, diflferences in the amounts of these constituents cause varia-
tions in the nature of the air, and these, of theproducts of nature dependent
upon it.

The abbe du Bos is interested in two general kinds of human behavior: the
different characteristics noticeable among people from one place to another,
and the differences in mood and temperament of people living in the same
place.
In order to explain both kinds of differences, he distinguishes between air
having temporary qualities and that with permanent qualities owing to ex-
ternal causes like the sun and the wind. The changes which the permanent
types of qualities produce in humans are called alterations, those which the
temporary or transient qualities produce are vicissitudes. The differing effects
of the sun because of its altitude, its proximity, the exposure, the nature of
the terrain upon which its rays fall, are examples of vicissitudes; so are the
winds which make air subject to change through cold and heat, aridity and
humidity. Vicissitudes resulting from the air, reflected in our daily moods, are
reminders that the influences of the permanent qualities on men— and especially
on children— are much greater.
People's humors— even the esprit of adults— depend a great deal on the vicis-
situdes of the air. We change mechanically from gay to sad as the air is dry
or humid, cold, hot, or temperate; we are content or peevish without motive
(sa72S siijet), and we find it difficult to apply our minds to the tasks at hand.

The "fermentation" in preparation for the storm so acts on our spirit that it
becomes heavy, preventing us from thinking with our usual freedom of imagi-
nation; it even spoils our foods. Spells of excessive heat cause unusually high
seasonal crime rates in Rome (if there are twenty crimes a year, fifteen are
committed in the two hottest summer months); they can affect the suicide
rate of France (in Paris, for every sixty suicides in the year, fifty occur at the

'^Ibid., p. 241.
558 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

beginning or at the end of winter, times when the northeast wind is blowing,
blackening the sky and visibly most robust) Annual differences
afflicting the .

in crimes rates cannot be ascribed, according to French magistrates, to scarcity

of food, discharge of soldiers from the army, or to other "sensible" reasons.
To Du Bos the causes are chmatic.^^ He also discusses the effects of excessive
cold. If vicissitudes can affect man's thinking and his imagination and tempera-
ment so much, if they can cause violence, crime, and suicide, how much
greater, he says, must be the effects of the permanent qualities of the air. One
notices their force in traveling from one climate to another. When permanent
qualities are changed, they may cause epidemics. The air of one's birthplace is

like a medicine; homesickness (Hemve) to Du Bos is literally a bodily pain

caused by the climate.^''

In turning his attention to the more fundamental alterations— as distin-

guished from the vicissitudes— Du Bos asks: Why
do men differ despite their
descent from common parents? The divergence began with migration— it was
a gradual process toward both the pole and the equator— and ten centuries were
sufficient to make the descendants of the same parents as different as are the
Negroes and the Swedes today. Further, Du Bos makes the traditional as-
sumption that if climate produces differences in color, trunk, and voice, it
also affects the subtler and less apparent characteristics of mankind. Its effects
on the genius, inclinations, and customs of a country are even greater than on
the physical because of the greater sensitivity both of the brain and of those
parts of the body which determine, physically speaking, the esprit and incli-
nations of men; differences in air may be capable of causing mental differences
(a convenient and resilient mixture is this air of Du Bos) even if they are not
powerful enough to produce the grosser, visible physical differences.
The Portuguese experience in Africa, he says, supports his belief in the cor-
rectness of climatic explanations. It has been only three centuries since they
established colonies on the west coast of Africa. No longer do the descen-
dants of the first colonists resemble the Portuguese of Portugal. They have
acquired the frizzed and curled hair, the flat nose and the thick lips of the
Negro, although they continue to consider themselves white men. (If a
colony of Negroes, however, were to establish itself in England, Du Bos says,
the same influences would be at work and their skins would grow whitish.)
Even considering the crude theories of heredity of the time, it is astonishing
that it did not occur to Du Bos that the sexual unions between the races might
have something to do with the changed hair, hps, and noses.^^
Du Bos's example of the Roman Catholic religion, whose liturgy and dogma

Ibid., pp. 242-246, As KoUer remarks, these observations on crime anticipate Lom-
broso's work, op. cit. (see n. 7 above), p. 72.
^'^
Ibid., pp. 249-250. On the word Hemve see Roller, op. cit..,
pp. 74-75. Du Bos adopts
the word into French, borrowing from the German Heifnweh and similar forms in the
Scandinavian languages.
Ibid., pp. 251, 253-256.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 559

{le culte cormne pour les dogmes) are essentially the same in all countries with
the Catholic communion, is more subtle and perceptive. Despite the common
religion, each country reveals much of its unique character in its manner of
worship {dans la pratique de ce culte). Depending on the genius of each na-
tion, services are conducted with more or less pomp and dignity, with more

or less outward manifestations of penitence or of gaiety.

Through these pages of Du Bos— and this observation is true of Bodin and
Montesquieu as well— there is an awareness of national character (hardly
avoidable in Europe! ) and of the observations about it made in antiquity; fur-
thermore, the characteristics of the peoples described by the classical writers
are recognizable in their descendants. Do the peasants of North Holland and
Andalusia think in the same way? Have they the same passions? Do they even
experience in the same way the passions they, as human beings, have in com-
mon? Do they want same way? For Du Bos to ask these
to be governed in the
questions is to answer them. When outward differences are so distinct, the
inner difference, the difference in minds, must be enormous. Du Bos clinches
the point with Fontenelle's remark about the contrast between the face of na-
ture in China and in Europe. "Voiez [a] combien la face de la nature est
changee d'ici a la Chine. D'autres visages, d'autres figures, d'autres moeurs, &
presque d'autres principes de raisonnements."^^
Du Bos respects John Barclay as an authority on national character and
He remarks upon the similarities between the origi-
refers his readers to him.^^
nal inhabitants of a country and their descendants: Livy's description of the
Goths is compared with the present Catalans; Caesar's comment on the Gauls'
talent for imitating foreign inventions is true, he says, of the modern French.
Even changing the environment by forest clearance, draining of swamps,
building of towns instead of the old villages, had not succeeded in obliterating
the German character, an observation which may well have been inspired by
Barclay.^^
Throughout its history the climatic theory has played a significant role as
an explanation of cultural inertia; it had this role with Du Bos and later with
Montesquieu {Spirit of Laivs XIV, 4). Du Bos writes as if it were a matter of
common knowledge that climate is more powerful than blood or origin. The
Gallo-Greeks, descendants of the Gauls who had settled in Asia, he says, in
five or six generations became as soft and effeminate as the Asiatics, although
they were descendants of warlike ancestors. All peoples famed for their skill

Ibid., p. 259. See Fontenelle's Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Monde s (1686) Second
Jour.
'^^
Ibid., pp. 259-260. On Barclay and chap. 9, note 69.
see chap. IX, sec. 9,
21 Ibid.,
p. and Barclay, The Mirrour of Mindes, pp.
266. See above, chap. IX, sec. 9,
144-145. According to Albert Collignon, "Le Portrait des E^prits (Icon Animorum)
de Jean Barclay," Memoires de VAcademie de Stanislas, 6th Series, Vol. 3 (1905-1906),
pp. 67-140, one French translation of the Icon Animorum appeared in 1623, and two in
1625. See pp. 129-135 for the editions of this work in the original Latin and in German,
English, and French translations.
560 Clhnate, Mo ems. Religion, and Government

at arms became soft and pusillanimous (mous et pusillajiimes) when they

moved into places whose climate softens also the character of the indigenous
peoples. Colonists assume the characteristics of the place; climate makes dif-
ferent people alike and keeps them alike.^^

What about the apparent exceptions to the theory? Du Bos discusses two,
the Romans and the Dutch. His highly interesting explanations, essentially in-
validations of his theory, indicate that in the early eighteenth century the re-
sults of travel and commerce and of human activities were already breaking
down the simpler determinisms of the past— even though the abbe du Bos did
not seem to realize Let us consider these two exceptions.
it.

The ancient Romans, he says, were famous for their military virtues and
discipline; themodern Romans, in an age seeking a cure for the sickness of
ceremony, have by no means been the last to rid themselves of it. To them
ceremony is a la mode; they try to be as superior in this respect to other peoples
as the ancient Romans tried to be superior to others in military discipline.^^
Du Bos answers that the modern Romans have failed to understand and to
properly control environmental conditions within the city and in its environs,
whose atmosphere is quite different from that prevailing in the times of the
Caesars. With the exception of the Trinita di Monte and the Quirinal quarters,
Du Bos says, the air of the city of Rome is so unhealthful during the hot sum-
mer months that it could be endured only by those who accustomed themselves
to it gradually, as Mithridates accustomed himself to poison. Long neglect
caused the deterioration of the aqueducts and the cloaca; new environments
have created new Here Du
Bos assumes that the active participa-
conditions.
tion of man is indispensable to the proper maintenance of life.
In his discussion of the related problem of the Pontine Marshes, Du Bos says
the plain of Rome has poisonous air; since the poison comes from the soil, the
latter must have changed either because it is no longer cultivated as it was in
the times of Caesars, or because the swamps of Ostia and those of Ofanto are
no longer drained. He wonders whether the mining of alum, sulphur, and
arsenic, and the long columns of burning exhalations (swamp gas) may not
also have had something to do with the unhealthy air.
Finally, he believes the climate was warmer in the eighteenth century than
it was in ancient times even though the country then was more densely in-

habited and more cultivated.^^ Noah Webster has shown in a remarkably per-
ceptive and critical essay how prevalent was this belief in climatic change and
how flimsy was the evidence to support it; it came mostly from ancient writ-
ings which described climatic conditions of certain places which were strik-
ingly different from contemporary conditions. ''This opinion [that the winter
seasons have become warmer in the northern latitudes in modern times] has

'^'^Ibid.,pp. 267-268.
23 Ibid.,
pp. 277-278.
^"^Ibid., pp. 283-284. The only evidence cited is Juvenal, Sat. VI.
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

been adopted and maintained by many writers of reputation, as the Abbe du

Bos, Buffon, Hume, Gibbon, Jefferson, Holyoke, Williams; indeed I know
not whether any person, in this age, has ever questioned the fact."^^
The example of the Dutch is even more interesting; they too, like the Ro-
mans, had changed. The warlike Batavians and Frisians of ancient times were
unlike their modern representatives so adept in commerce and the arts. Du
Bos's explanation for the change is that the Hollanders literally no longer
possess the same soil although they inhabit the same country. This change of
soil, he thinks, came about through natural processes. The isle of the Bata-
vians, a low country, was covered with woods in ancient times, but that part
of the country inhabited by the ancient Frisians (making up the greater por-
tion of Holland today), he says, was then covered with hollow hills. The sea,
flooding these hollows, caused the land to sink, but it was subsequently re-
claimed from the sea by natural causes. The waves washed up the sands on the
coast, the rivers in flood deposited their alluvium. (Du Bos seems to be arguing
that the sea completely inundated the land, then retreated, that sand dunes
which were subsequently formed cut off the remaining water from the sea,
while at the same time alluvium deposited by the Rhine and the Maas filled
in and replaced the isolated water which now would evaporate.) When the
land dried out, it could then be settled again; in fact, it now has become a
level plain crisscrossed with canals and dotted with lakes and ponds. The
complete exchange of soil brought about changes in agriculture and live-
stock raising, and thus in diet and different ways of living. The bulls and cows
are larger, the population— which has increased more than that of any other
part of Europe— can eat legumes, dairy products, fish, instead of the flesh of
the herds and of feral animals, which their ancestors ate.^^ Du Bos refers at
this point to Sir Wilham Temple's work on the United Provinces; Sir
Wil-
liam thought the airs influenced the national character of the Dutch and that
the striking differences between the Batavians and the Hollanders was owing
to a change of diet. Unlike Du Bos, Temple thought the modern diet par-
simonious, deficient in meat.^^ Du Bos's ingenious argument may be summed
up by saying that through the operation of natural causes the original soil is
replaced by new soil and that, consequently, the quahties of the air are
changed; this air in turn influences the character, the soil, and the diet; such
a change in diet alters also the character of the country. Du Bos supports the
argument with a quotation from Chardin on the influences of the climate on
the people of Persia.^^ In the Dutch example, Du Bos, however, apparently

25 Webster, "Dissertation on the Supposed Change of Temperature in Modern Win-

ters" (read before the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1799), in A Collec-
tion of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects, pp. 1 19-162; quote on p. 1 19.
Reflex., Vol. 2, pp. 277, 285-287.
27 See above, chap. IX, sec. 9, and Sir William Temple, Observations upon the United
Provinces of the Netherlands, pp. 105-107, 109-112.
^» Reflex., Vol. 2,
pp. 288-289.
562 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

under the influence of Sir William Temple's account, shifts the argument
to less deterministic ground. Environmental conditions and human industry
are in a reciprocal relationship although climate is still a fundamental influence.
An even more remarkable illustration showing how in the early eighteenth
century climatic determinism could be broken down and replaced with a less
dogmatic solution is Du Bos's honest attempt to account for the distribution of
the arts and sciences over a wide range of climates; this forces acknowl-him to
edge that it is only the environmental extremes that fail to encourage con-
spicuous human achievement. Even here the determinism breaks down.
Another illustration is his assertion that trade has replaced dependence on
local agriculture and that mankind can now draw its sustenance from all
quarters of the earth for necessities and luxuries alike. Commerce gives to
people of the north the foods and wines denied them by their own soils. The
hot countries have made their sugar, spices, brandies, tobacco, coffee, and
chocolate available to the peoples of the cold countries. The salts and the
spiritous juices of these products add an ethereal oil which is not present in
their own foods. Commerce and trade accomplish what the soils and airs can-
not. Spanish spirits fill the blood of the men of the north; the sap and the air
of the Canaries come to England with their wines. Frequent and habitual use
of the products of the hot countries, he says in a striking figure of speech,
brings, so to speak, the sun to the northern countries, and it puts into the
blood and the imagination of the inhabitants of these countries a vigor and
a dehcacy which their ancestors, contented in their simplicity with the prod-
ucts of the earth which they had watched germinating, never had. Du Bos
continues, however, with unfavorable reports of diseases apparently caused
by the introduction of these new foods.^^
The abbe du Bos combined several ideas in putting his own system to-
gether. The idea that genius, talent, artisanship, clustered in space and time
came from a classical writer; stimulating thoughts came also from Fontenelle
who, like Sir William Temple, was engrossed in the argument over the ancients
and the moderns and in the possible validity of a climatic explanation; the
discussions of national character, in the work of Barclay, Chardin, and Sir
William Temple, were grist for his mill. Classical thought, contemporary
European travel and wider voyaging, curiosity about the nature of human
achievement, thus were the building blocks of this stimulating work pub-
lished twenty-seven years before VEsprit des Lois.

3. Arbuthnot on the Effects of Air

In 173 John Arbuthnot, a celebrated English doctor, published An Essay

1,

Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies-, he was interested in the

relationship of the atmosphere to disease and especially to diseases recurring

Ibid.^ pp. 290-292.

 Climate, Moeiirs, Religion, and Government 563

seasonally. The Essay shows a deep respect for, and a thorough knowledge of,
the Hippocratic corpus, particularly the Ai7's, Waters, Places and the Epi-
demics; he sympathized with the Hippocratic conceptions of the etiology of
disease, that it had natural not supernatural causes. In this lucid and rigorous
work, ideas of design are passed over quickly to consider the baffling prob-
lem of diseases and their control. The wise author of nature, he says, has
created a salubrious air near the surface, charged with heterogeneous particles
which, except for a few accidental cases, is well suited to animals. Nature
tries to by not having too many particles in it and by
preserve a healthful air
circulating mostly by the wind; but unhealthy air, still air, air full of
it

putrefactions, often defeat the purpose of nature. In an age whose physi-

cians knew nothing of the germ theory of disease but suspected that epidemics
spread at unequal pace, sometimes slowly, sometimes jumping quickly from
one place to another (and thus might be related to congestion), Arbuthnot
echoed the advice of Hippocrates that when men build cities they should
make them "open, and well perflated."^^
airy,
Arbuthnot's fine book probably would have been noticed only by his-
torians of medicine had it not been for Joseph Dedieu's assertion that Mon-
tesquieu's climatic theories were "une adaptation vigoureuse, mais une adapta-
tion" of the English physician's work.^^ Dedieu's case is even more convincing
because he apparently has used the French translation of Arbuthnot's work;
he casually mentions Arbuthnot's debt to Hippocrates without making it
crystal clear that Arbuthnot's discussion on the influence of climate on peoples
is a carefully condensed precis of the Hippocratic Airs, Waters, Places. The

parallel passages on this subject therefore are more between Montesquieu and
Hippocrates than between Montesquieu and Arbuthnot.^^
Arbuthnot accepts the Hippocratic philosophy of medicine, but he is very
much alive to the results of contemporary investigation; the Hippocratic
generalizations on the influence of climate, however, are accepted uncritically.
The physiological theory is of course contemporary, including discussions of
the effects of the air on the human body, the body's heat balance, atmospheric
conditions influencing sickness, and epidemics.
Following traditional methodology, Arbuthnot shows the eflFect of airs on
the human body by pointing to the role of heat, cold, humidity, and the circu-
lation of the blood.^^
Heat, but not extreme heat, "lengthens and relaxes the Fibres; from whence
proceed the Sensation of Faintishness and Debility in a hot Day. ." Cold . .

induces the opposite reactions: "It contracts animal Fibres and Fluids, which
are denser as far as the Cold reacheth. In cold Weather Animals are really of

Essay, 1751 ed., p. vii, 13-17.

21 Dedieu, Montesquieu et la Tradition Politique Anglaise en Frajice, p. 212. See pp.
214-223 where parallel passages are compared.
pp. 122-124; Dedieu, p. 221, note 2.
^2 Arbuthnot,
33 See Dedieu, op. cit.,
pp. 214-216, for parallel passages in Montesquieu.
564 Climatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government

lessDimensions. Cold braceth the Fibres not only by its condensing Quality
but likewise by congealing the Moisture of the Air, which relaxeth." Humid-
ity also causes a relaxation of the fibers of animals and vegetables; given as
evidence are the effects of soaking, of a relaxing cold bath after initial con-
and so forth.^^ Of the effects of cold and hot
traction, of a relaxing hot bath,
on the blood circulation, Arbuthnot writes, "Obstructions by Cold in the
outward Parts of the Body, drive the Blood pressing with a greater Force
upon the inward Parts, and increase Heat."^^
Without going into further detail about Arbuthnot's physiological theory,
we can see from the following the kind of generalization to which his re-
searches led:

But as there is still Penury of such Observations [about constitution,

a great
diet, disease, climate], all we
can do is to reason from the Laws of Mechanicks,
and the known Properties and Qualities of Air, what must be their natural
Effects. It seems agreeable to Reason and Experience, that the Air operates sen-
sibly in forming the Constitutions of Mankind, the Specialities of Features,
Complexion, Temper, and consequently the manners of Mankind which are
found to vary much in different Countries and Climates.^^

Arbuthnot notes the with which "People of delicate nerves and move-
ease
able Spirits" can be affected by the daily weather changes, that on some days
the memory, imagination, and judgment are more vigorous, that it therefore
seems probable that the "Genius of Nations depends upon that of their Air:
Arts and Sciences have hardly ever appeared in very great or very small
latitudes." Inhabitants of colder countries succeed in the arts requiring in-
dustry and application because it is easier to work in them, and the hot coun-
tries, hospitable to a liveliness of imagination, produce arts requiring the
latter.^^

Arbuthnot had others before him, the persistent traits of

also observed, as
by the Gauls and the French. It is the country
national character, as illustrated
that is responsible "even tho' the Race has been changed." "Governments
stamp the manners but cannot change the Genius and Temper of the In-
habitants; and as far as they are unrestrain'd by Laws, their Passions, and
consequently their National Virtues and Vices will bear some Conformity
with the Temperature of the Air Nations, as well as Individuals, have their
. . .

."^^
constitutional Vices. . .

Thus Arbuthnot has modern explanations for anciently observed cultural

differences. He agrees with Hippocrates that there are indeed differences be-
tween northern and southern peoples but his explanation is derived from the
science of his day. In northern countries, where there are frequent and great

Essay, 1751 ed., pp. 48, 56, 61-62.

35 Ibid., p. 161.
36 Ibid.,
p. 146.
37 Ibid.,
pp. 148-149.
38 Ibid.,
pp. 149-150.
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y 565

changes in atmospheric pressure (no source is given), the human fibers (nerves
and blood vessels?) are alternately expanding and contracting. Because of
this difference in the tension of the fibers "the whole nervous System, and

the animal Spirits, are in some measure affected." Extremes of heat and cold
cause similar effects, the fibers relaxing and contracting or "constringing" in
turn. The extreme cold, acting also as a stimulus, brings about an "Activity
and Tolerance of Motion and Labour, in dry frosty Weather, more than in
hot; whereas the People living within the Tropicks are constantly in the State
of our hottest Weather." The greater variety of oscillatory motion of the
fibers of the northern peoples produces the same oscillation in their spirits,
"and therefore a proportional Inequality in their Passions, and consequently
greater Activity and Courage." The hot climates, with small differences in
atmospheric pressure and air temperature, feel only a tension of fibers coming
from drought and moisture (that is, the dry and rainy seasons), and "the
Motions of their Fibres and Spirits being more uniform, they may be for that
Reason, and from excessive Heats, lazy and indolent: From Inactivity and
Indolence there will follow naturally a slavish Disposition, or an Aversion to
contend with such as have got the Mastery of them."^^
Arbuthnot has now "ventur'd to explain the Philosophy of this sagacious
old Man [Hippocrates], by mechanical Causes arising from the Properties
and QuaHties of the Air. ." Despotic governments "tho' destructive of
. .

Mankind in general are most improper in cold Climates, for where great
Labour is required the Workman ought to have a certain Title to the Fruits
of it. There are Degrees of Slavery, and generally speaking, it is most extreme
in some hot and fruitful Countryies." Arbuthnot speculates also upon the in-
fluence of climate on language and remarks on earlier sexual maturity of hu-
man beings in the hot countries, a theme discussed also by Montesquieu.^^

4. On Montesquieu in General

Enough has been said here and in chapter IX to show that the period be-
tween Bodin and Montesquieu was one in which theories of environmental
influence were exceptionally influential; they were involved in arguments
over the relative merits of the ancients and moderns, in legal and legislative
theory, in conceptions of disease and pubHc health, and in explaining the
moeurs and national character. Interest in Montesquieu thus is due less to his
originality than to his influence. Itis of less importance in the history of

thought that Montesquieu's witty and epigrammatic sentences are restate-

ments of long-known ideas even if he made use of advances in knowledge—
here the contrast with Bodin, oriented to the Middle Ages, is so striking— than
that Montesquieu turned the thoughts of intellectuals writing in the second

Ibid.^ pp. 1 51-152.

Ibid., pp. 151-153. 153-155-
566 Climate^ Moeurs, Religion, and Government

half of the eighteenth century away from a moral philosophy that hitherto
had been content to consider social causes to one which now must consider
the relation of moral to physical causes. Even if one convicts Montesquieu of
a dogmatic determinism— an easy matter, if one considers Books XIV through
XVIII of UEsprit des Lois, harder if one considers the work as a whole— his
book nevertheless marks a turning point in the prehistory of the social sciences,
laying out a route that ultimately leads to human geography. For the most part,
the writers between Bodin and Montesquieu, Du Bos excepted, employed the
climatic argument, more or less casually and incidentally; in Montesquieu
and in works showing his influence, physical causes are well entrenched in
the general body of theory.
Furthermore, the sources of Montesquieu's ideas are of unusual interest
because, like those of Du Bos, they reveal many of the building blocks of
moral philosophy, the matrix of the future social sciences. The works of
Montesquieu, Buffon, and Herder are of such outstanding interest because
they are more than the thoughts of an individual and are also more individual
and personal than the Encyclopedie; they become repositories of the ideas
of an age.
Later in the century Montesquieu was the authority cited on the relation-
ship of physical to moral causes, just as Buffon was the authority cited on
natural history, but this position was not achieved at once; the work was
received with hostility by many contemporary representatives of respectable
intellectual traditions who were not interested in discovering the relation
between the physical milieu and the social milieu in which men lived, formed
nations, and enacted laws. And even if the work as a whole did not bind men
as closely to the physical milieu as did the individual books on climate, Mon-
tesquieu still had said that "the empire of the climate is the first, the most
powerful, of all empires. "^^ Students of jurisprudence did not like to see the
law being traced back to temperature; philosophers objected to what they
thought a noisy revival of fatalistic materialism. And there was general ridicule
as well, surprise at its novelty, and puzzlement.^^
Among the many religious attacks on the book, the most acute came from
the pen (it is beheved) of the abbe Fontaine de la Roche in a Jansenist periodi-
cal Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques. This critic perceived the dangers to the church
in a preoccupation both with natural (versus revealed) religion and with cli-

^1 DeVEsprit des Loix. Texte Etabli et Prese?ite par Jean Brethe de la Bressaye. Here-
after referred to as EL. Book XIX, chap. 14.
^^Dedieu, op. cit. (see n. 31 above), pp. 192-193.
Aucun livre ne provoqua autant d'etonnement, [says Dedieu,] n'excita autant d'invectives que
ceux-la. Theologians, philosophes, jurisconsultes, ou meme simples curieux de litterature, tous,
avec une unanimite touchant, accablerent Montesquieu et son "infame" doctrine. Les curieux
etaient deroutes. Les jurisconsultes ne pouvaient se resoudre a laisser en detresse leurs calculs
politiques, immoles a I'empire du climate, "le premier de tous les empires." Les philosophes et
les theologiens connurent a nouveau leurs terreurs d'autrefois: la "necessite" de Spinoza, le
materialisme fataliste, sortant de leur obscurite, reapparaissaient avec fracas (p. 193).
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y 5^7

made theory; he concluded that the book tended to show that religion must
accommodate itself to the manners (moeurs), usages, customs of different
peoples, whatever they may be, and that itdepends more on climate and the
political system (Petat politique). The book is therefore fundamentally op-
posed to revealed religion.^^
What were the sources of Montesquieu's general and leading ideas? In the
first place, it seems obvious that Montesquieu was aware of the passage in the
Politics of Aristotle regarding climate, that his work, like that of Thomas
Aquinas and Bodin, belongs to a genre that can be traced to Plato's Laws: a
legislator or lawgiver should know the nature of his people and the conditions
under which they live before he makes laws for them.
Joseph Dedieu argued (1909) that Montesquieu had derived the main
theses of his climatic books from John Arbuthnot's An Essay Concerning the
Effects of Air on Human Bodies. Dedieu's evidence is the striking similarity
between Arbuthnot's physiological theory and that of Montesquieu in Book
XIV of De r Esprit des Lois, chapter 2, which is the scientific basis of Mon-
tesquieu's ideas.^^ And, in 1929, Muriel Dodds, in a work of extraordinary
interest because it demonstrates so clearly how the voyages and travels were
used by the philosophic stay-at-homes, said that Chardin had fundamentally
influenced Montesquieu in the formulation of his climatic theories.^^
And what about Montesquieu's two most famous precursors, Hippocrates
and Bodin? These questions also can now be answered with some assurance.
There was a marked revival of interest in Hippocrates from 172 1 to 1748, an
interest associated with general medicine but in particular with the etiology
of communicable diseases and their relation to quick changes in temperature
and the influence of the air on them.^^
It is now known that Montesquieu had a short precis of the Airs, Waters,

On this see De P Esprit des Loix. Vol. i, pp. Ixx-lxxi. The attack appeared in the
issues of October 9 and 16, 1749, of Nouvelles Ecclesiastiques.
Arbuthnot's work was translated into French by Boyer de Pebrandie and published
in 1742 (Dedieu, op. cit., p. 204, note i). An obstacle to accepting Dedieu's argument
was that the date of composition of an earlier work of Montesquieu, Essai sur les causes
qui peuvent affecter les esprits et les caracteres, from which he borrowed many of the
ideas for Book XIV, was not then known; it is now believed that this earlier essay was
written between 1736 and 1741. It now seems likely that Montesquieu, as Dedieu had
argued, indeed owed much to Arbuthnot. Dedieu's list of parallel passages from both
works is very convincing (Dedieu, op. cit., pp. 213-225). For a resume of the evidence
based on findings, subsequent to Dedieu's work, at the chateau of La Brede, see EL,
Vol. 2, pp. 176-178.
Dodds, Les Recits de Voyages. Sources de PEsprit des Lois de Montesquieu, pp.
55-56. Chardin was not the only influence; she also included Les Six Voyages de Jean-
Baptiste Tavernier qu'il a fait en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes. 2 vols. Paris, 1676;
and Francois Bernier, Voyages, Contenant la Description des Etats du Grand Mogol,
de VHindoustan, du Royaume de Kachemire, etc. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1699. See her
"Tableau des Sources de I'Esprit des Lois," under Livre XIV, pp. 201-213.
On the details of the revival of Hippocrates, see Dedieu, pp. 205-207, whose source
is Emile Littres edition, Oeuvres completes d"* Hippo crate. Vol. 2.
568 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

Places in his library, and that his copy of Bodin's Methodus was "convert
d'annotations autographes en marge du chapitre V."'*^
Montesquieu's theories of chmate also grew out of important preoccupa-
tions of the time. Reconciliation of the different sources of French law (Ro-
man law, canon law, customs with the force of law, royal ordinances, etc.)
called attention to the importance of history, custom, and tradition. How is

one to interpret the colorful descriptions of strange peoples living under

various climates, to understand disease and optimum conditions of health?
The travels Montesquieu read and rehed upon were in general written by in-
formed and talented men hke Jean Chardin, Father du Halde, and Engelbert
Kaempfer. Nevertheless, Montesquieu retained the basic assumption which
had been made by all writers since the classical period: that (i) climate (to
him it is little more than temperature varying with latitude) influences the
physical state of the human body (in the form of contractions or expansions
of nerves and blood vessels, circulation of the blood); that (2) this physical
influence in turn influences mental states (ardent passion, love, bravery, cow-
ardice); and that (3) these supposed individual mental effects apply also to
peoples collectively.

5. Climatic Theory in the Esprit des Lois

Montesquieu wishes to contribute to human well-being by showing the

purpose of laws and the considerations framing them. "If it be true that the
temper of the mind and the passions of the heart are extremely different in
different climates, the laws ought to be in relation both to the variety of
those passions and to the variety of those tempers."^^ The theory is derived
from Arbuthnot:

Cold airconstringes the extremities of the external fibres of the body; this
increases their elasticity, and favors the return of the bloodfrom the extreme
parts to the heart. It contracts those very fibres [a vague usage, apparently
meaning both the blood vessels and the nerves]; consequently it increases also
their force. On the contrary, warm air relaxes and lengthens the extremes of the
fibres; of course it diminishes their force and elasticity.

From this, it would seem a human being scarcely needed a heart.^^ Mon-
tesquieu concludes that people are more vigorous in cold climates. "Here

^'^
EL, Vol. 2, p. 174. De la Gressaye thus makes a strong case for the inspiration of
Bodin in opposition to Dedieu who did not give this much weight. (Dedieu, op. cit., pp.
211-212); EL, pp. 174-175.
See also Dedieu, op. cit., p. 207.
^^Bk. XIV, chap. i. Quotations in English are from the Nugent trans, except where
another is specifically mentioned.
On the source of this passage in Montesquieu's early work, see EL, Vol. 2, pp. 396-
397, notes 1-3.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government S6g

the action of the heart and the reaction of the extremities of the fibres are
better performed, the temperature of the humors is greater, the blood moves
more freely towards the heart, and reciprocally the heart has more power."^^
Superiority in strength produces various mental states, such as the feeling of
being courageous. Using a hackneyed metaphor, Montesquieu likens the
people of cold countries to young and brave men, those of hot, to old and
timorous men; individuals going from one climate will be subject to the in-
fluences of the new climate, as had happened, he says, to northern soldiers
who fought in the War of the Spanish Succession.
It is the experiment on the sheep's tongue, however, and the conclusions
drawn from it that show how little Montesquieu understood reasoning in
science:

have observed the outermost part of a sheep's tongue, where, to the naked
I

eye, it seems covered with papillae. On these papillae I have discerned through a

microscope small hairs, or a kind of down; between the papillae were pyramids
V
shaped towards the ends like pincers. ery likely these pyramids are the principal
organ of taste.
I caused the half of this tongue to be frozen, and observing it with the naked

eye I found the papillae considerably diminished: even some rows of them were
sunk into their sheath. The outermost part I examined with the microscope, and
perceived no pyramids. In proportion as the frost went off, the papillae seemed
to the naked eye to rise, and with the microscope the miliary glands began to
appear.
This observation confirms what I have been saying, that in cold countries the
nervous glands are less expanded: they sink deeper into their sheaths, or they
are sheltered from the action of external objects; consequently they have not
such lively sensations.
In cold countries they have very little sensibility for pleasure; in temperate
countries, they have more; in warm countries, their sensibility is exquisite. As
climates are distinguished by degrees of latitude, we might distinguish them
also insome measure by those of sensibility. I have been at the opera in England
and in Italy, where I have seen the same pieces and the same performers; and
yet the same music produces such different effects on the two nations: one is so
cold and phlegmatic, and the other so lively and enraptured, that it seems almost
inconceivable.

The opening sentences call to mind a picture, common in the late seven-
teenth and the eighteenth century, of the experimenting amateur philosopher-
scientist who writes notices or observations to the Royal Society. The
experimenter comes to certain conclusions regarding the physical effects of
heat and cold. On them are based generahzations regarding psychological
differences. Finally the horizon broadens by way of the opera house to show
differences in national character.
Herder saw the pitfalls insuch reasoning and the danger of basing cul-
tural generalizations on physiological experimentation.
51 Bk. XIV, chap. 2.
570 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government
Every one indeed knows [Herder says] that heat extends and relaxes the fibres,
attenuates the fluids, and promotes perspiration; and that thus capable in it is

time of rendering the solids light and spongy, &c. [From the effects of heat and]
its antagonist, cold, many physical phenomena have been already explained: but

general inferences from this principle, or from a part of it, as relaxation or

perspiration for instance, to whole nations and countries, nay to the most delicate
functions of the human mind, and the most accidental ordinances of society,
are all in some measure hypothetical; and this the more, in proportion as the
head that considers and arranges them is acute and systematic. They are con-
tradicted almost step by step by examples from history, or even by physiological
principles; because too many powers, partly opposite to each other, act in con-
junction. It has even been objected to the great Montesquieu, that he has erected
his climatic spirit of laws on the fallacious experiment of a sheep's tongue. It is
true, we are ductile clay [einbildsamer Thon] in the hand of Climate; but her
fingers mould so variously, and the laws, that counteract them, are so numerous,
that perhaps the genius of mankind alone is capable of combining the relations
of all these powers in one whole.

This cogent criticism can be applied to virtually all theories of climatic influ-
ence fashionable during and before Herder's time. Even if environmental
factors can be shown to influence the physical and mental characteristics of
the individual, it does not follow that they have similar effects on whole
peoples. Hot weather may cause debility in an individual, but one cannot
conclude from this observation that peoples of hot countries lack the energies
to create a civilization. The reasoning against which Herder complained has
also, and with less justification, characterized much of the thinking on climatic
influences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^^
There now follow more between climate and other human,
correlations
all-too-human, experiences like pain and lovemaking. At this point, Montes-
quieu makes a significant departure from the traditional view that temperate
climates bring about a harmonious blending of the best qualities of the
extremes.

If we towards the North, we meet with people who have few vices,
travel
many and a great share of frankness and sincerity. If we draw near the
virtues,
South, we fancy ourselves entirely removed from the verge of morality; here
the strongest passions are productive of all manner of crimes, each man en-
deavoring, let the means be what they will, to indulge his inordinate desires.
In temperate climates we find the inhabitants inconstant in their manners, as
well as in their vices and virtues: the climate has not a quality determinate
enough to fix them.^^

Montesquieu may have Europe in mind here, England, Germany, the Baltic
and Scandinavian countries being the North; Spain and Italy, the South; and
52 Herder, Ideen, Bk. VII, chap. 3, Churchill trans., p. 173. EL, Bk. XIV, chap. 2.

On the experiment see EL, Vol. 2, p. 397, note 6, and Dominique Gautier, Biologie et
Me de cine dans VOeuvre de Montesquieu, these medecine, Bordeaux, 1949, which I have
been unable to consult.
53 Bk. XIV, chap.
2; EL, Vol. 2, p. 398, note 10.
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
J 571

France, between the two. The dimatic

explanation for the mid position is
so enfeebled that it down. It apparently did not occur to
practically breaks
Montesquieu, even with his extensive knowledge of Roman history, the
period of the migrations, the subsequent invasions and cultural mixings in
Europe, that these blurred effects and inconstancies possibly were the result
of culture contact and borrowings; indeed, the body of French law of his
own time in which he was so interested was largely a result of these events.
If climate can explain cultural differences, it can also explain persistence
in culture. Montesquieu sees climatic causes in the "unchanging East," a phrase
popular in many works of the nineteenth century. The idea was known to
Du Bos, but the original source is probably Chardin.

If to that delicacy of organs which renders the eastern nations so susceptible of

every impression you add likewise a sort of indolence of mind, naturally con-
nected with that of the body, by means of which they grow incapable of any
exertion or effort, it is easy to comprehend that when once the soul has received
an impression it cannot change it. This is the reason that the laws, manners, and
customs, even those which seem quite indifferent, such as their mode of dress,
are the same to this very day in eastern countries as they were a thousand years
ago.

Granting for purposes of argument that the East is unchanging, it is still

strange that Montesquieu could not see that the cultural persistence of the
Eastern nations contrasted sharply with change in the European countries
and that the former might be caused by isolation or lack of culture contact.
This passage is the full text of a chapter entitled "Cause of the Immutability
of Religion, Manners, Customs, and Laws in the Eastern Countries," and
although it did not mention Europe, it brought up the touchy question of the
relation of climate to religion. The author of the articles in Les Nouvelles
Ecclesiastiques had in fact complained about the close bond which Montes-
quieu found between an unchanging religion and the hot chmates of the
East.^^ He complained with reason, for what was to prevent physical causes
from playing an equally important role in the history of Christianity?
Montesquieu pursues the religious question in a key chapter of the work
(Book XIV, chapter 5) in which he says that Buddhism is a product of India's
climate. "Foe [Buddha], the legislator of the Indies, was directed by his own
sensations when he placed mankind in a state extremely passive; but his doc-
trine arising from the laziness of the climate favored it also in its turn; which
has been the source of an infinite deal of mischief." In swiftly killing two
birds with one stone, Montesquieu accounts for the origin of a religion and
teaches that a lawgiver should not reinforce but should counteract undesirable
effects of the cHmate.^^

54 Bk. XIV, chap. 4; EL, Vol. 2, p. 399, note 18.

Many writers of the period use Fa {Foe) or some variant spelling for Buddha; here
it is taken from Du Halde, Description Geographique, Historique, Cbronologique, Poli-
572 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Govermnent
y

"The legislators of China were more rational when, considering men not
in the peaceful state which they are to enjoy hereafter, but in the situation
proper for discharging the several duties of life, they made their religion,
philosophy, and laws all practical. The more the physical causes incline man-
kind to inaction, the more the moral causes should estrange them from it."
The Chinese had been successful, the Buddha had not. There is a place for
a wise choice. A good ruler will not by his acts increase the influences of a

bad cHmate; neither will he Hmit the benefits of a good one. Thus a moral
philosophy is possible with due consideration to physical causes.
Then Montesquieu's attack on monachism poured salt on the wounds.
In Asia the number of dervishes or monks seems to increase together with the
warmth of the climate. The Indies, where the heat is excessive, are full of them;
and the same difference is found in Europe.
In order to surmount the laziness of the climate, the laws ought to endeavor
to remove all means of subsisting without labor: but in the southern parts of
Europe they act quite the reverse. To those who want to live in a state of
indolence, they afford retreats the most proper for a speculative life, and endow
them with immense revenues.

The lesson to be learned was similar to that of the Buddhist example.

Montesquieu ignored prayer, meditation, and other forms of physical inac-
tivity, and even the geographical distribution of monasteries in various climates

of Europe.^^
What was Montesquieu's reply to the criticism that he was finding physical
causes for the origin and persistence of religions? Christianity, he said, being
a revealed religion, is not grounded in physical causes as are the other re-
ligions, which are purely human inventions that grew out of earthly conditions
and the circumstances of life! False religions could be explained by physical
causes; Christianity, a revealed religion, could not.^^
The law and custom inevitably raises the ques-
relationship of climate to
tion of freedom of choice or determinism. In this respect, there are parallels
in the history of environmental and astrological theory. The early Church
Fathers were bitterly opposed to astrology, as we know from the writings of
St. Augustine and others, but in the high Middle Ages astrology was more
acceptable. The stars, those awesome creations, influenced all earthly things.

tique, et Physique de VEmpire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise. Vol. Ill, pp. 22-
34. Quoted in Muriel Dodds, op. cit., (see note 45 above), pp. 203-204; see also EL, Vol.
2, p. 400, note 22.
5^ Book XIV, chap. 7. On the reaction to this passage, which figures prominently in
the report of Mgr. Bottari to the Congregation of the Index— the Esprit des Lois was
placed on the Index Libroriim Prohibitorum of the Roman Catholic Church on Novem-
ber 29, 1 75 1— see £L, Vol. i, p. Ixxix; Vol. 2, pp. 400-402, note 25.
2; EL, Vol. i, pp. Ixxi-lxxiv, gives
57 Montesquieu, Defense de VEsprit des Lois, Part

the history of the publication of the Defense (anonymously in Paris in 1750) and sum-
marizes Montesquieu's rejoinders.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 573

On man need not be a slave to their influences; one could

the other hand,
nullify bad influences with intelligence and will, and encourage the good.
Astrology represented the cosmic environment which men could study
for guidance; the climate was an earthly influence which men should study
for the same reasons. human choice available through knowledge
It is in this

of physical causes that Montesquieu avoids fatalism and relieves himself of

the charge of reviving Spinoza.
Environmental determinism in Montesquieu's hands could justify cultural
and moral relativism; it could also explain certain differences in religious
behef and the origin of laws and of customs with the force of law. The effects
of drinking alcohol vary in different climates, and laws prohibiting wine
drinking in hot climates are reasonable prohibitions. A law forbidding wine
drinking in a northern or colder climate would not be proper, nor would it

be just to inflict the same punishments for excessive drinking in the climatic
extremes. "Drunkenness predominates throughout the world in proportion
to the coldness and humidity of the cHmate." Different needs exist in dif-
ferent climates and bring about different ways of life {manieres de vivre)
and these in turn different kinds of laws.^^
The theory of climatic influence could also point the way to active human
interventions, for example, in pubHc health matters, for climates friendly to
leprosy, venereal diseases, or the plague may be isolated by cutting off physi-
cal communication with them. On the other hand, suicide may have moral
or physical causes. Montesquieu contrasts Roman suicide, a product of edu-
cation, with that of the product of distempers ultimately owing to
British, a
the cHmate.^^ More direct are the climatic influences on the imagination and
sexual desires.^^
Although Montesquieu was opposed to slavery, he saw how it could arise
in countries whose climate induced so lazy and slothful a condition among
the people that their masters could force them to work only by the fear of
punishment; even the masters had a position with relation to the sovereign like
that of their slaves to them.^^ In his discussion of domestic slavery, Montesquieu
argues that in hot climates women mature sexually and attain the ripeness of
their beauty while young and at an earlier age than they attain maturity in
reason; they therefore become dependent, and conditions are favorable—
if no direct laws oppose it— to male dominance and for the widespread practice

of polygamy. In the temperate climates, women's beauty, reason, and knowl-

edge tend to keep pace with one another and to mature together; women
are on a more nearly equal footing with their men, since there is more chance

58 Bk. XIV, chap. 10.

59 Bk. XIV, chaps. 12-13.
^°Bk. XIV, chap. 14; note the amusing contrast between the law of the Alemanni
on crimes against women compared with those of the Visigoths.
61 Bk. XV, chap.
7.
574 Clwmte, Moeurs, Religion, mid Government

for equality between the sexes, and conditions are favorable to monogamy.
In cold countries, men's intemperate drinking gives their more abstemious
women the advantage of reason over their husbands. Thus a law which
permits one wife to a man is more suited to the climate of Europe than it

is to Asia. This is one of the reasons, he says, that it has been so easy for the
Muslim religion to establish itself in Asia, so difficult in Europe; that Christian-
ity has maintained itself in Europe but has been destroyed in Asia; that the
MusHms have made so much progress in China, the Christians so little.^^

Human considerations {raisons)^ he adds, in an apparent intent to allay the

fears of those who thought he was assigning climate too powerful a role in
determining the geographical distribution of religion, are always subordinated
to that Supreme Cause which does what it wishes and makes use of what-
ever it wishes. Montesquieu pays his respects to a creator-deity who acts only
through the intermediary of secondary causes in the governance of human
affairs. Since man also is subject to law, the influences of climate, like other
secondary causes, are understandable.^^
Later, Montesquieu attempts a bolder geographic generalization than he
has hitherto attempted in explaining the differences between the peoples of
Asia and Europe and their histories. Asia, he says, has no temperate zone;
it is a land mass of extremes. Its cold part, swept by freezing winds on its

sterile soils, extending eastward from Muscovy

to the Pacific and northward
from the and Great Tartary, generally,
fortieth parallel (including Siberia
present-day Siberia, Mongolia, and Manchuria) is contrasted with warm and
fertile Turkey, Persia, India, China, Korea, and Japan.^^
Applying the correlations between cold countries and courage, already
developed in Book XIV, Montesquieu concludes that Asia is the continent
of despotic government; it is also a continent of extremes. It follows that in
Asia the north dominates the south. Europe, however, has a temperate zone—

^2Bk. XVI, chap. 2. See EL, Vol. 2, p. 424, notes 6 and 7, for the less dogmatic as-
sertions in this than in the original 1748 ed. On
the position of women in M.'s thought,
see also Roger B. Oake, "Montesquieu and Hume," Modern Language Quarterly, Vol.
2 (194O, PP- 238-246.
^^Bk. XVI, chap. 2; EL, Vol. 2, p. 425, note 8. Neither the Sorbonne nor the Con-
gregation of the Index censured this chapter.
6^ The main sources, as given in Dodds, op, cit. (see note
45 above), pp. 226-232, are
Recueil de Voyages au Nord, contenant divers memoires tres utiles au Commerce et a
la Navigation (Amsterdam, 1715), Vol. VIII, pp. 389-392, pp. ^5-47; Histoire des Tatars,
Part, II, pp. 127-129, where La Gra?ide Tartarie is described as having the finest climate
in the world, as of extraordinary excellence and fertility but high and in many places
lacking water; and Du Halde, op. cit. (see n. 55 above). Vol. IV, esp. pp. 82, 54, 147,
149, 7, 36-37. See also EL, Vol. 3, following p. 74, for maps of Europe and Asia in the
original ed. of EL. Montesquieu said (Bk. XVII, chap. 2) that his contrasts among na-
tions on a climatic basis applied also to regions within a single country; using materials
from Father du Halde {op. cit.. Vol. I, pp. 111-112; IV, p. 448, as in Dodds, op. cit., p.
226), he distinguishes between the courage of the peoples of North China and of North
Korea and their respective countrymen in the south.
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Goveriiineiit
y 575

and here the mean assumes a more positive importance than in other parts
of Montesquieu's work— that permits blendings, gradual transitions from the
extremes, thus avoiding the juxtaposition of extremes characteristic of Asia.
The contrasts are vivid and there with reference to Europe
is a suggestion
that geographical or perhaps political conditions not be permanent but may
may vary with time and circumstance. (Montesquieu, like virtually all his
contemporaries and precursors, did not consider that as historical circum-
stances changed with time they would also enforce changes in the influence
of relief features in history.)

Hence it comes that in Asia the strong nations are opposed to the weak; the
warlike, brave, and active people touch immediately upon those who are indolent,
effeminate, and timorous; the one must, therefore, conquer, and the other be
conquered. In Europe, on the contrary, strong nations are opposed to the
strong; and those who join each other have nearly the same courage. This is the
grand reason of the weakness of Asia, and of the strength of Europe; of the
liberty of Europe, and of the slavery of Asia: a cause that I do not recollect
ever to have seen remarked. Hence it proceeds that liberty in Asia never in-
creases; whilst in Europe it is enlarged or diminished, according to particular
circumstances.^^

What ignorance this passage reveals! It assumes uniformities within the

extreme regions of Asia, disregards contrasting ways of life known since
Marco Polo, acknowledge that whatever liberty existed in Europe
fails to
might, as Montesquieu well knew, have some relation to the diffusion of
knowledge.^^ It has often been said that Montesquieu wrote like a Cartesian;
in this passage the deductions from the supposedly simple contrasts are breath-
taking. In criticizing this passage, Voltaire said that Roman power lasted
more than hundred years in a Europe which could not breed empires,
five
and that Montesquieu ignored the mountains which crisscrossed Persia, the
Caucasus, Taurus, and so forth.^^ The passage still sets off Asia and Europe;
the idea that Europe is a peninsula of Eurasia, that its history is part of Eurasian
history, comes later.
These discussions of political geography are enlivened with remarks on the
capital city; it is of the greatest importance for a prince to choose the seat
of his empire carefully. If he places it to the south, he will be in danger of
losing the north, but if he places it in the north, he may easily hold on to the
south. "I do not speak of particular cases. In mechanics there are frictions
by which the effects of the theory are frequently changed or retarded; and
poHcy has also its frictions. "^^

65 Bk. XVII, chap. 3.

66 Note the tone of Bk. XV, chap. 3.
67 "L'
A, B, C," Oeuvres, ed. Beuchot, Vol. 45, p. 8, and "Lois (Esprit des)" in the
"Diet, philos.," Oeuvres, Vol. 31, p. 103.
68 £L, Bk. XVII, chap. 8. On this passage, which did not appear in the
1748 ed., see
EL, Vol. 2, p. 441, note 39.
576 Climate y Moeurs, Religion, and Government

6. Another Side of Montesquieu

Books XIV-XVII of the Esprit des Lois elaborate ways upon the
in various
dimatic theory explained in the opening chapters of Book XIV. In Book
XVIII, Montesquieu considers the influence of other physical factors. This
ancient body of thought grew in parr out of the recognition that latitude or
temperature does not tell the whole story because we do not live on an earth
with a level and homogeneous surface; hence, the contrasts between fertile
and infertile lands, mountains and plains, areas of cultural contact and of
isolation, inland and coastal situations. On the whole, this literature has been
dogmatic than the climatic-physiological-psychological lore, I think, be-
less
causeit could easily be shown that such influences are modified or even

overcome by invention, especially in transportation, in tool making, and in

improved techniques of farming, draining, and clearing.
Montesquieu's dishes are from old and well-tested recipes. The fertile
lands are associated with subjugation; men, preoccupied with their own affairs,
are not so interested in liberty; fertile countries, inviting pillage and attack,
seem more suited to monarchy. His example is that the barrenness of the
soil of Attica leads to a democracy, the fertility of the soil of Lacedaemon,

to an aristocratic constitution.^^ Voltaire also ridiculed this generalization;

he rebutted the idea that soil fertility has had anything to do with govern-
ment. Of Montesquieu's claim that the soils of Sparta were fertile, Voltaire
asks, "Ou a-t-il pris cette chimere?"^^
The theme of the attractiveness of fertile soils and hence their undesirabil-
ity ("Countries are not cultivated in proportion to their fertihty, but to their
liberty; and if we make an imaginary division of the earth, we shall be aston-
ished to see in most ages deserts in the most fruitful parts, and great nations
in those where nature seems to refuse everything") is related to the classical
idea of the stimulus of a harsh environment. "The barrenness of the earth
renders men industrious, sober, inured to hardship, courageous, and fit for
war; they are obliged to procure by labor what the earth refuses to bestow
spontaneously."^^ Fertile lands are level and hence defenseless; their people,
having once lost their liberty, lose it forever. Mountaineers can preserve what
little they have, their liberty being "the only blessing worthy of their defence.
It. reigns, therefore, more in mountainous and rugged countries than in those

EL, Bk. XVIII, chap,

®9 iMontesquieu
. refers to the passage in Plutarch's Lije of Solon
in which it is said that after the Cilonian sedition the city again fell into
its old quarrels
dividing itself into as many parties as there were varieties of regions in the country; the
men of the hill quarter preferred democracy; those of the plain, oligarchy; and those
who lived near the sea, a mixed form of government. According to Gressaye, "Cette
citation de Plutarque montre d'ou M. a tire I'idee d'un rapport entre la forme de
gouvernement et la fertilite plus ou moins grande du sol." EL, Vol. 2, p. 442, note 4.
See also Thuc. I, i.
70 "Lois (Esprit des)" in "Diet. Philos.," Oeuvres, ed. Beuchot, Vol.
31, p. loi.
71 Bk. XVIII, chaps.
3-4.
 Climatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government 511

which nature seems most favored. "^^ It is the argument of isolation

to have
and inaccessibiHty; it reads Hke a generahzation taken from the history of
Switzerland, or from that of the French and Spanish Pyrenees.
In his discussion of the changes made by man in the soil, the tone changes,
resembling the presentation of population questions in Book XXIII. Countries
which the industry of man has made habitable and which need his con-
tinuing care in order to exist require a moderate government. His examples
are the provinces of Kiang-nan (made up of modern Anhwei and Kiangsu)
and Chekiang in China; Egypt, and Holland.*^^ Montesquieu touches but does
not expand upon the relation of environmentalistic ideas to the idea of man
as a modifier of the environment. The wise ancient emperors of China, he
says, raised "from beneath the waters two of the finest provinces of the
empire; these owe their existence to the labor of man." To preserve these
creations, wisdom and the exercise of lawful, not tyrannical, authority were
required. Power was moderated in China as it was in Egypt and Holland
"which nature has made to attend to herself, and not to be abandoned to
negligence or caprice. "^^ It is noteworthy that all examples are concerned
with water: Chinese drainage and canal building, Egyptian irrigation using
the Nile's waters, and the Dutch polders. From the Chinese example, Mon-
tesquieu concludes that despite cHmate and size of the empire, the first Chinese
lawgivers were obliged to make very good laws, and the government was
often obliged to follow them.
Montesquieu generahzes further on the significance of man's efforts to
change the physical environment; it is a theme which Buffon is to enlarge
upon greatly. "Mankind by their industry, and by the influence of good laws,
have rendered the earth more proper for their abode. We
see rivers flow
where there have been lakes and marshes: this is a benefit which nature has
not bestowed; but it is a benefit maintained and supplied by nature."
Montesquieu's examples of water control as a beneficial kind of environ-
mental change being made by man is not surprising in view of the long his-
tory of such work in France.''^

72 /^zW.,chap. 2.
73 Thesources for China are Du Halde, op. cit. (see n. 55 above), Vol. I, p. 128 for
"Kiang-nan," and p. 273 for "Tche Kiang." See Dodds, op. cit. (see n. 45 above), p.
233, who says (p. 232) that a passage from Le P. le Comte, Nouveaux Memoir es sur
VEtat Present de la Chine i6p6. Vol. I, pp. 227-228, describing the previous flooding of
^

the Southern provinces of China and the water control through a network of canals,
may have suggested an idea to Montesquieu. "Si cela est, je ne sgaurois assez admirer la
hardiesse & I'industrie de leurs ingenieurs, qui ont creuse des provinces entieres & fait
naistre d'une espece de mer, les plus belles & les plus fertiles plaines du monde."
74 Bk. XVIII, chap. 6. "II est bien vrai que la terre cultivee en Hollande a ete conquise

sur la mer, mais M. ne demontre pas que c'est la raison de I'etablissement de la repubhque
dans ce pays au xvii® siecle." EL, Vol. 2, p. 442, note 12. Eighteenth century hydraulic
civihzation a la Wittfogel!
7; see Le Comte de Dienne, Histoire du Dessechement des Lacs et
75 Bk. XIX, chap.

Marais en France avant ijSp. Paris, 1891. 541 pp.

578 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

In these passages, the tone is not deterministic but permissive; social causa-
tion is more complex, involving the state of the arts and sciences, the degree
and kind of land cultivation, law in relation to the type of economy, and
environmental change by human agency/^ In outlook they are like one of the
least deterministic passages of the Esprit des Lois:

Mankind are influenced by various causes: by the climate, by the religion, by

the laws,by the maxims of government, by precedents, morals, and customs;
whence is formed a general spirit of nations.
In proportion as, in every country, any one of these causes acts with more
force, the others in the same degree are weakened. Nature and the climate rule
almost alone over the savages; customs govern the Chinese; the laws tyrannize
in Japan; morals had formerly all their influence at Sparta; maxims of govern-
ment, and the ancient simplicity of manners, once prevailed at Rome."^^

Moreover, Book XXIII, "Of Laws in the Relation They Bear to the Number
of Inhabitants," is not dogmatic; one of the most impressive in the Esprit des

Lois, it is concerned mainly with population theory, food, and land use.
Here Montesquieu points out the influences of society on human reproduc-
tion.^^ (See chap. XIII, sec. 2.) These influences are illustrated also in the

laws of succession, pride in family names and family tradition.'^^ "Principles

of religion have had an extraordinary influence on the propagation of the
human species. Sometimes they have promoted it, as among the Jews, the
Mahommedans, the Gaurs [Guebres, i.e., Ghebers] and the Chinese; at
others they have put a damp to it, as was the case of the Romans upon their
conversion to Christianity."^^
Population growth is considered in relation both to kinds of food and to
types of land use. Seaport towns have fewer men than women (the men are
exposed to a thousand dangers), but there are more children there than in
other places, because of the greater ease of obtaining subsistence; he specu-
human reproduction. "This may be
lates that the oily parts of fish influence

one of the causes of the infinite number of people in Japan and China, where
they live almost wholly on fish."^^

76 Bk. XVIII, chaps. 8-10.

77 Bk. XIX, chap. 4.
78 Bk. XXIII, chap. I.
7^ Ibid., chap. 4.

Ibid., chap. 2. Cf. Lettres Persanes, 114-117. In the EL, Montesquieu does not men-
tion social influences on birth and death rates, such as religion (prohibition of divorce,
monachism), mass movements of peoples after conquest, wars, famines, epidemics, which
he had dwelled upon in the LP, 1 12-132. The EL is less critical than is LP of Christian
influences on population policy, less pessimistic about world depopulation since classical
antiquity. On these points, see EL, Vol. 3, p. 402, note 2.
81 Bk. XXIII, chap.
13, a generalization based on Du Halde, who mentioned the large
number of fish in rivers, lakes, ponds, canals, and ditches. Du Halde, op. cit. (see n. 55
above), Vol. II, p. 139, quoted in part in Dodds, op. cit. (see n. 45 above), p. 257.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 579

Of greater interest is Montesquieu's correlation of population density with

types of land use. "Pasture-lands are but little peopled, because they find em-
ployment only for a few. Corn-lands {les terres a bled) employ a great many
men, and vineyards infinitely more."^^
The increase in pastureland in England is related to a decline in its popula-
tion, the large number of vineyards in France, to the large population. Since
coalfields furnish fuel formerly suppHed by forests, all the land can now be
cultivated. Impressed by Father du Halde's description of rice cultivation,
Montesquieu notes that a unit of rice land feeds more people than does land
sown with other grains. In rice culture men are closer to the soil; they perform
the duties of animals, consume the rice directly, and "the culture of the soil

becomes to man an immense manufacture."^^

How does Montesquieu link chmate to population theory? He applies the
general ideas of the whole work: the lawgiver must know what predisposi-
tions to expect of the climate, how one physical cause might reinforce or
offset another, and how these are related to the matter in hand.
"Regulations on the number of citizens depend greatly on circumstances.
There are countries in which nature does all; the legislator then has nothing
to do. What need is there of inducing men by laws to propagation when a
fruitful climate yields a sufficient number of inhabitants? Sometimes the
climate is more favorable than the soil; the people multiply, and are destroyed
by famine: this is the case of China. "^^ In assuming that famine is related to
soil fertility, Montesquieu reveals how ill-advised it was to generahze from

travel accounts. There is no suggestion that Chinese famines may also be

caused by drought or floods.
In Montesquieu's time it was widely believed that population growth
should be encouraged.^^ To this Montesquieu agreed heartily. In the Esprit
des Lois, he repeated ideas which he had already more forcibly expressed in
the Persian Letters?^ He belonged to a small but very articulate group (to be
discussed later) that thought the population of the world was greater in
ancient times than in modern, that there had been a general depopulation of
the globe since antiquity; hence it was urgent to encourage population growth.
In the twenty-fourth book, Montesquieu gives his views of laws in relation
to religion. "I am not a divine but a pohtical writer." The Christian religion
has succeeded, he says, in overcoming the influence of the chmate by hinder-

^^Bk. XXIII, chap. 14. This thought apparently was copied by Hume. See also Oake,
op. cit. (see n. 62 above), p. 36.
^3 See Du Halde, op. cit.. Vol. I,
p. 71, quoted in Dodds, op. cit., p. 257. Bk. XXIII,
chap. 14.
84 Bk. XXIII, chap. 16.
8^ See Spengler, French Predecessors
of Malthus, pp. 20-43; 48-76; 77-109, on Montes-
quieu and the repopulationists who followed him.
8^ LP, esp. letter 113.
580 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government
ing "despotic power from being established in Ethiopia," and by carrying "into
the heart of Africa the manners and laws of Europe."^^ On the other hand,
physical causes were at work in bringing about the Reformation. The people
of the northern countries who embraced Protestantism "have, and will for-
ever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the
south have not; and, therefore, a religion which has no visible head is more

agreeable to the independence of the climate than that which has one."
(Denominations within Protestantism, however, are ascribed to political
causes. In speculating on the origins of religion, Montesquieu is sympathetic
to utilitarian explanations. Belief in metempsychosis is consistent with the
climate of India. A country whose cattle are difficult to breed and are subject
to disease will find a law of religion preserving them "more suitable to the
policy of the country."^^ Despite his assertion that the Christian religion is

the only true one and is, as a revealed religion, not subject to laws of physical
causation, he finds climatic causes for the geographical distribution of Christian
and Muslim believers.
"When a religion adapted to the climate of one country clashes too much
with the climate of another it cannot be there established; and whenever it
has been introduced it has been afterwards discarded. It seems to all human
appearance as if the climate had prescribed the bounds of the Christian and
theMahommedan religions."^^
What general conclusions can one make about Montesquieu's wide-ranging
and occasionally contradictory ideas about culture and the environment?
If one points to Books XIV-XVII, as many of Montesquieu's critics have

done, the thought is deductive, unscientific, dogmatic, and deterministic, and

there is every justification for this harsh judgment. If, however, in order to
avoid too narrow a judgment, one compares these four books with the rest
of the work, what is the result? The impression is less clear. Defenders of
Montesquieu against the charge of determinism have pointed to passages in
the Esprit des Lois that prove he was not a determinist (typically. Book XIV,
chapter i, and especially Book XIX, chapter 4.) But, the nondeterministic
passages cannot be used to rebut the deterministic ones; it is more to the point
to say that each rebuts the other.
If one reads Montesquieu's work without trying to decide if he was or was
not a determinist, it becomes clear that many interesting ideas with differ-

87 Bk. XXIV,chap. 3. EL, Vol. 3, p. 420, note 12.

88 Ibid., chap. 5.
89 Ibid., chap. 24.

Ibid., chap. 26, providing another opportunity for Vokaire's criticism, largely on
the basis of inaccuracy. See "L'A, B, C," Oeuvres, Vol. 45, pp. 8-9; on some religious
objections, see EL, Vol. 3, p. 432, note 66. The Sorbonne objected because the Christian
religion originated in Palestine, a country with the same climate that Arabia had. One
wonders how Montesquieu could ignore the obvious changing distribution of both the
Christian and Muslim faiths throughout history and over a wide variety of climates.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 581

ent histories are presented, and that it is not easy to reconcile one with another.
Montesquieu's defenders and critics have labored to find a dominant thought;
they become impatient if a logical summation of his thought is difficult. But
the presence in a single work of many ideas, poorly thought out and poorly
reconciled with one another, is common in the history of thought. There is
no doubt that the classical tradition is strong in his work; that he is aware of
the influence of the moeurs, of human institutions, of different kinds of econ-
omies; that he aware of men's power to change the environment and create
is

new opportunities for human life. These are subsumed in his belief that man,
like the other phenomena of nature, is subject to laws, that the Deity governs
him through the operation of secondary sources. In his defense, Montesquieu
said that climate and other physical causes produce an infinite number of
effects; if, he added, he had said the contrary, he would have been regarded as
a stupid man— "II semble que j'aie invente le climat & que je vienne apprendre
aux hommes." The author of the Esprit des Lois, he said, should be the last
to be accused of ignoring the power of moral causes; he spoke of climate
where the subject was climate and of moral causes through almost the whole
work.^^
Montesquieu's work in fact is eloquent in its failure to create a consistent
synthesis out of the theories of physical and social causation he inherited from
the past. The unscientific arguments found sly but unreliable allies in a travel
literature that was itself often too impressionistic, too inexact for a rigorous
philosophy about man's relation to the environment. There is no uncertainty
about what Montesquieu thought if one quotes individual passages; the un-
certainties arise with increase in quotation.
Montesquieu, Buff on, and Malthus had one characteristic in common: they
made their thought cosmopolitan. Montesquieu had hundreds of precursors,
but it was his reformulation of climatic influence that made these ideas so
powerful second half of the eighteenth and the early part of the nine-
in the
teenth centuries. Many had studied natural history before Buffon, but he
was the authority on natural history same general period. And Malthus,
in the
probably with as many precursors as Montesquieu, was responsible for bring-
ing population theory into the mainstream of Western thought.

7. Critics of Climatic Theory

The implications of Montesquieu's climatic theories were not lost on Voltaire,

who was much too concerned with the hold on men of government, religion,
and the moeurs to allow Montesquieu's climates to explain cultural phenomena
which could be explained better by other causes. The innocent beginning to
the article on climate, that the sun and the atmosphere impress themselves on

"Defense de I'Esprit des Lois," Oeuvres de Montesquieu^ 1950, pp. 643, 650-652.
582 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

all nature's productions from man to mushrooms, led on to critical remarks

about Chardin and Du Bos to his real behef that "climate has some influence,
government a hundred times more; religion and government combined, more
still."^^

Voltaire's most telling criticism of the cHmatic theory was that it could not
adequately explain cultural change: How
one to account for the sad state
is

of modern Greece compared with the Athens of the Periclean Age? Since
the climate had not changed, other causes must have been at work. He asked
several such rhetorical questions without bothering to answer them because
to him it was obvious that moral causes explained these changes. Voltaire was
right; it was a clear weakness of the chmatic theory, indeed of all environ-
mental theories which, in assuming an unchanging influence through time,
made no allowance for changing historical conditions. Obviously the insular
character of Britain meant one thing in the eleventh century, another in the
seventeenth. If the Greeks, the Romans, or the Egyptians had changed in
historical time, and if the climate were powerful a determinant as its de-
as

fenders thought, the climate also should have altered to bring about the
historical changes. Abbe du Bos had considered this possibihty (p. 560 f.).
There was, however, more to this than Voltaire's dislike of the Esprit des
Lois; he feared that climatic determinism weakened the attack on the moeurs,
on bad government and bad laws, for how could these be changed if they
were firmly in the grip of chmate? To him, there was too broad a jump
from the world of experimental science to the world of social causation: It
was all very well, he remarked sarcastically, to experiment on sheep's tongue,
but

une langue de mouton n'expliquera jamais pourquoi la querelle de I'empire et

du sacerdoce scandulisa et ensanglanta I'Europe pendant plus de six cents ans.
Elle ne rendra point raison des horreurs de la rose rouge et de la rose blanche,
et de cette foule de tetes couronnees qui sent tombees en Angleterre sur les
echafauds. Le gouvernement, la religion, reducation, produisent tout chez les
malheureux mortels qui rampent, qui souffrent, et qui raisonnent sur ce globe.^^

Voltaire was wilHng, however, to recognize the secondary influences of

climate. In distinguishing between religious belief and the rites and ceremonies
attendant upon it, he thought the latter might well be influenced by climate.
Of Montesquieu's ideas of rehgion, he said, "Je pense avec lui que les rites

en dependent entierement. Mahomet n'aurait defendue le vin et les jambons

92 Voltaire's chief statements on Oeuvres,

this subject are: "Climat," Diet, philos., in
ed. by Beuchot, Vol. Oeuvres, Vol. 31; "L'A,
28; "Lois (Esprit des)," Diet, philos.,
B, C," Oeuvres, Vol. 45; and "Commentaire sur Quelques Principales Maximes de I'Esprit
des Lois," Oeuvres, Vol. 50. The quotations in English are taken from the Morley Eng-
lish ed. of Voltaire's works.
93 "Commentaire sur Quelques Principales Maximes de I'Esprit des Lois," Oeuvres,

ed. Beuchot, Vol. 50, pp. 132-133.

 Climate y Moeurs, Religion, and Government 583

ni a Bayonne ni a Mayence." One wonders at the dispatch with which Voltaire

could make such distinctions and under what heading he would classify
holy communion.^^ BeHef, however, is of an entirely different nature; it
depends on education. Opinion, education, the appeal to doctrine, and not
climate, are the foundation stones of religion. Men have believed, he says,
in polytheism in all climates. "The doctrine of the unity of God passed
rapidly from Medina to Mount Caucasus."^^ In this interesting distinction,
belief is associated with tradition, diffusion, and the power of ideas; ceremonies
and rites are shrugged off with utilitarian and economic explanations. A
country dependent on vineyards does not prohibit wine drinking, and indeed,
it will become part of religious ritual. Voltaire, however, was willing to let

religious movements be judged on less universal principles. Poverty was the

cause of the Reformation; indulgences and deliverances from purgatory were
too expensive. "The prelates and monks absorbed the whole revenue of a prov-
ince. People adopted a cheaper religion." Beneath the hostility to Christianity
lay a more general belief that many superficial— and even colorful— aspects of
a rehgion are influenced by chmate, by the local natural resources, by the
physical uniqueness of a country or a region, but that fundamental doctrine is

to be explained by moral causes. Voltaire's Hume's, had a strong kin-

ideas, like
ship with John Locke's remark about the Hottentots and King Apochancana.

Had you or I been born at the bay of Soldania [Saldanha Bay, Union of
South Africa, about sixty miles northwest of Capetown] possibly our thoughts
and notions had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hottentots that inhabit
there; and had the Virginia king Apochancana been educated in England, he
had been perhaps as knowning [sic] a divine, and as good a mathematician, as
any in it. The difference between him and a more improved Englishman lying
barely in this, that the exercise of his faculties was bounded within the ways,
modes, and notions of his own country, and never directed to any other, or
farther inquiries: and if he had not any idea of a God, it was only because he
pursued not those thoughts that would have led him to it.^^

Like many eighteenth century thinkers, Helvetius was interested in the

problem of inequality— in individual endowment, among different peoples
at the same time, among the same peoples at different periods of their his-

tory. Helvetius argues that the causes of inequalities among individuals are
moral ones, that the scarcity or abundance of great men in certain ages is not
owing to the influence of air and of different climates. Like Voltaire, he
appeals to history, comparing the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Asiatic
peoples, presumably living in a chmate which has not changed, with their
modern counterparts. The arts and sciences, too, have successfully flourished
in all climates.

^Ibid., p. 112. Similar statements are in "L'A, B, C," and the article "Climat."
95"Climat," Oeuvres, Vol. 28, pp. 118-119.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), I, 4, § 12.
584 Climate y Mo ems, Religion, and Government

Flattering asmight be to the vanity of the peoples of northwestern

it

Europe, he dismisses the belief in a climatically induced northern courage as

being groundless. Are there physical causes, he asks, for the conquests made
by these peoples? He answers in the negative after examining the nature of
courage, concluding that it is not an effect of climate "but of the passions and

wants common to all men."

Western nations proud of their liberty (comparing themselves with East-
ern despotisms) have often ascribed it to physical causes, but such conjectures
are contradicted by history and experience, for freedom is not related to
cHmate but to the state of civilization.
Neither can a case be made for the lasting superiority of certain nations in
the different sciences. The natural situation of Greece has remained the
same, but the people have not; their form of government has changed. He
is critical too of blithe attempts to sum up national character in a phrase. Have
those who call all Frenchmen gay observed the grim life of the French peasant?
Superficial judgments about national character, many of which, as we have
seen, were based on climate, concealed broad differences of behavior and in-
dividual characteristics within a people.
is thus like Voltaire's; he assumes that the geographical
Helvetius' position
influences on
country are constant throughout time; the effect of govern-
a
ment on national character he compares with a vessel which forces the water
contained in it to assume its own shape. Moral causes account for the superi-
ority of one nation over another, for ''Nature, in this respect, has not made
a partial distribution of her favours. Indeed, if the greater or less strength
of mind depended on chmate of countries,
the different it would be impos-
sible, considering the age of the world, but that what was in this respect most
favoured, should by its progress have acquired a great superiority over all

others."^^
Diderot, on the other hand, criticized Helvetius for a too sweeping dis-
missal of cHmatic influences. ('7/ dit: L'influence du climat est nulle sur les

esprits. Dites: On lui accorde trop.") Helvetius, he says, claims that impure
water, rough foods, depraved appetites, do not affect the spirit. Diderot asks
in reply whether they do not in fact ultimately brutalize men. Is not the cli-
mate—whatever it may be— a cause with continuous effects? And as to situa-
tion, is not the mountaineer lively and vigorous, the plainsman heavy and
lethargic?
The article on climate in Diderot's Encyclopedie, however, does not take
the subject of influences too seriously; it has full coverage of the seven klimata
and modern meanings of the word. Montesquieu is discussed, and praised, and

Helvetius, De VEsprit\ or Essays on the Mind, and its Several Faculties, pp. 340,
Q''

341-342, 350, quote on p. 358. See the entire discussion, Essay III, chaps. 27-30.
98 "Refutation Suivie de I'Ouvrage d'Helvetius Intitule THomme (Extraits)," in
Diderot, Oeuvres Philosophiques, ed. Paul Verniere, pp. 601, 607.
 Climate^ Moeurs, Religion, and Qovernment 585

dropped. Traditionally, according to the climatic theory, sexual precocity and

passion are characteristic of the hot climates of the south; but, says the author,
the girls of Paris are more precocious than those of the warmer southern cli-
mates; they are also more advanced than are country girls and even more than
girls living in the environs of Paris which have the same climate. Paris is a kind

of focus both of knowledge and of vices ("une espece de foyer de connois-

sances & de vices) and this girlish physical precocity perhaps is but a natural
result of the early exercise of the mental faculties.
The most penetrating criticism of environmental determinism that had yet
appeared, however, was made by David Hume "Of National
in his essay,
Characters" (1748).^^ Hume had followed Montesquieu's work closely and
with considerable admiration, although in his essay, "Of the Populousness of
Ancient Nations," he showed little patience with the beliefs of Montesquieu
and Robert Wallace in the superior populousness of the ancient world.
The theme of this short masterpiece on national character is that a determi-
nism based on physical causes can lead neither to an understanding of the nature
of society nor to explanations of the differences among peoples. Moral causes
("all circumstances, which work on the mind as motives or reasons,
are fitted to
and which render a peculiar set of manners habitual to us") are much more
adequate explanations. Physical causes are "those qualities of the air and cli-

mate, ivhich are supposed to work insensibly on the temper, by altering the
tone and habit of the body, and giving a particular complexion, which, though
reflectionand reason may sometimes overcome it, will yet prevail among the
generality of mankind, and have an influence on their manners."^^^ Hume's
essay not a new kind of criticism; it is a traditional analysis of national char-
is

acter, assuming that it is the product of political and social conditions and that
similarities among peoples are often the result of cultural contact; this and
imitation bring about likenesses, while isolation, owing to physical conditions
or different governing traditions, brings about differences.
Hume listed nine "signs of a sympathy or contagion of manners, none of
the influence of air or climate" which could be found existing in contemporary
life or in the past: ( i ) the influence of a durable government ruling over a
wide area for a long time, the Chinese being the best example; (2) differences
among neighboring peoples divided up into several governments like the
Athenians and Thebans; (3) boundary lines revealing marked differences
among peoples, like those of Spain and those of Languedoc and Gascony in
France; (4) similarities of groups with international or cosmopohtan interests,
like the Jews and the Jesuits; (5) differences in languages or religion among

^9In Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose. 2 vols.,
London, 1898. Vol. i, pp. 244-258. Montesquieu is not mentioned in this essay, but for
evidence that Hume may have had the Esprit des Lois in mind, see Roger B. Oake,
"Montesquieu and Hume," Modern Language Quarterly, Vol. 2 (1941), pp. 234-237.
Essays, Vol. i, p. 244.
586 Climate^ Moeurs, Religion, and Government

two peoples (like the Greeks and the Turks) in the same nation; (6) the re-
tention of national character in colonies— "The Spanish, EngHsh, French, and
Dutch colonies are all between the tropics"; (7) changes
distinguishable even
in national character through time, owing to changes of government, cultural
contact, or "that inconstancy to which all human affairs are subject"; (8)
similarities coming among peoples owing to close communication with one
another; and (9) the variety of manners and characters existing in one nation
(England being the example par excellence) with the same language and gov-
ernment, owing to a variety of religious belief, class structure, liberty and
independence, the EngHsh government being "a mixture of monarchy, aris-
tocracy, and democracy."^*^^
Hume was examining the causes of differences in national character, but
his discussion called attention also to broader questions of imitation, diffusion,
and isolation as factors in the formation of nations and peoples. Observations
which might occur to anyone replaced the hoary theories of causation based
on physiology and psychology:
The human mind is of a very imitative nature; nor is it possible for any set of
men to converse often together, without acquiring a similitude of manners, and
communicating to each other their vices as well as virtues. The propensity to
company and society is strong in all rational creatures; and the same disposition,
which gives us this propensity, makes us enter deeply into each other's senti-
ments, and causes like passions and inclinations to run, as it were, by contagion,
through the whole club or knot of companions.^^^

Hume was aware of predecessors who were interested in similar matters,

citing Strabo, Lord Bacon, and Bishop Berkeley; he was also skeptical of en-
vironmental differences within restricted areas. Plutarch had discussed the
effects of air on the mind, observing that the people of Piraeus, four miles
from Athens, had different temperaments from those of Athens. "But I be-
lieve no one attributes the difference of manners, in Wapping and St. James's,
to a difference of air or climate."^^^
What Hume had to say about culture (for this is really what he is talking
about) is similar to the observations, already quoted, of his fellow empiricist,
John Locke, almost sixty years earher about the education of Hottentots and
King Apochancana. Hume, however, does not completely disown climatic
explanations. Is the commonly accepted notion correct— that northern people
have a greater inclination to strong liquor, and southern people to love and
women? Maybe wine and distilled liquor warm the frozen blood in the cold
climates, while the sun's heat in the south inflames the blood and exalts the
passion. On the other hand, there may be moral causes: liquors in the north

^^'^
Ibid., pp. 249-252. In quotation, printing of proper names in capitals has not been
retained.
102 Ibid., 248.
p.
Ibid., p. 249.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 587

are scarce and coveted; going naked or partly dressed in the south might excite
the passions. "Nothing so much encourages the passion of love as ease and
leisure, or is more destructive to it than industry and hard labour; and as the
necessities of men are evidently few^er in the warm climates than in the cold
ones, this circumstance alone may make a considerable difference between
them." Like Malthus and Humboldt later, Hume combines the idea of neces-
sity being the mother of invention with the notion that hot countries provide
insufficient stimulus to industry to explain differences in the geographical dis-
tribution of civilization. Hume whether there is any such distribution of
asks
these inclinations; several illustrations seem to indicate there is not. But even
if there is, he cannot accept the influence on more subtle human character-

istics: "We can only infer, that the climate may affect the grosser and more

bodily organs of our frame; not that it can work upon those finer organs, on
which the operations of the mind and understanding depend."^^*
Again, in the essay on commerce, Hume is much taken with the relation-
ship between cHmate and invention. Why is it that no people living between
the tropics has yet achieved "any art of civiHty," "any police in their govern-
ment, and any military discipline; while few nations in the temperate cHmates
have been altogether deprived of these advantages?" One reason may be that
with the "warmth and the equality" of the tropical climate less clothing and
housing are needed, and the people in order to live there do not experience that
"^^^
"necessity which is the great spur to industry and invention.

8. Climate and Natural History

It was from the point of view

possible to consider environmental influences
of natural history as well as from that of law or political theory, as Count
Buffon did in the Histoire Naturelle. Montesquieu employed such materials
as an aid in understanding custom, law, and government; his work was Utopian
in the sense that it was a plan for an ideal government. In Buffon's encyclo-
pedic Histoire Naturelle the coverage is broader, encompassing environmental
influences on all life including racial and cultural differences in mankind. This
view of all more profound questions— about
nature enabled Buffon to ask
differences in degree of environmental influence on man and on other forms
of Hfe, and about differences within the human race— and to answer them more

^^^Ibid., pp. is^iSl-, ^57-^5^-

^^^Ibid., pp. 298-299. In his essay on taxes, Hume examines a possible relationship
between commercial nations and fertile land. Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Rhodes, Genoa,
Venice, and Holland have labored under many disadvantages; only the Netherlands,
England, and France have possessed trade and fertile lands, the first two owing it to a
maritime situation, France to the perspicacity of its people. Hume quotes Sir William
Temple's observations approvingly about the Dutch success being due to a necessity
arising out of disadvantages. Ibid., pp. 356-357. See above, chap. IX, sec. 9, on Sir William
Temple.
588 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

imaginatively and in a less traditional manner than had Montesquieu and his
followers.
A consideration of the influence of climate on Hfe is unavoidable in a work
on natural history, basically because of the striking geographic distribution of
life on earth. In his work, Count Buff on considered it many
vast but unfinished
times, the most systematic expositions being in two essays: "Varietes dans
L'Espece Humaine," a remarkable survey of the world's peoples which ap-
peared in De U
Homme (published in the third volume of the Histoire
Naturelle in 1749), and "De la Degeneration des Animaux," published in the
fourteenth volume of the Histoire Naturelle in 1766.^^^
After surveying the different peoples of Europe and Asia, Buffon, im-
pressed by their variety compared with those of the New World and of
Africa, concluded that differences in racial color were owing to the climate,
and that cultural differences were owing to the climate, to food, and to cus-
toms or manner of living {moeurs ou la maniere de vivre)}^'^
His comparison of the New World peoples with those of Europe, Asia,
and Africa brought up two fundamental lines of inquiry: why primitive life
was so promxinent in the New World and in such contrast with the highly
organized society of Europe, and the reasons for the conspicuous absence of
Negro peoples in the New World in the pre-Columbian times. Their absence
in the New World tropics had to be accounted for if Buffon's theory that
climate caused racial differences was correct.
Buffon admired neither primitive peoples nor the environments in which
they lived and which they apparently changed so little. To him, a modern
society of the European type could, through government, guard its peoples
from many of hfe's dangers and provide a well-regulated existence; its peoples
would therefore be stronger, more handsome, and better formed than those
of an independent and savage nation who, receiving no help from others, de-
pend on one another.
In his close, intimate, and often dangerous contact with nature the savage
must live more like an animal than like a man. To Buffon, civil society is a
humanly created sheltering enclosure for man, giving him a security unknown
to primitive peoples. So great is this security that there are fundamental struc-
tural differences in the two types of social organization. In civil societies, the
hunchbacks, the lame, the deaf, the squint-eyed— in fact all human beings who
are defective or deformed in some way— not only can live but can multiply
endeavor in which one helps the other, in which the strong
in a cooperative
cannot harm the weak and where the quahties of the body are valued much

See also, however, Histoire Naturelle^ Vol. 4, "Le Cheval," 1753, and Vol. 6, "Les
Animaux Sauvages," 1756.
HiV, Vol. 3, pp. 446-448, 529-530.
Ibid., pp. 484, 510-514.
 Climate y MoeurSy Religion, and Government

less than those of the spirit. Among the savage peoples, there is no such pro-
tection, each individual continuing to live by his own prowess; those born
feeble or defective or those who have become a burden do not take part in
the group. One may take exception to this rather idyUic picture of advanced
society, questioning also the baleful description of theAmerican Indian, and
to the naive contrast between a well-knit, cooperative modern society and
primitive groups with no societal coherence. But it must be granted that Buf-
fon was aware that the composition of a modern society is owing to social
factors, and that the people who compose it, and its social structure, are
cumulative expressions of values and attitudes toward people which have arisen
in society and stand, so to speak, between man on the one hand and nature on
the other.^^^
The peoples of the New World, Buffon thought, belonged to one race, all
more or less tawny (basa?ies) except a few in the north resembling the Old
World Lapps and some who were like the blond-haired Europeans (albinos? ).

In a generalization which tells us more about the state of knowledge of

American ethnology than it tells the truth, Buffon wrote that, with the above
exceptions, "tout le reste de cette vaste partie du monde ne contient que des
hommes parmi lesquels il n'y a presqu' aucune diversite; au lieu que dans
I'ancien continent nous avons trouve une prodigieuse variete dans les differents

peuples." He then attempts to explain the cultural uniformities of one conti-

nent by contrasting them with the diversities of the others. The peoples of
the New World, he says, same way as savages or near savages, and
live in the
even the civilizations of Mexico and Peru emerged so recently that they ought
not to be considered an exception. The peoples of the New World are of the
same stock, they have preserved their way of living through historical time
without great change because they have not advanced beyond savagery, their
climate lacks the Old World contrasts of heat and cold. Since settlement is but
recently established, there has not yet been time for the causes which produce
a variety to bring about any noticeable changes. Buffon was convinced of the
recency of human settlement in the New World, the short life of the advanced
civilizations existing there at the conquest, and the relatively small population.
From these convictions he drew the important conclusion that the New World
peoples lacked the force and vigor to change the physical environment, as
other peoples, especially in the Old World, had done.^^°
In his essay, "De la Degeneration des Animaux," Buffon pursues similar
subjects,and in addition considers at length the distinction between man and
other forms of life in their relation to the physical environment. (Buffon does
not use "degeneration" in a modern sense; basically he means the variability
of a species under the influence of climate and food.)

Ibid., pp. 446-447.

^^^Ibid., pp. 510-512, quote on p. 510.
590 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
J

From the time when man

began to change the cKmate (^7zV/)— probably
first

by clearing— and then to spread out from one climate to another, his nature
has undergone many changes, only slight in temperate countries because they
presumably are adjacent to his place of origin, but increasing in proportion
as the distance of his present habitatfrom it grows. In the course of centuries,
after generations have changed under the influence of different environments,
man has so adapted himself to extreme conditions, the changes which he has
undergone have become so great and so obvious that one might beheve that
the Negro, the Lapp, the white, are separate species if one did not have good
reason for believing in the unity of the human race and knowledge of its
ability to interbreed. These racial differences, though real, are not important
to Buffon compared with the profound similarities which unite all members
of the human race.
Man thus has greater force, flexibihty, and range (etendue) than other
forms of life. The range and expansiveness come less from the qualities of

the body than from those of the mind (dme), by whose means man has dis-
covered how to
cope with the delicacy and fragility of his body, to withstand
inclement weather, to triumph over poor soils, to discover fire, to make cloth-
ing and shelter, and, most important, to achieve dominance over the animals,
even taking possession of places that, it would seem, Nature has exclusively set
aside for them. Environmental themes are interwoven with themes of the
power of human agency in changing the environment; the latter is only men-
tioned here, Buffon's broad interpretations regarding the changes of the en-
vironment by man being reserved for later discussion (see pp. 663-681).^^^
The effect of climate is strongest in producing skin, hair, and eye color;
other attributes like figure (taille), features (traits), hair quality, have more
complex causes. What is noteworthy in this analysis is that Buffon confines
the role of climate to physical anthropology; he does not carry climatic in-
fluences over into the psychological or social spheres.
Food influences the internal form, and its quality depends on that of the
soil. Unlike the superficial effects of the cHmate, the food influences form and
quality by properties which are constantly being derived from the soil pro-
ducing them.
These influences of climate and soil require a long time to make themselves
felt— especially the influence of the soil through the food. It might require
centuries, during which the same diet is continually eaten, to influence the
features, body size, the hair, and internal changes which, perpetuated by re-
production, become general and constant characteristics, thus distinguishing
the races and even the different nations of mankind.
Buffon makes sharp distinctions between environmental influences on man

HN, Vol. 14, pp. 3 1 1-3 1 2.

 Climate y Mo ems, Religion, and Government 59

and on the animals. The effects of dimate and soil are more quickly felt,

stronger, much more direct on the animals: they lack clothing, houses, and
fire; because their exposure to the elements is much more direct, each animal

has not only chosen its habitat but has kept to it. Here, but without elabora-
tion, Buffon suggests a plant and animal geography based on physical factors,
particularly climate; however, animals are forced from their natural habitats
if,

by natural catastrophes or by man, they undergo so many changes in time that

proof of their origin can be given only after painstaking investigation. Wild
animals are therefore subject to the influences of climate and food, the do-
mestic animals, in addition, to the "yoke of [human] slavery."^^^
The influences on man are more indirect. CHmate (mainly temperature) in-
fluences skin, hair type, eye color; food production depends on chmate— even
more on soil; the moeurs depend on both climate and food. Climate is thus
the basic factor in the sense that without solar heat, life is impossible. Old
traditions die hard, and Buffon, like many of his contemporaries, is convinced
of the advantages of temperate climates; that climate prevailing from the
fortieth to the fiftieth degree of latitude is the most temperate and it is the zone
where one finds the handsomest and the best made people. Accepting his theory
that man originated in a temperate climate, one can derive from the peoples
now living there an idea of the true original color of man, and also the model
by which all the other shades {nuances) of color or of beauty may be
judged.^^^
showed by implica-
In pointing out the selective effects of climate, Buffon
tion why plant or animal and human geography differed. His stress on the
unity of mankind rather than on the significance of racial differences main-
tained a broad humanitarian base for the study of man. Buffon's theories of
causation were more permissive than those of the political and social theorists,
which were derived from the medical tradition. He grasped the importance
of considering human power and skill and its role in the geography of man,
the agency of man in disturbing natural arrangements and harmonies among
the animals and their habitats. If he had lived to complete the natural history
of plants, Buffon, if one can judge by scattered remarks in the Histoire

Naturelle, would have studied human interventions in the plant kingdom also.
Buffon's scope was broader than Montesquieu's; in studying all life, it was
possible to achieve a bolder and more imaginative synthesis than could be
achieved by a humanistic thinker alone. And Buffon included within the scope
of his natural history man's skills and his power to change nature at a time
when almost all thinkers thought exclusively in terms of the molding power
of nature over man, or of the influences on him of moral causes.

^^^Ibid., pp. 314-317.

HN, Vol. 3, p. 528.
592 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

9. Building on the Foundations of

Montesquieu, Buffon, and Hume

The interest in society and environment so characteristic of thinkers in the

eighteenth century shows itself in Rousseau's writings, primarily because he
too thought that custom stood in the path of change, and that law should
recognize local cultural and environmental conditions. Thus a small state is

stronger proportionately than a large one; administrative difficulties of large

empires arise in part because the same laws cannot be applied to many different
provinces with different customs situated in the most various climates.^^^
Rousseau follows Montesquieu's lead in these matters; if, he says, we ask what
the greatest good for all consists in, we would Hmit it to liberty and equality,
but these desirable ends of a poHtical system "need modifying in every country
in accordance with the local situation and the temper of the inhabitants.""^
In agreement again with Montesquieu, Rousseau says, "Liberty not being
a fruit of all cHmates, is not within the reach of all peoples.""^ "We find then,
in every chmate natural causes according to which the form of government
which it requires can be assigned, and we can even say what sort of inhabitants
it should have." Unfriendly and barren lands might remain so or be inhabited
only by savages; barbarous peoples might live on lands that yield only the
barestminimums. Lands with moderate surplus production would be suitable
for free peoples, while those whose soil is abundant and fertile could afford
the luxury of monarchial government. Rousseau believed that democracies,
aristocracies, and monarchies are expensive Despotism
in that ascending order.
is suited to hot climates, barbarism, to cold, and good government, to tem-
perate regions. On the whole, he argues, hot countries are more fertile than
cold; men consume less per capita in the hot countries, whose climate requires
sobriety in the interest of health. Rousseau quotes with approval Chardin's
remark that "we are carnivorous animals, wolves, in comparison with the
Asiatics." "The nearer you get to the equator," he adds, "the less people live
on. Meat they hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and cassava are their
ordinary food." Differences can be noted between north and south Europe.
A Spaniard will live for a week on a German dinner." "Hot countries need
inhabitants less than cold ones and can support more of them." Since hot
countries can produce more and consume less, they have a greater surplus to
support despotic rule."^

The Social Contract^ Bk. I, chap. 9, Everyman's Library ed. p. 41; cf. the remarks
on custom in Bk. I, chap. 8.

Ibid., chap. 11, p. 46. In Bk. I, chaps. 8-10 and Bk. II, chap. Rousseau shows
^'^^
8, his
interest in land use, population, and agricultural geography.
Ibid., Bk. II, chap. 8, p. 68.
ii''
Ibid., pp. 70-72.
 Climatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government 593

Climate also plays a role in Rousseau's theory of education. Man comes to

fullgrowth in temperate climates, where he lives between the extremes. Be-
cause of his situation, he can accommodate himself to either extreme (hot or
cold) much better than can an inhabitant of one extreme adapt himself to the
other. "A Frenchman can live in New Guinea or in Lapland, but a negro can-
not live in Tornea nor a Samoyed in Benin. It seems also as if the brain were

less well organized in thetwo extremes. Neither the negroes nor the Lapps
are as wise as the Europeans. So if I want my pupil to be a citizen of the world
I will choose him in the temperate zone, in France for example, rather than

elsewhere.
Rousseau had pronounced views on the need of instruction in geography
at an early age, and on national character, travel, and travel books. He wrote

one of the best essays ever written on travel, but he had little confidence in
travel books: "In no country of Europe are so many histories and books of
travel printed as in France, and nowhere is there less knowledge of the mind
and manners of other nations." He is contemptuous of the provincialism of a
cosmopolitan city. "A Parisian thinks he has a knowledge of men and he knows
only Frenchmen; his town is always full of foreigners, but he considers every
foreigner as a strange phenomenon which has no equal in the universe. "^^^ To
know other peoples we must see them, not read about them.Books "are able
to set fifteen-year-old Platos discussing philosophy in the clubs, and teaching
people the customs of Egypt and the Indies on the word of Paul Lucus or
Tavernier." To know mankind one must compare peoples, one with the other,
but one need not study every people living on the globe; selections can be
made. "When you have seen a dozen Frenchmen you have seen them all."
And when one has studied and compared a dozen nations one knows mankind
as a whole. But even travel can be unrewarding for those who neither think
nor know how to see for themselves. "The French travel more than any other
nation, but they are so taken up with their own customs, that everything else
is confused together. There are Frenchmen in every corner of the globe. In

no country of the world do you find more people who have travelled than in
France. And yet of all the nations of Europe, that which has seen most, knows
least."^^^ Even if the ancients, like Homer, Herodotus, and Tacitus, traveled

little, read little, and wrote few books, they were better observers than modern

contemporaries. Many do not even realize that national character changes

during the course of history, "As races blend and nations intermingle, those
national differences which formerly struck the observer at first sight gradually
disappear." Before our time, he says, nations were more isolated, there were
fewer means of communication, there was less traveling and intercourse,

Emile, Everyman's Library ed., pp. 19-20.

Ibid., pp. 134, quotes on p. 414.
^^^Ibid., p. 415.
594 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

"those intricate schemes of royalty, miscalled diplomacy, were less frequent,"

long voyages were rare, and there was little foreign trade.

The relations between Europe and Asia in the present century are a hundredfold
more numerous than those between Gaul and Spain in the past; Europe alone
was less accessible than the whole world is now.
Moreover, the peoples of antiquity usually considered themselves as the
original inhabitants of their country; theyhad dwelt there so long that the . . .

place had made a lasting impression on them; but in modern Europe the invasions
of the barbarians, following upon the Roman conquests, have caused an extra-
ordinary confusion.

Blendings have obliterated the old differences among the Gauls, Germans,
Iberians, and Allobrogians. Europeans "are all Scythians, more or less degen-
erate in countenance, and still more so in conduct." Those who have not con-
sidered these historical events are too quick "to ridicule Herodotus, Ctesias,
Pliny for having described the inhabitants of different countries each with
its own peculiarities and with striking differences which we no longer see."^^^
In the following remarkable passage, Rousseau shows how the obHteration
of these former sharp distinctions in national character are related to social
changes and to modifications which men make in the physical environment.

This is why the ancient distinctions of race, the effect of soil and climate, made
a greater difference between nation and nation in respect of temperament, looks,
manners, and character than can be distinguished in our own time, when the
fickleness of Europe leaves no time for natural causes to work, when the forests
are cut down and the marshes drained, when the earth is more generally, though
less thoroughly, tilled, so that the same differences between country and country
can no longer be detected even in purely physical features.

In Condorcet's eloquent and moving work (moving today because the

hopes of this humanitarian have fallen so wide of the mark), climate and
custom are seen in different perspective; they are factors producing cultural
differentiation, the study of which leads to knowledge of the primitive state
of society and the stages in its progressive development. Some peoples, Con-
dorcet says, have remained in the tribal or pastoral stages for great lengths of
time, having made no progress either by their own efforts or through trade
or intercourse with civihzed peoples. This apathy, this cultural persistence, is

owing and custom, but Condorcet by his emphasis clearly thinks

to climate
custom is the more important. Independence, attachment to customs held in
childhood, to customs of their own country; an aversion to what is new and
strange, the discouraging effect on curiosity of physical and mental indolence,
the power of superstition, keep them from advancing into higher stages of
cultural development. Among contemporary primitive peoples the tyrannical

Ibid.^ pp. 416-417.

 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 595

hold of custom is reinforced by fear of civilized societies. Here, judging from

subsequent remarks, he may be referring to Spanish and Portuguese treatment
New World. "The bones of five million men
of the native peoples of the
covered those unfortunate lands where the Portuguese and the Spaniards
brought their greed, their superstitions and their wrath."^^^

But we must account the greed, cruelty, corruption and preju-

also take into
dice of civilized nations.For these may well seem to primitive races to be richer,
more powerful, more educated and more active than they, but also more de-
praved, and above all, unhappier; and so savages, instead of being impressed by
the superiority of civilized nations, must often have been terrified by the extent
and multiplicity of their needs, by the torments they suffer through avarice, and
by the eternal agitation of their always active and never satisfied desires.^^'*
The reasons given for lack of scientific progress in China despite the great
endowments of the people and for the "shameful stagnation in those vast em-
pires whose uninterrupted existence has dishonoured Asia for so long" are
institutional, not environmental.^^^ With great understanding and great bitter-
ness toward the Portuguese and the Spanish, Condorcet writes of the conse-
quences of the age of discovery when "for the first timeman knew the globe
that he inhabited, was able to study in all countries the human race as modified
by the long influence of natural causes or social institutions, and could observe
the products of the earth or of the sea, in all temperatures and all climates."^^^
Lord Karnes, an erratic but often arresting thinker who had studied Buffon
carefully, often disagreeing with him, illustrates how ingeniously environ-
mental ideas can be intertwined with theology and interpretations of history
and theories of cultural development. Different climates produce the varied
plant life consumption by animals and man is part of the Cre-
of the earth; its

ator's plan. Men and animals in this respect, that specific

are like the plants
types of men are pecuharly suited to specific kinds of climate. Men have de-
generated (in Buffon's sense of a change from an assumed prototype or model
because of the influence through time of food and cHmate) in various climates;
but he disagrees with Count Buffon that climate explains color and racial dif-
ferences. These differences were present, says Karnes, at the beginning, and
were such a theory not against Scripture, it would be reasonable to assume
that God had created several pairs, each suited to the climate in which they
would live. Abandoning this reasoning as being contrary to Scripture, Kames
suggests that a convulsion caused the degeneration of man from his original

state. With the building of the Tower of Babel, the confounding of tongues,
and the dispersion of the human race, men became savages, hardened in their

Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, p. 104.
I hid.,pp. 23-24.
125 Ibid., pp. 38-39.
1 hid., p. 104.
596 Climate, Moeurs, Religion , and Government

new habitats and divided into different types fitted for the dimates in which
they found themselves. In way the unity of the human race was destroyed.
this

The differences among men are primordial despite those who are biased in
favor of the new and unusual and those who ascribe everything to soil and
climate. (Quotes Vitruvius.) In a passage quoted by many of his contem-
poraries, Kames said that the people of Malacca contradicted the idea that a
hot cHmate was an enemy of courage; other instances were also given.^^^
It was the Creator's intention that the whole earth be peopled; he criticized

Montesquieu for implying that the Torrid Zone is unfit for habitation; al-
though he had probably intended no imputation on Providence, it was one.^^^
Kames is one of the early modern thinkers who grants a significant role to
race in his theory of society, although many had considered the races to be
of unequal endowment; Hume, for example, considered the white race supe-
rior to the others.^^^ What Kames had to say about climate and its relation to
culture was ordinary enough despite the ingenuity of dating the origin of the
races from the confusion of Babel. More stimulating were his speculations
about cultural development in the New World.
Kames assumes an independent development of man in America. Influenced
by Buffon's geological theories, he assumed that America and Terra Australis
were local creations. American culture, now still in the fishing and hunting
stage, had not known a pastoral stage. This omission was not owing to want
of cattle; the inhabitants, having enough food, persisted in their old ways and
were not forced, as were the peoples of the Old World, to advance to a higher
stage. The peoples of the New World had passed from the hunting and fishing
stage directly to agriculture. Less daring than he was in his Tower of Babel
theory of race, Kames confesses his inability to explain either the omission of
this stage in the presumed cultural development of man or the efflorescence
of high civilization in theNew World tropics. Kames touches on a question
that also interested Humboldt, whose solution was chiefly environmental. The
question was interesting because it had been long believed that mankind went
through hunting and fishing, pastoral, and agricultural stages, as Varro citing
Dicaearchus had said.^^^
Many of the ideas discussed by Montesquieu, Buffon, and Hume were
brought together in a synthesis by James Dunbar which was as remarkable as
Herder's. Dunbar, Professor of Philosophy in King's College and the Univer-
sity of Aberdeen, first pubHshed Essays on the History of Mankind in Rude

'^^'^
Sketches of the History of Man^ Vol. I, p. 22.
Ibid.^ pp. 26-31.
129 "Qf National Characters," Essays, Vol. I, p. 252, note i. This note, according to the

editors, was added in Edition K, 1 753-1 754, p. 85. On Karnes's racial doctrines, see
Bryson, Man and Society, pp. 64-66.
Sketches, Bk. II, Sketch 12, Vol. II, pp. 76, 77-79, cites Buffon, p. 84.
 Climatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government 597

and Cultivated Ages in 1780.^^^ Few of Dunbar's ideas, considered individ-

ually, are of interest; they had been expressed many times before. It is his
combining of them that attracts one's attention.
Frugal environments goad men to industry— necessity is the mother of in-
vention—but a middle situation between extremes "of munificence and rigour"
is best. The series of events which lead men on to civilization may be started

by physical causes which will, however, be superseded by moral causes, the

direct influence of "the outward elements" receding; the evolution of civiliza-
tion is a process by which man progressively frees himself from the control of
his physical environment.
Superstition, fanaticism, sublime theology, have existed in the same climates
at different periods; to"account for so striking an effect in any latitude or
climate, there is no need to recur to the positive and direct influence of the
outward elements on the human mind. The series of events, once begun, is
governed more perhaps by moral than by physical causes: and this propensity
of genius and temper may owe its original to the primary direction of the
"^^^
sciences, and their early alliance with theology and civil government.
Dunbar sees a geographical march of civilization (the result, for the most
part, of a preoccupation with the history of western Europe) from tropical
climates, good for beginnings, to the temperate, which are suitable for matu-
rity. Civilization came from the south to Europe and flowered there. He

assumes a tropical origin of the civilizations of the Old and the New Worlds
and that they arose independently. If the New World civilization had not
been interfered with, a similar march to more favorable environments would
also have taken place. The design of Providence, however, brings order and
reasonableness into the physical arrangements existing on earth. Geography
sets bounds to conquest, war, and tyranny; it prevents the establishment of a
universal empire which is such an undesirable eventuality "that we can scarce
resist supposing it to have been one design of Providence," in making the

natural divisions of the earth. Diversity in nature and the cultural variety
coming from a world of nations— rather than the uniformity of a world empire
—encourage human achievement. Men, in primitive and advanced societies
alike, need variety and diversity to nurture their endowments. Although the

optimum limits to government cannot be mathematically determined, a coun-

try with an imperfect government could improve it by decreasing its area, for
the arts can be encouraged and reform, control, and innovation can be accom-

See Fletcher, Montesquieu and English Politics ( ij^o-iSoo), pp. 98-99, whose dis-
cussion made me realize Dunbar's importance in this history.
Essays, pp. 221-222, 225.
Ibid., p. 225.
Ibid., pp. 231-234.
Ibid., p. 252.
598 Climate, Moeiirs, Religion, and Government

wide domain is an immense

plished in small states. "But the reformation of a
and laborious work, that needs a long preparation of time, and presupposes an
intercourse of regions and enlightened by philosophy and learning."^^®
Two apparent exceptions to the generalization that small geographical areas
are favorable to human progress, the Russia of Peter I and of Catherine, and
China, are examined by Dunbar, who recognizes the far-reaching nature of
Peter's reforms— the introduction of foreign artisans, commercial and govern-
mental planning, the establishment of an army, and the tranquillity following
the treaty of Nystadt. "Yet so glorious a reign could animate a few parts only,
without infusing life or vigour into so vast a body." Catherine and Peter had
executed their plans on too large a scale. "And the late accession of territory
[i.e., in the Treaty of Nystadt between Sweden and Russia in 172 1], how
greatly soever it may augment the revenue, or the splendor of the sovereign,

tends in reality to encumber, in those regions, the efforts of the human

species.^^^
The Chinese, Dunbar grants, achieved a high state of civilization for a long
historical period. But if there is no decline in the sciences there, they also seem
to have been stationary or "slowly progressive"; they have not reached a level
of achievement one might expect from so long a history. The reasons for the
failure are authority, respect for ancient opinion, and the lack of a spirit of
philosophical inquiry.^^^ Adopting the principle of Montesquieu that physical
conditions in Asia are favorable for extended governments, Dunbar questions
whether the stability of the Chinese government is owing to the wisdom with
which it was organized. So large is the country, however, that its people out-
number even their conquerors, who "have no fixed usages, manners, or insti-
tutions of their own"; helpless before such an established system, they are
absorbed. Thus an immutability is possible through size, population, and con-
tinuity of tradition "without regard to the degree of its perfection." China
need fear change only from within and not from an invader— so great is the
power of its manners, laws, and religion. "Thus China forms an illustrious
example of the connexion of human affairs with geographical limits. Secure
on the east and south by the ocean, and on the west by inaccessible deserts, she
"^^^
is vulnerable on the side of Tartary alone.

After this excursion into political geography, Dunbar tries to find a middle
ground between the views of Montesquieu and Hume; to him, neither type of
causation is necessarily permanent in its effects.

But it deserves to be remembered, that causes physical in their nature, are

often moral only in their operations; that these operations are limited and pre-

Ibid.^ pp. 253-254, quote on p. 254.

'^^'^
Ibid., pp. 1^6-1^-].
^^^Ibid., p. 258.
Ibid., pp. 262-263.
 Climate y Moeurs, Religion, and Government 599
carious, and may be long incapable to
relative to the conjuncture; that a people
avail themselves of external advantages, that circumstances ultimately beneficial,
may have proved for a long while incommodious or destructive; and, conse-
quently, that the importance of local station, far from being permanent, varies
not only with the contingencies of the natural world, but with the course of
political events, and the general state of human improvement.

A fundamental change in the nature of insularity occurred, he said, with the

era of navigation; before, it meant and divorcement from the rest of
isolation
the world; after, as British experience showed, an insular situation became a
fertile source of national security, opulence, and grandeur/^^

Living in an age in which men were becoming aware of travel and explora-
tion for economic reasons, Dunbar thinks that trade and commerce mean
mobile resources, and independence from the limitations of local environment;
all nature becomes available to man everywhere. "Riches or poverty must no

longer be estimated by the position of a people on the globe. Art, if I may say
so, alters the dispensation of nature, and maintains a sort of distributive justice

in the division of opulence among mankind. "^^^ Dunbar realized, however,

that this millennial sentiment was only the statement of a possibility; trade
restrictions, commercial regulations, and national monopolies were still very
much alive.
The effects of cultural contact vary, however, with distance or contiguity.
Commerce with far-off nations seldom can form the intimate connections that
are possible with closer neighbors.

Geographical relation therefore will always be, in some degree, instrumental

in retarding or accelerating, in every country, the progress of civil life. Com-
formed by example. And the character
munities, as well as private persons, are
of a people must bear a resemblance in manners, in genius, and in arts, to that
which predominates in the system with which they are more immediately con-
nected. Civility and rudeness being distributed like light and darkness in the
natural world, contiguous nations are often contemporary in their progress and
decline: and the more enlightened regions, tho' always shifting, form at any
one time a complete and undivided whole situated around a common centre.

In agreement with Count Buff on, he notes the ubiquity and the adaptability
of man: "Man mansion in every country." There is gen-
erects for himself a
eral agreement that no one country is "the fittest residence for man. That in-
fluence of the heavens seems to be relatively the best, which habit has rendered
the most familiar."^^^ Adopting the idea of a chain of being and Count Buffon's
distinction between man and the animals ("L'homme est en tout I'ouvrage du
ciel; les animaux ne sont a beaucoup d'egards que des productions de la terre"),

^'^^
Ibid., pp. 280-282, quote on pp. 280-281.
Ibid., pp. 294-295.
Ibid., pp. 300-301.
Ibid.y pp. 304-306, 330, quote on p. 306.
6oo Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

Dunbar says that because of his high rank in the creation, man has a different
relationship with the physical world. "Soil and climate seem to act with a
gradation of influence on vegetable, animal, and intellectual nature. Man, . . .

therefore, by his rank in the creation, is more exempted from mechanical do-
minion than the classes below him." Anticipating an idea that Alexander von
Humboldt expanded into an elaborate history of ideas, Dunbar says the su-
perior status of man makes him more vulnerable to impressions coming from
nature, unlike an animal which "feels only what disturbs the animal oeconomy.
The scenery of creation it regards with total indifference; but that scenery
acts on a human being in a peculiar manner, and without annoying his person,
affects the sensibility and delicacy of his moral frame."^^^ This theme of the
subjective influences of nature on man, here lightly touched upon by Dunbar,
became in the writings of Humboldt, Ritter, and Buckle a powerful and subtle
reinforcement of the environmental argument.^^^
Dunbar argument that man and the rest of life differ fundamen-
carries the
dependence on nature a step further (possibly under the influence
tally in their
of Buff on), claiming that man is the arbiter of his own future. Recognition of
man's power to change nature follows from the doctrine of the freedom of
the will. Natural and moral ills are part of man's lot on earth; "it is in vain to
enquire into their origin." There is a reciprocal relation between man and the
elements. "He has a range allowed him in the creation peculiar to himself alone;
and he seems to have had delegated to him a certain portion of the government
of the natural world." Although unavoidable natural revolutions occur and
physical limitations do exist, still "soil and climate are subject to his dominion;
and the natural history of the terraqueous globe varies with the civil history of
nations.'"^^
Dunbar which Count Buffon had made familiar: men have
repeats ideas
altered the climates, and their activity has modified the environments of the
Old and New Worlds. (See chapter XIV.) In a plea for the transformation of
America by cultivating the soil, clearing, and drainage, Dunbar says, "Let us
learn then to wage war with the elements, not with our own kind; to recover,
if one may say so, our patrimony from Chaos, and not to add to his empire."

This interesting statement suggests that nature left to itself is unordered and
unorganized, that it has no significance except when converted into an order
by man.^^^ This order-making involves the ehmination of disease or a lessening
of its severity with environmental change, especially by drainage. Thus there
is little determinism left; soil and cHmate, like the human mind, are variable and

i^^/^iJ., pp. 325-326, 330.

See pp. 326-328, for an elaboration of these views; Humboldt's Cosmos, trans,
ibid.,
by Otte, Vol.2, Pt. i, "Incitements to the Study of Nature," and Buckle's History of
Civilization in England, chap. 2.
i46/Z;iJ., pp. 335, 336-337.
Ibid., p. 338; see also pp. 336-339.
^"^"^
 1

Climate y Moeurs, Religion, and Government 60

susceptible of change and improvement "with the progress of civil arts."**®

In employing ideas of design, of the influence of location, and of environmen-
tal change by man in his interpretation of the nature and history of civiHzation,
Dunbar achieves an impressive and thoughtful synthesis.

10. On William Falconer

The 552 pages of text of William Falconer's Remarks on the Influence of Cli-
mate, Situation, Nature of Country, Population, Nature of Food, and Way of
Life, on The Disposition and Te?nper, Manners and Behavior, Intellects, Laws
and Customs, For77t of Government, and Religion, of Majikind (London,
1 781) is, of all the works produced on this subject during the eighteenth cen-

tury, the most remarkable in its scope and tone, and the most convincing evi-
dence of the importance attached at that time to climate, religion, customs, and
ways of life.

A large part of the devoted to famihar themes. Book I, "On the

book is

Effect of Climate," comprising over one-third of the work, is suffused with

the spirit of Montesquieu, though he is not accepted uncritically. The second
book, twelve pages long, "Of the Influence of Situation and Extent of a
Country," also pursues a traditional interest, including the position of Europe,
the effects of island and continental environments. The third, "On the Influ-
ence of the Nature of the Country itself," somewhat longer, corresponds
roughly to Montesquieu's discussion of the influence of soils in the eighteenth
book of the Esprit des Lois. The fourth book, "On the Influence of Popula-
tion," concerned mainly with the advantages of a large or a small popu-
is

lation; and the fifth, "On the Influence of the Nature of Food and Diet," cul-
tivated a field already tilled by Temple, Montesquieu, Buffon, Kaempfer,
Arbuthnot, and others. The last and by far the longest book, "On the Influ-
ence of Way of Life," is organized around a conjectural history of mankind,
that is, the influence of the savage, the barbarous, and the agricultural states,
of commercial life, literature and science, and of luxury and refinement.
Broadly speaking, therefore, the work attempts to understand society through
the study of physical causes, causes transitional between the physical and
moral, and the moral causes in various stages of cultural development and in
various types of social institutions.
Falconer had read widely in classical literature; often the classical writers

are cited as authorities along with modern writers on the humors. No better
proof needed of the continuing influence of Hippocrates' Airs, Waters,
is

Places, for Falconer discusses it, as had Arbuthnot, as if it were a scientific

document of first rank. Falconer was like the distinguished English physicians,
Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), often called the English Hippocrates, and

^^^Ibid., p. 342.
6o2 Climate^ Moeurs, Religion, and Government

John Arbuthnot (1667-17 35), in his interest in the wider aspects of medicine.
Despite a first impression that the work is an Enghsh recasting of Mon-
tesquieu, Falconer is too eclectic a thinker to accept unreservedly any author
or any single-element theory of causation. Writers propounding the effects of
climate have made them too universal; they are general, not particular, and
there may be exceptions to these general influences among nations or indi-
viduals hving in a certain climate. Following the conventional view, Falconer
says that one cause may counteract another. "Thus a hot climate naturally
renders men timid and slothful; but the necessity induced by a barren country,
number of and a savage way of life, may any of them
inhabitants, animal diet,
correct this tendency of the climate, and dispose the manners to a different
turn."
Less conventional is Falconer's conception of the nature of these causes. The
various climatic effects are discrete and separate but capable of combining with
one another; in combination they may overpower, temper, or modify one
another, "but have each of them a separate existence and action, however they
may concur with one another in the general effect." They are likened to "the
mechanic powers" which in combination "frequently produce an effect dif-
ferent from what any of them would have caused separately; but still their
specific action remains, though its inferior force renders it imperceptible to
our examination. "^^^
The book is an authoritative summary of ideas concerning man's relation
to the environment which were widely held in the eighteenth century. First,
the adaptability of man to all climates is seen as a mark of his rationality; the
range and ubiquity of man are explained teleologically, for it may be assumed
"that he was intended by nature to inhabit every part of the world." This
adaptability and ubiquity are owing to an excellent mental rather than physi-
cal endowment. "But notwithstanding this assistance afforded by nature, it
may be justly doubted if this universality of the human species be not owing
more to his rational faculties, which enable him to supply the defects, and cor-
rect the exuberances of particular climates and situations, than merely to his
animal formation."^^^
By this time, moreover, it was a commonplace that the effects of climate
could be counteracted; the more that was known about cHmates and their
effects, the easierwould it be through scientific methods to encourage or
thwart these influences. Thus a kind of possibilism already flourished in the
eighteenth century, but it lacked the background possessed by nineteenth cen-
tury thinkers in ecological studies, in knowledge of man's influence on the
environment, of Darwinian evolution, and of sociological and ethnological
theory.

149 Remarks on the Influence of Climate, p. vi.

^^^Ibid., p. 2.
 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y 603

Falconer, however, like many of his contemporaries, cannot conceal his

admiration for the temperate chmates as seats of civilization, and there is a great
deal to be said for this correlation if one identifies the history of civilization
with that of Western civilization/^^
Like Montesquieu, Falconer thinks hot chmates encourage cultural in-
ertia.^^^ Peter the Great's success in part is owing to the climate; people
living in cold climates are far less attached to their countries than are those
of hot chmates. "The Czar Peter the First, accomplished an almost entire
change in the manners and customs throughout the vast empire of Russia,
and this without any great opposition, or the being obliged to have recourse
to arms. An attempt of the like kind in China, though far less extensive, pro-
duced a revolution in the state. "^^^ The latter statement is based on a remark
by Du Halde that one of the Chinese emperors provoked a revolution by or-
dering his subjects to pare their nails and cut their hair. A uniformity in the
Chinese climate is assumed.
Falconer, an anti-Catholic thinker, is also interested in the bearing of cli-
mate on religion. Historically, there are good reasons for this association of
climate with religion in Western thought. The Christian religion originated
in the arid margins of a Mediterranean type of chmate. It achieved great suc-
cesses in the entirely different environment of northwestern Europe. The suc-
cess of the Reformation in the Scandinavian countries, in the North European
plain, and in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ulster suggested that geography
might have an influence on the distribution of faiths. Schisms and the emer-
gence of denominations within Protestantism were problems of a different
kind. The enemies of revealed religion, deists and those sympathetic with
deism, were inclined, like Voltaire, to ascribe to environment at least some
kinds of religious observance.
According to Falconer, the hot countries are notable for worshiping sensi-
ble objects (the sun, the moon, the earth, fire, winds, water, images) and for
deifying men; he criticizes the Catholic worship of images of saints, extrava-
gant veneration of sacred or remains of religious persons, the severest
relics,

criticism being reserved for worship of the Virgin Mary and the doctrine of
transubstantiation. With the people of the cold chmates, on the other hand,
religion "is rather a subject of internal contemplation; and its influence is di-
rected more to the reason than to the passions." The peoples of the north at
first received "the absurdities of the Romish church" but with the diffusion
of learning and the spirit of inquiry, they "broke their chains, and established
a mode of worship consonant to the ideas suggested by the climate."^^* Even
Christianity, a revealed religion, is here subject to the influence of chmate.

^^'^
Ibid., pp. 10, 18-24.
Ibid., pp. 47, 1 1 2-1 14.
^^^Ibid., p. 116.
^^"^
Ibid., pp. 133-134.
6o4 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

Temperate climates are best suited for religion. "Greece and Italy, formerly,
furnished the justest notions concerning the being and nature of the Deity
[cites Epictetus, Bk. II, chap. 14, § 2, and Marcus Aurelius, Bk. II, § 3] and
although it pleased the Almighty to make a warm climate the scene of his
particular revelation, it has been in temperate latitudes that Christianity has
been best understood and practised."^^^
Nothing can illustrate the resilience of the idea of climatic influence and
its appHcation to all phases of cultural life well as Falconer's approach, as a

doctor, to the influence of the environment on man in the tradition of Hip-

pocrates and Galen, and of Sydenham, Arbuthnot, Haller, and Hoffman in
modern times. Although the relation of environmental theory to concepts of
public health is beyond the scope of this essay, it is necessary to say that a more
active philosophy of man as a his environment
being capable of changing
emerged from and in the human body.
a purely medical interest in climate
Interests in sweating, in the circulation of the blood under different climatic
conditions, in bodily reactions under extremes of heat and cold, were related
not only to health but to the etiology of disease, and here a blending with cul-
tural phenomena is possible. Falconer cites Haller's statement that excessive
sweating in burning hot climates (Barbados, Carthagena, Surinam) suddenly
saps the strength of Europeans; such sweatings "are not less weakening than
violent purgings by stool."^^^
A sound mental state and physical health, said Falconer, are closely related
to freedom and regularity of perspiration; "the obstruction of this discharge
is generally attended with low spirits. The obstruction, therefore, which a

moist air gives to perspiration, is a presumption that it is unfavourable to the

powers of the mind and understanding." The ill effects are greater when the
moist air is in combination with "marsh effluvia."^^^ Falconer is also interested
in the relation of the qualities of the air to putrefaction. Although these in-
terests are ancient ones, with him there is a strong disposition to explore an
ever-widening relationship of airs to physical and mental health. Environ-
ments which are by nature unhealthful, like a marsh in a hot and humid cli-
mate, become challenges to human ingenuity; men need not passively accept
environmentally induced disease. Hopes of making locaHties more healthful
were thus strong inducements to environmental change. The history of drain-
age would tell us much, not only about the history of public health but of
man's attitude toward the physical environment, of his empirical understand-
ing, before the germ theory of disease, of the value of dryness and openness
in his natural surroundings.

^^^Ibid., p. 134, followed by long discussions of the influence of climate on forms,

ceremonies, institutions, food habits, and tabus.
Ibid., p. 12, citing Albrecht von Haller, Elementa Physiologiae Corporis Humaniy
Vol. 6, pp. 66-6y.
^^"^
Ibid., pp. 163-165, quote on p. 163. Falconer gives as an example the people living
on the banks of the Phasis, mentioned in Hippocrates' Airs, Waters, Places, p. 164.
 Climate, Moeiirs, Religion, and Government 605

In Falconer's work we can see how broad interests had been intensified over
the century: the relation of environmental ideas to social institutions (climate
and rehgion), to pubhc health and medicine, to diet (with comparisons of
diets as materials gradually accumulated from the voyages and travels), to
moral causes (overcoming environmental disadvantages by social measures),
and to technology and engineering (purposeful planning to change environ-
ments unfavorable to man).

II. New Cultivations: Robertson and America

The climatic theories of Montesquieu floated ashore in Scotland, whose moral

philosophers were most interested in the development of culture and in a
science of man. Adam Ferguson, for example, traced the stages in the develop-
ment of human society, considering the influences of climate and situation.
Man as an animal can exist in any climate, but "this animal has always at-
tained to the principal honours of his species within the temperate zone."^®®
Although differences among polished nations may be owing to climate, gov-
ernment is the strongest influence; there is a tendency to ascribe the backward-
ness of primitive peoples to climatic causes, and the differences among mod-
ern societies to moral ones. But there is nothing new here and we need not go
into details except to say that Montesquieu's racy discussion of love becomes
heavy and soggy in Scottish translation.
More interesting is William Robertson's use of geographical ideas current
in the century; he belonged to a cosmopoHtan world of European learning
and letters whose membership, ignoring national boundaries, included many
of the great names of the time— Buffon, Montesquieu, Hume, Voltaire— who
were familiar with the advanced societies of Europe, the impressive cultures
of non-European peoples, and the primitive peoples so far discovered. The
Scottish group, of which Robertson was a member, included David Hume,
Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, Lord Montboddo, Adam Smith, and Dugald
Stewart, who wrote biographies of both Smith and Robertson. He cor-
responded with Gibbon, and his historiography betrayed the inspiration of
Voltaire at least as much as one could expect from a Presbyterian minister.
His taste for the broad surveys of history, his interest in eras of striking and
abrupt historical change, such as the fall of Rome, the Crusades, the age of
discovery and the diffusion of knowledge following it, marked him as a widely
read man of vigorous intellect, whose graceful and simple, if somewhat mo-

notonous, English can still be read with pleasure.

In "A View of the Progress of Society in Europe, from the Subversion of
the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century," which served
An Essay on the History of Civil Society, p. 180. See Pt. II, sec. I, "Of the Influences
of Climate and Situation."
On this group, see Gladys Bryson, Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the
Eighteenth Century. Princeton University Press, 1945.
6o6 Climate Moeurs, Religion, and Government
y

as the introduction to The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles F,

Robertson had shown his interest in migrations, in the relative populousness
of ancient and modern nations, and in climatic influences. His History of
America (first published in 1777) is a valuable work because it is based on
knowledge and lore about the New World and its peoples collected since the
age of discovery which raised questions of major importance in the interpre-
tation of New World history, especially of its earlier phases. These are: floral
and faunal diflferences between the Old World and the New, the origin of the
peoples of the New World, particularly of its high civilizations in Mexico
and Peru, racial and cultural differences, and contrasts between theOld World
and the New in the environmental changes by human agency. These ques-
tions might readily occur to an historian of America, especially of the period
from the original settlement to the conquest. In answering them, Robertson
used many of the original sources relating to the conquest, and the theories of
Montesquieu and Buffon.
Like many writers of the second half of the eighteenth century, Robertson
is impressed with the new knowledge of the world that trade and communi-

cation have brought, and he distinguishes sharply between these new intel-
lectual resources and the limitations of the classical thinkers. He is keenly
aware of the interchange of ideas that comes about through migrations and cru-
sades, trade and travel.^^^ The design argument is very subdued; with the age
of discovery, he said, "the period arrived when Providence decreed that men
were to pass the hmits within which they had been
so long confined, and open
to themselves a more ample wherein to display their talents, their enter-
field
prise, and courage. "^'^^ This statement is not mere rhetoric; it combines re-

ligious feehng with admiration for intellectual and physical venturesomeness

and activity. This admiration of activity in new environments is related also
to the zeal men must show in changing the environment, often by draining,
in order to improve the health of mankind.^"^^
To Robertson, the New World, America, is a magnificent region, its physi-
cal attributes being created large in the scale of nature. The shape of the
mountains, rivers, lakes, newly discovered continents, is favorable to com-
mercial intercourse. Mentioning themes developed at length later in the nine-
teenth century, Robertson compares the embayments of the New World and
on human settlement favorably with those of Europe and Asia,
their influence
commenting on their relative absence in Africa.^^^
His conceptions of natural history are borrowed from Buffon; he accepts
Acosta's climatology with Buffon's daring elaborations (see p. 680).^^* Fol-

Hist. Amer., Vol. I, pp. 31-33.

Ibid., p. 40, cf pp. 6^-66.
.

^^^Ibid., p. 125.
Ibid., pp. 254-255.
^^^Ibid., pp. 257, 361-363. Jose de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias
^1590), esp. Bk. II.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 607

lowing BufTon, he distinguishes between countries which have long been oc-
cupied by man and those of recent settlement, agreeing with the French nat-
ural historian that "no small part of that fertility and beauty which we ascribe
to the hand of nature, is the work of man."^^^
With the aid of Buffon, Acosta, and others Robertson satisfied himself re-
garding the nature of the New World environment. It was hostile to higher
forms of encouraged the less noble forms; it could produce only peoples
life,

of a low and rude culture who could do little to embellish and improve upon
nature as Buffon had prescribed.
Robertson now turned to the question of the peopling of the New World,
the answers to which were dependent upon different but still related matters:
the unity of the human race, contrasts between the Old World and the New
in inventions and domesticated animals, the absence of pastoral nomadism in
the New World. Theories of the peopling of the New World were also di-
rectly related to opposing theories of social change, independent invention,
and diffusion. Although it will take us too far afield to study the history of these
ideas, it may be said that the opposing ideas themselves are natural outgrowths
of more general ideas in Western culture. The idea of independent invention,
one of the oldest in Western civilization, is based on the belief that necessity is
the mother of invention, or in environmentalistic terms, that a people (as-
suming that, on the whole, mental and physical endowments are distributed
uniformly) under similar environmental conditions will arrive at similar solu-
tions of problems. This idea of independent invention had a rival, however, in
the diffusionism implicit in the Bible and in the body of Christian theology
based on it. Historically, in fact, the idea of independent invention as was
it

expressed by many thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was a

reaction to early diffusionists who, long before Elliot Smith and W. J. Perry,
were prone to find everything originating in Egypt or Palestine. Robertson
is scornful of the older diffusionists. After disposing of those who believed in
the multiple origin of the human race, and of those who thought the Americans
to be descendants of "some remnant of the antediluvian inhabitants of the
earth, who survived the deluge," he continues, "There is hardly any nation
from the north to the south pole, to which some antiquary, in the extravagance
of conjecture, has not ascribed the honour of peopling America." In ancient
times, the Jews, the Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Greeks,
the Scythians, supposedly settled in theNew World; in later times, the Chi-
nese, theSwedes, the Norwegians, the Welsh, the Spaniards, are said to have
estabhshed colonies there. "Zealous advocates stand forth to support the re-
spective claims of those people; and though they rest upon no better founda-
tion than the casual resemblance of some customs, or the supposed affinity
between a few words in their different languages, much erudition and more

Hist. Amer.y Vol. I, p. 261. See below, chap. XIV, sec. 7.

6o8 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

zeal have been employed, to little purpose, in defence of the opposite sys-
tems."^^^
Robertson's solution, since become commonplace, was that the human race
had originated in a single place, and that the peopling of the New World oc-
curred at so early a period that the migrants came without the arts necessary
to establish a civilization; whatever civilization flourished in the New World
was therefore autochthonous. On religious authority, he accepts the original
unity of the human race, but throws up his hands at any attempt to account for
the precise means by which the earth was peopled. From an examination of
the state of the New World at the time of its discovery and from the analysis
of what was known of the pre-Columbian civilizations in his time, Robertson
reasons that the progenitors of the people of the New World came originally
from northeast Asia, not from Europe; they had neither domesticated animals
nor had they made any progress toward civiHzation.^^^ The historical sequence
had therefore been the origin of mankind in a single homeland in the Old
World, the dispersion of the human race throughout the world in prehistoric
times, the gradual development of differences among peoples as a result of the
dispersion and because they were stationary or progressing at varying speeds
through assumed stages of development. The case can now be made for
autochthonous development based on environmental conditions.
If we suppose two though placed in the most remote regions of the globe,
tribes,
to live in a climate nearly of the same temperature, to be in the same state of
society, and to resemble each other in the degree of their improvement, they
must feel the same wants and exert the same endeavours to supply them. The same
objects will allure, the same passions will animate them, and the same ideas and
sentiments will arise in their minds.

Similarities among peoples living in widely separated parts of the earth there-
fore do not mean connections between them, and he takes Fathers Garcia and
Lafitau and others to task for assuming that similarities meant cultural contact
or diffusion.
A tribe of savageson the banks of the Danube must nearly resemble one upon
the plains washed by the Mississippi. Instead then of presuming from this simi-
larity that there is any affinity between them, we should only conclude that the
disposition of manners of men are formed by their situation, and arise from the
state of society in which they live. The moment that begins to vary, the char-
acter of a people must change. In proportion as it advances in improvement,
their manners refine, their powers and talents are called forth.

Only specific similarities among peoples living in different parts of the world,
such as giving over the seventh day to religious worship and rest, should lead
one to suspect a relationship; similarities in customs are to be expected in simi-
larenvironments and in similar states of society.^^^
Robertson is aware of the leading contemporary thought regarding the New

^^^Ibid.^ pp. 271-272.

"^^"^
Ibid., pp. 269-270, 275-278, 286.
Ibid.y pp. 273-274.
 Climate y MoeurSj Religion, and Government 609

World peoples; he himself is cautious, critical of system builders. There is

Buffon's theory of the weakness of nature in the New World, that its peoples,
owing to the recency of its compared with the peo-
settlement, could not be
ples of the Old World and their improved environments/^^ There is De
Pauw's theory that an unkindly and enervating climate had prevented man in
the New World from attaining the perfection proper to him, remaining an
animal, defective in body and mind. Robertson, however, apparently did not
realize that these excesses of De Pauw— and of Peter Kalm— were inspired by
Buffon, who later in life repudiated the exaggerations of writers who had
accepted his theory (see below, p. 685).^^^ Finally there is Rousseau's theory
which supposes, says Robertson, that "man arrives at his highest dignity and
excellence long before he reaches a state of refinement; and, in the rude sim-
phcity of savage hfe, displays an elevation of sentiment, and independence of
mind, and a warmth of attachment, for which it is vain to search among the
members of polished societies."^^^
Caution is which Robertson squeezes from these opinions. He
the moral
follows the thought of his time in comparing the superiority of man over the
animals in his adaptability to all kinds of chmates, except extremes of heat and
cold. Robertson forgets his caution, however, when he reads travelers' ac-
counts; agreeing with Buffon, he comments on the lack of sexual ardor among
the North Americans. How did a Scottish Presbyterian minister know that
"The negro glows with all the warmth of desire natural to his climate; and
the most uncultivated Asiatics discover that sensibihty, which from their
situation on the globe, we should expect them to have felt. But the Americans
are, in an amazing degree, strangers to the force of this first instinct of nature.
In every part of the New World the natives treat their women with coldness
and indifference".^ This coldness exists in the New World even in climates
where one might expect sexual vigor and ardor, for their lack is not owing to
any respect for chastity, "an idea too refined," he adds smugly, "for a savage,
and suggested by a delicacy of sentiment and affection to which he is a
"^^^
stranger.

Ibid.j p. 293. See Buffon, HN, Vol. 3, pp. 484, 103, 114.
^"^^
Hist. A?7ier., Vol. I, p. 293. See De Pauw's Recherches Fhilosophiqiies sur les
Americains, Vol. i, "Discours Preliminaire," esp. pp. iii-iv, xiii; 35-36, 42, 60-61, 105-108,
1 1 2-1
1 4;
these passages frequently show unacknowledged borrowing from Buffon. See
also Vol. 3, chaps. 1-9, and passim. The history of ideas concerning America and its
peoples is a vast subject in itself, beyond the scope of this work. See Church, "Corneille
de Pauw, and the Controv ersy over His Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains,"
FMLA, Vol. 51 (1936), pp. 178-206. See pp. 185-191 for a summary of De Pauw's
opinions, and Gilbert Chinard, "Eighteenth Century Theories on America as a Human
Habitat," PAPS, Vol. 91 ( 1947), pp. 27-57. The subject is treated exhaustively by Gerbi,
La Disputa del Nuovo Mondo. Storia di Una Pole?nica ij^o-ipoo, esp. chaps. 1-4.
Ibid.^ pp. 293-294. See Lovejoy, "The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Dis-
course on Inequality," Modern Philology, Vol. 21 (1923), pp. 165-186. Reprinted in
Essays in the History of Ideas (Capricorn Books), New York, i960, pp. 14-37.
Hist. Amer.y Vol. I, p. 299; in footnote 38, listing the sources, Buffon is not men-
tioned, but I think much of this came from him.
6io Clbfiatej Moeurs, Religion, and Government

Robertson emerges as a friend of eclectic views: it is too one-sided to con-

sider physical, political, or moral causes alone. Polished societies, for example,
modify "the degree of attachment between the sexes"; they also allow, as
Buffon had stressed, for the survival of individuals who, in primitive societies,
would have perished/^^ The greater uniformity of the human beings in the
New World than in the Old is explained, as Buffon had explained it, by the
lesser heat of the New World tropics/''^
The eclecticism includes traditional points of view as well, for in America,
as in other parts of the world, the cold or temperate countries are friendly to
freedom and independence. In America the power of those vested with au-
thority gradually increases, and the spirit of the people becomes more tame
and passive as one journeys from north to south.
Borrowing from Adam Ferguson (who echoes Montesquieu), Robert-
son concludes that one must be aware of the diversity of chmates in which
people live. "In every part of the earth where man exists, the power of climate
operates, with decisive influence, upon his condition and character." After
mentioning again the superiority of the temperate climates and the more
powerful effects of climate on rude nations than on polished societies, he ends
with a theory of multiple causation, not unlike Herder's, with the warning
"Even the law of climate, more universal, perhaps, in its operation than any
that affects the human species, cannot be applied, in judging of their conduct,
without many exceptions."^^^

12. New Cultivations: The Forsters and the South Seas

Contemporaries, including the learned men who participated in the voyages,

were well aware of the scientific and philosophical significance of Cook's
discoveries. In his essay on the American fur trade, George Forster speaks of
recent advances in the study of nature and of man, the progress of discovery,
and of geographical knowledge. The voyages of Cook had torn away the
veil from an unknown half the world ("von einer unbekannten Halfte des

Erdbodens den Schleier hinweggerissen").^^^ Forster makes generous refer-

ence to the accomplishments of Cook and his men. The principal purposes of
the voyages had been fulfilled. There was no southern continent in the tem-
perate zone nor indeed was there a vast tract of land within the Antarctic
Circle; the great ice masses floating in the sea were composed of fresh water;

Ibid., pp. 301, 305.

Ibid., pp. 305-307.
"^"^^
Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 21-22. His view of climactic influences on drunkenness, p. 79,
is also conventional.
^"^^
Ibid., pp. 97, 98-99, loo-ioi.
^^^"Die Nordwestkiiste von Amerika und der dortige Pelzhandel," SS, Vol. 4, pp.
5-7, 1 1 6-1 19, quote on p. 117. Note the following abbreviations: Obs., Johann Reinhold
Forster, Observations Made During a Voyage Round the World; VRW, George
Forster, A Voyage Round the World; SS, George Forster's Sammtliche Schrijten.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 6ii

geographers had been given new islands, naturalists new plants and birds, the
friends of mankind "with the various modifications of human nature. "^^^
There was no Terra Australis with millions of people, but these losses were
made up by the rich ethnological findings of Cook and his companions.
Although Cook's descriptions are full and vivid, they lack the theoretical
interest of the writings of Johann Reinhold Forster and his son, George, who
were on the "Resolution" with Cook on his second voyage (177 2- 1775). It
is difficult to separate the thoughts of the son from those of the father, because

the boy was not yet eighteen when he left; he wrote A Voyage Round the
World in order to present his father's findings before the public, because the
Admiralty forbade the older Forster to publish a separate account of the
voyage. George Forster expresses bitterness about their treatment by high
government officials and the malevolence of the sailors on the sloop.
Johann Reinhold Forster's Observations Made During a Voyage Round
the World (1778) appeared the year following the publication of his son's
A Voyage Round the World. The elder Forester acknowledges his indebted-
ness to Bergman and Buffon for the physical geography and to Isaac Iselin
for the "Philosophical History of the Human Species." The botanical prin-
ciples come from Linnaeus, and the grand views of nature are inspired by
Buffon. "My object was nature in its greatest extent; the Earth, the Sea, the
Air, the Organic and Animated Creation, and more particularly that class of
Beings to which we belong." Respectful of authorities but aware of their
limitations— many of their philosophies were composed in the closet or in the
bosom of a highly civihzed nation— Forster adds that none of them had con-
templated the scale of primitive Hfe from abject animality "to the more pol-
ished and civihzed inhabitants of the Friendly and Society Isles."^^^ Both men
are sympathetic to the design argument, but it does not lean heavily on them;
they are closer to Buffon's rhetoric than to conventional natural theology.
Alexander von Humboldt acknowledged being inspired by the writings of
George Forster, and it is easy to see how he would be struck with the beauty
of tropical landscapes whose New World exemplars were to absorb him as
well.^^^ In the thinking of both men, the tropical environment plays a key
role in natural history and in their philosophy of civihzation. Johann Rein-
hold Forster wrote of environments without vegetation as bleak, barren,
desolate. It is the land clad with plants and diversified with birds and animals
that gives us "an idea of the vivifying powers of nature and its Great Lord."^^^
In the tropics a constant succession of vegetation infuses all places with life;
178 VRWy Vol. 2, pp. 605-606; see also Cook's Voyages, Vol. 2, p. 49.
i^'^See the preface to VRW; and "A Letter to the Right Honorable The Earl of
Sandwich," and accompanying appendices at end of Obs.; on sailors' behavior, VRW,
Vol. 2, p. 420, note. See the articles on Johann and George Forster by Alfred Dove in
Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 7, pp. 168-171, ij^-ij^.
Obs., p. ii.

Cosmos, Vol. 2, p. 20.

i82
0Z?5., p. 37.
6l2 Climate, Moeiirs, Religion, and Government

the temperate zone vegetation enlivens the scene, but in frozen dimates like
Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island, the Creation seems lifeless and torpid. The
nearer places lie to the course of the sun, the more are soil and mold, pro-
moters of vegetation, increased; "in the same proportion all organic bodies
"^^^
animate the lifeless, chaotic part of the strata of our globe.
In the past, thinkers frequently assumed a cultural uniformity over areas
in which cHmate was believed to be dominant. Forster is not guilty
a certain
of such naivete. His writings on the ethnology of the South Seas describe the
complexity of social organization; historical and linguistic evidence plays an
important part in his reconstructions, and comparative ethnology is a key-
stone in his arch. He recognizes classes within Tahitian society (the "aree,
manahouna, and towtow") and differences among the islanders of the South
Seas; he compares the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego with those of New Zea-
land, Greenland, and northern North America.
Forster divides the peoples of the South Seas into two main groups: (i)
those living in Tahiti (O-Taheitee) and the Society Islands, the Marquesas,
the Friendly Islands, Easter Island and New Zealand— these peoples are fair,
well limbed, athletic, fine sized, and have a kind, benevolent temper; (2) the
peoples of New Caledonia, of Tana ("Tanna"), and especially Malekula
("MalHcollo") in the New Hebrides. They are blacker in color, their hair
is just beginning to become woolly and crisp, their bodies are more slender
and low, their temper, "if possible more brisk, though somewhat mistrust-
£yj "185 Yhese two groups correspond of course to the modern division be-
tween Polynesia and Melanesia. The peoples of Tahiti and the Society Islands
are the most beautiful examples of the first race, "but even here Nature seems
to follow that richness, luxuriance, and variety, which we have observed in
its vegetation; it is not confined to a single type of model."^^^ The Forsters
see variety, richness, and abundance in human life in those places whose natu-
ral surroundings also possess these characteristics.
The existence of the two types of peoples in the South Seas had been
known long before Cook's voyages. On his first voyage (i 567-1 569), Alvaro

de Mandafia reached the Melanesian Solomons, missing the Polynesian islands

on the way, but on second (1595) he discovered the Marquesas, thus
his
providing the first ethnology of a Polynesian people. What are the reasons,
Forster asks, for the differences between them? It would be easy simply to
rely on Holy Writ, and assume that mankind had descended from one couple
and that the present varieties on earth are accidental. But this explanation
does not satisfy him, although he is convinced that the Bible expresses a his-
torical truth in asserting what men hostile to religion also assert on philosoph-

ic^
Ibid., p. 134.
^^"^
Ibid., pp. 212-213; on the names of the Tahiti classes, VRW, Vol. i, p. 365.
^^^Ibid., p. 228.
Ibid.y pp. 228-229, quote on p. 229.
 Cli77jatey Moeurs, Religion, and Government 613

ical all men are descended from one couple.

grounds, that (Later, as we
shall see,George considered the unity of the human race to be an open
question.) Johann Reinhold Forster examines the possible physical causes for
these differences, but his explanations are neither satisfactory nor clear be-
cause they are based for the most part on a crude theory of the inheritance of
acquired characteristics. Skin color, for example, he beheves to be the result
of exposure to air, the sun's influence, and differences in the ways of living.
The Tahitians, dressed and covered, expose themselves less than the people
of Tana, New Caledonia, Malekula, who are always naked and therefore
infinitely darker than they.^^^ Negroes are of dark hue because they are living
closer to the equator. The theory runs intodifficulties in the South Seas, even

if the sea mitigates the effects of the tropical sun. "This cause cannot be
applied to the difference of colour in the Taheiteans and the MalHcolese
[i.e., from Malekula], as both nations enjoy the same advantage."^^^
the people
Forster thinks "pecuHar modes of living" cooperate with these other causes
"in producing the many changes in colour in the human species."^^° The ex-
planation is naive indeed. The Tahitians are very clean and bathe frequently,
but the more tawny New Zealanders are unclean, abhor bathing, and are
exposed to the smoke and nastiness of their cottages, practices which may
account for differences in color. Climate, food, and exercise may influence
bodily but here too there are difficulties, notably differences in
size, size in
Tahiti between the common people and their chiefs.
Chmate therefore is an insufficient explanation for the observed differences.
The Dutch Cape of Good Hope, living near the Hottentots, have re-
at the
mained fair for 120 years. Even all the causes mentioned cannot explain dif-
ferences, for some remote Dutch farmers live almost like the Hottentots;
they have wretched huts, they lead a nomadic life, yet they retain their
identity. He concludes that if climate can make any material alteration, it
would require an immense period of time to produce it.
The inadequacy and difficulty of climatic explanations cause him to con-
sider cultural and historical evidence. The peoples of the South Seas, de-
scended from two different races, live in the same climate, preserve differences
in character, color, size, form, and habit of body.^^^ Forster examines the
linguistic evidence, putting aside simple environmental explanations. All the
Polynesians have fundamentally the same language, but migrations of con-
stituent peoples have brought about changes. They move to a new country
and find there new birds, fishes, and plants, the names for which could not
have existed in any other "co-generic dialects." Names for the qualities of the

^^"^
Ibid., pp. 252-253, 257.
Ibid., pp. 257-260.
Ibid., p. 261.
^^"^Ibid., p. 261.
Ibid., p. 276. On the Dutch, pp. 271-272.
6 14 Climate y Moeurs, Religion, a?id Government

new animals and plants, the new foods and garments derived from them,
gradually lead to a distinction between this new language and the original.^^^

In this way he accounts for varieties in cultures which are basically similar.
An explorer noting the population distribution of the South Seas would
naturally ask how they had been peopled. Forster believes migrations took
place from the Asiatic mainland; for him there was no "Kon-Tiki" expedition
from the New World. The easterly winds might make it possible, but he has
a low opinion of pre-Columbian New World technology. The New World
was peopled only a few centuries before the Spanish Conquest, and he finds
no s'milarity between the American and the South Sea island languages. The
distances are too great, the boats poor. He rejects Austraha (New Holland)
for similar reasons; the crudeness of aborigine culture, its poverty in domesti-
cated plants and animals, the language differences, tell against it as a hearth of
original dispersal.^^^ Let us where the South Sea islands are
go north, he says,
connected to the East Indian islands, many of which are inhabited by two
different races. The older live in the interior, hilly country, the newcomers on
the shores and coasts; he finds examples in the Moluccas, the Philippines, and
Formosa. Here again there are no climatic simplicities; one culture is super-
imposed over the other. The peoples of New Guinea, New Britain, and New
Ireland (New Hibernia) are like the Melanesians in New Caledonia, Tana,
and Malekula, and the blacks of New Guinea are probably related to those
in the Moluccas and the Phihppines. The peoples of the Ladrones and Caro-
lines suggest the Polynesians. With hnguistic evidence from Malaya, he con-
cludes that the eastern South Sea islands were probably peopled from the
Indian or Asiatic northern islands, those lying to the westward, possibly from
the neighborhood of New Guinea. The differences in the two races are
traced to two different migrations into the South Seas. The first race de-
scended from the Malays of the north who dispersed via the Carolines, the
Ladrones, "the Manila," and Borneo. The blacks, the second group, probably
came from stocks originally inhabiting the Moluccas, withdrawing into the
interior parts when the Malay tribes came.^^^
Generally speaking, anyone concerned with the history of civilization,
with philosophy of history, or with comparisons between primitive so-
a
cietiesand civilization, has been forced to consider such factors as environ-
ment, isolation, and culture contact. Johann Reinhold Forster is involved
with such questions; he, his son, and Captain Cook were conscious of the
tremendous contrast between European culture and the manners of the peo-
ples they visited in the Pacific and on the Pacific shore. Sometimes these com-
parisons were favorable to one, sometimes to another, but never to the peoples

'^^'^
Ibid., pp. 276, i-jy-i-]^. See Forster's comparative table of languages, Obs., facing
p. 284.
Ibid., pp. 280-281.
Ibid., pp. 281-283.
^^^Ibid.,p. $75^
 Climate^ Moeurs, ReligioTi, and Government 615

of Tierra del Fuego. Even though both Cook had a lively appre-
Forsters and
ciation of scenery, natural and of the physical beauty of native
and cultural,
peoples, none of them sentimentalized about primitive life or environments
unchanged by the native peoples living in them. They had little patience with
the idea of the noble savage. Those sympathetic with such ideas have never
seen that most abject of peoples, the Tierra del Fuegians, whom Johann Rein-
hold called the "Pecherias."^^^ An
example of the great adaptability of the
human it can be
race to climatic extremes they certainly were, but until
proved "that man in continual pain from the rigour of cHmate is happy," one
cannot take these philosophers seriously who themselves have not had the
opportunity to contemplate the modifications of human nature "or who have
not felt what they have seen." Those on the voyage had suffered much and

had seen much suffering; false stoicism had Httle appeal, George tracing it
back to Seneca, "who made light of the distresses of others, being himself in
affluence."^^^ (Since Cook's time, the Tierra del Fuegians have been favorite
examples of peoples low in the cultural scale. Interest in those still surviving
has not lagged to this day because their adaptabihty to cold makes them ideal
)^^^
subjects for studies in physiological climatology.
The European influences on the South Sea
Forsters constantly refer to
islands. Both are conscious of the misery which European cruelty brought in
its train, and they recognize the selective nature of the influences. Johann

Reinhold praises the introduction of plants (Cook himself had planted in-
troductions), animals, and iron tools, but the Europeans did not bring about
intellectual, moral, or social improvement. Such ends could not be expected
from the crew of a man-of-war, and those capable of such tasks had little
time or leisure, or lacked knowledge of the language, and each had duties
ashore assigned by superiors. These latter remarks may allude to the difficulties
experienced by the Forsters on board and to their distaste for the behavior of
the common sailors toward the native peoples and themselves.
Both men use the word happiness frequently, and it seems to mean well-
being, contentment, satisfactory adjustment by a people to its natural sur-
roundings, including "physical, moral, and social fehcity." When men live
in a genial climate, nature does everything to vigorously promote their hap-
piness; in less favorable environments, nature must be assisted by art, while
in the most unfavorable climates, happiness requires physical power and
creative genius.^^^

Ibid., pp. 201-202.

197 VRW, Vol. 2, pp. 502-503.
On the history of their study, see Gusinde, Die Yamana, pp. 45-192;
on their con-
temporary Wulsin, "Adaptations to Climate Among Non-European Peoples,"
interest,
in Newburgh, ed., Physiology of Heat Regulation and the Science of Clothing, pp.
27-31, and Coon, The Origin of Races, pp. 64, 69.
^^^Obs., pp. 305-307. See also VRW, Vol. i, p. 213, 303, 370, 464; Vol. 2, p. 12.
200 /^/V/.,
pp. 337-343.
6i6 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

Forster believes that islands tend to promote and to accelerate civilization

more than do continents, because their circumscribed size discourages dis-
persal, encourages association; but they cannot be too small, for there would
be insufficient room for a populous country or for the necessary cultivation.^^^
Do islands influence the occupations of mankind? Forster only touches
upon this question. The small size of the South Sea islands and the lack of wild
quadrupeds prevented the -first settlers from living by the chase. Neither did
the confined space permit the breeding of numerous herds of domestic ani-
mals; the peoples therefore had to cultivate the soil, "especially when they
could not support themselves by fishing."^^^ It will be remembered that Lord
Kames and Humboldt mentioned the absence of pastoralism in the New
World; Forster here hints at environmental explanation for its absence in the
Pacific.
To Johann Reinhold Forster, the Pacific was not necessarily an isolated area
before the Europeans came. Noting the contrast between the high tropical
civilizations of Mexico and Peru and the other indigenous cultures of the
New World, he thinks the former are of a recent date, probably brought
there by a few families by chance or necessity. "The ancient Mexicans and
Peruvians seem to be descended from those nations, whom Kublaikhan sent
to conquer Japan, and who were dispersed by a dreadful storm, and it is
probable that some of them were thrown on the coast of America, and there
formed these two great empires."^^^ Could this speculation have awakened
the interest of Humboldt in the subject from the New World side? Like Cook,
both Forsters occasionally imply that accidental rather than planned voyaging
may have brought about settlement.^^^
Johann Reinhold Forster was greatly impressed by tropical island environ-
ments; his knowledge of them was of course far greater than his knowledge
of the continental wet tropics of the Old and New Worlds. The tropics are
the birthplace of man: the chmate promotes rapid plant, and therefore animal,
growth, with consequent ease in obtaining food, dress, and shelter. A tropical
origin would also account for the fact that men originally went around naked;
here he is influenced by the near-nakedness of the Pecherias in a forbiddingly
cold chmate. The inhabitants of the South Sea islands are the more advanced
as they dwell more distantly from the poles, and the inhabitants of the frozen
extremes toward the poles are "degenerated and debased from that original
happiness which the tropical nations more or less enjoy."^^^ The outstanding
example are the Pecherias whom he saw on Waterman Island. No more

201 Ibid.,
p. 345.
202 VRW, Vol. 2, p. 360.
p. 314; quote on p. 316.
203 oZ^y.,

On
204 Cook, see Sharp, Ancient Voyagers in the Pacific,
accidental voyaging and
passim, and the opposing views of Suggs, The Island Civilizations of Polynesia, pp. 82-84,
and Sharp's replies in Ancient Voyagers in Polynesia, passim.
205 Obs., p. 287.
 Climate y Moeurs, Religioji, and Government 617

wretched people, he thinks, can be found anywhere. They are so miserable

and forlorn that they are not even conscious of their misery; they probably
originated in more civilized regions, but when they were forced into their
new environment they carried little or nothing of their culture with them.
These people are his prize exhibit showing the foolishness of romanticizing
indiscriminately about the native peoples.
Men are much more dispersed as one approaches the poles. Primitive peo-
ples, therefore, who have no contact with civilization become debased as the
distance from the tropics increases. The causes of this debasement are en-
vironmental and cultural— the effect of the cold cHmate, and isolation from the
original center of cultural diversity and abundance.^^^
Forster regards Tahiti as "the queen of tropical isles.'' The cHmate cer-
tainly contributes to the happy state of its inhabitants and it may be the main
source of it, but inferior peoples living on islands to the west in the same cli-
mate point to "some other cause of this remarkable circumstance." In essence,
this cause is the body of tradition, the cumulative experience of mankind. "All

the ideas, all the improvements of mankind relative to sciences, arts, manu-
factures, social life, and even morality, ought to be considered as the sum total
''^^"^
of the efforts of mankind ever since its existence.
These ideas are elaborated upon in an interesting conjectural history of
mankind, assuming again a tropical homeland. The original tribes of man-
kind, hoarding up and propagating knowledge, no doubt kept in contact
with one another. In time "two remarkable systems" branched out from
Chaldea and Egypt, one to India, China, "and the extremities of the East," the
other over the west and north; "but in the interior of Southern parts of Africa,
and over the whole continent of America, few, if any traces of those ancient
systems have been discovered." The successful tribes or nations preserved
their ancient system, modifying it and adapting it to their "particular situation,
climate and other circumstances, or raised new ideas and principles upon the
first base or foundation. . .
." Thus preservation and modification of tradition
and the addition of new ideas not inconsistent with it are the keys to the
progress of a people. The tribes or nations that have failed have forgotten or
lost their tradition, "their situation, climate, and other circumstances, having
obhged them to neglect or to depart from them without making up the defect
by new principles and ideas, founded on the same plan. ."^^^
. .

In this way contrasts can develop between tropical and poleward-lying

peoples: internecine struggles may force part of a tropical nation to migrate
to a colder cHmate; the migrants must now cultivate the earth for their neces-
sities not so luxuriant, so rapid, and powerful in climates
"because vegetation is

remote from the sun." They succeed nevertheless in forming a new nation.

Ibid., pp. 293, 295-300.

^^"^
Ibid., p. 295; italics in original.
208 Ibid.,
p. 296.
6i8 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

but the process then repeats itself, a further spHntering taking place, driving
part of the new nation farther poleward. New occupations and hardships
alter their mode of living, their habits and language, "and I might almost say
their nature; their ideas are quite changed, the improvements, which they
."^^^ They have now
had in their former situation, are neglected and lost. . .

become a debased people of lost arts, unrecognizable descendants of the

mother culture. Forced by the chase or fishing to live in small tribes distant
from one another, they lose the social contact so characteristic of life in the
tropical homeland. They are at the mercy of the elements, and the contrast
between their low state and that of the original model is at its sharpest.
A mild climate ''contributes greatly to soften the manners of mankind,"
the poleward extremes render "the fibres and the whole frame of our bodies
more harsh, rigid, and insensible"; these effects, undoubtedly operating on
the mind and the heart, almost completely destroy all social feelings. But
there is a second great cause, "the want of education, by which means the
most useful notions, tending to improve our physical, mental, moral, and
social faculties, are propagated, perpetuated, and lastly increased by new addi-
tional ideas."^^^ Is it too much to say that this philosophy of civilization—
which makes so much of cHmate, of cultural tradition and lost arts, of splin-
tering and migration to less hospitable lands, of new ideas arising from social
intercourse, or lack of them and stagnation through isolation— is inspired by
the contrast between the peoples of Tahiti and those of Tierra del Fuego?
Many of the themes discussed by Johann Reinhold had previously been
discussed by George in A Voyage Round the World (1777). Because of
George's youth there seems little doubt that the language is his but that the
scientific and philosophical ideas are those of his father. For this work he paid
a price in the scorn heaped upon him for putting his name to a work which in
substance was not his own.^^^
Like Montesquieu, George Forster believes climate and government to be
interrelated; in his colorful description of Madeira he says the warm climate
of that island must tend to encourage indolence among the people if laws do
not counteract it. The Portuguese government fails in this. He is critical also
of the Portuguese administration of St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands, which
confirms the people in vices already encouraged by the climate. Progress
through free and equal government is related to knowledge of cultural traits
which climate is likely to encourage or discourage. A government more en-
lightened than the Portuguese could achieve much in these islands.^^^
George Forster is sensitive to cultural differences, to the widespread dis-
tribution of apparent similarities among peoples, and to the "arbitrary whims"

/^ifi?., pp. 297-298.

Ibid., pp. 300-301.
See article on George Forster by Alfred Dove in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,
Vol. 7, pp. 173-174-
212 VRW, Vol. I, pp. 34-38.
 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government 619

of mankind, especially in sexual customs.^^^ Both men are interested in com-

parisons either among contemporary, or between contemporary and historical,
cultures, but when George compares the Tahitians with the Greeks, the heroes
of Homer
with the chiefs of Tahiti,^^^ he is conscious that ideas of diffusion
and contact may be accepted too uncritically. Men "in a similar state of
civilization resemble each other more than we are aware of, even in the most
opposite extremes of the world. I should be sorry to have made these slight
remarks [about Greeks and Tahitians 1, if they should unfortunately lead
some learned schemer on a wrong scent. The itch of tracing the pedigree of
nations has lately made such havock in history, by endeavouring to combine
the Egyptians and Chinese, that the learned must sincerely wish, it may never
become a contagious distemper."^^^
Another facet of his interest in culture shows itself in the comparison-
suggested by the escape of a seaman (later captured and put in irons for a
fortnight) as the boat departed from Tahiti— between life for the common
man on Tahiti and in England. This passage, too long for quotation here,
realistically describes the miseries and hardships of the common people of
England and shows how more comfortable life in Tahiti could be for the
sailor, for on his return to England he might ship out again, be forced to war

or live a life of drudgery. He concludes unconvincingly, and in sharp con-

trast with the preceding realism in toitt est bien fashion, that different nations
have different conceptions of happiness. "As the productions and apparent
good qualities of our globe, are either profusely or sparingly distributed, on
its human opinions is a convincing proof of
different parts, the diversity of
that paternal love, and unerring wisdom, which, in the plan of this world, has
provided for the good of mankind, alike in the torrid and the frigid zone."^^^
Wehave seen that the elder Forster believed in the unity of the human
race; his son was not so sure of this nor of Buffon's theory that chmate causes
racial differences. In his essay on the races of mankind (1786), Forster, now

a mature scholar in his own right, takes issue with Kant's racial theories, in-
cluding his belief in the unity of the human race. The difficulty, as Forster
saw it, still was the contrast between Polynesians and Melanesians living in
very similar environments. It would be better for many hypotheses if the

Melanesians let themselves be explained away— out of the South Seas entirely—
but there they are.^^^ Forster did not claim the multiple origin of the human
race to be established; he merely said that the question was beset with dif-
ficulties, that the theory of multiple origin was no more difficult to compre-

hend than the theory that mankind descended from a single pair. The cele-
brated zoologist, Zimmerman, for example, thought it highly unhkely that

Ibid., pp. 457-458.

Ibid., Vol. 2, pp. 104-107.
Ibid., pp. 106-107.
llpid.^ pp. 1 1 2-1 13.
"Etwas iiber die Menschenracen," SS, Vol. 4, p. 285.
620 Climate, Moeurs, Religion, and Government

plants and animals had originated in one place and had then diffused through-
out the world. Could not every region, therefore, bring forth its own creatures
adapted to its environment, and could not there be, for this reason, a multiple
origin of mankind?
The Forsters were remarkable men who had remarkable opportunities.
They were conscious of them, sensitive as well to history and the philosophy
of civilization. They had the advantage of new departures. They were on a
voyage which, like all of Cook's voyages, was a scientific undertaking, a har-
binger of the nineteenth century scientific traveling of Humboldt, Darwin,
and the "Challenger." They were their own sources. Their theories about
civilization and primitive life were derived, in part at least, from personal
observation. They enjoyed a great advantage over the philosophical thinkers-
Montesquieu, Buffon, Herder, and Robertson, all of whom depended on the
observations and judgments of others. Like Captain Cook's journals, their
writings still convey an impression of freshness, beauty, reliability in detail,
and authenticity.

13. Conclusion

Climatic causality had flourished, as we have seen, in previous centuries,

but never so independently as it did in the eighteenth; moreover in those
earlier times, it was used less comprehensively, often being ancillary to reli-

gion and astrology or to both. In the nineteenth century, on the other hand,
new knowledge, like a swollen stream, flowed around it, and there were other
geographical fields to till more carefully than in the eighteenth; the configura-
tion of continents, and the influence of place and position, of altitude, of
routes, passes, migration corridors. The idea of adaptation, expressed in the
evolutionary theories of Lamarck and Darwin, meant adaptation not to cli-
mate but to the whole physical environment. Then in the latter part of that
century a racial, not an environmental, determinism ominously asserted itself
with ugly and dogmatic vigor.
We can speak correctly therefore of the secularization of climatic theories
in the eighteenth century. Paradoxically,one of the reasons they flourished so
luxuriantly was that so little was known about climate, about the general
circulation of the atmosphere, climatic classification, and chmatic contrasts
in far-off countries. Ignorance permitted wider generahzation. How it sim-
plified matters to assume that the Chinese or Persians lived in a uniform cli-
mate! Generahzation would have melted away in the warmth of more detail.
And most travelers exhibited little rigor in observation.
These developments are not disembodied; they are enmeshed in others. The

Ibid., pp. 301-303.

 Climate^ Moeurs, Religion, and Government 621

comparative ethnology of primitive peoples— weak, uncertain, often trivial

in the latter part of the seventeenth century and the early part of the eigh-
tenth— grows in strength with Cook and the Forsters as the century draws
to a close. There is a parallel interest in national character within the ad-
vanced cultures, conspicuous, it is true, in the seventeenth century, but at-
taining sophisticated expression in Hume. The profound interest in natural
history, a study concerned with all life and its miHeu, leads to grand and
hohstic views of nature which encompass all environments, human and non-
human alike. Finally, some thinkers are beginning to see that the world is
drawing closer together through the inventions, the commerce, the avarice,
and the desire for knowledge of the Europeans, and a fluidity is seen in geo-
graphical relationships which might change from one era to another in re-
sponse to advances in the arts and sciences and in discovery. Cook's voyages
are dramatic examples, but there are many others of a different kind like Father
du Halde's work on the history, geography, and culture of the Chinese.
In the eighteenth century, climate is deeply involved in fundamental ques-
tions. The historic association of climate with health and medicine deepened
in that century, as one can see clearly in the works of Arbuthnot and Fal-
coner. The triad of climate, health, and medicine evoked speculation into the
physical and moral effects of climate, and such interrelationships suggested
that human initiative could improve environmental conditions. Common
areas of interest today between cultural anthropology and geography and
public health can be traced to these historic associations which indeed go far
back into time. Observed empirical correlations between environment and
disease call forth activity in drainage and land reclamation. Such proposals are
often expressed by the European doctors; they are characteristic, as we shall
see, of early American physicians. The Hippocratic inspiration remains, but

knowledge has also grown and insight has deepened.

The relation of climate to religion becomes very important with the Refor-
mation. The divisions within Protestantism and the criticism of all religion
which follows in the wake of controversy, schism and religious war, left open-
ings for climatic causation which led to relativism; even revealed religions,
to say nothing of schisms, might then have earthly and human explanations.
The old association of climate with political and social theory continues,
faithful to the model example set by Plato in the Laivs, but horizons expand
as men become interested in cultural inertia, diffusion, and independent in-
vention.
Not the least of the effects of climatic theories was the stimulus their sim-
plicityand tantalizing dogmatism gave to a more searching study of social
causation and history. In the Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu wanted to give
physical causes their due in an age which he thought had neglected them.
Those who disagreed— men like Hume, Voltaire, and Helvetius— repKed that
622 Climate, MoeurSy Religion, and Government

moral causes were decisive. Achilles heels in climatic theory now opened up
exciting possibilities. Why not compare a people at one period of its history
with another period? When such comparisons were made, peoples living in
similar environments turned out to be brave and weak, creative and indolent.
CHmatic theories also stimulated inquiry, as had the abbe du Bos, into the
unequal distribution of talent and the clustering of genius in different eras,
a fact already noticed in the ancient world. Historical study became a direct
challenge to generalizations derived from physical causes.
 Chapter 13

Environment, Population, and the

Perfectibihty of Man
I . Introduction

In the eighteenth century another idea, distinct from older orthodox theories
of environmental influence, commanded attention: the earth itself sets limits
to population growth and to human well-being and hence to human aspira-
tions and achievement. One might call it the idea of closed space, a much-
discussed subject since the end of World War II. The best of the vast new
tracts that opened up after the age of discovery, it is so argued, have now
been taken up, and mankind once again is faced with the limiting factors
of the physical environment regardless of ameliorations possible through
social institutions, apphed science, and the like.
What are the roots of this idea? It is hard to say. In my opinion it can be
traced to the principle of plenitude.^ The principle emphasized, as we have

^ See above, pp. 5-6, and Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Beings P- 52.
624 Environment^ Population, and Perfectibility

seen, the richness, fullness, and variety of being, and thus indirectly the
fecundity of nature. Basically this principle may have originated in nothing
more complicated than observations ground which has been
that a piece of
cleared will soon, unless closely attended, have fresh and vigorous plant life,
that some animals like the rabbits, and insects have great reproductive power,
that there are few vacant places in nature, and if there are some, they are
soon filled up. Linnaeus remarked that three flies will consume the carcass
of a horse as quickly as a lion can.^ Life has the capacity to swell out to its

limits, and the multiphcation of individual organisms will be arrested only

by the competition of other organisms or by the hmitations on life imposed
by the physical environment; these general ideas too could have originated in
common observation such as the consumption of plants by animals, the prey-
ing and the preyed upon in the animal world, the destruction of both by
violent storms or other forms of natural catastrophe.
In Western civilization one of the distinctive characteristics of the history
of thought regarding animate nature is its emphasis on fecundity, the po-
tentiality of life for expansion and multiplication both of individuals and in
bulk. Buffon often mentioned this characteristic of Hfe: nature had a greater
bias toward life than toward death. Such was life's power of procreation that
the whole earth could easily be covered with a single species, and nature
would know no limits to the production of organized bodies if her progress
were not obstructed by matter not susceptible of organization.^ Frankhn had
said that such was the reproductive power of plants and animals that had
the face of the earth no plants, it could easily be "overspread" with one kind
only, like fennel, or had it no inhabitants, it could easily in a few ages be
replenished from one nation only, the English.^ And Malthus, in a dramatic
illustration which drew the anger and ridicule of his critics, said that the
human race, if its growth were unimpeded by checks, could fill not only the
earth "so that four should stand in every square yard" but all the planets of
the solar system and the planets revolving around the visible stars.^ Darwin,
following Malthus in an enthusiastic tribute to fecundity, said that even the
elephant, "the slowest breeder of all known animals," could, if unchecked,
stock the world in a few thousand years.^ These patently absurd extravagances
(how could one species alone fill up the earth, existing to the exclusion of

2 Cited by
J. Arthur Thomson,
The System of Animate Nature^ Vol. i, pp. 53-54.
I have been unable to find this statement in Linnaeus' writings.
3 See Count Buffon, "De la reproduction en general," being chap. 2 of the "Histoire

Generale des Animaux," in HiV, Vol. 2 (1749), pp. 37-41.

^ "Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind and the Peopling of Countries,"

[ 1 751], in The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Smyth, Vol. 3, pp. 63-73,
P^^- 22, p. 71.
^Principles of Political Economy, pp. iiy-iiS.
6 See The Descent of Man, Modern Library ed., chap. of
2, p. 430; the discussion
"Rate of Increase" is based almost entirely on Malthus, as is chap. 2 of the Origin of
Species J "Geometrical Ratio of Increase," ibid., pp. 53-54.
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility 625

all others? how could elephants feed except on other elephants? ) were clearly-
meant to dramatize two general observations: the prodigious capacity of
populations to increase their numbers, and the fact that they do not. Bar-
riers, perhaps physical, perhaps of other forms of life, prevent any single
species from reahzing its potential.
The idea that the environment sets limits to the expansion of life seems to
appear after the age of discovery.^ As we have seen, Botero compared the
virtue generative of men Walter
to virtue nutritive of cities (see p. 373). Sir
Raleigh, whose account of the increase and dispersion of the human race was
inspired by Old Testament history, who saw the "sun's travaille" from tropic
to tropic as an evidence of design, observed,

For us now reckon the date of our lives in the Age of the World [in con-
let
trast with the first age when lives lasted 800 or 900 years]: wherein if one
exceed 50. yeeres, tenne for one are cut off in that passage, and yet wee find no
want of people; nay, wee know the multitude such, as if by warres or pestilence
they were not sometimes taken off by many thousands, the earth with all the
industrie of man could not give them food. What strange heapes then of soules
had the first Ages, who enjoyed 800. or 900. yeeres, as aforesaid?^

Sir Matthew Hale also made exhaustive lists of the checks to the multiplica-
tion of many kinds of
(pp. life 403-405). The
checks mentioned in these and
similar statements attain the dignity of being necessary parts of the Creator's
design.
It was clear, therefore, that the had overcome the decima-
fecundity of life

tions of war, plague, and unhealthful environments. Otherwise mankind

would be extinct. Nature could not produce enough food for all the life it
was capable of creating, and checks to growth were part of the natural order.
Hunger, misery, predation, among all forms of life, were proof of this in-
sufficiency.

2. On the Populousness of Ancient and Modern Nations

Furthermore, the controversy over the populousness of the ancient and

modern worlds, part of the broader controversies over senescence in nature
and the relative superiority of the ancients and the moderns, showed the neces-
sity of critically examining the evidence in order to unravel the history of
population. If there were in fact a senescence of nature, one would expect
smaller populations with the aging of the earth, and if classical civilization

^What follows is in no sense even a summary of population theories. On these see

Bonar, Theories of Population from Raleigh to Arthur Young; Fage, "La Revolution
Frangaise et la Population," Population, 8 (1953), pp. 311-338; Mombert, Bevdlkerungs-
lehre\ Spengler, French Predecessors of Malthus; and Stangeland, "Pre-Malthusian Doc-
trines of Population: a Study in the History of Economic Theory," in Columbia Uni-
versity Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, Vol. 21, No. 3, 1904.
8 The History of the World, Bk. I, chap. 8, sec. 11,
5, pp. 158-159.
626 Environment^ Fopiilation, and Perfectibility

were superior to modern, one might also expect to find in it better conditions
of life, higher ethical standards, and more people to perform the tasks of a
more advanced culture.^
The
controversy dates back to 1685 when Isaac Vossius (161 8-1 689), in
a discussion of the large cities of China, estimated the world's population
to be about five hundred million— three hundred in Asia and thirty in Europe,
with no attempt to distribute the remaining one hundred seventy million. Vos-
sius, within living memory of the devastation and hideous loss of life of the

Thirty Years' War brought to a close by the treaties of WestphaHa in 1648,

was in opposition to an earlier view of Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-
167 1 ), the Jesuit astronomer, who in about 1672 had estimated the world's
population to be one biUion: in millions, one hundred in Europe, five hun-
dred in Asia, one hundred in Africa, two hundred in the New World and
one hundred in the Southern Continent (Terra Austrahs), which did not
vanish from estimates of world population until Captain Cook on his second
voyage disproved its existence. The value of these examples is that they show
the extremes to which estimates could go and that they were based entirely on
supposed European experience. Who knows, Vossius asks, but that in former
times there were more people in Sicily alone than are now in Sicily and Italy
combined, more people formerly in Athens alone than are now in Greece and
the Peloponnesus combined? Vossius' total of thirty million in Europe was
indeed gloomy, for he estimated that imperial Rome alone had had fourteen
million people; his low figure for contemporary Europe may therefore well
reflect the overwhelming impression caused by death and destruction in the
Thirty Years' War.^^
Montesquieu unearthed the old estimates (especially those of Vossius) and
communicated them to Rhedi, a hero of the Fersian Letters, who writes to
Usbek in Paris in 7 8 inquiring, "How can the world be so sparsely popu-
1 1

lated in comparison with what it once was? How can nature have lost that
prodigious fertility of primitive times. Could she be already in her old age,
and will she fall into her dotage?" In Italy Rhedi saw more ruins than people,
whose numbers were so few they did not even occupy the area of the ancient
town site; they seemed "to go on existing only to mark the spot where those
cities so talked of by history once existed." Rhedi found evidences of de-

population in Rome, Sicily, Greece, Spain, the northern countries, Poland,

European Turkey, France, even America, and the African and Asian shore
^ On the controversy, see Bonar, op. cit., chap. 6.
i^For a convenient table of estimates of the world's population with sources from
the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, see Behm and Wagner, "Die Bevolkerung
der Erde, II," Fetennanns Mitteilungen Ergdnzimgsband 8, No. 35 (1873-74), pp. 4-5.
I am indebted to this work for the references. Riccioli, Geographiae et hydrographiae

refonnatae libri XII (Venetiis, 1672), pp. 677-681. This work was not available to me,
the discussion being based on Behm and Wagner, who think the estimate might date
from i66o (p. 4).
^1 Isaaci Vossii Variarum Observationum Liber pp. 64-68.
^
 Environment, Fopiilation, and Perfectibility 627

of the Mediterranean. "In fine, I survey the whole earth, and I find only
remains. I have an idea that I can trace it to the ravages of pestilence and
famine." He thinks the ancient world probably had ten times as many people
as the modern. The sight-seeing Persian mournfully wrote from Venice a
general castigation of mankind.
Indeed, Montesquieu's Persian Letters are sensitive indicators of eighteenth
century humanitarianism and interest in moral causes and their effects on
population; the letters are notable for their emphasis on influences coming
from religion, marriage customs, disease, cultural attitudes. He is also in-
terested in the history of plagues and the effects of venereal disease, which he
believes to be a modern phenomenon.^^ The division of the Roman world
into Christian and Mushm parts had great social consequences, both religions
being far less favorable to propagation than was the religion of the Romans,
who forbade polygamy and permitted divorce. Both, he thought, encouraged
population growth. Muslim polygamy leads to exhaustion of the male, like
an athlete who overtaxes himself; it continence on the
enforces an artificial

several wives, to say nothing of the protective eunuchs and the slave girls who
grow old "in sad virginity." Polygamy puts too much sexual strain on the man,
prevents many women from childbearing, demands sexless or abstinent ser-
vants, and thus leads to depopulation.^^ Ancient slavery did not bring about
through its cruelties the great loss of life characteristic of the modern institu-
tion.^^ In pitilessly candid sentences Montesquieu condemns enforced con-

tinuance, in Christian countries, of marriages long since destroyed by bitter-

nessand loss of affection. "Repulsion, whim, and the anti-sociability of
temperament were counted for nothing. They tried to stabilize the heart—
which is to say, the thing in human nature that is most variable and inconstant."
When couples have only an eternity of indissoluble marriage ahead of them,
compulsion, discord, and contempt arise. "After scarcely three years of mar-
riage, the essential function is neglected. Thereafter the couple passes together
thirty years of indifference," and the man, repelled by an eternal wife, will turn
to prostitutes.^^ There are harsh words for clerical celibacy in the Christian
world, and the Catholic are contrasted unfavorably with Protestant countries
in the encouragement the latter give to economic development and hence to
propagation; there are harsh words, too, for the slave trade, the depopulation
of Africa, the barbarous treatment of aborigines in the New World.^^ The
fertility of a people is related to the belief and attitudes held by them. The
Jews, continually persecuted and exterminated, have survived because they
hope to see the birth of a powerful king-ruler of the earth. The high popula-

^2 LP 112, trans. Loy.

^3LP 113.
14 LP 114.
15 LP 115.
16 LP 1 16, pp. 212-213.
17 LP 118, 121.
628 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

tions of ancient Persia, Usbek says, were the result of the teaching of the
Magi men can please the divinity most by producing a child,
religion, that
and planting a tree. In an atmosphere of respect for one's elders
tilling the soil,

and for the dead, and for the family system, the Chinese is encouraged to
increase his family, while the people of Muslim countries, Usbek continues,
live "in a general state of unfeelingness, and we leave everything up to provi-
dence."^^ In advanced countries unjust rights of primogeniture discourage
propagation, as the distaste for cultivating the land does in primitive societies.^^
Of colonies, he complains that the "normal effect is to weaken the countries
from which they are drawn, without populating those to which they are
sent."^° A mild government like that of Switzerland or Holland is the key to
population growth. "Men are like plants; they never grow well unless they
are well cultivated. Among people living in poverty, the human race loses
and even degenerates."^^
Even if these Persian letters fall short of their mark in proving the superior
populousness of the ancient world, they reveal how sensitive Montesquieu
was to the uniqueness of human populations. "The females of brutes," he
wrote later in Esprit des Lois^ "have an almost constant fecundity. But in the
human species, the manner of thinking, the character, the passions, the humor,
the caprice, the idea of preserving beauty, the pain of child-bearing, and the
fatigue of a too numerous family, obstruct propagation in a thousand dif-
ferent ways."^^
In the Esprit des Lois Montesquieu continues his interest in population ques-
tions, including the relation of population growth to land use, progress in the
arts,and the type of government. It is a mistake to believe that the industrious
poor, hving under a strict government, would have large families. Differences
in population among various countries might be owing to differences in the
fertility of women, to location, or to diet.^^
The larger nationsand empires of modern times had caused depopulation.
"All these little [Italy, Sicily, Asia Minor, Gaul, and Germany]
repubhcs
were swallowed up in a large one, and the globe insensibly became depopu-
lated." It was a fortunate circumstance that Charlemagne's empire had been
"divided into an infinite number of petty sovereignties." Montesquieu con-
cludes that "Europe is at present in a condition to require laws to be made
in favor of the propagation of the human species."^^ But he never made it clear
whether the whole earth or only Europe was suffering from depopulation.
In his Pejisees, Montesquieu contrasted the relatively unpeopled earth with

18 LP 119.
19 LP 120.
20 LP 121.
21 LP 122.
22 £L, Bk. 23, chap. i.

^^Ibid., chaps. 10-13. See above, pp. 578-579.

^^Ibid., chaps. 16, 19, 24, 26. Quotes in chaps. 19, 24, 26.
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility 629

the bounty of its resources: the earth yields to human industry. Fifty million
people could live in France, which now has only fourteen. The fertility of
towns can give us an idea of what we can expect from
places in the vicinity of
others. The more workers there are in France, the more tillers of the soil will
there be in Barbary, and one tiller will feed ten workers.^^
Montesquieu's opinions on depopulation, like those on climate, were harshly
criticized and with justice, because the moral and physical causes could not
without more evidence be assumed to be of sufficient force to effect the
claimed results.^*^

The best criticism came from Hume, who brushed aside the "extravagances
of Vossius" to consider the arguments of "an author of much greater genius
and discernment," Montesquieu. The physical and mental endowment of
human beings has been about the same in all ages. Hume will have none of
the biological analogy nor will he grant that even if the ancient world had
more people, this superiority is due to "the imaginary youth and vigour of the
world. . "These general physical causes ought entirely to be excluded
.

from this question." It was an important point, for if nature, like an individual
organism, had been more fruitful in its youth, the largest populations would
have lived in the remotest period. Hume's essay is a reminder that influential
ideas of supposed universal appHcability can prosper without facts to support
them. We do not know, he said, the exact population of any European king-
dom or even of any city; how then can we pretend to know the population
of ancient cities and states? The case for the superior populousness of the
modern world is largely made on the basis of its new inventions, a broader
geographic base, and service industries.

All our later improvements and refinements, have they done nothing towards
the easy subsistence of men, and consequently toward their propagation and
encrease? Our superior skill in mechanics; the discovery of new worlds, by
which commerce has been so much enlarged; the establishment of posts; and the
use of bills of exchange: These seem all extremely useful to the encouragement
of art, industry, and populousness. Were we to strike off these, what a check
should we give to every kind of business and labour, and what multitudes of
families would immediately perish from want and hunger?

Quoting Diodorus Siculus (first century b.c), who bewailed the depopula-
tion and emptiness of the world of his own time compared with that of past

25 Pensees et Fragments Inedits de Montesquieu, Vol. I, p. 180.

26 See for example D'Amilaville's article on population in the Encyclopedie, which
has an excellent summary of the dispute, and Voltaire's on the same subject in his Philo-
sophical Dictiojiary. Sec also "Nouvelles Considerations sur I'Histoire," Oeuvres, ed. by
Beuchot, Vol. 24, p. 27; "Population" {Diet. Philos.), Vol. 21, p. 474; "Des Singularites
de la Nature," chap. 37, Vol. 44, pp. 310-312.
27 "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," in Essays Moral, Political, and Literary^

Vol. I, pp. 381-383, quote on p. 382.

28 Ibid.,
pp. 412-413.
630 Enviromnent, Population^ and Perfectibility

times, Hume says, "Thus an author, who lived at that very period of antiquity
which is represented as most populous, complains of the desolation which
then prevailed, gives the preference to former times, and has recourse to an-
cient fables as a foundation for his opinion."^^ Any living Diodorus Siculus
could feel this sting, but one of them, Robert Wallace, a tireless supporter
of the ancients, did his best to shore up the boats of the ancients. Wallace's
work,
first A
Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, in Ancient and Mod-
ern Times (1753), was written before but published after Hume's essay;
Hume was instrumental in having the work published. In a long appendix,
Wallace ransacked the classical writings in order to rebut Hume; he admitted
it was impossible to determine the population of the present or of any pre-

ceding age, but by using several crude estimates— which need not be explained
here— Wallace concluded that the population of the ancient world was greater
than one bilHon, his maximum estimate of the world's population of his time.
The estimates for the ancient world were in reahty based on his moral and
philosophical biases: that morahty, government, and education in ancient times
were superior to those of modern times, these conditions being favorable to a
larger population. Anticipating an argument in The Various Prospects of
Mankind, Nature, and Providence (1761), Wallace wrote that "had it not
been for the errors and vices of mankind, and for the defects of government
and of education, the earth must have been much better peopled, perhaps
might have been overstocked, many ages ago." Wallace derived his population
estimates from Thomas Templeman's Nenjo Survey of the Globe (ca. 1729),
which included population figures for some countries and for the most noted
cities of Europe. "A Calculation of this Nature, I am sensible, is liable to

Censure and Objection, as being too much Conjecture, and the Dictates of
Imagination." So he took a middle course; he could not agree that London
had two million people "nor assent to the ridiculous and romantick Accounts
that represent some Cities in China to contain 6 or 8 MilHons of people."
"Notwithstanding the absurdity of such extravagant Conjectures, the learned
Vossius fell into an equal, if not greater Weakness and Credulity when he
attempted to demonstrate that there were 14 milhons of Souls in Ancient
Rome." Templeman's Survey is worth notice mainly because it reveals the
foggy uncertainty in which these men worked.^^
.Unlike Malthus, Wallace beheved that the causes of population growth
had not operated uniformly throughout history. Small shares in land, only
slight trade and commerce, simplicity in hving, were more characteristic of
ancient than of modern times; these too encouraged a large population, for
modern cities drew many away from the countryside, lowering the numbers
employed in agriculture. In order to have a fully peopled world, all mankind

Ibid., p. 443. See Diodorus, II, 5.

A Dissertation on the Numbers of Mankind, p. 13; Templeman, New Survey of the

Globe, p. iii.
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

must be employed directly food production; this situation was truer of

in
ancient than of modern times. Wallace thought the absence of syphilis (lues
venerea) and smallpox were other good reasons for the superior populousness
of antiquity.
All was not well, however, even in the ancient world, for wicked tendencies
characteristic of the modern period were making themselves felt after the
simple luster of ancient lifehad been tarnished by the conquests of Alexander,
the pohcies of the Ptolemies and of the Romans, who mistakenly introduced
into theWest the effete, luxury-loving, and debihtating manners and customs
of the East. The loss of simplicity in taste, the introduction of luxury, had
helped to gradually diminish the population of mankind. "The world was
overwhelmed with a corrupted taste, and has never been able to repair its

desolation."^^
Admirers of the ancients, like Wallace, were friendly to the idea of senes-
cence in nature, and exulted in the moral, artistic, and literary inferiority of
modern times. Those favoring the moderns believed in the constancy of
nature's operations; they had faith in the invention, technology, and com-
munications of modern man and thought the changes men were bringing about
through cultivation, clearing, and drainage were improving the earth.
After Montesquieu and Wallace, no important converts made up for the
attrition on the side of the ancients. In the Ency elope die, D'Amilaville dis-
cussed Wallace— the dissertation had been translated into French under the
supervision of Montesquieu— but for him he had no sympathy. Vossius, he
said, had estimated the population of France to be five million at the revocation

of the Edict of Nantes (1685) when the accepted estimate was thirty million;
Montesquieu had chosen a few depopulated lands, but depopulation was not
proceeding throughout the whole world. Moral shortcomings were not the
cause of modern depopulation, as Wallace claimed, for all people on earth
had them. D'Amilaville saw that the argument has been too provincial, too
centered on Europe. But he could be bland and wry: "Le Christianisme n'a
pas proprement pour objet de peupler la terre; son vrai but est de peupler le
ciel..
." Modern times has smallpox and syphilis, but antiquity had leprosy.
.

To prove their case, these men had to show that worldwide depopulation
was owing to physical causes universal in operation. D'Amilaville thought that
population remains relatively constant, of course with local variations and dif-
ferences, being part of a general balance and equihbrium in the system of
nature; assuming such a balance, he then concluded that the total number of
people living on earth had been, is, and always will be about the same.

A Dissertation, Appendix, p. 355. Later writers have been more generous to Alex-
ander the Great and have done less moralizing about him. Humboldt regarded his
campaigns as scientific expeditions {Cosmos, Vol. II, pp. 516-525). In addition to his
full-length work on Alexander, see also W. W. Tarn, "Alexander the Great and the
Unity of Mankind," Proc. of the Br. Academy, XI (1933), pp. 123-166.
632 Environment Population^ and
y
Perfectibility

By 1798, however, Malthus writes as if there is no longer any occasion for

debate: the world, and especially Europe, is more populous simply because

industrious people have produced a greater amount of food. This controversy

took place, as we now know, when the population of western Europe was
beginning its spectacular increase, which dates from about the time Wallace
was diligently proving the case for the ancients.^^

3. Progress and the Limitations of the Environment

This dispute and the quarrel over the relative merits of the ancients and mod-
erns led to three different interpretations of the relation of man to the earth:
(i) the environment sets up limits to the numbers and well-being of man,
clearly stated by Wallace in his second work; (2) the earth, as a physical en-
vironment, places no obstacles in the way of the perfectibiHty of mankind, a
viewpoint associated particularly with Condorcet but also with Godwin; and
(3) environmental conditions are insurmountable barriers to Utopian hopes,
based on either individual or institutional reform, a doctrine which Malthus
made famous. Let us examine these three points of view.
In the first The Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Provi-
part of
dence (1761), Robert Wallace painstakingly analyzes the possibilities of at-
taining a Utopia on earth, and in the second he turns on his own argument,
demolishing it with the objection that physical conditions on earth would not
permit such a millennial society.
Wallace maintains that the world could have been fully peopled long ago;
it could easily have produced food for ten times the number that have in fact

been propagated. "The earth has never been cultivated to the full extent of
what it was able to bear." Bad taste, war, and mutual destruction, ignorance
of the earth despite extensive travels and voyages, had contributed to this
failure.^^

Under a perfect government founded on equality, men could multiply

faster than in the happiest of previous governments. Such a perfect future
government, intricate in its harmony, is possible; if it comes into being, it will
do so slowly and imperceptibly, by divine intention. It could even be recon-
ciled with passion and frailty. But we discover later that a government of this
kind is inconsistent with the human condition. Under perfect government,
the difficulties of having a family would be removed; despite plagues, there
would be many encouragements to population growth, mankind "would
encrease so prodigiously, that the earth would at last be overstocked, and be-

^2 D'Amilaville, "Population," Encyclopedic^ Vol.

13, p. 73. Vossius, op. cit. (see n. 11
above), p. 66. Malthus, 1798 Essay, pp. 53-56. For Malthus's criticism of Wallace and
Hume, see the 7th ed., Vol. i, pp. 1 51-153.
pp. 3, 6, 8, 10. Quote on p. 8.
23 Various Prospects,

^"^Ibid., pp. 46, 47, 70-71, 107, 1

1
4-1 15, 116.
 Environment, Population, a?id Perfectibility 633

come unable to support its inhabitants."^^ What then should happen? Should
women be shut up in cloisters and men be debarred from marriage? Should
eunuchry and infant exposure be allowed? Should hfe be shortened by decree?
On these questions there would be no agreement; a decision would be made
by force, and deaths in battle v/ould provide the needed room for the surviv-
ors. A perfect government would bring about horrors more unnatural than

present vices. "But there are certain primary determinations in nature, to

which all other things of a subordinate kind must be adjusted. A limited earth,
a limited degree of fertility, and the continual increase of mankind are three
of these original determinations. To these determinations, human affairs, and
the circumstances of all other animals must be adapted."^^ The vices and the
shortcomings of mankind prevent the establishment of such Utopian govern-
ment even if the earth's surface is "especially fitted to be an agreeable and
convenient habitation for men." It is physico-theology with a pronounced
pessimistic turn. It is a good earth, but not good enough to exempt its in-
habitants from life's miseries. Man with his vices and depravities is unworthy
of a perfect earth. The existing imperfect earth is but the physical reflection
of his sinful nature, its frame being adjusted "to chastise and punish the vices
of rational creatures and give check to their follies." Wallace's defense of
nature, however, is more spirited than is his defense of man, for he is not in
agreement with Burnet's Sacred Theory of the Earth. One cannot blame na-
ture too much, for one cannot say with certainty that it would be a better
earth were there less water, no thunder, wind, or fog, more moderate rainfall,
fewer earthquakes or inundations, or a different angle of inclination of the
earth on its axis. Burnet had forgotten these truths; his ideal earth would have
been barren.^^
With such a limiting environment on earth, death can aspire to a more
exalted role than that of being the debt paid for sin. It is a necessity. Death
permits earth's fullness; makes room for more animal life, particularly for
it

small animals which can and birth take place in

find their niches; since death
a limited environment, nature can in this way fill up her "vacant interstices."
Wallace in fact suggests in rude form the community concept in ecology: the
close interdependence of all forms of organic life, the indispensability to life
of dead organic matter, the food chain, and the niche. Great variety in the
bulk of individual organisms is required to fill up the world of nature.
Death is consistent with the limited fertihty of soils, with the regular and
abundant production of life. "If this once be admitted, it will help us to ac-
count for that neglect and prodigious havock of animal life, which are so
visible through every part of nature." Wallace may well be the first thinker
who saw in the earth's basic structure and constitution elements of a natural

Ibid., p. 122. The discussion is based on pp. 11 8-1 21.

^^Ibid., pp. 227, 278-282, 286.
634 Environment, Fopulation, and Perfectibility

law which limited man's numbers and which transcended the efforts of in-
dividuals, government, or society to improve the human conditions.^^
Wallace was walking down increasingly lonely corridors, for many eigh-
teenth century thinkers were interested not in the sin of man nor in cataloging
the imperfections of an earth consistent with his sin but in man's inhumanity
to man, in the reform of individuals and human institutions; their confidence
in the idea of progress and the perfectibihty of man made the limitations of
the earth too remote to think about, unworthy of the time of men intent on
more urgent problems.
The Marquis de Condorcet was such a man. In the Sketch for a Historical
Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind (1793), published posthumously
in 1795, he expressed the philosophy of progress so eloquently and so trium-
phantly, extending it to all phases of human
became an inspiration
effort, that it

for all who followed and thought Hke him. Neither Condorcet nor Godwin
sought in the limitations of the earthly environment the obstacles to human
progress; neither did they beheve the perfectibihty of human society to be
impossible, that the earth would fail as an environment for these millennial
prospects. These men had their eyes on reform in human affairs, Condorcet
primarily in the reform of law and institutions, Godwin of the individual to
the point that government would become unnecessary. Since population
questions took a back seat to the idea of progress, both men came under Mal-
thus's fire because he beheved the principle of population deserved the closest
scrutiny in such discussions of perfectibility and indefinite progress, although
Malthus did not deny the possibihty of advances in certain fields.
The views of Condorcet and Godwin and Malthus are not without interest
in the controversies of our own day, especially in the optimistic and pessimistic
literature on population growth, soil erosion, and technological advance pub-
lished since the end of World War II. Faith in science, technology, and
invention have now replaced the naivetes of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, but the conflict remains a famihar one: the idea of a Hmited environ-
ment now hard pressed by increased population whose poverty and distress
only accelerates soil erosion and other man-induced disasters, versus faith that
science and technology can, despite population growth, create new food, new
new sources of energy, and rehabihtate old environments.
frontiers,
.The kind and humane Condorcet, a revolutionary of Girondist persuasion
and a member of the "Societe des Amis des Noirs," will show

by appeal to reason and fact that nature has set no term to the perfection of hu-
man faculties; that the perfectibility of man istruly indefinite; and that the
progress of this perfectibility, from now onwards independent of any power
that might wish to halt it, has no other limit than the duration of the globe upon,
which nature has cast us. This progress will doubtless vary in speed, but it will

3^ Ibid.^
pp. 294-295, 297. Mombert, Bevolkerungslehre^ comes to a similar conclusion
regarding Wallace (p. 158).
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility 635

never be reversed as long as the earth occupies its present place in the system of
the universe, and as long as the general laws of this system produce neither a
general cataclysm nor such changes as will deprive the human race of its present
faculties and its present resources.^^

This was a consistent position for Condorcet to take, for it would be hard to
argue for the indefinite progress of mankind without envisaging an earth
whose resources would still be sufficient were demands made upon it by larger
populations and more ravenous technologies increased a thousandfold or a
millionfold.
Condorcet in fact anticipated the objection that progress would bring such
improvement in human well-being and therefore more healthy and more nu-
merous populations that the time might come in the distant future when in-
creased prosperity, industry, and general improvement might be incompatible
with a vastly increased world population. To this question Condorcet, unlike
Wallace, replied in essence that the future will take care of itself. If a large
population is the consequence of the continuing progress of man on his march
to perfection, and if the large numbers of men then become a difficulty, men
with the theoretical knowledge and applied power which at that future time
will be at their disposal because of advances in every realm of human activity,
can meet the difficulty; arts and sciences will continue their advance, super-
stitions will decline in effectiveness. Men at that time

willknow that, if they have a duty towards those who are not yet born, that
duty is not to give them existence but to give them happiness; their aim should
be to promote the general welfare of the human race or of the society in which
they live or of the family to which they belong, rather than foolishly to encum-
ber the world with useless and wretched beings. It is, then, possible that there
should be a limit to the amount of food that can be produced, and, consequently,
to the size of the population of the world, without this involving that untimely
destruction of some of those creatures who have been given life, which is so
contrary to nature and to social prosperity .^^

This passage is not so remote from his own point of view as Malthus thought.
It is true that, unhke Malthus, Condorcet sees the problem as a possible future
one, and even then active steps can achieve adjustments as problems of living
on finite resources become apparent. The significant distinction between the
two men is that Condorcet sees population as a possible future concern while
Malthus sees the principle of population as a natural law operating uniformly
in time and space, with strong reservations about human interferences with it.
In his Political Justice (1793) Godwin had also considered the perfectibility
of man and the idea of progress. It was "Mr. Godwin's Essay on avarice and
profusion, in his Enquirer,'' however, and Malthus's ensuing conversation with

Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, intrc, pp. 4-5.
Ibid., pp. 188-189. See also Fage, "La Revolution Frangaise et la Population," Popula-
tion, 8 (1953), pp. 322-326.
636 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

a friend about it that stimulated him to write his 1798 Essay. Indignant with
Wallace for abruptly abandoning belief in the perfectibihty of man in favor
of a pessimism which saw in continued progress in government and in civiliza-
tion only misery for the human race, Godwin reached, from different prem-
ises, conclusions similar to Condorcet's regarding progress and environmental

limitations which might impede or prevent it. With deep faith in the existence
of a natural harmony and equihbrium in all nature, Godwin abhorred govern-
mental interference; he also was suspicious of social institutions.^^
To Godwin the earth's resources offered no obstacles to the perfectibility
of man; the idea of progress could be believed in with confidence.

Three-fourths of the habitable globe, are now uncultivated. The improvements

to be made in cultivation, and the augmentations the earth is capable of receiving
in the article of productiveness, cannot, as yet, be reduced to any limits of calcu-
lation. Myriads of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and
the earth be yet found sufficient for the support of its inhabitants. It were idle
therefore to conceive discouragement from so distant a contingency. The ra-
tional anticipations of human improvement, are unlimited, not eternal. The very
globe that we inhabit, and the solar system, may, for anything we know, be
subject to decay. Physical casualties of different denominations, may interfere
with the progressive nature of intellect. But, putting these out of the question,
it is certainly most reasonable, to commit so remote a danger to the chance of

such remedies, (remedies, of which perhaps we may, at this time, not have the
smallest idea) as shall suggest themselves, at a period sufficiently early for their
practical application.^^

On the other hand, the Malthusian theory, considered as a theory of re-

source use, denied that solutions to economic and social well-being can be
found in the social world alone, ignoring the hmitations of an environment
which can and does set limits to human achievement.
The idea of progress had opened up new perspectives in interpreting the
nature of the physical environment. These perspectives had been seen by Leib-
niz, who found progress in the cultivation of the earth accompanying progress
in human affairs as well (see p. 377). Even to the lukewarmly religious it must
have seemed that it was the Creator's purpose that men and their institutions
improve in time; that a deity with such a purpose would be niggardly neither
with the food nor with the pleasures He set before the human race. Man's
progress was clear in the many beneficial changes already made on the earth's
surface, in his control of nature, in his adaptation of the entire planet to his
needs and desires, and in his thirst for knowledge and wisdom. Such ideas were
held also by men hostile to organized religion. This humane spirit, this faith

40 See Malthus's preface to the 1798 Essay.

Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Bk. 8, chap. 9, Priestly ed., Vol. 2, pp. 515-
516.
^Ibid., pp. 518-519.
 Environment^ Population, and Perfectibility ^37

in man and and improve himself, suffuses the work

his ability to achieve goals
of Condorcet, whose "Sketch" make poignant reading today because the
technical mastery that Condorcet had hoped for has been achieved to a degree
undreamed of by him, indeed, undreamed of by hundreds of milHons less than
twenty-five years ago, without that parallel progress in other phases of human
existence he also assumed would occur. The impHed con-
idea of progress
comitant improvement in agriculture, soil fertility, drainage, and health mea-
sures. It did not envisage permanent deterioration of soil and forest; it supplied
the all-enveloping optimism regarding the capacity of the earth to support its

peoples. In its emphasis on human amelioration, the environment often seemed

to become more and more abstract. It is a situation not unknown in the social
sciences today.

4. On the Malthusian Principle of

Population in General

Seventeenth and eighteenth century writers on population had shown the

historical relationship of population theory to the Christian religion, to the
idea of progress, and to the physical environment; in Malthus these threads
were woven into a cohesive whole which neither defenders nor detractors
forgot. Malthus easily excelled his predecessors in this fresh attempt to show
the environmental limitations which men must understand and accept. He
was not interested in showing how environments mold culture (ideas of this
kind gleaned perhaps from Humboldt and others do occasionally appear in
his writings) nor to any extent in how human cultures have modified the en-
vironment. Few men in the history of Western thought have exerted an in-
fluence comparable to his; this was based on his own ideas and the researches
he undertook for editions following the first essay, and on the skill with
which, in his forceful WTitings, he combined ideas which individually by now
had become quite familiar. His ideas, brought into biology by Darwin and
Wallace, reentered the world of men through the social Darwinism of the
late nineteenth century. Towering figures of nineteenth century thought,
like August Comte and Herbert Spencer, have become indistinct in the twen-
tieth century; they lack the freshness and interest of Malthus, although it must
be acknowledged that the revival of interest in his writings is due to wide-
spread alarm over population growth, even if what Malthus had to say on these
subjects is of little relevance to the present.
Malthus's doctrine is based on two general ideas: the fecundity and pleni-

tude of life, and the forces in nature (in life and in the inanimate world) which
constantly are at work controlling this relentless expansiveness. All living
things have a tendency to increase geometrically if their multiplication is un-
interfered with and if there is sufficient food for them. They do not increase
638 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

in this manner under natural conditions or under man's control because

either
other forms of life or environmental controls prevent it. Living things under
man's control are subject to the hazards of man's neglect or his inability to
provide good soils or pasture. The same principles apply to man, but owing
to long settlement in populated areas, their operation is not clearly apparent.
A relatively unoccupied country like the United States provides the example
of what can be expected of a small population in a large area of plentiful food,
despite the fact that it is not an ideal example because of disease and hardships
common there. In no country, in no state of society known, "has the power
of population been left to exert itself with perfect freedom."*^ The amount
of food for human populations is subject to unavoidable limitations; good
lands are not available in abundance, and when all are occupied, providing
the world's food will become increasingly difficult. Furthermore, machinery
and invention are less likely to produce spectacular improvements in agri-
culture than in industry and manufacturing. With the exception of famine
conditions, food is never an immediate check to population; customs, which
Malthus apparently thinks are fears transformed into folk tradition, disease,
and all causes "of a moral or physical nature, which tend prematurely to
weaken and destroy the human frame" are the immediate checks.^* Since the
principle of population is a law of nature, it is constant in its operation; it is
wrong to think it a theory of overpopulation, to represent the difficulties as

arising "at a great and almost immeasurable distance," to think that it operates
geographically, with more intensity, for example, in India or China than in
Europe.^^
Human institutions, customs, ideals, may alleviate conditions somewhat but
they too must bow to natural law. This insistence on the principle being a
natural law earned Malthus the enmity of men who saw in human institutions,
economic systems, fossiHzed custom, sufficient causes of the miseries of man-
kind. Human institutions, Malthus wrote in answer to Godwin, "appear to
be, and indeed often are, the obvious and obtrusive causes of much mischief
to society, they are, in reality, light and superficial in comparison with those
deeper-seated causes of evil which result from the laws of nature and the pas-
sions of mankind."^^ Permanent improvement is possible only from a lowered
birthrate. Malthus opposed artificial birth control as an unwarranted and per-
haps dangerous interference in natural processes. In Condorcet's allusions
"either to a promiscuous concubinage, which would prevent breeding, or to
something else as unnatural," Malthus saw destruction of "that virtue and

43VoLi,p. 7.
44 Vol. I, p. 12.
Vol.2, p. I. Many variants— among them, that the principle of population acted in
4^

the past; that it applies only to certain geographical areas; that it will operate only in the
future— are foreign to Malthus's thought. On this point, see Mombert, Bevdlkerungslehre^
pp. 199-200, 204.
46 Vol. 2, p. 12.
 Environment, Fopidation, and Perfectibility 639

purity of manners which the advocates of equality and of the perfectibility

of man profess to be the end and object of their views."^^
National or even local conditions might show the principle erroneous, but
Malthus thought such a conclusion to be based on a partial view. The whole
earth is the proper unit for study: It could not have been peopled nor could
its population have been replenished when decimated by war, natural catas-
trophe, disease, without that spur of necessity caused by the constant tendency
of a population to increase up to the limits of the food available to it. The
principle of population is responsible for the geographic distribution of man-
kind on earth. The spur of necessity had prevented a concentration of popu-
lation on the world's best lands, while the rest remained deserted.^^
Malthus likened the earth variously to a closed room, to an island, and to a
reservoir. The closed-room metaphor was intended to show the irrelevancy
to the principle of population of the argument that there was no population
problem as long as large areas of the world were still uninhabited and great
tracts of land in the inhabited areas were still available for use: "A man who
is locked up in a room may be fairly said to be confined by the walls of it,

though he may never touch them; and with regard to the principle of popula-
tion, it is never the question whether a country will produce any more^ but
whether it may be made to produce a sufficiency to keep pace with a nearly
unchecked increase of people."^^ The moral of the reservoir comparison is
that human beings are more skilled in the utilization than in the creation of
resources.

Where there are few people, and a great quantity of fertile land, the power of
the earth to afford a yearly increase of food may be compared to a great reservoir
of water supplied by a moderate stream. The faster population increases, the
more help will be got to draw and consequently an increasing
off the water,
quantity will be taken every year. But the sooner, undoubtedly, will the reservoir
be exhausted, and the streams only remain.^^

This reveahng comparison shows how narrowly Malthus regarded land as

merely the container of agriculture; land was abstract, static, with no hint of
destructive land use; a modern student of natural resources would say that

Vol. 2, p. 5. This does not pretend to be

a general exposition of the Malthusian the-
ory. My purpose here is to discuss his ideas as a form of environmental theory. See Pen-
rose, Population Theories and Their Application-, Keynes's essay on Malthus in his Essays
in Biography; Spengler, "Malthus's Total Population Theory: a Restatement and Reap-
praisal," Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. XI (1945), pp. 83-110, 234-264; Mombert,
Bevolkerungslehre, pp. 159-170; Bonar's discussion of Malthus's theses, Malthus and His
Work, pp. 60-84; Smith, The Malthusian Controversy, and Boulding's foreword to
Population: The First Essay. Peterson, Population, pp. 507-535. The already large htera-
ture on Malthus has increased considerably in the last fifteen years or so, coinciding with
the revival of interest in him.
1798 Essay, pp. 363-365; 7th ed., Vol. i, p. 59.
Vol. 2, p. 149.
1798 Essay, pp. 106-107, footnote.
640 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

when was exhausted, the help would go to the stream and con-
the reservoir
tinue upward. Comparing the world to an island disposed of those who saw
in emigration a permanent cure for distress caused by local or temporary
overcrowding. "There is probably no island yet known, the produce of which
could not be further increased. This is all that can be said of the whole earth.
Both are peopled up to their actual produce. And the whole earth is in this
respect hke an island."^^
Malthus's insistence that the whole earth should be regarded as a unit
presents difficulties which are realized more poignantly today than in his time.
Despite the obvious barriers to the free movement of peoples, such as national
boundaries, customs, law, and regulation, population is often considered with
relation to thewhole earth because it is the ultimate finite limit to the support
of human There is a polarity of views, those who say that it is unrealistic
life.

to think of population and food in relation to the world as a whole because of

the existence of national states, and those who say that it is meaningful to
calculate the potential population of the earth by some formula that indicates
the carrying capacity of the earth, because the condition of the total popula-
tion ultimately will affect its national component parts. Malthus reahzed that
the earth, in his time, was only many areas were still
partially populated, that
open to settlement, but it is an error, he said in reply to Godwin, to suppose
"that no distress or difficulty would arise from a redundant population before
the earth absolutely refused to produce any more."^^ Certainly the world
could be more densely populated than it is; but there are difficulties in coloni-
zation and emigration: Indigenous peoples could not be starved out; if they
were taught and their minds improved, their population would increase and
"it would rarely happen that a great degree of knowledge and industry would

have to operate at once upon rich unappropriated soil."^^ These interesting

arguments, including Malthus's sensitivity to the treatment of native peoples,
are really cultural arguments that modify the principle of population. Since
indigenous peoples, with education and new techniques, would quickly fill up
their sparsely settled lands, these no longer are open to others. When all fertile
lands are occupied, further increases must come from improvements in land
already being cultivated. "When acre has been added to acre till all the fertile
land is occupied, the yearly increase of food must depend upon the meliora-
tion of the land already in possession. This is a fund, which, from the nature
of all soils, instead of increasing must be gradually diminishing."^^
In the following passage that aroused the contemptuous anger of Godwin,
Malthus reveals how impressed he is with the fecundity of nature, how he
tries, as a Christian, to make his principle conform to his belief in a benevolent

Creator, how at the same time he turns aside objections from defenders of the

5^ yth ed., Vol. i, p. 44.

52/Z;/J., Vol. 2, p. 13.
53 Vol. I, p. 9.
54 Ibid.,
p. 3.
 Environment Population, and
y
Perfectibility 64

design argument who saw in his principle a contradiction to the commands of

Genesis to increase and multiply:

But, if any person make the calculation, he will see that

will take the trouble to
if the necessaries of could be obtained and distributed without limit, and the
life

number of people could be doubled every twenty-five years, the population

which might have been produced from a single pair since the Christian aera,
would have been sufficient, not only to fill the earth quite full of people, so that
four should stand in every square yard, but to fill all the planets of our solar
system in the same way, and not only them, but all the planets revolving around
the stars which are visible to the naked eye, supposing each of them to be a sun,,
and to have as many planets belonging to it as our sun has. Under the law of
population, which, excessive as it may appear when stated in this way, is, I firmly
believe, best suited to the nature and situation of man, it is quite obvious that
some limit to the production of food, or some other of the necessaries of life,
must exist. ... It is not easy to conceive a more disastrous present— one more likely
to plunge the human race in irrecoverable misery, than an unlimited facility of
producing food in a limited space. A benevolent Creator then, knowing the
wants and necessities of his creatures, under the laws to which he had subjected
them, could not, in mercy, have furnished the whole of the necessaries of life in
the same plenty as air and water. This shews at once the reason why the former
are limited in quantity, and the latter poured out in profusion.^^

How will the earth become fully peopled? Assuming in the beginning a
small population in a large area, the population would increase and would
press upon food supply until poverty and misery intervened; these would
cause a cheapness of labor and provide the incentive for increased industry.
(Malthus's use of contemporary English situations is jarring in this descrip-
tion of an historical process seemingly of great antiquity.) Cultivators would
employ more men by whose efforts lands already in usewould be improved
and the area of cultivation simultaneously extended, thus increasing the means
of subsistence and permitting the population to increase. The cycle could
then begin anew until the whole earth would fill up and become the final
limiting factor; the amplitude of the oscillations would progressively decrease
until there would be only minor ones in a state approaching but not reaching
equiHbrium. Ironically, one byproduct of this theory was Malthus's insistence
on the importance of cultural history. The be noticed by
oscillations will not
superficial observers and even the most penetrating may find it difficult to
calculate its periods. Why has it been so little noticed? One reason is that his-
tories are largely those of the upper classes. "We have but few accounts that
can be depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind,
where these retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place."^^
Although Malthus does not discuss the possible destructive effects of in-
creasing population pressure on the land (he should not be chided for this,
because few in his day did), he thought that population increase would

Godwin, Of Population, pp. 500-501 Malthus, Principles of Political Economy (Lon-

;

don, 1820), pp. 227-228.

5^
1798 Essay, p. 32, substantially repeated in 7th ed., Vol. i, pp. 16-17.
642 Environment^ Fopulationy and Perfectibility

"force" good lands and require the cultivation of poor ones; the costs, how-
ever, apparently are seen only in terms of capital and labor required. He does,
however, mention accusations of ill-considered deforestation by the Swedes
and Norwegians. The deeply pessimistic impHcations of Malthus's doctrine
do not come, as many seem to believe, from the ratios but from the doctrine-
advanced by Malthus in his Political Economy and other writings, as well as
by James West and David Ricardo— that in the history of civilization, the best
up first; thus as civilization advances and mankind increases
lands are taken
in numbers, it expands onto poorer and poorer lands. The question of the
historical sequence in the occupation of land received considerable attention
in the nineteenth century (to Mill, for example, it is crucial) because of its
effect on the idea of progress. If civilization has within it the seeds of inevitable
progress, heavy blocks are in its path if it is forced to rely on poorer and poorer
lands. Malthus, West, and Ricardo all had their eyes on England and they
were generahzing from it.^^ In 1 848 the American social scientist, H. C. Carey,
complained that "Mr. Ricardo places his settler on the best lands, and the
children of that settler on those which are inferior. He makes man the victim
of a sad necessity, increasing with his numbers," whereas he is "exercising
constantly increasing power, derived from combined exertion by those num-
bers." Carey, whose eye was on American history, applies the idea of progress
to agriculture as well. The historical progression, in his view, has been from
the poor to the best soils because he assumes the best soils to be the most in-
accessible to a primitive technology, the most luxuriantly covered with vege-
tation, and the most unhealthful. Poor soils of uplands are used first because
man's control of nature is feeble; the progression to the best soils is related to
the history of technology, to the increasing control over nature.^^
The illuminating comparisons which Malthus made between the soils and
the machines of factories and manufacturing plants show the source of his
pessimism to be partly in his appraisal of soils: "The earth has sometimes been
compared to a vast machine, presented by nature to man for the production
of food and raw materials," but the soil is really a great number of machines,
"of very different original qualities and powers." Unlike the machinery em-
ployed in manufacturing— where constant improvements are made and pro-
duction can increase after patents have expired— soils as the machines of food
production vary from very poor to the very good.^^

Malthus, AnInquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent [181 5], pp. 15-17, 20-21,
33-34; West, The Application of Capital to Land, pp. 9-16; Ricardo, The Principles of
Political Economy and Taxation (Everyman's Library ed.), p. 35. On the history of this
idea, see Cannan, A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English
Political Economy from i-j-jS to 1848, 3rd ed., pp. 155-182. On the Scandinavian deforesta-
tion, 7th ed., Vol. I, pp. 169-170.
H. C. Carey, The Past, The Present, and the Future, pp. 17-24; quote on p. 24; Prin-
ciples of Social Science, Vol. I, pp. 94-146, on the occupation of the earth.
59 Malthus, Principles of Political Economy,
pp. 184-186.
 Environment^ Population, and Perfectibility 643

Since the best cannot alone provide for an increased population, the
soils

poorer ones must be cultivated, with more and more labor being applied less
and less efficiently. Agriculture and manufacturing thus are at opposite ex-
tremes. The conclusion is inescapable that, with advancing civihzation and
population increase, it becomes more and more costly in money and human
effort to obtain a subsistence.
Soils alone, however, do not determine agricultural progress; one must also
take into account the moral and physical qualities of those who till them. If
soil fertility alone were an adequate stimulus to wealth, the human race would

not have the stimulus to work which is the secret of progress. Malthus quotes
Humboldt in support of this argument.
He was impressed with Humboldt's account of the various foods of New
Spain, among them the banana, manioc, and maize, and the manner of their
cultivation. Humboldt singled out the banana for special praise ("Je doute
une autre plante sur le globe qui, sur un si petit espace de terrain,
qu'il existe
puisse produire une masse de substance nourrissante aussi considerable"), a
wonderful food grown with ridiculous ease on fertile soils. It is repeatedly
said in the Spanish Colonies that the inhabitants of the tierra caliente will only
emerge from their centuries-long apathy when a royal decree orders the
destruction of the banana trees, adding that those who so zealously propose
this violent remedy display generally no more activity than the lower classes
they wish to force to serve their growing needs. He hopes the Mexicans will
become more industrious without the necessity of destroying the trees. In con-
sidering, however, the ease with which man can sustain himself in such a cli-
mate, it is not surprising that, in the equinoctial region of the New World,
mountains on a less fertile soil and in an environment
civilization arose in the
less favorable for the development of organic life and in which need is the

spur to industry. Malthus concluded that tropical luxuriance induced lethargy

among people; nature is generous, not niggardly, and this generosity is favor-
and to unprogressive
able to continual poverty, thinly peopled lands, civiliza-

tions. Malthus quoted Humboldt with approval; he was not going to let any-
one progress without hard work.^°
It is land that is suited for agriculture, especially cereal farming, that seems

to interest Malthus most. Moreover, when he discusses Chinese agriculture,

he is interested in the cultural milieu; it is not depicted solely as a function of
environment. Agriculture there can produce a large population because social
tradition is behind it. China's deep and excellent soils and the way in which
they are manured, cultivated, and watered; its situation in favored areas of the
temperate zone; the industry of its inhabitants; its lakes, rivers, brooks, and
and its long tradition of respect for agriculture and governmental en-
canals;
couragement of it— these are responsible for supporting the Chinese popula-

Ibid., pp. 382-384; Humboldt, Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-

Espagne, Vol. 3, pp. 37-39; quote on p. 28.
 .

644 Environment^ Population, and Perfectibility

tion. Here, as in so many eighteenth century discussions of China, is the fine

hand of Father du Halde.^^
Elsewhere he clearly sees that ways of life ask cultural questions, not simply
environmental ones. The prolific power of nature seems ready to exert its full

force in every country, he says; but can governments suppose they could
induce their peoples to produce the maximum amount the earth was capable
of? Such action would violate the law of property,

from which everything that is valuable to man has hitherto arisen. But what . . .

statesman or rational government could propose that all animal food should be
prohibited, that no horses should be used for business or pleasure, that all the
people should live upon potatoes, and that the whole industry of the nation
should be exerted in the production of them, except what was required for the
mere necessaries of clothing and houses? Could such a revolution be effected,
would it be desirable? particularly as in a few years, notwithstanding all these
exertions, want, with less resource than ever, would inevitably recur.*^^

Although he thought agriculture the basic factor in population growth, he

saw in the combination of agriculture, commerce, and industry the key to
economic progress, and his ideas here are closer to those of twentieth century
economists than to the physiocrats writing a generation before him.
Malthus wrote before the beginning of modern soil science. Theories of
soilswere not scientific; they could only be judged empirically. When Mal-
thus was comparing soils with machines, the agricultural chemists of the
period were for the most part committed to the humus theory.^^
With his soil theory and his belief that historically the best lands were
taken up first, the pessimism regarding the food-producing capacities of the
earth for future populations becomes deeper, environmental limitations more
unyielding and less subject to human intervention.

5. Conceptions of Progress, Theology,

AND THE Nature of Man in the Malthusian Doctrine
Malthus did not beheve that any improvement in human nature could be
expected, or that reform in government and institutions could— or should—
alter the operations of the principle of population. That they helped could
not be denied, but the hopes of those who relied on institutional reform
would be dissolved in sterner and deeper reahties of nature.
Moreover, he had views of his own on progress. In the second and fol-

61 7th ed.. Vol. I, p. 126; Du

Halde, Description Geographique, Historique, Chrono-
logique, Politique, et Physique de I' Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise, Vol. 2,

esp. pp. 163-186, "De I'abondance qui regne a la Chine." This volume also has discussions
of Chinese agriculture, artisans, climate, canals and lakes, etc., which M. read.
62 7th ed.. Vol.
2, p. 52.
63 Charles A. Browne, A Source Book
of Agricultural Chemistry. See excerpts from
Wallerius, Lavoisier, Thaer, and Einhoff
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility 645

lowing editions of his work, Malthus does not begin with a discussion of
population at all but with the method of inquiring into the improvement of
society; the way "which naturally presents itself, is, i. To investigate the
causes that have hitherto impeded the progress of mankind towards happi-
ness; and, 2. To examine the probability of the total or partial removal of
these causes in future."^^
This is not the program of a man biased in favor of inevitable social change.
Quite the contrary, it is the statement of one who assumes a resistance to
change among men and in society, of a behever in progress through human
effort. In several places in his works Malthus mentions the slothful nature of

man. This conception of man's nature is fundamental in his philosophy be-

cause it is the constant spur of necessity that goads him on. Niggardly nature
and slothful man are the ingredients of the principle of population.^^
The principle of population is the motive force of progress; because of it,
the earth was peopled and its habitability maintained by cultivation. He had
no plan, he said, to improve society; he was content with understanding the
obstacles in the way of improvement.^^ In place of a law of progress which
applied to every aspect of human life, he offered a conception much less

comprehensive. "I have endeavoured to expose the fallacy of that argument

which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limits
of which cannot be exactly ascertained."^^
He disagreed with Ricardo on unilinear progress, expressing his opinion
that "the progress of society consists of irregular movements," that "we see
in all the countries around us, and in our own particularly, periods of greater
or less prosperity and sometimes adversity, but Jiever the uniform progress
which you seem alone to contemplate."^^ This he wrote in 18 17, but it ex-
pressed sentiments similar to those of 1798:

The present rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind of
mental intoxication, arising perhaps, from the great and unexpected discoveries
which have been made of late years, in various branches of science. To men
elate, and giddy with such successes, everything appeared to be within the grasp
of human powers; and, under this illusion, they confounded subjects where no
real progress could be proved, with those, where the progress had been marked,
certain, and acknowledged.^^

Malthus was more optimistic, however, than many of his interpreters have
represented him to be:

From a review of the state of society in former periods compared with the pres-
ent, I should certainly say that the evils resulting from the principle of population

6^ yth ed., Vol. i, p. 5.

^5 For a typical statement regarding slothful man, see ibid., p. 59.
^^Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 258.
®^
1798 Essay, p. 216.
Quoted in John Maynard Keynes, Essays in Biography, pp. 139-140.
69
1798 Essay, p. 31; 7th ed., Vol. 2, p. 26.
646 Environment^ Population, and Perfectibility

have rather diminished than increased, even under the disadvantage of almost
total ignorance of the real cause. And if we can indulge the hope that this igno-
rance will be gradually dissipated, it does not seem unreasonable to expect that
they will be still further diminished. The increase of absolute population, which
will of course take place, will evidently tend but little to weaken this expecta-
tion, as everything depends upon the relative proportion between population
and food, and not on the absolute number of people.''^

The 1798 essay appeared at a time when little was known either about
the population of the world or the details of its distribution. In Europe, the
estimate of a world population of about a billion had become somewhat of a
convention, Siissmilch's estimate of 1761 being accepted throughout the latter
part of the eighteenth century. From 1781 to 18 15 the Almanach de Goth a
had repeated the 1761 Siissmilch estimate of one billion.^^
Because the great mass of criticism directed at Malthus has come from
those who have opposed the social and political imphcations of his principle-
Utopian and Marxist socialists, and reformists within the capitalistic system
among them— it is necessary to add that Malthus, like Lyell and Darwin later,
had to meet the criticism from religion and physico-theology, typically in-
herent in the thought of Siissmilch and in Luther's famous saying, "Gott
macht die Kinder und will sie ernahren." The biblical injunction to increase
and multiply, Malthus realizes, might seem to oppose the principle. One of
the principal reasons, he says, preventing agreement with his principle "is a
great unwillingness to believe that the Deity would by the laws of nature
bring beings into existence, which by the laws of nature could not be sup-
ported in that existence. "^^ In reply Aialthus appeals to natural laws to which
human beings are subject, rejecting by implication any anthropocentrism
which would involve the personal and active concern of the Deity. The
Deity operates through these laws, and the incidental evils arising from them
constantly direct attention to the need for moral restraint as the "proper
check to population." It is natural law that must be understood. Our duties
are pointed out to us by the Hght of nature and reason; they are confirmed
and sanctioned by revelation.'^^
Taking his cue from St. Paul, he thinks marriage is right if it does not in-
terfere with one's higher duties, wrong if it does. We learn the will of God
from the light of nature, he says, quoting Paley approvingly, by inquiring
into the tendency of an action to promote or diminish general happiness.
Malthus argues for restraint, maintaining that one of the worst acts diminish-
ing happiness is to marry without the means to support children. Such acts
are against the will of God, a burden on society, and they make it difficult to

70 yth ed., Vol. 2, p. 26.

7^ Behm and Wagner, "Die Bevolkerung der Erde, II," Fetermanns Mitteilungen Er-
gdnzungsband 8, No. 35, p. 5 (1873-74).
72 Vol. 2, p. 160.
-'^Ibid.
 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

preserve virtuous habits in the family. Moral restraint exercised by individuals

therefore has a key position in the doctrine, because Malthus believes the
problem of population is closely related to "internal tyranny and internal
tumult" and to war/* Virtue in observance of natural law avoids evil conse-
quences to the individual and to society, and there is therefore no reason to
impeach divine justice. "It is the apparent object of the Creator to deter us
from vice by the pains which accompany and to lead us to virtue by the
it,

happiness that it produces. This object appears to our conceptions to be

worthy of a benevolent Creator."^^
Malthus's discussion of disease is also consistent with this concept of a
Deity acting through the laws of nature. If they are intermediate between
God and nature including man, natural and moral evil become instruments of
admonishment— not direct and personal, of course, but through the lessons
they teach, the knowledge they impart, the experience they give. Diseases
should be regarded not as inevitable inflictions of Providence but more "as
indications that we have offended against some of the laws of nature." Plagues
are such admonitions; properly heeded, they enable man to improve his con-
dition. The lessons of the plague prevalent in London until 1666 were not
lost on our ancestors. They removed nuisances, constructed drains, widened
streets, permitted more room and air in their houses, measures which had "the

effect of eradicating completely this dreadful disorder, and of adding greatly

to the health and happiness of the inhabitants."^^ Thus to Malthus, mankind
is subject to the general laws of nature, not to specific intercessions of the
Deity; these laws are benevolent if men know their operations and abide by
their teachings. There is therefore, in his opinion, no conflict between the
biblical injunction to increase and multiply and the principle of population.
"A common man, who must be convinced that a command
has read his Bible,
given to a rational being by a merciful God cannot be intended so to be inter-
preted as to produce only disease and death instead of multiplication. ."^^
. .

Thus in a period when there was still much conjecture about the true state
of population, of war and economic uncertainty, of migration to cities, of
the beginning of a new kind of industrialization, one of the most influential
ideas of modern times was formulated and disseminated, its simpHcity per-
mitting quick popularization, easy quotation, and both accurate and inaccu-
rate paraphrasing. Western thought has never been the same since Malthus;
over 150 years of controversy is sufficient proof of his place in Western
thought. He created a new view of the world out of old materials, a synthesis
coming from notions of fecundity, from theology, from known or suspected
statistical regularities, from the social conditions of Europe, from travelers'

accounts of widely scattered regions, from reports of great population growth

74/^/i.,pp. 165-166.
p. 167.
76 pp. 152-153.
77 Ibid.,
p. 67.
648 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

in the newly settled regions of America. In Malthus's forceful prose, the

environment had become a perpetual challenge to mankind. If however we
probe deeper, beyond the principle of population and the ratios, what is the
philosophy of God, man, and nature that is expounded? I do not think it is
an error to base the reply mainly on the first essay, for the fundamental
philosophical ideas of Malthus did not change, although there are great dif-
ferences between the first essay and the thoroughly documented treatises that
followed it.

In Malthus's writings there is a strong emphasis on emotion and passion, no

doubt in part stimulated by the irrationality and brutality of the Reign of
Terror. But there no denigration of sensual pleasure.^^ Men have deep and
is

violent passions, but they are also indolent and averse to labor, constantly
needing something or someone to prod them along. Malthus is no ranter about
"^^
sin. "Life is, generally speaking, a blessing independent of a future state.
In the book olf nature we alone can read God as he is. The world and this life

are a "mighty process of God, not for the trial but for the creation and forma-
tion of mind."^^
Neither does he deny the force and vigor of the sexual drives. In fact, any
diminution of them might make it difficult to attain the great end of the cre-
ation, the peopling of the earth. The emphasis therefore is on control. Com-
menting on Godwin's remark, "Strip the commerce of the sexes of all its
attendant circumstances, and it would be generally despised," Malthus says,
"He might as well say to a man who admires trees, strip them of their spread-
ing branches and lovely foliage, and what beauty can you see in a bare pole?
But it was the tree with the branches and foliage and not without them, that
excited admiration."^^
He was dazzled by the fullness and luxuriance of nature, with an awe so
characteristic of Western thought, and by the profligate extravagance of life
despite all checks. Like Humboldt, he saw the infinite variety of form and
operations of nature, awakening and improving the mind "by the variety of
impressions that it creates," opening also new avenues for investigation and
research.^^ The middle regions of society between riches and poverty seem
most favorable to intellectual improvement, but one cannot expect all society
to be a middle region. Similarly, "The temperate zones of the earth, seem to
be the most favourable to the mental, and corporeal energies of man; but all

cannot be temperate zones."^^

Malthus's contribution to the ideas we are discussingwas that he related
population theory to philosophy, history, and ethnology; on the whole, the

7^
1798 Essay, pp. 210-212.
'^^Ibid., p. 391.
Ibid., p. 353.
Vol. 2, p. 155, citing Political Justice, Vol. i, Bk. i, chap. 5.
^2
1798 Essay, p. 378.
Ibid., p. 367.
 Environment, Fopiilation, and Perfectibility 649

principle is not yoked up enthusiastically with

a philosophy of design and
final causes.Malthus did not accept, as Siissmilch did, a close connection be-
tween Genesis and population theory; he ignored the cheerful optimism of
writers steeped in physico-theology. His emphasis is on natural law, on the
study of mankind in human terms, in history, ethnology, and statistics. If
he was an innovator in none of these, his writings gave them new significance
and new incentives for study. Malthus's essay also is one of the early chal-
lenges to the assumption of inevitable progress; he advises men to study social
and cultural history with a look to backslidings as well; in essence he called
for a more profound kind of historiography than then existed.
Man modifies the earth, and it is by the design of Providence that he does
so because only by the principle of population would the earth be fully culti-
vated. The principle of population thus accounts for the peopling of the
world, the distribution of mankind and its settlement in less desirable places
and repopulation after catastrophe, and indirectly for modifications of the
earth by man. "The processes of ploughing and clearing the ground, of col-
lecting and sowing seeds, are not surely for the assistance of God in his cre-
ation; but are made previously necessary to the enjoyment of the blessings
"^^
of life, in order to rouse man into action, and form his mind to reason.
Thus there are in Malthus's writings evidences of the ideas whose history
we have been discussing. The physico-theology is restrained and in the English
tradition of Ray and Derham. The religion of nature is inspired by Romans
1:20. Environmental influences, however, are subordinated to the more funda-
mental and abstract influence of a limited total environment. And man modi-
fies his environment in order to live, to act, to use his mind.

Finally, Malthus put in forceful, strikingly metaphorical language, and

particularly in the first essay, the choice between environmental and social
causation. Much of the subsequent history of population theory can be written
in terms of the choices posed by Malthus; the Marxian hostility in the U.S.S.R.
(which later extended even to Darwin) to Malthusian theory is a well-known
example because to Marxists population questions are meshed with a teleology
of economic and social development, and are not matters of natural law against
which human beings strive in vain. Malthus had stated the case for the limita-
tions of the environment; he had also shown that the assumptions of those who
believed in the inevitability of progress in all phases of human activity were
in need of reexamination.

6. A Final Answer to Malthus

Twenty-two years after the appearance of Malthus's essay, William Godwin

published Of Population, a book over six hundred pages long; it is largely
concerned with Malthus. One of the men responsible for Malthus's first essay

84 Ibid.,
p. 361.
650 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

now returned to combat in the hope of finishing off the Malthusian theory
once and for all/^

Of Population is work; no one, not even Godwin's admirers,

a neglected
seems to have taken it is poorly organized and it lacks intellectual
seriously. It
distinction. Though he repeatedly says he bears Malthus no personal resent-
ment, the frequently declamatory and intolerant tone is inconsistent with
Godwin's claim of objective and dispassionate refutation. Nevertheless God-
win, who looks forward to the dawn of a brighter age, made some teUing
objections to the Malthus doctrine. It was a fallacy to base a doctrine (a
"system that has gained a success in the world wholly unprecedented") on
one example. Malthus had discovered the principle of population in the north-
eastern part of the United States. "If America had never been discovered, the
geometrical ratio, as applied to the multiplication of mankind, would never
have been known. If the British colonies had never been planted, Mr. Malthus
would never have written. "^^ There was no proof, Godwin said, that the in-
creased population of the United States had come from procreation only.
The United States, a free government with liberal institutions, wished "greater
multitudes to partake [of] these blessings." The entire lower classes of Europe
would migrate in a body were it not for the love men have for their birth-
place and for their poverty. It was emigration from the Old World, and
emigrants in the "flower of their lives," that caused the American increase.
Godwin denied there was a greater number of children and that there were
fewer premature deaths from disease and other causes in America than in
Europe. America, like all newly settled countries, is unhealthful and North
America abounds in swamps. Relying largely on Count Volney's View of
the CUinate and Soil of the United States, Godwin stressed the toll taken in
America by tuberculosis, dysentery, and yellow fever. The widespread pre-
mature tooth decay, observed by Volney, was also evidence of unhealthful
American conditions.^^
(One could write an interesting essay concerning the influence of Ameri-
can settlement history on social and political thought in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Its early population growth in a thinly populated region
proved, so Malthus thought, the truth of the geometrical ratio. Its further
settlement, cultivation, and exploitation, and the wheat surpluses, especially
those of the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century, revealed the
fallacy of the principle. Henry George said as much in Progress and Poverty
in denouncing the Malthusian theory, and many others agreed with him.
Finally, interpretations of the frontier by Turner and others opened up a new
phase in the history of ideas of closed space.)
Since Malthus's discovery is based on the American increase, once "this

Of Population, pp. iv-vii.

Ibid., pp. 142, 139-140.
^'^
Ibid., pp. 374-380, 403-404, 418, 430-443. See Volney, View of the Climate and Soil
of the United States, pp. 278-332.
 1

Environment, Fopulatioii, and Perfectibility 65

idle and extravagant hypothesis" is removed, ''the whole science stands just
as it did before iMr. Malthus wrote. ."^^ Godwin repeatedly says we live in
. .

an "unpeopled world. "^^ Would it not have been fairer to have deduced a
principle of population by surveying the entire globe? Any such survey
would reveal the thinness and scattering of the world's population, how to
make better use of the uninhabited regions, and how they might be "replen-
ished with a numerous and happy race."^^
Godwin would not allow Malthus to enact laws of nature. His principle
"is Law of Nature. It is the Law of very artificial life.''^^ If Malthus is
not the
right, why is not the globe fully peopled? If such strenuous measures are
necessary to restrain the tendency of population to increase, how is it that
"the world is wide and desolate place, where men crawl about
a wilderness, a
in little herds, comfortless, unable from the dangers of freebooters, and the
dangers of wild beasts to wander from climate to chmate, and without that
mutual support and cheerfulness which a populous earth would most naturally
"^2
afford?
Godwin's rebuttal of the natural law is based on the evidence from the his-
tory of human settlement and on the actual distribution of mankind on earth.
Godwin was right! Why should population theory be considered indepen-
dently of the history of human settlement? To Godwin, problems of popu-
lation growth are basically historical ones. What of depopulation? Why are
European and Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Egypt, and a multitude of other coun-
tries so thinly inhabited now compared "to what they were in the renowned

periods of their ancient history?" Godwin answers that soil exhaustion is not
the cause. "Certainly it is not because another blade of corn refuses to grow
on their surface." The found "in the government and pohtical
cause is to be
administration of these countries."^^ He
is sympathetic with the complaints of

depopulation which Montesquieu voiced in the Persian Letters; and he felt

that Hume's essay had done little more than "to throw some portion of un-
certainty on the subject."^*
Why had not the geometrical ratio been tested by the experience of an
Old World country like China? It would be an ideal example, since mar-
riage is encouraged, celibacy discouraged; it has no manufacturing cities to
produce waste; and the quiet life of women makes them more prolific, safe-
guarding them from untimely births. Neither he nor Malthus, he says, knows
anything about the population of China, but on the basis of statements made

Ibid.^ p. 141.
89 Ibid.,
pp. 485-486.
^^Ibid., pp. 15-16.
91 Ibid.,
p. 20.
92 Ibid.,
pp. 20-21.
93 Ibid.,
pp. 309-3 10.
94 Ibid.,
p. 40. Godwin is referring to Persian Letters, No. 108, and to Hume's essay, "Of
the Populousness of Ancient Nations."
95 Ibid., chap. 6.
 Environment, Fopiilation, and Perfectibility

by Malthus himself, Godwin thinks that "the statesmen and legislators of

China, who have proceeded with a steady, and perhaps I may add an enlight-
ened, attention to the subject for centuries, not only have no suspicion of
the main principles taught in the Essay on Population, but are deeply im-
pressed with the persuasion that, without encouragement and care to prevent
it, the numbers of the human species have a perpetual tendency to decHne."^^
Racial and cultural intermingling and migrations seem to affect popula-
tion growth. Could not population increase be ascribed to such mixing, de-
cline to isolation and inbreeding? Crossing seems to improve the breed in
both men and animals. **May not the quahties of the present race of Europeans
... be materially owing to the invasions of the Celts and the Cimbri, the Goths
"^^
and Vandals, the Danes, the Saxons, and the Normans?
In denying that the principle of population is a law of nature, Goodwin in
effect said that the numbers and distribution of the world's peoples are basically
problems of history and geography.
"Population, if we consider it historically, appears to be a fitful principle,

operating intermittedly [sic] and by starts. This is the great mystery of the
subject; and patiently to investigate the causes of its irregular progress seems
worthy of the philosopher."^^
to be a business highly
Furthermore Godwin, like Malthus, viewed the earth and its resources as a
whole, making one of the earliest estimates known to me of its carrying
capacity— which he computed to be nine billion people.^^
The productivity of the earth can be endlessly improved, substituting the
plough for the pasture, and then the spade for the plough. "The productive-
ness of garden-cultivation over field-cultivation, for the purposes of human
subsistence, is astonishingly great."^^^ The only objection is that less manual
labor is desirable in an improved society but there must be a "probation of
extensive labor," for the greater part of mankind is as yet unprepared for
leisure. Use the resources of the sea, see how many more people can be fed
on become a world of gardeners!
a vegetable rather than an animal diet,
"Nature has presented to us the earth, the al77ia vtagna parens, whose bosom,
to all but the wild and incongruous ratios of Mr. Malthus, may be said to be
inexhaustible. Human science and ingenuity have presented to us the means
of turning this resource to the utmost account."^®^

96 Ibid.,
p. 52.
pp. 365-366.
97//7iJ.,
98 Ibid.,
pp. 327-328.
99 He estimates that
39 million square miles of the earth are habitable, of which 1.3
million are in China with an estimated population of 300 million. Using the cultivation
of China as the standard for possible cultivation and its population as the standard of pos-
sible population density, the result is 9 billion: 39 million divided by 1.3 and multiplied
by 300 million. Ibid., pp. 448-449.
190 Ibid.,
p. 495.
Ibid., p. 498.
 .

Environment, Population, and Perfectibility 653

In Godwin's writings as in those of Malthus there is the conviction that

man bestows dignity on the order of nature, that in the continual peopling
of the world the changes that man effects will be beautiful and useful. The
earth is a better place because of man:

Man an admirable creature, the beauty of the world, which, if he did not
is

exist in would be a "habitation of dragons, and a court for owls; the wild beast
it,

of the desert would cry to the wild beast of the islands; baboons would dance
there; and its pleasant places be filled with all doleful creatures." How delight-
ful a speculation then is it, that man is endowed by all-bountiful nature with an
unlimited power of multiplying his species? I would look out upon the cheerless
and melancholy world which has just been described, and imagine it all culti-
vated, all improved, all variegated with a multitude of human beings, in a state
of illumination, of innocence, and of active benevolence, to which the progress
of thought, and the enlargement of mind seem naturally to lead, beyond any
thing that has yet any where been realised.

Both Godwin's idea of progress and Malthus's principle of population ap-

parently led to a future world of gardeners.
Malthus neither ignored this work nor rephed to it, contenting himself
with a few unflattering sentences about it}^^ Behind Godwin's appraisal of the
earth is the idea of progress. The physical environment will not be a limiting
factor in human advance in the foreseeable future, and there are new hopes in
the dawning technological and chemical age.
Godwin does not suggest— and neither does Malthus— that these advances
will create problems nor that man's relationship to the world of nature by the
growth of his numbers and the persistence of his settlement in favored places,
might change rapidly. On the contrary, he is full of hope and cheer as he
envisions the forward march of mankind to a complete and permanent occu-
pation of all the earth's lands.

7. Conclusion

By hisadvocacy of chmatic influences, Montesquieu in the Esprit des Lois

had provoked some of the most searching thought on social and environmental
questions that had yet appeared in Western civilization; he did this by his
learning, wit, humanity, dogmatism. In the Lettres Persanes he had a similar
effect on population questions and here he had given great weight to moral
causes as reasons for modern depopulation. When he pursued these inquiries
in the Esprit des Lois, again cultural not environmental causation interested
him and he saw clearly the uniqueness of human populations, and he had his
own causal population theory; it might even be Malthus without fanfare.

Ibid.^ pp. 450-45 1

See the lastparagraph of the appendix to the 6th ed. of A Principle of Population.
654 Environment, Population, and Perfectibility

"Wherever a place is found in which two persons can Hve commodiously,

there they enter into marriage. Nature has a sufficient propensity to it, when
"^^^
unrestrained by the difficulty of subsistence.
If Montesquieu's data were poor, if his conclusions about modern depopu-

lation were misguided and provincial, the matters he and his Persians discussed
with such earthiness and practicality were indeed important. The dispute over
the populousness of ancient nations, fatuous as were some of the arguments,
had its rewards; like the more important quarrel over the ancients and moderns
of which it was a part, it induced comparisons with the ancient world, it gave
prominence to the moral and social consequences of modern slavery, European
colonial expansion after the age of discovery, of religion, disease, and morality.
It is thus no exaggeration to say that this comparison between the ancients

and the moderns, whether in the form of culture, arts, population, morality,
and the idea of progress which emerged as a higher generalization from the
quarrel set the stage for the debates on social and environmental causation
culminating in Malthus and in Godwin's final reply to him. Upon what does
one base his thought, on the force of human institutions or the omnipotence
of natural law? Godwin's belligerent words, already quoted, state the alter-
natives clearly and fairly. Malthus's principle "is not the Law of Nature. It is
the Law of very artificial life.''

One sees repeatedly the powerful influence of the idea of progress— as one
now sees its modern science— on population questions.
substitute, faith in
Condorcet and Godwin accept it as a basic principle which gives meaning to
civilization, and Malthus denies its inevitability and the perfectibility of man,
arguing that progress is uneven and uncertan.
Most important was the association of the idea of progress with the en-
vironmental hmitations of the earth. Malthus and Godwin had extended the
argument to include the whole earth, and it was a welcome development
despite the obvious pitfalls in considering as a unit an earth so politically,
culturally, and religiously divided.
Neither thinker was concerned to any degree with environmental change
by man. They recognized it but gave little thought to its implications. For
Malthus, to be sure, the environment was limiting, but to Godwin it posed
few problems crucial to the human race. For their purposes they assumed a
stable physical environment. Both men saw that ultimately the earth might
be cultivated like a garden, but neither thought that an environment, deterio-
rating as a result of long human settlement, might offer hard choices in the
future. Nor did Count Buff on, but he did see the great influence ofman on the
land and on all life, and it is to this subject— and to him— that we now in the
last chapter turn.

Bk. 23, chap. 10.

 Chapter 14

J^POQUES DE LA NATURE. ^37

{bnt devenues fbn domaine ; enfin la face entiere de la

Terre pone aujourd'hui I'empreinte de la puiflance de

J'homme, laquelle, quoique futordonn^e a ceile de la

Nature, fouvent a fait plus qu'ellc, ou du moins I'a ft

merveilleufement fecondee, que c'eft a I'aide de nos

mains qu'elie s'eft developpee dans toute fbn etendue,

& qu'eile eft arrivee par degres au point de perfedlion &

de magnificence ou nous la voyons aujourd'hui.

The Epoch of Man in the

History of Nature

I . Introduction

In Des Epoques de la Nature, Count Buffon had named the seventh and last

as the age when man assumes an active role, "seconding," to use his phrase,
the operations of nature. From view man was in control of
a secular point of
nature; from a rehgious, he was completing the creation with unexpected
speed. Most of those who held such views were optimistic and believers in the
idea of progress, the growth of knowledge enabling man to enlarge his hori-
zons and to refashion his surroundings more to his taste. What pessimism
there was, was not organized around a general principle, but there were ob-
servations that man must interfere with caution in the economy or equihbrium
of nature. Isolated works, however, like Jean Antoine Fabre's Essai sur la

Theorie des Torrents, foreshadow new and dehcate sensitivities to cultural

geography and history, to the longevity of customs and usages which con-
tinually—and cumulatively— affect the land.
656 The Epoch of Man

2. Opportunities for Comparison

More than ever, our problem now is one of selection; it is easy to justify the
inclusion of any one work, difficult to explain its inclusion to the exclusion of
another. The volume of pertinent material increases enormously and the in-
crease will accelerate in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. First, there
is the Hterature— often of broad theoretical interest— which each nation ac-
cumulates about its natural resources; by the end of the eighteenth century
many of the nations of western Europe, such as England, France, the Ger-
manies, and Sweden, already had impressive collections. Secondly, there are
the works of synthesis, particularly the natural histories like Buffon's, which
embraced cosmology, geology and historical geology, geography, botany and
zoology, ethnology, and mineral resources and their distribution. Natural
histories like Buffon's— factual, often compendium-like, composed inductively,
concrete in detail but with supporting theory— inevitably considered man's
place in nature, the environmental influences on man, and increasingly the
man-made changes in nature, visible proof of which lay in the contrasts be-
tween environments long settled by man and those remote from his influence.
Thirdly, there is the ever-increasing volume of literature about the New
World, especially about the United States, some of it clustering around men
like Franklin and JeflPerson, statesmen and poHtical theorists who are also deep-
ly concerned with pure and applied science and with plans for altering the
American landscape. Franklin is well received in Europe, Count Buffon be-
longs to the American Philosophical Society, Alexander von Humboldt visits
Monticello. This literature on the United States, written by Europeans and
Americans alike, is distinct from the literature on political and social institu-
tions and the frontier, represented by the works of a De Tocqueville or a De
Crevecoeur. iMen wrote technical works on the forests, travelers like Count
Volney published widely quoted works which carefully described the geog-
raphy of the country, including the forests, soils, climate, the effects of clear-
ing. Similar in treatment and even more technical is Jefferson's "Notes on the
State of Virginia." There are the Bartrams on natural history. Franklin's short
essays on population and the equiHbrium of nature. The early volumes of the
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society reveal clearly the scope
of- learned and scientific interest in the new country. By the late eighteenth

century a respectable literature on soils, crops, and farming methods was al-
One sees in this literature the influence of the English theorists
ready in being.
from Tull to Townshend and the Norfolk four-course rotation, but the
English methods and theories are not accepted uncritically, for men were
learning from observations, without waiting for nods of approval from Euro-
pean theorists, about the effects of maize or tobacco on their land, the dangers
of soil exhaustion or of soil erosion, and the nature of manures. A new body of
 The Epoch of Man 657

knowledge about the American environment begins to take shape, drawn per-
haps from Lavoisier or Sir Humphry Davy but also from far less eminent
practical observers like John Lorain, whose comparative study of the methods
of clearing used by the Pennsylvania and the Yankee farmers we will be
looking into.
The essential point is that by the latter part of the eighteenth century op-
portunities for comparison had increased vastly. The most dramatic compari-
son was that between long-settled Europe (many of whose lands had been
under the plow for centuries, whose forests had been cut to make way for
grain fields, vines, orchards, or villages, towns, and cities, many of whose
rivers had now become tractable— their courses deepened and straightened—
and were attended, as by bridesmaids, by many small canals) and the relatively
virgin areas of the colonies of North America. It was also, I think, even more
dramatic than the more familiar contrast which Count Volney made, in the
Ruins of Eiitpire, between Europe and the Near East with its evidences of
present decay and former glory. The European travelers to the New World
saw the contrasts; it would be amazing if they did not. They all seemed to
agree that here too nature must submit to changes imposed upon it by its
new inhabitants. The thoughts of men charged with governing the new land
were often on a higher philosophic plane than practical concern with farm
policy or the development of the country. They could reach, as they did
with Jefferson and his friend the Marquis de Chastellux, a general in Rocham-
beau's army, a point at which they envisaged the planned creation of a new
environment— clearings alternating with woodlands— that would be economi-
cally useful, aesthetically pleasing, healthful, and biologically sound.
It is obviously out of the question to survey this vast national and systematic

literature in this work, but I do wish to select several themes which illustrate
this growing awareness of the depth and breadth of human power. They in-

clude the influence of research in natural history, especially that of Count

Buff on, the greatest of the eighteenth century natural historians, in awakening
interest in the effect of man on other forms of life and on the physical environ-
ment as a whole. They include themes that since have become of world im-
portance, such as the idea of a primordial balance in nature which civilized
man interferes with at his own risk; the contrasting idea of purposeful change
to create a better environment, the effects of clearing on climate, of clearing
and drainage on health; the cultural aspects of forest protection and torrent
control.
Great names in the eighteenth century science, Buffon in France, Linnaeus
in Sweden, Banks in England, were committed to the advancement of natural
history, which in many ways brought the activity of man into bold relief.
Collecting for museums, interest in introducing economically useful plants and
animals, made men more aware of their role as worldwide distributors of
658 The Epoch of Man
plant and animal life. The voyages of the last part of the century, like Cook's,
brought new word of the various ways peoples, rude or polished and of all

hues, exploited their natural resources.

3. Climatic Change and the Industry of Man

Although this chapter stresses Count Buffon's contributions, it is necessary to
add that others had touched on the subject of man as an active modifier of
nature and that Buffon's expositions owed much to a widespread if diffuse
interest in it.

Montesquieu, for example, whose name is so closely identified with ideas

of environmental influence (see above, pp. 568-575), observed that coun-
tries had been brought to their present condition by the industry of man,

which, indeed, had transformed the physical environment of Europe and

that of the Chinese empire. The indigenous peoples of the New World had
achieved no such successes. Eighteenth century students were impressed by
the fact that its population could not be compared with the large numbers
of people living in Asia, Africa, and Europe.^ This failure, it would seem,
explained the contrasts between the landscapes of the New World and those
of Europe and China whose industrious populations had lived there long
enough and were sufficiently numerous to achieve these great historical trans-
formations. This sensible observation, buttressed by his erroneous belief in
the decHne of world population in modern times, led him to emphasize the
importance of population increase and the active intervention of man in the
natural environment.^
Correlations are made between population densities and land use practices,
the pasturelands supporting only a few, grain lands more, vineyards even
more. Human industry becomes more intense with the grains and the vines.
Rice culture is the best example of all; men substitute their labor for that of

cattle, and this "culture of the soil becomes to man an immense manufac-
ture." Apparently unconcerned with the problems of forest use since the
ordinance of 1669, Montesquieu says that countries with coalpits for fuel
"have this advantage over others, that not having the same occasion for
forests, the lands may be cultivated." The statement does show, however, the
dynamic quality of his thought, the coal relieving the economy of its de-
pendence on the forests, which can now be sacrificed for agricultural clear-
ing; it shows, however, little appreciation of the forest as a vital element in
the landscape.^
Although Montesquieu's fears— that the population of the modern world

1 Chinard, "Eighteenth Century Theories on America as a Human Habitat," PAPS,

Vol. 91 (1947), p. 28.

2 See above, p. 579, and The Persian Letters, tr. Loy (Meridian Books), letters 1 13-123,

and EL, Bk. 23, chaps. 1-4, 10-19, 24-26.

*£L, Bk. 23, chap. 14.
 The Epoch of Man 659

was becoming so dangerously low that its few inhabitants could not exploit
it and could not keep nature at bay— were unfounded, he shows an awareness

of the relationship between population and the exploitation of the earth's

resources which is out of keeping with the assumption of the passivity of
man in his environmental theories. The world's population must increase.
In his Pensees he makes a vigorous appeal for the active intervention of man
in nature: The earth always yields in proportion to the exactions made of it.

The fish of the seas are inexhaustible; only fishermen, boats, and merchants
are lacking. Flocks increase with the people to care for them. If the forests are
exhausted, open up the earth, and you will find fuel. Why do you go to
the New World to kill bulls solely for their hides? Why do you allow so
much water that could irrigate your fields to go to the sea? Why do you
leave in your fields waters which should go to the sea?^
Climatic change was discussed even by literary men. Hume speculated
about Europe in historical times, concluding that such a change had oc-
it in
curred, and that the warmer climates of his time were owing to human
agency alone, because woods which formerly kept the rays of the sun from
the surface of the earth have now
been cleared off. The northern colonies of
America became more temperate with clearing, the southern more healthful.^
Furthermore, Kant had recognized human activity as being among those
agencies, past and present, which, like earthquakes, rivers, rain, the sea, wind,
and the frost, cause physical changes through historical time. Men build works
to keep out the sea, to create land at the mouths of the Po, the Rhine, and
other streams. They drain marshes and clear the forests, and by so doing
they visibly change the climate of countries.^ The chief interest of these
otherwise conventional remarks is that Kant thinks it necessary in the study
of physical geography to include man as one of the natural phenomena that
bring about environmental change.
Interest in the changes made by man was stimulated by
in the landscape
the theory that the climate changed following forest clearance; reports from
the New World claimed that the cHmate then became warmer. Hugh Wil-
liamson, an American doctor, read a paper on the subject before the American
Philosophical Society in 1760; its French translation influenced Count Buff on.
The people living in Pennsylvania and the neighboring colonies, Williamson
said, remarked that the climate has changed within the last forty to fifty
years, the winters being less harsh, the summers cooler. Williamson accepts
these claims at face value, explaining that man can make local modifications
in the general chmatic pattern.
The coasts of the middle colonies, he says, trend from the northeast to the

* Pensees et Fragments Inedits de Montesquieu^ Vol. i, pp. 1 80-181.

^ "Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations," Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, Vol.
I, p. 434.
^"Physische Geographie," in Immanuel Kanfs Sdmmtliche Werke, ed. Hartenstein
(Leipzig, 1868), Vol. 8, p. 300.
<56o The Epoch of Man
southwest. The Atlantic, retaining some of the heat gained in summer and
warmed by Gulf Stream, is warmer than the land in winter, hence the
the
violent northwestern winter winds blowing toward the ocean: "The colder
the air is over the continent, the more violent will those North-Westers be."
What, WiHiamson asks, would reduce the violence of this wind? Hard
smooth surfaces reflect heat better than do rough and irregular ones— a clear
smooth field reflects more heat than one covered with bushes and trees. "If
the surface of this continent were so clear and smooth, that it would reflect
so much heat as might warm the incumbent atmosphere, equal to the degree
of heat produced by the neighbouring Atlantic, an equilibrium would be
restored, and we should have no stated north-west winds."^
Several observers, including seamen at sea, have reported a declining severity
of the northwesters; less severe frosts, snowfall less in quantity and more ir-
regular, have also been remarked upon since the settlement of the province.
A cleared field is warmed up in winter more than one covered with bushes
or trees. Since the temperature difference between the clearings and the sea
is reduced, the frequency, violence, and duration of the winter storms are also

reduced.
In seeking corroborating evidence from Europe, Williamson comments on
a claim made that Italy was better cultivated in the age of Augustus than it

is now, but that the climate is more temperate now than it was then, thus
contradicting "the opinion, that the cultivation of a country will render the
airmore teiiiperate^^ He replies that even if the winters of Italy in the Au-
gustan age were colder, it is not enough to consider the evidence from Italy
alone, for the explanation is not in Italy but in "those vast regions to the north-
ward of Rome"— Hungary, Poland, Germany. The Germans have increased
in number, progressed in agriculture since Caesar's time; all these kingdoms
were once covered with forests, but only a few remain today. In ancient times,
the north winds blowing from the cold and forested north countries chilled
Italy;today these northern countries— cleared and cultivated— do not provide
the same opportunity for such violent winds; and if the cold is less in Germany
and in the adjacent states, it follows that it is also less in Italy. One wonders,
as did Noah Webster about a similar argument, how it was possible to ignore
the Alps.^
What of the objection that if clearing makes the winters milder, it will also

7 "An Attempt to Account for the OF CHANGE CLIMATE, Which Has Been Ob-
served in the Middle Colonies in North-America," TAPS, Vol. I (2d ed., corrected,
1789),?. 339-
s
Williamson, op. cit., p. 340. The source is Harrington Daines, "An Investigation of
the Difference Between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy and Some Other
Countries, and What it was Seventeen Centuries Ago," Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society of London, Vol. 58 (1768), pp. 58-67. Williamson refers to a passage on
p. 64.
9 Williamson, op. cit., pp. 340-342.
 The Epoch of Man 66i

make the summers hotter? WilHamson suggests a planned diversification of

the landscape with "vast tracts of cleared land, intersected here and there by
great ridges of uncultivated mountains. ..." The w^armed air can rise more
easily from the cleared tracts than it can from timbered country; its rising per-

mits inflow of colder air from the uncultivated mountains, resulting in both
cold and warm breezes. The land winds, and those which might come from
the sea or the lakes, will bring a moderate summer.^^
Wilhamson's interests are even broader than this plan to control climate
through rational and planned clearing: such artifically induced climatic
changes will permit different crops and new plant introductions. As a physi-
cian, he sees the importance of studying the effects of clearing on health and
of recording the history of disease.

While the face of this country was clad with woods, and every valley afforded
a swamp or stagnant marsh, by a copious perspiration through the leaves of trees
or plants, and a general exhalation from the surface of ponds and marshes, the
air was constantly charged with a gross putrescent fluid. Hence a series of
irregular, nervous, bilious, remitting and intermitting fevers, which for many
years have maintained a fatal reign through many parts of this country, but are
now evidently on the decline. Pleuritic and other inflammatory fevers, with the
several diseases, of cold seasons, are also observed to remit their violence, as
our winters grow more temperate.^^

Relationships between the spread of disease and the existence of open spaces,
and between certain kinds of diseases and marshes, have been observed since
the times of the Hippocratic school, but the idea that man should actively in-
tervene in the environment to prevent disease was most eloquently expressed,
it seems to me, by Hugh Williamson and Benjamin Rush, both American

physicians. These men saw the relationships of a people to the environment in

which it first settles, to the environment which it then alters, and finally to the
succeeding alterations resulting from agriculture and plant introductions,
drainage, and pubHc health measures.
Many eighteenth century writers were interested in cHmatic change. Their
theories, as Williamson's essay demonstrates, often consider the role of human
agency in modifying the landscape. Noah Webster made a remarkable ap-
praisal of this literature in 1799.^^ (See chap. 12, sec. 2, pp. 560-561.) After a
crisp analysis of the capricious and casual use of classical sources by modern
authors (in which poor Samuel Williams, the historian of Vermont, comes off
badly), Webster observes that the distribution of plants characteristic of the

^^Ibid., p. 343.
^Ubid., pp. 344-345-
^2 "Dissertation on the Supposed Change of Temperature in Modern
Winters," in A
Collection of Papers on Political, Literary and Moral Subjects, pp. 1 19-162. The essay,
originally read before the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1799, includes
supplementary remarks read to the same academy in 1806, pp. 148-162; quote on p. 119.
662 The Epoch of Man
Mediterranean— the fig, pomegranate, olive— has apparently not changed since
ancient times, and that probably the winters then were no colder than they are
today. From the classical sources, he outlines the probable geographical limits
of the olive in ancient times, concluding that its ancient limits are about the
same as those marked by Arthur Young for modern times, beginning at the
foot of the Pyrenees in Roussillon, then northeast through Languedoc, to the
south of the Cevennes, crossing the Rhone at Montelimar, and continuing via
the vicinity of Grenoble to its terminus in Savoy/^
Rejecting popular belief in large-scale climatic change in historical times,
Webster then examines the possibility that such changes might occur in a re-
stricted area owing to human agency. He takes Buff on to task (and Gibbon
and Williams for accepting Buffon's authority) for saying that the reindeer
retreated northward to colder regions where it could subsist because the re-
gions in south Europe and France formerly cold enough for the animal have
now become too warm for it.

I consider this argument as very fallacious. The rane seeks the forest, and flies
before the ax of the cultivator, like the bear, the common deer, and the Indian
of America. How can the deer subsist in open fields? might as well expect a We
fish to live in air, as the rane in a country destitute of woods, and frequented by
man. The Hyracanian forest no longer exists; the husbandman has deprived that
animal of his shelter, his food, his element. He does not like the company of man,
and has abandoned the cultivated parts of Europe. could the rane subsist
. . . How
in an open, cultivated country, when it is well known that his favorite food is a
species of lichen [rangiferinus] which grows only or chiefly on heaths and un-
cultivated hilly grounds? Instead of proving a change of climate, the retire-
ment of the rane seems to have been the natural consequence of cultivation.^^
These arguments are similar to many that Buffon himself had expressed, both
men pointing out the power of civihzed men to alter, by changing their habitat
or threatening them, the distribution not only of wild animals but even of
primitive peoples. Webster, moreover, is less than fair to Buflfon. BuflFon does
say that the reindeer now is found only in the most northerly countries, that
the climate of France because of woods and marshes was formerly much
its

colder than it is today. There is evidence, BuflFon says, that the moose and
the reindeer lived in the forests of the Gauls and of Germany. As the forests
were cleared and the waters of the marshes were dried up, the climate became
milder and the cold-loving animals migrated. Among many factors causing a
change were the diminution of waters, the multi-
in the habitat of the animals
pHcation of men and their works. Buflfon is in closer agreement with Webster
than the famous lexicographer makes it appear. Both recognize the eflfect of
man's increasing numbers, of his installations, of clearing and drainage, on the
distribution of animals.

1^ Ibid.^
pp. 133-134.
^^Ibid., p. 135.
15 See Buffon, "L'Elan et le Renne," H2V, Vol. 12 (1764), pp. 85-86, 95-96.
 The Epoch of Man 663

Webster concluded that for all practical purposes the climate had been uni-
form since the creation and that there had been no variation of consequence
in the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic. Men, however,
could make significant local changes. The contrasts, so typical of men of this
period to whom forest clearance is closely connected with the march of civili-

zation, arebetween the forest and open land; in the former the "vibrations"
in air temperature and in the temperature of the earth near the surface are
less numerous and less considerable than in the latter. When the earth is

covered by trees, it is not swept by violent winds, and the temperature is more
uniform. The earth of the forest floor is not frozen in the winter; neither is

it scorched in summer. Such extremes are found in open or cleared land, a

fact which Webster says disproves the common theory (held by WiUiamson)
that clearing brings a moderation of cold in the winter; in fact, "the cold of
our winters, though lessmost sensibly increased." He denies
steady, has been
that forces affecting the entire globe have anything to do with climatic change.
"It appears that all the alterations in a country, in consequence of clearing
and cultivation, result only in making a different distribution of heat and cold,
moisture and dry weather, among the several seasons. The clearing of lands
opens them to the sun, their moisture is exhaled, they are more heated in sum-
mer, but more cold in winter near the surface; the temperature becomes un-
steady, and the seasons irregular."^^

4. Count Buffon: On Nature, Man,

AND THE History of Nature

Count Buffon repeatedly expressed interest in the changes which men had
made in their natural environment, particularly the transformations which had
accompanied the growth and expansion of civihzation and the migration and
dispersion of human beings and their domesticated plants and animals through-
out the habitable parts of the earth. He considered this question of the physical
changes in the earth brought about by human agency in more detail than had
any of his contemporaries, indeed more than any man in Western science or
philosophy until George P. Marsh's Man and Nature was published in 1864.
His interest in the physical changes in the earth peculiarly associated with
the activities of man were philosophical, scientific, and practical. These
changes, he thought, had been necessary to create civilization and to permit
its growth and diffusion. "Wild nature is hideous and dying; it is I, I alone,
who can make it agreeable and living." Dry out the marshes, he said, make
their stagnant waters flow in brooks and canals, clear out the thickets and the
old forests with fire and iron. In their place make pastures and arable fields
for the ox to plow so that a "new nature can come forth from our hands. "^^
16 Webster, op. cit., pp. 147, 184; see also p. 162.
1^ "De la Nature. Premiere Vue," HN, Vol. 12, p. xiii.
664 The Epoch of Man
Buffon's ideas are also pertinent to contemporary theory regarding the
origin and growth of civiHzation. Many of the most famous thinkers of the
century— Condorcet, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, Turgot, and Herder-
had written on such themes as the progress of mankind, the significance of
cultural inertia, and environmental influences which caused some peoples to
progress and others to lag behind. These studies included theories of the origin
of human society and of the arts and sciences. They involved also speculation
regarding physical environments hospitable to early civilization. Were they
harsh, unhealthful, and forbidding compared with the comfortable landscapes
of civilized life? On
this question Buff on took an unequivocal stand. He had
little patience with romanticizing about the state of nature, of primitive so-
ciety, or of primeval environments.
To Buffon, the power of nature is immense, living, and inexhaustible. Its

divine origin is manifest in the creation. On earth, man whose power is also
of divine origin, is destined to further the plans and intentions of nature. In
this teleological conception, nature is virtually personified. Man is a "vassal
of heaven," a "king on earth," and his position on earth is central and crucial.
Man can bring order to it, improve it. By increasing his own numbers he in-
creases nature's most previous productions.^^
A great source of men's power lay in their ability to live in and adapt them-
selves to many climates, but he thought men were more efficient in adapting
themselves to the extremes of cold than to those of heat. The history of man's
migrations and dispersions showed how ancient this adaptabihty was; in his
migrations, taking with him his arts, his techniques of agriculture and knowl-
edge of plant and animal domestication, he could transform nature in each
new area in which he settled in accordance with the tastes he had acquired.
With time, with new discovery and exploration, he would be living through-
out the whole habitable world, creating a nature in great contrast to the world
of primeval nature.
Man not only adaptable; he is intelHgent, inventive, and able to profit
is

from the accumulated knowledge of the past. These qualities enable him to
exercise an immense power in changing nature. Man is a creative being whose
accomplishments not only accumulate with time but expand through space.
Buffon repeatedly distinguishes between man and the animals in this respect:
their life, their manner of living, their habitats, and their geographic distribu-
tion are governed much more by the environment than is the human wanderer
who intrudes upon them, changing their lives and habitats, if indeed he con-
descends to spare them.
The theme of migrating and adaptable man thus is set in sharp contrast
with the theme of the less mobile plants and animals whose distribution, if
uninterfered with by man, is controlled by climate. It is part of a primordial

1^ Ibid.^
p. xi.
 The Epoch of Man 665

harmony characteristic of the creation. "It would seem that nature had made
the chmate for the species or the species for the climate in order to obtain
more rapport, more harmony in its productions," a truth applying even more
forcefully to vegetation, for each region (pays) and each degree of tempera-
ture hasits own kind of plant hfe/^

Regions which had never been inhabited by man, however, had little at-
traction for Buff on. On their heights were the dark, thick forests, their debris
covering the forest floor and choking out all life. There were the stagnant
waters, the fetid marshes of their lowlands, useless alike to inhabitants of land
or water. And between them was a wasteland of thickets and useless brambles
having nothing in common with the meadows of inhabited lands.
No doubt Buffon shared a widespread eighteenth century attitude toward
nature, a nature in the words of Roger Heim, well cared for, ordered, a little
too well raked, embellished with decorations.^^ It is, however, the same feel-
ing which one observes in the English writers of an earlier date, like Ray and
Sprat. They desired to win new land from the moors, the fens, the old forests.
They gloried in the ideal of a beautiful village resting in well-tilled fields.
They had faith in technology and in the possibility of improving the individual
and society. They admired science and its methods and applauded the ad-
vances of knowledge; they saw that nature also could be improved with this
new knowledge, itself the product of an awakened curiosity.
In his essay on nature, Buffon, a lover of exclamation points, writes "Qu'elle
Nature cultivee! que par les soins de I'homme elle est brillante
est belle, cette

et pompeuscment paree!" Man is nature's most noble product; and nature,

cherished by man, multiplies itself in desirable ways under his care. Flowers,
fruits, grains, useful species of animals, have been transported, propagated, and
increased without number; useless species have been eliminated. Mining has
advanced. Torrents have been restrained and the rivers directed and controlled.
The sea has been conquered. Land has been restored and made fertile. The
laughing meadows, the pastures, the vines and the orchards of the hills whose
summits are crowned with useful trees and young forests, the great cities
arising on deserted places, roads and communications, are but a few reminders
"of power and of glory, showing sufficiently that man, master of the domain
of the Earth, has changed it and renewed its entire surface and that he will
always share the empire with Nature."^^ If the style of this quotation seems
pompous to the modern taste, the ideas which it contains are worth expressing:
the activity of man in artificially multiplying domesticated plants and animals

"Les Animaux Sauvages," HN, Vol. 6, pp. 55-59. The translated quotation is from
p. 57. The whole statement is important in the history of ideas of the geographic distri-
bution of animals. See also "De la Degeneration des Animaux," HN, Vol. 14, pp. 31 1-3 17.
20 Heim, "Preface a Buffon," in Bertin, et al., Buffon,
p. 7.
21 "De la Nature. Premiere Vue," HN, Vol.
12, pp. xiii-xv. The quotation in French
is on p. xiii, the translated quotation on p. xiv.
666 The Epoch of Man
and in replacing one kind of vegetation with another, and the importance of
cultural diffusion in distributing them throughout the world.
Buffon's descriptions of primeval nature are as grim as many which fol-
lowed the publication of the Origin of Species, They lack the sense of the
unceasing and unrelenting struggle for existence emphasized by Huxley, but
they carry a warning similar to his, that man reigns over nature by right of
conquest, and nature will reclaim her rights and efface the works of man if he
becomes lazy or falters through war, poverty, or depopulation.^^
To Buffon the history of the earth is like human history: both can be re-
constructed by examining the inscriptions, monuments, and rehcs of the past.
In addition, physical phenomena, like the social, are subject to continual
change; the earth and life upon it therefore assume different forms in different
periods. "The state in which we see nature today," he says in the introduction
to Des Epoques de la Nature, "is as much our work as it is hers. We have
learned to temper her, to modify her, to fit her to our needs and our desires.
We have made, cultivated, fertilized the earth; its appearance, as we see it
today, is thus quite different than it was in the times prior to the invention of
the arts." And again, "One must newly discovered
seek out, see nature in the
regions, in the countrieswhich have never been inhabited, to form an idea of
its former state, and the latter is still quite modern compared with the ages

in which the continents were covered with water, fish swam on our plains,
or the mountains formed reefs in the seas."^^
This earth history is the subject matter both of the Histoire et Theorie de la

Terre with its added notes, proofs, and revisions, and of Buffon's masterpiece,
Des £poques de la Nature, which divides earth history into seven epochs.
These are the formation of the earth and the planets, the consolidation of the
rock in the interior of the earth, the invasion of the continents by the seas,
the retreat of the seas and the beginning of volcanic activity, the north as
the habitat of elephants and other animals of the south, the separation of the
continents, and the power of man aiding that of nature. In the seventh epoch,
there begins that "seconding of nature" which leads to the transformation of
the earth. Buffon's reconstruction of this early period of human history may
be summarized man had appeared when the worldwide cata-
as follows:
strophic convulsions of the preceding epochs in earth history had not yet quite
•subsided. Even the first men, living under the terror of earthquakes, volcanoes,
and wild animals and without the blessings of civil society, were forced to
adapt nature to their needs, to unite for self-defense and mutual help in making
Jiouses and such weapons as hard flints shaped like an ax. Early men may have

pp. xiv-xv. Thomas H. Huxley, "Evolution and Ethics. Prolegomena," in Evo-

22 Ibid.,

lution and Ethics and Other Essays, pp. 9-1 1.

23 "Des Epoques de la Nature," intro., hereinafter "EN," HNS, Vol.
5, pp. 1-5; the
quotations are translated from pp. 3 and 4, respectively.
 The Epoch of Man 66j

obtained fire from flints or from volcanoes and burning lavas to communicate
v^ith one another and to make open clearingsin the thickets and the forests.
With the help of fire, was made habitable, while with their stone axes,
the land
they cut trees, working the wood into weapons and other tools which pressing
need suggested to them. In their inventiveness, they could devise weapons to
strike at a distance. Gradually family groups consolidated into small nations,
and those whose territories were hmited by the waters or hemmed in by the
mountains became so populous that they were forced to divide up their lands
among themselves. "It is at this moment [i.e., with the land division] that the
Earth became the domain of man; he took possession of it by the labor of culti-
vation, and from this one can trace the subsequent appearance of attachment
to one's native land and to civil order, administration, and lawmaking."^*
This description of the activities of early man strongly resembles— in out-
line if not in actual details— Lucretius' famous account of the early develop-
ment of human culture.^^ In his writings, Buffon clearly appreciated the role
of fire in human history. Firing and clearings are mentioned often in the litera-
ture relating to the New World, and they were commonplace practices in
the Europe of his day. Bufi^on's description suggests also the conclusions of
modern research in demonstrating the ease with which early man, with simple
tools and the use of fire, can make important, lasting, and widespread changes
in the environment. To Buffon, early man is something else than a frightened
animal adapting himself to a terrifying environment.
These efforts of early man, however, were slight compared with the ac-
complishments of a civiHzation which Buffon believed to have existed about
three thousand years before his time in an area from the fortieth to the fifty-
fifth degree of north latitude in Central Asia. Buffon was impressed with the
report of Peter Simon Pallas, the German natural historian, of evidences of
cultivation, arts, and towns scattered in this part of Asia, which Pallas thought
were survivals of an ancient and flourishing empire; perhaps Buffon is also
anticipating one of the major interests in the nineteenth century study of man,
the search for the Aryan homeland. According to Buffon's theories of his-
torical geology, this region (southern Siberia and Tartary of his day) was
best suited to the development of civiHzation because it was in a relatively
from inundations, distant from terrifying
tranquil part of the earth, sheltered
volcanoes and earthquakes, more elevated and consequently more temperate
than the other; in "this region in the center of the continent of iVsia" with its

pleasant climate, clear skies for observing the stars, and fertile earth to culti-
vate, men attained knowledge, science, and then power. This ancient civiliza-
tion was destroyed by a people driven out of the north by overpopulation;
here Buffon uses the old idea of the northlands as an officina gentium advanced

^'^Ibid., pp. 225-227 (intro. to the 7th Epoch).

25 Lucretius, De rerum natura^ V. 1 245-1457.
668 The Epoch of Man
as early as the sixth century by Jordanes. Many of the achievements of this
civilization were lost, but agriculture and building techniques survived intact
and were diffused and improved, their progress following the great centers of
population: first, Empire and then Atlantis, Egypt, Rome,
the ancient Chinese
and Europe. "It is thus only about thirty centuries ago that the power of man
was combined with that of nature and spread over the greatest part of the
Earth." Among these great and purposeful changes were the domestication of
animals, the drying up of marshes, the control of river courses and elimination
of cataracts, forest clearance, and land cultivation. With art, science, and ex-
ploration, even isolated parts of the world have become his domain: "Finally
the entire face of the Earth bears today the stamp of the power of man, which
although subordinate to that of Nature, often has done more than she, or at
least has so marvellously aided her, that it is with the help of our hands that
she has developed to her full extent and that she has gradually arrived at the
point of perfection and of magnificence in which we see her today."^^ These
strong words represent Buffon's true belief in the creative power of man; if
he often faltered in his faith in human nature and despaired of man's destruc-
tiveness and his propensity to war, it nevertheless was the nature "si merveil-
leusement secondee" by man that had meaning for him, a transformed nature
that was living proof of man's place in the natural order and of his power
in molding it to his desires.

5. Count Buffon: On Forests and Soils

That Buffon, himself nurseryman and plant breeder, an experimenter

a farmer,
in forest plantings, should have something to say about forests is to be ex-
pected; what he has to say, however, at first appears contradictory, for he
advocates both the destruction and conservation of the forests. This seeming
inconsistency can be explained by analyzing the role of the forest in Buffon's
theory of the earth.
Buffon advanced as one of the five basic facts about the earth the proposi-
tion that the heat emitted by the sun and received by the earth is quite small
in comparison with the earth's own heat and that solar heat alone would be
insufficient to maintain living nature.^^ The internal heat of the earth is being
dissipated and it therefore is imperceptibly but relentlessly growing colder,
the sun's heat alone being insufficient to arrest this tendency. Buffon under-
estimated the amount of solar radiation and he knew nothing of the green-
house effect. Since he knew of the heat of the earth's interior, as experienced
in deep mine shafts, he concluded that the heat loss from the earth exceeds the

26 "EN^" yth Epoch, H2V5, Vol. 5, pp. 228-237. The quotations are translated from pp.
236,237.
^Ubid., p. 6.
 The Epoch of Man 66()

heat gain from the sun. Man can therefore increase the effectiveness of solar
heat by deforestation, permitting the sun's heat to reach and warm up the
surface of the earth, thus compensating, at least in part, for the heat lost be-
cause of the coohng of the earth.
Buff on here reHed on reports from the New World that the climate became
warmer after forest clearance, being particularly impressed with the paper,
already discussed, which Hugh WilHamson had read before the American
Philosophical Society on August 17, 1770, and which was later translated into
French.-^ Combining his theory with the reports on climatic change, Buffon
concluded that it was possible for man to regulate or to change the chmate
radically.^^ In proof he chose an unfortunate example. Paris and Quebec, he
said,have about the same latitude and elevation. (Buffon knew that latitude
and elevation alone do not determine the climate as he here assumed they do.)
Pariswould be cold, like Quebec, were France and the countries bordering
upon it deprived of their population, covered with forests, and surrounded
by waters. By making a country healthful, that is, by clearing away the ac-
cumulated dead organic matter, draining swamps, cutting down trees, and
settHng people on its lands, it will be provided with sufficient heat for several

thousand years. According to his reasoning, Buffon said, France in his day
should be colder than were Gaul and Germania two thousand years ago, but
it is not colder because the forests have been cut, the marshes drained, the

rivers controlled and directed, lands covered by the dead remains of organic
life cleared; if these changes had not been accomplished, modern France would

be even colder than Gaul or Germania had been.^^ In further proof, he cites
the deforestation, scarcely a century earlier, of a district around Cayenne
(there are many references to French Guiana throughout the Histoire Na-
turelle), which caused considerable differences in air temperature, even at
night, between the cold, wet, dense forest, into which the sun seldom pene-
trated, and the clearings; rains even began later and stopped earlier in them
than in the forest. Man's power, however, is limited. He can make warm
air ascend but he cannot make cold air descend. His power of lowering the

temperature of the hot deserts is thus largely confined to creating shade; it is

easier to warm up the humid earth of a dense forest by clearing than it is to

plant trees in Arabia to cool the hot dry sands. For such environments, he sug-
gested that a forest in the midst of scorching desert might bring rain, fertility,

28 Hugues Williamson, "Dans Lequel on Tache de Rendre Raison du Changement de

Climat qu'on a Observe dans les Colonies Situees dans I'lnterieur des Terres le TAmerique
Septentrionale," Journal de Physique (Observations sur la Fhysique, sur VHistoire Na-
turelle et sur les Arts), Vol. i (1773), pp. 430-436. The quotation from Williamson given
at the end of Des Epoques de la Nature is an inexact quotation from the French transla-
tion (HNS, Vol. 5, pp. 597-599).
29 This discussion is based on "EN," 7th Epoch, HNS, Vol.
5, p. 240.
Ibid., pp. 240-241.
670 The Epoch of Man
and a temperate climate; this idea was based on the very old belief that trees
attracted clouds and moisture.^^
With the exception of the hot deserts, Buff on thought it important to
increase temperature at the surface of the earth because all life is dependent
upon making solar heat more readily available at the earth's surface,
heat. In
man can modify what is harmful to him by opening up useful clearings.
**Happy are the countries where all the elements of temperature are balanced
and sufficiently well combined to bring about only good effects! But is there
any one of them which from its beginnings has had this privilege, any place
where the power of man has not aided that of nature? "^^ Thus by systematic
deforestation, or planting where called for, man could convert lands of un-
equal endowment to lands of temperate qualities. Men's bodies— tiny furnaces
they were— even heated up the earth, and man's use of fire increased the tem-
perature of every place he inhabited in numbers. "In Paris, during severe cold
spells, the thermometers in the Faubourg Saint-Honor e [in the northwestern
part of Paris] register two or three degrees colder than in the Faubourg Saint-
Marceau [in the southeast] because the northwind is modified in passing over
the chimneys of this great city."^^
Buffon saw no good in thickets, dense forests, accumulated organic debris,
poisonous swamps— fundamentally, I think, because (in an era long before the
microbiology of the soils was understood) he beheved they safeguarded mois-
ture at the expense of heat. Forests kept away heat necessary to the mainte-
nance and multiplication of life; they were inimical to nature and to civiliza-
tion. The role of man, in the past as in the present, has been one of creating
harmonious balances in nature in places where they were needed.
Buffon, however, would not have advocated the deforestation of a modern
country. His interest in forests began early in life; he had studied and experi-
mented and he had read well-known Enghsh books on forestry like John
Evelyn's Silva: or, a Discourse of Forest-Trees. Like many French writers
before him, he warned of the perils in deforesting his country. His essay on
the conservation of forests (1739), combining exhortation with practical ad-
vice, was a plea for conservation, for better administration and better regula-
tion, for satisfying the needs of the present while not forgetting the welfare
of posterity. All forest projects could be reduced to two tasks: "to conserve
those to renew a part of those we have destroyed."^* French
which remain,
pays of Brittany, Poitou, La Guyenne, Burgundy, and Cham-
forests in the old
pagne had been destroyed to be replaced by wasteland and thickets; these
lands should be restored.^^ In 1742, he complained that men had learned

2^ Ibid.,
pp. 241-243.
^2 Ibid. The translation is from p. 246.
23 Ibid.,
p. 243.
2^ HNS, Vol. 2, pp. 249-271. The quotation is on p. 241. This work, "Sur la Conserva-
tion & le Retablissement des Forets," is reprinted from Histoire de V Academic Roy ale des

Sciences, Memoires, 1739, pp. 140-156.

3^ Ibid.^
p. 259.
 The Epoch of Man 671

through observation and experiment much about the practical arts like agri-
culture but they knew little of forestry: "Nothing is less known; nothing more
neglected. The forest is a gift of nature which it is sufficient to accept just as it
comes from her hands." Even the simplest ways of conserving forests and of
increasing their yield were ignored.^^ He showed continuing interest in the
effects of local deforestation when he took part, around 1778, in the Co7n-
pagnie pour PExploitation et r£puration du Charbon de Terre, an organiza-
tion interested in coal as an industrial resource, in coke making, and in reliev-
ing the drain on the forests of the kingdom.^^
His attitudes toward the forests can be reconciled in this way: large areas
inimical to man had to be cleared to make the earth habitable, but once so-
cieties were established on them, the forests were resources which had to be

treated with care and foresight.

Buff on classifies soils into three groups: clays, calcareous earths, and vege-
table earths {terre vegetale) composed mostly of the detritus of plants and
terrestrial animals. There are two kinds of this vegetable earth: leaf mold
{terre au) and limon, the residue representing the final stages in the decomposi-
tion of the leaf mold. These soil types are seldom found in pure form in
nature. Soils are mixtures of them, a soil concept neglected by chemists and
mineralogists who, he says, study the clays and the calcareous earths, slighting
the vegetable earth.^^
This vegetable earth is always thicker in uninhabited virgin lands than in
inhabited countries, for it naturally increases in places from which man and
fire (his agent of destruction) are absent. The thick, centuries-long accumu-
lations of vegetable earth are confined to virgin lands. Vegetable earth is thin-
ner on mountains than in valleys or plains because the limon is washed down
from the highlands by streams and deposited on plains. This soil would remain
it were not overworked; where it has been destroyed, only dry sands
fertile if

or bare rocks remain, unlike the rich leaf mold and limon of the virgin lands.^^
In inhabited regions, the vegetable earth is more thoroughly mixed with the
vitreous sands and the calcareous gravels because the plowshare turns up
the lower layers of the inorganic soils. This thin layer of vegetable earth
which covers the earth's surface is "le tresor des richesses de la Nature
vivante," the "magasin universel des elemens [sic] qui entrent dans la com-
position de plupart des mineraux."^^ These organic soils contain minerals
which, like iron, give the yellow stain to limon. They are vital to mankind

^^Ibid., pp. 271-290. This work, "Sur la Culture & Exploitation des Forets," is re-
printed from Histoire de VAcademie Roy ale des Sciences, Memoires^ 1742* pp. 233-246.
^^Bertin, in Buff on, quotes a passage from the Memoires de Bachaumont (1780) in
which he mentions government interest in treating coal as a means of arresting the degra-
dation of the forests of the kingdom caused by forced cutting owing to the excessive use
of wood in domestic hearths and in the industrial arts (pp. 212-213).
38 "De la Terre Vegetale," HNM,Vol. i, pp. 384, 388.
Ibid.y pp. 389-390.
^^Ibid., p. 416.
672 The Epoch of Man
because they contain in abundance all the four elements (air, water, earth,
fire— the classical doctrine of the four elements dominated the chemistry
still

and soil theory of the day) as well as organic molecules. For this reason the
soil has become "la mere de tous les etres organises, et la matrice de tous les

corps figures." These matters are often better understood, says Buffon, by
the farmer in the fields than by the naturalists.^^
In inhabited countries, especially where the population is numerous and all

lands are cultivated, the quantity of vegetable earth diminishes century by

century because do not restore as much to the soil as is taken from
fertilizers

it and because the greedy farmer or the short-term owner, more interested

in reaping benefits than in conserving soils, exhausts and starves them and
makes them carry more than they can.^^
One obtains higher yields by working the soil over and over again until
it becomes comminuted, but then both the fine and heavy particles are more

easily washed away by streams. "Each summer thunderstorm, each heavy

rain of winter loads all the waters with yellow fe(97z"; so often and so great
are the losses that they cannot be remedied by soil fertilizers, and one cannot
help but be surprised that sterihty has not come sooner, especially on hillside
slopes. Rich soils which have become poor through cultivation will gradually
be abandoned; such land must be left fallow to allow the beneficent forces
of nature to repair the damage and "work to reestablish what man never ceases
to destroy."^^ Buffon was also interested in fertihzers; he saw a close relation-
ship between soil improvement and the manure of the sheepfolds.^^
It is remarkable that Buffon makes the sharp distinction between soils formed

by natural processes and those which have been altered through cultivation.
This genetic approach to soil study resembles the investigations of Dokuchaiev
and his school in Russia, and of Hilgard in America in the nineteenth century
more than it resembles soil investigations in western Europe, which at least
to the time of Liebig were primarily concerned with the practical problems
of soils under cultivation.

6. Count Buffon: On Domestications

Buffon was convinced that plant and animal domestications were the most
important means by which man had changed virgin nature into environments
suitable for high civilization. His ideas on their importance remind one of
the first chapter of the Origin of Species, in which Darwin shows how great
the power of natural selection must be if one reflects on the enormous

Ibid., pp. 424-425; quote on p. 424.

42 Ibid.,
p. 425.
43 /^ii/.,
p. 426.
"La Brebis," HN, Vol. 5, pp. 3-6, 19-20. One hundred sheep in one summer could
44

improve 8 arpents of land for six years. An arpent is about 1.5 acres.
 The Epoch of Man 673

changes which infinitely less powerful man brings about in nature through
his successes in plant and animal breeding.
Buffon accepts the utilitarian theory of domestication which originated in
classical times; man purposefully and self-consciously domesticates animals
because they have qualities of use in the human economy— the ox is suitable
as a draft animal, the dog, as a shepherd, the sheep, as a suppHer of wool. Man
has chosen only a few; he has used but a fraction of what nature is capable
of giving him. Awaiting him in reserve are other possible domestications, for
man does not know sufficiently well what nature is capable of nor how much
he can get from her. Instead of embarking on new researches, he prefers to
misuse the knowledge he has acquired."*^ The utilitarian theory of domestica-
tion persisted far beyond Buffon's time until it was effectively challenged
by Hahn's theories of domestications of animals for ceremonial reasons.
Domestic animals provided man with the necessary help in transforming and
controlHng all nature. They had another enormously important effect: man

had increased and multiplied, almost at will, the populations of domestic

plants and animals, whose lives and reproduction took place under carefully
controlled conditions; in undisturbed nature, on the other hand, reproduc-
tion was subject to the hazards of predation and of climatic and other en-
vironmental conditions.^^
were almost like feudal serfs;
In Buffon's language, the domesticated animals
they owed much to man, returning their labor, their flesh, and their products
for shelter and food. As they multipHed and were diffused throughout the
earth, they took over the habitats of the wild animals. Buffon even credits
man with the extinction of the gigantic animals whose bones were still being
found; voracious and injurious species have also been destroyed or reduced
in number. Man has set the animals against one another, controlling some by
skill, others by force, and still others by dispersing them. Man's empire is now
bounded only by inaccessible places, remote wildernesses, burning deserts,
icy-cold mountains, and obscure caverns which become retreats for a small
number of indomitable animal species that cannot be subjugated.^^ The arti-

ficial distribution of the domesticated animals is from the natural

different
distribution of the wild animals, who live in well-defined and climatically
controlled habitats.'*^

Another Hving nature has been created, that of man and his domesticated

"L'Elan et le Renne," HN, Vol. 12, p. 96.

45

"Les animaux domestiques," intro., HN^ Vol. 4, pp. 169-171; "De la degeneration des
animaux," HN, Vol. 14, pp. 326-328; "Le Mouflon," HN, Vol. 11, pp. 352-354.
"^^''Les Animaux Domestiques," intro., HN, Vol. 4, pp. 171, 173. See also "EN," 7th
Epoch, HNS, Vol. 5, pp. 246-248.
^^"De la Degeneration des Animaux," HN, vol. 14, pp. 311, 316-317. The first para-
graph distinguishes between the climatic influences on man and on the plants and animals.
In the fourth paragraph there is an important statement regarding the differences in dis-
tribution between the wild and the domestic animals.
674 The Epoch of Man
plants and animals, propagated by him, accompanying him on his migrations
throughout the world, helping to create new environments for civilization at
the expense of pristine nature and so escaping in part its inexorable laws of
birth, or postponing reproduction, and death. Man with his plants and animals
displaces natural plant and animal habitats, often disturbing or destroying the
societies of the bees, the ants, the beavers, and the elephants. Through his own
reproduction and the reproduction of useful domestic species, man multiplies
the quantity of certain kinds of life and the amount of activity and movement,
ennobling all life, including his own, in the process, because under his intelli-
gent leadership a higher form of organized existence has been created. The
domestications, permitting the multiplication and expansion of the human
race, brought on further conquests of nature to enable man to produce
abundance everywhere. MiUions of men, he said, now exist in the same space
which in former times was occupied by two or three hundred savages.^^ Simi-
lar increases in densities occurred with the replacement of a few wild animals

by thousands of domesticated animals.

Through the agency of man, the kind of quality of life on earth have been
radically altered, a pregnant idea when one considers that many modern
evolutionists with a knowledge of genetics denied to Buffon have emphasized
the directive influences of man on his own evolution and on the evolution of
the plants and animals.^^
Buffon attached great importance to the "degeneration" of animals; by this
term he meant the variability of a species under the influence of climate and
food; in the case of the domestic animals, there was the added influence of the
"yoke of slavery."^^ Degeneration was even more marked among the domes-
tic word of Buffon's), whose history
animals reduced to slavery (a favorite
was much more complicated than that of wild animals because their lives and
the perpetuation of the species were so artificially controlled. He saw the ad-
vantages of deliberate crossing of animals. The inevitable promiscuity in
mixed grazing should be avoided and enclosures encouraged in the interests
of careful animal breeding. He remarked that the color of domesticated ani-
mals is often more vivid than that of wild animals.^^ There is so much variety
in the horns of domestic cattle that it is now impossible to discover the "model
of nature" from which they were derived. The amours of domesticated ani-
mals are in marked contrast with those in nature. Castration, the selection of
a single male for breeding purposes, the transportation of domestic animals
from one climate to another, are other important causes of the degeneration
of animals under domestication.^^
49 "EN," 7th Epoch, HNS, Vol. 5, p. 248.
Ibid. See George G. Simpson, The Meaning of Evolution, Mentor Books (New
York, 195 1 ), p. 1 10.
"De Degeneration des Animaux," HN, Vol. 14, p. 317.
la
^2 Ibid.,
p. 324."L'etat de domesticite a beaucoup contribue a faire varier la couleur des
animaux, elle est en general originairement fauve ou noire. . .

53 "Le Buffle, etc.," HN, Vol. 1

1, pp. 293-296.
 The Epoch of Man 675

BufFon thought the weakest of the useful animals were domesticated first,
the sheep and goat coming before the horse, ox, or camel. The priorities,
however, are confused, for elsewhere he describes the camel as man's oldest,
most laborious, and most useful slave. The camel has no wild counterparts
because its natural habitat is in a chmate where human societies have first
developed, and apparently only the domesticated ones have survived. Its good
quahties have come from nature, its bad from its sufferings at human hands.^^
In northward migration, the reindeer was domesticated by the Lap-
its

landers, who had no opportunities for the other domestications because of the
rudeness of their society and the cold chmate. If the people of France had also
lacked domestic animals, the reindeer would have been domesticated there.
Buff on used this example to morahze about the shortcomings of man in making
use of the opportunities offered to him by nature.^^
To Buffon the noblest animal domesticated by man was the horse, but even
this courageous and intrepid being was obedient and docile; one could see
these marks of servitude well by observing horses feeding in the pastures. He
compared the freedom of movement of the feral horses of Spanish America
with the lesser qualities of dexterity and agreeableness of the animal under
the constant surveillance of man.^^ Sometimes domestications had gone so far
as to render the animal virtually helpless in its dependence on man. Buffon
questioned whether the sheep with its many useful attributes had ever existed
independently of man. The fat-tailed sheep was an even more exaggerated
example of this dependence. He had such a low opinion of the ovine in-
telligence that his English translator, Smellie, found it necessary to come to
its defense. According to Buffon, the mouflon, a nobler and more self-reliant

animal found in the mountains of Greece, in Cyprus, Sardinia, Corsica, and

the deserts of Tartary, was probably the primitive stock from which all the
different varieties of sheep had degenerated.^^ The goat, more wild and ro-
bust than the sheep, was also more independent of man. Goats could eat a
wide variety of plants and were little affected by harsh chmates. Under do-
mestication, these friendly animals multiplied until they became nuisances.
Although he mentioned the harm done by goats to the fields and woods, he
did not castigate the goat as a destroyer of vegetation as have so many writers
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^^
To Buffon the domestication of the dog was an event of the highest his-
torical importance. In order to realize its significance, one should try to

54 "Le Mouflon," HN, Vol. 11, p. 352; "Le Chameau et la Dromadaire," ibid., pp. 228-
229.
55 "Le Elan et le Renne," HN, Vol. 12, pp. 85-86, 95-96.
56 "Le Cheval," HN, Vol. 4, pp. 174-176. In this article, Buffon returns to the theme of
the lesser influences of chmate and food upon the human species than upon the animals,
repeating the theme of migrating, adaptable man, pp. 215-223.
57 "Le Mouflon," HN, Vol.
11, pp. 363-365. On Smellie's comments, see his translation
of Buffon, "Natural History, General and Particular," Vol. 4, pp. 268-272.
58 "La Chevre," HN, Vol.
5, p. 60, 66, 68.
676 The Epoch of Man
imagine what mankind would have done if the dog, this docile friend of man
that was more adaptable than any other animal, had never existed. How
would man have conquered and domesticated the other animals? And even
now how could he discover, pursue, and destroy wild and useless beasts? To
make himself master of living nature and to provide for his own security, man
had to intervene winning over those animals capable of
in the animal world,
attaching themselves to him, obeying him, and thus becoming his agents in
controlling the others: "The first art of man thus has been the education of
the dog and the fruit of this art [has been] the conquest and peaceful pos-
session of the Earth. "^^ With the help of the dog, which was both a shepherd
and an intelligent companion on the hunt, man domesticated other animals,
gradually attaining greater dominance through more domestication. Since the
original stamp of nature never preserved its purity in beings long under the
management of man, the dog exhibited this degeneration to a high degree.
Buffon compared the varieties of the dog to those of wheat;^^ both species
bore the marks of long human experimentation. The most conspicuous re-
finements in the art of dog breeding were found in the most advanced societies;
the dog also owed many of its most endearing and brilliant qualities to its
association with man.^^ Buffon thought that the shepherd (chien de berger)
was the domestic variety closest to the wild prototype; in the essay on the
dog, he included a diagram showing the degeneration of the domestic dogs
from the chien de berger. Similarly, the varieties of the domesticated cat, like
those of the dog, were most numerous in the temperate climates and in the
advanced societies.^^
It has been the same with plants: the bread grains were not a gift of nature;

they were a product of experiment and the application of intelligence to

agriculture. Wild wheat was found in no part of the world. The grain with
its marvelous characteristics, its climatic adaptability, its keeping qualities,

has been perfected by man.

The changes which men have made and animal life do not belong
in plant
to the past alone; they are continuing. One need only compare, he says, the
vegetables, flowers, fruits of today with those of the same species 150 years
ago; one can make this comparison by looking at the great collection of
colored drawings beginning in the times of Gaston d'Orleans (i 608-1 660)
and continuing until BuflFon's own day. Some of the most beautiful flowers of
that time would be rejected at the later day, not by the florists but by the
home gardeners. One can assign a very late date to our better seed and stony
fruits; they are actually new fruits with old names.

59 "Le Chien," HN, Vol. 5, pp. 186-188.

Ibid., pp. 193-196.
61 "L'Elephant," HN, Vol. 11, pp. 2-3.
62 HN, Vol. 5, p. on the derivation of the domestic
201. See also diagram, facing p. 228,
breeds from the shepherd. Vol. 6, pp. 16-17 ("Le Chat"). This passage also summarizes
man's influence on the nature, habits, even the form of animals.
 The Epoch of Man 677

Buffon marveled at the persistence and patience of man in selecting and

developing new plant varieties and his ability to recognize "certain individual
plants having sweeter and better fruits than others." This selection, pre-
supposing so much experience and would have been an empty accom-
skill,

plishment without the discovery of grafting, which requires as much genius

as the other requires patience.^^
The most arresting idea of Buffon concerning domesticated plants and
animals is his interpretation of them as secondary creations replacing virgin
nature under carefully planned artificial conditions, and parallehng this inter-
and animals, diffused by man,
pretation, his idea that these domesticated plants
become new centers from which further changes in virgin nature take place.
BufTon's theory of earth history and his philosophy of man assumed the
superiority of a nature which had been improved by human endeavor. He was
not, however, insensitive to wildlife; even if his harsh denunciations of the
vegetation of virgin nature showed his strong preferences for the ordered
nature of human workmanship, Buffon saw "naive beauties in the wild" and
was not indifferent to the harm which civilized man had done, even in those
parts of the earth in which he was only beginning to make his influence felt.
His praises of the wild animals are in fact transparent criticisms of human
society. Have which we call wild because they have not been
those animals,
subdued, need of anything more than they have, to be happy? They are
neither the slaves nor the tyrants of their fellow creatures; the individual,
unlike man, does not fear the rest of his species. They are peaceful among
themselves, and war comes to them only from strangers or from men. They
have good reason to avoid man and to establish themselves as far as possible
from him.^^ Themes occur frequently in Buffon's writings: despite
like these
his faith in improvement and his respect for human achievement, he con-

stantly reverts to man's warlike and destructive nature.

Within living nature, in regions remote from human influence, elephant,
beaver, monkey, ant, and bee societies flourished. If they were not the product
of a reasoning mind, they seemed based on a sense of what was reasonable. As
man migrated and settled throughout the earth, the result was to destroy, or
at least to partially break up these societies, which, if uninterfered with, led
a fairly peaceable existence among themselves. Even if his settlements were
remote from their habitats, man's presence caused them to retreat farther and
farther, pressed by fear and necessity, not only making them wilder but
diminishing their faculties and talents. In their natural state, they had means
of self-protection. "But what can they do against beings who know how to

"Le Chien," HN^ Vol. 5, pp. 195-196. This essay has some interesting comments on
wheat. See also "EN," concluding paragraphs of 7th Epoch, HNS, Vol. 5, pp. 249-250.
Since the HN
is an unfinished work, BufTon's remarks about the domestications of plants

are very scanty.

6^ "Les Animaux Sauvages," intro., HN, Vol. 6, pp. SSS^- This volume was published
in 1756.
678 The Epoch of Man
find them without seeing them, to cut them down without approaching
them?" The freely migrating, expanding, and deadly human race changed
the primeval distributions of plants and, with them, of the animals. Although
he recognized that this triumphant process was indistinguishable from the
growth, development, and maintenance of civilization, one often feels in Buf-
fon's writings a sense of sorrow at the indiscriminate destruction of wildlife,
so remote from sportsmanlike hunting and the chase. The carnivores, he
said, are harmful only because they are rivals of man, and he repeatedly men-
tions the relationship between human populations and their expansion and the
diminution of the larger predators. If in a few centuries the expanding human
race settles uniformly throughout the habitable earth, the story of the beaver
will seem a fable.^^ In the introductory chapter on the carnivores, Buffon
discussed sympathetically the wild animal in nature;^^ and in the essay on the
lion, he said that species of animals that, Hke the Hon, are of no use to man,

appear to have been reduced in number because man everywhere is more

numerous and because he has become more clever and has learned how to
make weapons which nothing can resist. Buffon pointed to the diminution in
the numbers of the lion as evidence of the falseness of a notion (which Mon-
tesquieu had revived in the Persian Letters) that the population of the earth
was greater in ancient than in modern times. How could one maintain, Buf-
fon asked, that the population of the earth had declined since Roman times if
the numbers of Hons had been reduced to a fiftieth, or even only to a tenth
part of what they were before? The human race had not declined but had
increased in numbers; reductions in animal populations could scarcely be
compatible with diminution of human populations. With declining human
populations their numbers would have increased.^^
The sloths had been saved from extinction because they avoided places
frequented by man and the more powerful animals. Buffon drew two other
important conclusions from the existence of sloths: they illustrated the doc-
trine that in nature everything that can exist does exist, and they showed the
absurdity of the doctrine of final causes because of their many crippHng physi-
cal defects. Buffon thought their extinction at the hands of man inevitable.
Man had been largely responsible for the disappearance of the Libyan ele-
phant; the animal had retired in proportion to the interference it had met
with from the human species.^^ He also remarked upon the role of man in the

Ibid., pp. 55-62. The

quotation translated is on p. 61; on the beaver, p. 62.
^6 "Les Animaux Carnassiers," HN, Vol. 7, p. 3. In the introduction, BufTon writes:
"Si nuire est detruire des etres animes, rhomme, considere comme faisant partie du sys-
teme general de ces etres, n'est-il pas Fespece la plus nuisible de toutes?"
67 "Le Lion," HN, Vol.
9, pp. 4-5.
68 On the sloths, "L'Unau et L'A'i," HN, Vol.
13, p. 40. "L'Elephant," HN, Vol. 11, p.
41. As in his discussion of the Hon, BuflFon in this essay uses the example of the elephant
to argue that the present-day population of North Africa is greater than in Carthaginian
times.
 The Epoch of Man 679

worldwide diffusion of the There was less direct influence on birds,

rat.^^

but he noticed the effect of man on the songs of birds and their mimicry of
him,^° and the threatened extinction of the ostrich because of the "prodigious
consumption" in Europe of its plumes for hats, helmets, theatrical costumes,
furniture, canopies, funeral ceremonies, and feminine finery/^ Nor was the
life of the sea undisturbed. The widespread killing of the common seaF^ and

of the walrus^^ illustrated trends already observed concerning animal societies

on land. The deserted coasts of the newly discovered lands and the extremities
of the two continents have become the last haven of the seal, "ces peuplades
marines," for they have fled the inhabited coasts and appear only as scattered
individuals in our seas, which no longer offer them the peace and security
which their "grandes societes" need. They have gone in search of that liberty—
again the allusion to human society is unmistakable— which is necessary for
all social intercourse and have found it only in the seas Httle frequented by

man."^^ The volume in which this passage appeared was published in 1782.

7. Count Buffon: On Natural and Cultural Landscapes

Even one dismisses the physical theories upon which Buffon's ideas of the
if

necessity of human intervention in the natural order are based, one is im-
pressed with the shrewd, if short and scattered, contrasts which he makes
between environments scarcely touched by man and those which had long
been the scene of human settlement and activity. In these, he anticipates the
ideas of Lyell, Humboldt, Marsh, Ratzel, and Vidal de la Blache.
Rude and uninhabited lands have rivers with many cataracts; the land
might be flooded with water or burned by drought. Every spot capable of
growing a tree has one. Among countries inhabited for a long time, there are
few woods, lakes, or marshes, but they have many heaths and shrubs (mean-
ing no doubt that heaths and shrub take over deforested and barren mountain-
tops). Men destroy, drain, and in time give a totally different appearance to
the face of the earth. In general Europe is a new continent; its traditions of
migrations and the recency of its and sciences indicate that
arts this is so, for
not so long ago it was covered by marshes and f orests."^^

69 HN, Vol. 7, p. 283.

"Le Rat,"
"Discours sur la Nature des Oiseaux," HNO, Vol. i, pp. 21-22.
"L'Autruche," ibid., p. 444. Buffon has an interesting discussion of the uses of the
ostrich by various peoples in historical times (pp. 440-448). See also his remarks on pp.
455-456 ("Le Touyou").
72 "Le Phoque Commun," HNS, Vol.
6, p. 335.
73 "Le Morse ou la Vache Marine," HN, Vol.
13, pp. 367-370. Buffon mentions also
the "cruel war" on the manatee whose numbers have been much diminished in places
well populated by man. "Les Lamantins," HNS, Vol. 6, pp. 382-383.
74 "Le Phoque Commun," HNS, Vol.
6, p. 335.
75"Histoire et Theorie de la Terre," Proofs, Art. 6, "Geographie," HN, Vol. i, pp.
210-21 1.
68o The Epoch of Man
In a passage suggesting Lyell's remark that man tends to become a leveling
agent, Buffon says that in countries whose population is too small to form and
to support advanced societies, the surface of the earth is more rugged and un-
equal. Riverbeds are wider, more interrupted by cataracts. The Rhone and
the Loire are tamed rivers, which under natural conditions would require a
very long time to be made navigable. Rivers acquire a fixed determinate course
when their waters are confined and directed and their bottoms are cleared
out.^^ He mentions Tournefort's statement that the famous labyrinth of Crete
is not a work of nature alone; old mines and quarries had been dug there, and
with the lapse of time it is no longer easy to distinguish between a work of
nature and a work of man. The Maastricht quarries, the Polish salt mines, the
hollows near large cities, are other instances of man as an earth mover, al-
though these operations he thought— and how wrongly— would always be
minor in the history of nature.'^^ In a discussion of the large marshes remain-
ing in the world, he said that the plains of America are one continuous marsh,
proof of the newness of the country, of the small number of inhabitants, and
still more, of their lack of industry."^^

Buffon's physical theories, his comparative studies of the quadrupeds, his

notions concerning primitive society in the New World, and his self-satisfac-
tion with the improvement of nature by man in Europe led him to the curious
notion that nature in the New World was weaker and on a lower scale of
magnitude than that of the Old World.
The physical explanation of this weakness was based on the same theory
as was his explanation of racial differences: the main reason was that the New
World tropics were more humid and cooler, owing to the trades and to the
Andes, than the Old World tropics. Even though he admitted that the New
World produced its share of species of the large reptiles, insects, and plant
life, he persisted in his belief that New World nature was weaker because he

had proved to his own satisfaction that the animals of the New World were
smaller, that wild and domestic animals of the Old World became smaller
when they lived in the New, and that there were, on the whole, fewer species
in the New World.
Primitive man of the New World had, moreover, few talents. He was
cruel and indifferent to life and had little ardor for his women. His societies
were therefore small, and their increase in population was insufficient to
develop the arts. Primitive man in the New World had been unable to play
the role of aiding nature and of developing it from its rude state. The reason
for the few domesticated animals of the New World was not any lack of
docility among the animals, but the weakness of man.''^

'^^
Ibid., Proofs, Art. lo, "Des Fleuves," p. 368.
'^'^
Ibid., Proofs, Art 17, "Des Isles Nouvelles, etc.," p. 549.
Ibid., Proofs, Art. 18, "De I'Effet des Pluies, des Marecages, etc.," p. 575.
^^This general theme of the weakness of man in the New World is repeated many
times in the HN, but the whole argument is in three articles: HN, Vol. 9, "Animaux de
 1

The Epoch of Man 68

The environmental theory and Buffon's harsh judging of primitive man

in the New World explained the contrast between its primeval landscapes and
the well-ordered landscapes of the Old World. In his failure to clear the
forestsand to drain the marshes, the American Indian revealed his incapacity
to change nature to the degree necessary for a high civilization.
To Buff on the changes which man had made on the earth were inextricably
woven into the history of civilization. It is true that in the eighteenth century
there was nothing novel in the idea that civilization was the result of man's
control over nature through theoretical and applied science, but the em-
phasis of most expositors of this idea was on invention, social change, the
purposive applications of scientific truth to practical matters. It was a totally
different matter to see, as Buff on had seen, man-made changes of the earth in
their historical perspective. The one idea concerned society; the other, earth
history.

8. The American Pandora's Box

Buffon's claim that nature was weaker in the New World than in the Old
was a disastrous errorwhich affected his reputation in America and strongly
influenced contemporary interpretations of the New World environment
and its cultures. Many of them cannot be understood without reference to
his thesis. Such ex cathedra pronouncements from the Jardin des Flantes^
however, were not received with equanimity in the New World. Some of the
ablest men in America— Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson among them— were be-
coming impatient with facile generalizations from the study-rooms of Euro-
pean philosophers. These men resented the imphcations of Buffon's thesis and
denied its truth. Probably the aging and humane Buffon did not realize what
really was in this Pandora's box.
Jefferson wrote a superb rebuttal, but it was kindly and respectful, con-
demning the false European notions of the Indian and dismissing accounts of
the South American Indians as being too full of fable to be worthy of cre-
dence. Too little was known of climate to support Buffon's theories. Who
were the travelers who had furnished Buffon information about the quad-
rupeds? Were they natural historians, did they actually measure the animals
they spoke of, were they acquainted with the animals of their own country,
did they know enough one species from another? "How unripe
to distinguish
we yet are, for an accurate comparison of the animals of the two countries,
will appear from the work of Monsieur Buffon." Jefferson dismissed as ridic-
ulous the question of the degeneration of European domesticated animals in

I'Ancien Continent," pp. 56-83; "Animaux du Nouveau Monde," pp. 84-96, and "Ani-
maux Communs aux Deaux Continents," pp. 97-128. The passages upon which this dis-
cussion is based are in the introduction to the essay on animals of the New World, pp.
84-88, and in the essay on animals common to both continents, pp. 102-1 11.
682 The Epoch of Man
the New World. If they were smaller, weaker, less hardy, the reasons for their
poor condition would be the same in the New as in the Old World: neglect,
poor food, poverty of the soil, and poverty of man. Jefferson asked "whether
nature has enlisted herself as a Cis- or Trans- Atlantic partisan?" The answer
was an emphatic "No."
On his visit to France, Jefferson protested to Buffon personally. "I told
him also that the reindeer [of the Old World |
could walk under the belly
of our moose; but he entirely scouted the idea." Jefferson then wrote to
General Sullivan of New
Hampshire for the bones, skin, and antlers of the
moose. Six months much work by General Sullivan and his party
later, after

and at an expense of forty guineas to Jefferson, the evidence was presented

to Buffon, who was convinced. "He promised in his next volume to set these
things right also, but he died directly afterwards." Had Buffon lived, one
wonders if he would have changed his mind about the weakness of nature and
of primitive man in the New World; as Jefferson generously grants, and as
the Histoire Naturelle repeatedly shows, he did not stubbornly stand on his
errors.^^
The continuing interest in Jefferson as a scientist, farmer, geographer, agri-
culturalist, and planner has probably kept alive a dispute which, with less

celebrated protagonists, would have quietly died of absurdity. Since the con-
troversy over Buffon's New World thesis has been exhaustively studied by
others, I will comment briefly on a few ideas. Their expositors were better
copyists than observers; there was much noise, but it was a clanking of dull
swords.^^
Count Buffon, who had repeatedly stressed the role of man in changing the
environment, paradoxically encouraged those observers of the New World
who were environmental ideas. Certain of the weak sexual endow-
partial to
ment American
of the Indians, Buffon beheved them, like other animals, to
be a somewhat passive element in nature, victims of its lesser powers in the
New World, whose humid coolness they had been unable to overcome by
^0 "Notes on the State of Virginia, Query VI," in Padover, ed., The Complete Jeffer-
son, pp. 49^-611. On Jefferson's visit with Buffon, p. 891. See also Boorstin, The Lost
World of Thomas Je^erson, pp. 100-104.
^1 The controversy, much of which is difficult to read with patience, cannot be sum-
rharized both accurately and briefly, in part because the European thinkers shifted their
ground frequently. It is best to start with Count Buffon's original statement (see note 79
above), following with Jefferson's "Notes on the State of Virginia," Query 6, and then
Count Buffon's reconsideration, "Addition a 1' Article des Varietes de I'Espece Humaine.
Des Americains," HNS, Vol. 4, pp. 525-532. The best study in English is Gilbert Chi-
nard's "Eighteenth Century Theories on America as a Human Habitat," PAPS, Vol. 91
(1947), PP- 27~57' which is more meaningful if read with his "The American Philosophi-
cal Society and the Early History of Forestry in America," PAPS, Vol. 89 (1945), pp.
444-488. The most exhaustive study is the impressive work of Antonello Gerbi, La Dis-
puta del Nuovo Mojido. Storia di Ujia Pole?nica i-] $0-1 900. Also translated into Spanish.
I am indebted to Chinard and Gerbi for many of the references, and especially to Chinard

for the American materials.

 The Epoch of Man 683

draining and clearing away thickets and forests. How impressive must the
swamps and tales of them have been to the thinkers of this age, how frequently
their existence was related to theology, geological theory, and medicine!
Other writers, less cautious even than BufTon, now rode off to combat. Peter
Kalm, the Swedish naturalist, remarked that European cattle "degenerate by
degrees" in the New World, attributing this degeneracy largely to climate,
soil, and food. European colonists mature younger and die sooner than do the

people of Europe. Even the trees have the same qualities as the inhabitants. If
cattle and colonists are both affected, it would seem that the prospects of
changing pristine nature in the New World become more and more un-
certain.^^ The abbe Arnaud reviewed Kalm's work favorably in the Journal
Etranger (1761), emphasizing its more sensational aspects; he was instru-
mental in further disseminating these views about America. So was Rousselot
de Surgy.^^ Cornelius de Pauw adopted Buffon's ideas with latter-day im-
provements of his own; his work Recherches Fhilosophiques sur les Ameri-
cains ou Memoires interessants pour servir a FHistoire de FEspece Humaine
(BerHn, 1768) quickly superseded the others, becoming the ranking text in
the field. De Pauw cannily selected all the unfavorable evidence on America,
maintained the Europeans born there show the same weaknesses as the in-
digenous peoples, thought the New World to be depopulated, and in a radical
departure from Buffon argued that the American is neither an immature
animal nor a child, but a degenerate. The Western Hemisphere is not im-
perfect, it is actually decayed and decaying.^^
The argument was continued by the authors, chiefly Raynal, of Histoire
Philosophique et Politique des t^tablisseutens et du Commerce des Europeens
dans les deux Indes. They accept Buflron's opinion on the comparatively recent
origin of the New World and the lack of erotic vigor of its people; hence,
its miserable and deserted condition. Raynal, however, admired the abihty of

European colonists to change their environment, thus distinguishing their

capacities from those of the Indians. European man "immediately changed
the face of North America. He introduced symmetry by the assistance of all

the instruments His notable achievements included clearing, re-

of the arts."
placement of wild by domesticated animals, plantings for thorns and briars,

82 Travels into North America^ Vol. i,

pp. 80-82. See Chinard's comments on Kalm's
credulity and his aptitude for scientific investigation, "America as a Human Habitat,"
FAFS, Vol. 91, pp. 32-34.
Chinard, op. cit., pp. 34-35.
84 De Pauw, Recherches Fhilosophiques, Vol. i, p. 307. On De Pauw, see Chinard, op.
cit., pp. 35-36 and p. 55, note Chinard says Frederick the Great, who had good reasons
i.

for discouraging German emigration to America, was delighted by the "anti-promotional

literature of his protege." See also Gerbi, op. cit., pp. 59-89, 719-720 (on Spanish-Ameri-
can reactions). Church, "Corneille de Pauw, and the Controversy over his Recherches
Fhilosophiques sur les Arnericains,'' FMLA, Vol. 51 ( 1936), pp. 178-206. Despite the criti-
cism, De Pauw wrote the article on America for the supplement (1776) to the Encyclo-
I
pedie, and all the basic theses remain. Chinard, op. cit., p. 36.

I
684 The Epoch of Man
drainage. **The wastes were covered with towns, and the bays with ships; and
thus the new world, became subject to man." The spirit of liberty
like the old
and religious toleration were responsible for these achievements.^^
Buffon argued for nature's (including man's) weakness in the New World
in order to support his belief that pristine nature requires the ordering hand
and intelligent mind of civilized man to make it fruitful. Neither hand nor
mind had been skilled enough in the pre-Columbian New World. Indeed,
Count Buffon's literary excursions into the New World had mired him in
swamps of his own creating, but his conception of man's place in nature was
a noble one, inspiring new insights into both earth and human history. Buffon
concludes Des Epoques de la Nature with a plea for the abolition of war and
for moral reform in order to make man's tenure of the earth a benefit to him,
affording him with the abandonment of these destructive activities, an oppor-
tunity for an even greater realization of his imaginative and inventive powers.
In his History of Avterica, William Robertson disseminated Buffon's views
to the English-speaking world, but he made no attempt to improve on the
exaggerations. With the exception of the two "monarchies" of the New
World, Robertson said, the small who inhabited the con-
independent tribes
tinent possessed neither the talent, the nor the desire to improve the
skill,

lands they lived on. "Countries occupied by such people were almost in the
same state as if they had been without inhabitants." Immense forests and the
luxuriant vegetation of the rainy tropics swallowed up men even more.
Environmental change thus is characteristic of civilized man. Again in the
Spirit of Buffon he says, "The labour and operations of man not only im-
prove and embellish the earth, but render it more wholesome and friendly to
life."^^ The pregnant thought that man has a creative role in the order of nature

shows Robertson's sympathy with the idea that the life principle is dignified
by its association with human Hfe: Since America "is on the whole less culti-

vated and less peopled than the other quarters of the earth, the active principle
of life wastes its force in productions of this inferior form [i.e., the lower
forms of Hfe and insects]." This should not be dismissed as naive
like reptiles
anthropocentrism; it more profound question, that is, whether
suggests a
nature is only a meaningless chaos without civilized man, for primitive man
without skill or the desire to improve himself is enveloped in the luxuriance
of other kinds of life; civilized man, as Buffon had also thought, has some
control over the kind and quality, if not the amount, of plant and animal life.®^
Again following Buffon, Robertson attaches great importance to domestica-
tion ("this command over the inferior creatures") as a means of controlling
nature. "Without this his dominion is incomplete. He is a monarch who has no

Chinard, op. cit., pp. 36-37; pp. 36-38 with accompanying notes provide guides along
tortuous paths.
Hist. Amer., Vol. I, p. 263; Robertson also combines the themes of man as a modifier
of the environment and man as an eradicator of disease, pp. 263-265.
8^ Hist. Amer., Vol. i, p. 266.
 The Epoch of Man 685

subjects; a masterwithout servants, and must perform every operation by the

strength of his own arm." The
use of domestic animals has also been a primary
force in the ordering of nature. "It is a doubtful point whether the dominion
of man over the animal creation, or his acquiring the use of metals, has con-
tributed most to extend his power."^^ Robertson thus follows Buffon's lead
in making the superior ability of the peoples of the Old World to change the
face of nature a fundamental difference between them and the primitive peo-
ples of the New World.
Let us prolong this discussion a bit further. When Count Buffon ruefully
protested against Kalm's and De Pauw's excesses, little was left of either Count
Buffon's original theses or those of his more careless followers.^^ What other
interpretations were Moral rather than physical causes might ac-
possible?
count for the activities of the Americans in changing their new lands. "The
world has been too long abused with notions," said John Adams," that climate
and soil decide the characters and political institutions of nations. The laws of
Solon and the despotism of Mahomet have, at different times, prevailed at
Athens; consuls, emperors, and pontiffs have ruled at Rome. Can there be
desired a stronger proof, that policy and education are able to triumph over
every disadvantage of chmate?"^^ The Florentine, Filipo Mazzei, agreed with
Buffon for assuming that nature did not op-
his friend Jefferson in criticizing
erate uniformly throughout the earth and for his ignorance of primitive peo-
ples; moral,not environmental, causes were at work in shaping the culture of
the American people.^^ Many American thinkers also were more impressed
with their power than v/ith their plasticity and docility. There was too much
to be observed, too much that had been done and could be done to allow the
Americans to obediently memorize catechisms prepared by Europeans thou-
sands of miles away. Men such as Thomas Jefferson, Jared Ehot, Hugh Wil-
liamson, John Lorain, were witnesses of changes going on in the New World
which made the opinions of many Europeans laughable.

9. "In a Sort, they began the World a New"

The physical environment of the New World often was regarded as a great
outdoor laboratory for scientific study.^^ Old questions could now be an-
swered as one observed the effects of clearing on climate, of drainage on

^8 Hist. Amer., Vol. 2, pp. 9-10, 11.

HNS,
Vol. 4, pp. 525-532. "Addition a I'Article des Varietes de I'Espece Humaine.
Des Americains."
"A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,"
in The Works of John Adams, Vol. 6, p. 219. Quoted in Chinard, "America as Habitat,"
op. cit., p. 45.
Mazzei, Recherches Historiques et Folitiques sur les Etats-Unis de VAmerique Sep-
tentrionale. Vol. 2, p. 32. See Gerbi, op. cit., pp. 290-298; Chinard, "America as Habitat,"
op. cit., p. 44. 1 have not been able to consult Mazzei's work.
^2 Chinard, "Early History of Forestry," op. cit.,
p. 452.
686 The Epoch of Man
health. It was a great laboratory of nature because most men regarded it as
being a natural harmony which, until the changes made by the European
colonists, had been undisturbed since the creation. Before the Europeans
came, Peter Kalm said, the woods had "never been meddled with, except that
sometimes a small part was destroyed by fire." And of the depth of American
soil, he wrote, "We can almost be sure, that in some places it never was stirred

since the deluge. "^^ The Vicomte de Chateaubriand was struck by the massive,
still, strong forests he saw in America. Of one unidentified forest he exclaimed,

"Who can describe the feelings that are experienced on entering these forests,
coeval with the world {aussi vieilles que le monde)^ and which alone afford
"^^
an idea of the creation, such as it issued from the hands of the Almighty.
While the Marquis de Chastellux meditated "on the great process of Na-
ture," requiring fifty thousand years to make the earth habitable, a new spec-
tacle by contrast aroused his attention and curiosity: a single man in one year
had cut down several arpents of wood and had built his house on land he had
cleared himself. He saw the process of settlement going on before his eyes,
the man with a modest capital buying land in the woods, moving there with
his animals and his provisions of flour and cider. The smaller trees, felled first,

and branches of the larger ones provide the fence for his clearing. He "boldly
attacks those immense oaks, or pines, which one would take for the ancient
lords of the territory he is usurping," strips off their bark, lays them open with
his ax. Fire in the spring completes the work of his ax, the spring sun on the
humus of the clearing encouraging the grasses, the grazing of the animals. The
clearings expand; ahandsome wooden house replaces the log cabin. Tools and
The French general saw
neighborhness are the keys to creating the settlement.
processes of environmental change at work, which within a hundred years,
he said, had peopled a vast forest with three milUon inhabitants.^^ Even in the
nineteenth century John Lorain could say that "the value of animal and vege-
table matter is best seen in our lonely forests, where neither art nor ignorance
has materially interfered, with the simple but wise economy of nature."^^
Themes long familiar to European science could be pursued further in this
new laboratory where one could observe soil erosion, soil exhaustion, the
effects of deforestationand of draining, and many other topics. The notices
were based on local observation; they do not constitute a coherent body of
inquiry. Warnings about deforestation and the need for conserving trees could
be heard in one place, grandiose plans for clearing in another; some thought
man should interfere carefully in the equilibrium of nature, others that he
should set about boldly fashioning a new world.

^3 Travels into North America, Vol. i, pp. 86-87, 118.

Travels in America and Italy, Vol. i, p. 148.
Travels in North- America in the Years 1180, 1781, and 1782, Vol. i, pp. 44-48.

Nature and Reason Harmonized in the Practice of Husbandry (Philadelphia, 1825),

p. 24.
 The Epoch of Man 687

In the course of time the accumulation of such scattered observations led to

a deeper understanding of natural processes and of human interferences with
them. The intense interest in climate in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies was a broader and deeper continuation of seventeenth century interest.

John Woodward (whose work was discussed in chap, viii sec. 8) typically
said that countries having many trees were damper, more humid, and had more
rainfall. As the America overcame these disadvantages by burn-
first settlers in

ing and destroying woods and groves "to make way for Habitation and Cul-
ture of the Earth, the Air mended and clear'd up space, changing into a
Temper much more dry and serene than before. "^^
The broad philosophic lesson of these works was that men created distinc-
tive environments of their own which possessed a unique kind of order— or
disorder— lacking in nature. Men were aware of a unity in nature but also that
they had the opportunity to create new kinds of order, substituting one kind
of environment for another. On his visit with Jefferson, Chastellux describes
the possibilities of creating a planned equilibrium between the wooded and
the farmed land. Nothing "is more essential than the manner in which we
proceed nay even the
in the clearing of a country, for the salubrity of the air,
order of the seasons, may depend on the access which we allow the winds, and
the direction we may give them." The air of Rome, Chastellux continues, was
less healthful after the trees between Rome and Ostia which protected it from

the Sirocco and the Libico had been cut down, and the droughts of Castile
probably owed their origin to deforestation. Applying these lessons to Vir-
ginia, he said that since the greatest part of the state is very swampy, it can be
dried out only by cutting down the woods. It can never be so completely
drained that it will no longer have noxious exhalations. Whatever their nature
may be, vegetation absorbs them, trees being well suited to this purpose. "It
appears equally dangerous either to cut down or to preserve a great quantity
of wood; so that the best manner of proceeding to clear the country, would
be to disperse the settlements as much as possible, and to leave some groves of

trees standing between them." The settled land would be healthful, the woods
would be a brake on the winds, which would also carry off the exhalations.^^
Chastellux's remarks suggest a continuing interest in the relationship be-
tween clearing and health, as happened in the Old World. Benjamin Rush,
for example, argued that there had been a higher incidence of disease in Phila-
delphia in the past few years, and that this was caused by the establishment—
and the increase— of millponds and the cutting of trees. "It has been remarked
that intermittents [fevers] on the shores of the Susquehannah have kept an
exact pace with the passages which have been opened for the propagation of

9^ Miscellanea Ciiriosa, Vol. i, p. 220. Quoted in Chinard, "The Early History of For-
estry," p. 452.
9^ Chastellux, Travels in North-America in the Years nSo, ijSi, and 1782, Vol. 2, pp.
53-54-
688 The Epoch of Man
marsh effluvia, by cutting down the wood which formerly grew in the neigh-
borhood." In explaining this correlation, Rush made a sharp distinction be-
tween clearing and cultivation. Clearing is merely a rough and ready way of
getting rid of trees; it actually may encourage the spread of fever. With culti-
vation, intervention in the environment is more complete, and natural pro-
cesses now under human guidance are substituted for the old. Cultivating a
country, which means "draining swamps, destroying weeds, burning brush,
and exhaling the unwholesome or superfluous moisture of the earth, by means
of frequent crops of grain, grasses, and vegetables of all kinds, renders it
healthy." His conclusions are based on comparative data which he does not
publish, but he envisages an interesting stage-like development in the changes
which occur: "The first settlers received these countries [in the U.S.] from
the hands of nature pure and healthy. Fevers soon followed their improve-
ments, nor were they finally banished until the higher degrees of cultivation
that have been named took place." Rush's proposal was based on a planned
equilibrium between what remained in the natural state and what had been
substituted by man: plant trees around the millponds, for they absorb the un-
healthy air "and discharge it in a highly purified state in the form of what is
now called 'deflogisticated' air" (Priestley's term for oxygen).
In a paper read before the American Philosophical Society in November,
1794, Thomas Wright, a hcentiate of the Irish College of Surgeons, proposed
artificial wind corridors to resist the spread of disease. If drainage on a large

scale was impracticable, evaporation of water from marshes and swamps could
be encouraged. Despite rainy Irish winters and short summers, and air which
is "chemically dry" and lacking in heat, temporary pools (tur loughs) are

quickly dried up; the continental wind, dry but lacking heat, in one month's
blowing "rids the whole island of its superfluous water," leaving parched
fields and almost impassable dusty roads. If a few weeks will "exsiccate" Ire-

land, why cannot the Americans make use of their dry and hot winds? Clear
the woods! But by conscious effort. A line one or two hundred miles long
and running in the direction of the prevaiHng winds (northwest to southeast)
could be cleared of trees: "Then every blast from these two opposite points
will ventilate 200 miles of country, bearing along the fumes of all the marshes,
while the great visto [sic] or avenue skirted with wood at both sides would
furnish the most salubrious and consequently valuable situation for settlers."^°°
And William Curry, another man with a theory and a remedy, in 1795
described agriculture as "a great engine" which could counteract forces de-
priving the atmosphere "of its salutary and vivifying principle [oxygen],"

"An Enquiry into the Cause of the Increase of Bilious and Intermitting Fevers in
Pennsylvania, with Hints for Preventing Them," TAPS, Vol. 2, No. 25 (1786), pp. 206-
212; quotes on pp. 206, 207, 209.
Thomas Wright, "On the Mode Most Easily and Effectually Practicable of Drying
up the Marshes of the Maritime Parts of North America," TAPS, Vol. 4 (1799), pp.
243-246; quote on p. 246.
 The Epoch of Ma?i 689

and magazine" which could provide a sufficient source of it. Drain off
a "great
stagnant waters, burn the dead wood and grass, fill up flats, hollows, and sinks
with clay, sand, or lime. Well-chosen cultivated grasses and plants will now
supply profuse oxygen. If marshes are too large to drain, flood them with
dams and sluices, for dead organic matter immersed in water and without con-
tact with the air can only putrefy slowly and imperfectly. Naturally marshy
countries should be cultivated, "preserved dry and clean by means of the
spade, the plow, and the rake."^^^
As has happened frequently in the past, conservative believers in the design
argument opposed such changes. There should be no interferences with the
processes of nature because if the Creator had wished what is now desired by
art He would have created it in the first place. Dr. Adam Seybert, for example,
reversing his own and a widely accepted view that marshes and their airs are
unhealthful, concluded they are a necessary part of nature. Animals can die
of air that is too pure as well as from impure air; they live too fast in air "over-
charged with oxygen gas." Marshes "appear to me been instituted by
to have
the Author of Nature in order to operate against the powers which vegetables
and other causes possess of purifying the atmosphere, so that the oxygen may
exist in a proper proportion, fit to support animal life and combustion."
Marshes might well be blessings; perhaps the Creator had intended they should
be uninhabited "that their only use should be that of correcting the too pure
atmospheres. Although their immediate inhabitants suffer disease from them,
still but a small portion of the human race choose marshy situations as their

residence." Using the design argument, Seybert seems to be justifying the

reasonableness of the observed tempo of growth and decay in nature, and
marshes seem to play in the biological world a role like that of evil in the moral
world.^^2
Observations regarding the effects of settlement on climate were, like the
cloves of Zanzibar, pleasant smells for believers in climatic change. Samuel
Williams, the historian of Vermont, claimed the was becoming
state's climate
more moderate and less predictable. It is changing so rapidly and constantly
"that it is the subject of common observation and experience." Such changes
are most "sensible and apparent in a new country, which is suddenly changing
from a state of vast uncultivated wilderness, to that of numerous settlements,
and extensive improvements." When the earth's surface is cleared, it is open
to the influence of the sun and winds, becoming warm and dry. The area of
the clearings increases with the progress of settlement, and the climate then
becomes more uniform and moderate. Observations of older authors (Noah
Webster scolded him for accepting them), the mills which are no longer useful
101William Currie, "An Enquiry into the Causes of the Insalubrity of flat and Marshy-
Situations;and directions for preventing or correcting the Effects thereof," TAPS, Vol.
4 (1799), pp. 127-142; quotes on pp. 140-142.
Adam Seybert, "Experiments and observations, on the atmosphere of marshes,"
TAPS, Vol. 4 (1799), pp. 415-430; quote on p. 429.
690 The Epoch of Man
for lack of water, and the arable lands which were formerly in swamps con-
vince him that it was colder in the days when settlements were fewer. Clearing
entices the sea breezes inland because the earth and the atmosphere above it

are now warmer than the water. The contrast thus is between a stable country
unaltered by man— with regular seasonal changes, the course and appearance
of nature varying little from one age to another— and an altered land whose

seasons fluctuate,become more irregular, inconstant, and uncertain.

Similar ideas reappear in the writings of Count Volney whose travels in
many parts of the long-settled and well-used Old World made him sensitive to
the appearance of apparently virgin lands.^^^ It is, in fact, a great temptation
to embark upon a digression about Volney, for his writings on geographic
subjects well deserve study. He was acquainted with current theory that
forests attracted rainfalland that clearing promoted aridity; he had also studied
the writings on this subject of earlier foreign travelers and of American
residents. A behef is widespread in the United States, he says, "that very
perceptible partial changes in the chmate took place which displayed them-
selves in proportion as the land was cleared." Citing earher observers, includ-
ing Peter Kalm, Samuel Williams, Benjamin Rush, and Thomas Jefferson, he
adds that he has collected similar testimony on the course of his journey and
that a sensible alteration in the climate of the United States is an "incontest-
able fact."

On the Ohio, at Gallipolis, at Washington

Kentucky, at Frankfort, at Lexing-
in
ton, at Cincinnati, at Louisville, at Niagara, at Albany, everywhere the same
circumstances have been repeated to me: "longer summers, later autumns, and
also later harvests; shorter winters, snows less deep, and of shorter duration, but
cold not less intense." And in all the new settlements these changes have been
represented to me not as gradual and progressive, but as rapid and almost sud-
den, in proportion to the extent to which the land is cleared.

Volney sees whathappening in America as a historical process with no sur-

is

prises, for climatic change followed settlement in Europe and no doubt in

Asia and in the entire inhabited world. In Kentucky he sees changes occur-
ring in even less altered country; again, his observations are supported by the
testimony of those who had experienced their consequences. Drought seems
to keep pace with clearing. Nevertheless, many Kentucky streams have had
more abundant waters since the woods were cut down; with the removal of the
thick leaf-bed of the forest, rainwater was no longer retained. With clearing
and plowing, it sank in the ground, forming "more durable and abundant

The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, pp. 57-65. Williams gives experimental
evidence for ground temperature change; he is not certain, however, if clearing is the
only cause of a change in climate.
104 Vieiv
of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America, pp. 7-8.
Ibid., pp. 266-278; quotes on pp. 266, 268-269. Volney discusses Samuel Williams
at some length; also see his very realistic description of prevailing diseases in the U.S. and
their probable social and environmental causes, pp. 278-332.
 The Epoch of Man 691

reservoirs." He is so committed, however, to the forest-rainfall theory that he

fails to see a real problem here. One might add that the relation of forests to
stream flow is still a much studied and controversial problem.^^^ In such writ-
ings, one sees clearly the pros and cons of clearing as they were then under-
stood. Forest clearance was required for the extension of civilization, for
pubhc health, and for the promotion of agriculture necessary for this exten-
sion, but it threatened also to defeat these purposes by diminishing the water
supply in springs and brooks and thus perhaps even bringing about permanent
aridity.
Volney's remarks call attention which to me is the
again to the question
most interesting of all, was then understood.
that of man's place in nature as it

The activities of European man, in an environment which up to this time had

existed in an apparently unchanged form since the creation, set him off sharply
from his natural surroundings, even though he was part of them, while the
Indians seemed fused with theirs. Early travelers, it is true, occasionally were
aware that indigenous peoples altered their environment to a noticeable degree;
they saw— and some quite early— their fires and the effects on plant and animal
life. William Wood, for example, in the early seventeenth century describes

the underwood growing in swamps and wet low places. The Indians, he says,
customarily burn this wood in November when, owing to the dryness of the
grass and of the leaves, it is possible to burn the underbrush and debris easily.
If there were no burning, the area would become impassable, thus spoihng the

Indian hunting. The burned areas therefore are evidence of Indian settlement,
for "in those places where the Indians inhabit, there is scarce a bush or bramble,
or any combersome underwood to bee seene in the more champion ground.
... In some places where the Indians dyed of the Plague some fourteene yeares
agoe, is much underwood, as in the mid way betwixt Wessaguscus and PHm-
."^^'^
outh, because it hath not been coorect, beene burned. . .

To the travelers of advanced civilizations, however, the contrasts between

the apparently virgin land and the land settled, cleared, and under cultivation
are vivid; and the processes of nature going on from the creation until the
Europeans came obviously had been interfered with after their arrival. If one
wished to know about soil fertility, John Bartram wrote, he could inspect the
riverbanks of lowlands which are annually enriched by floodwaters carrying
their mud and debris. Before clearing, many hazels, weeds, and vines grew in
these lowlands, entanghng the debris brought down by the streams in flood;
its subsequent decay kept the soil rich. After clearing the lowlands and plant-
ing them, an opposite effect was noticed: the floods no longer deposited the
debris but passed over the land, carrying off in addition soil from the cleared
land. A stream with a pronounced gradient would deposit coarse sand on the

^^^Ibid., pp. 25-26.

William Wood, New Englands
107 Prospect (1634). Reprinted with an intro. by Eben
Moody Boynton, pp. 16-17.
692 The Epoch of Man
lowlands. Further, when the higher grounds are trod and pastured, the rain
creates gullies, bringing down more coarse sand or clay than before. "As I

have observed when I was

back parts of y^ Country above 20 years past
in
when ye woods was not pastured & full of high weeds & ye ground light then
ye rain sunk much more into ye earth and did not wash & tear up ye surface
(as now)."
In a narrow sense this is one of many interesting early warnings of soil
erosion in the United States; in a broader sense it is a recognition that human
activity, directly, or indirectly through domestic animals, in upland areas or
on lowland clearings alters the natural processes of erosion and sedimentation.
We have already seen that the physico-theologists of the seventeenth century
were much impressed with the role of soil deposition in the design, the carry-
ing of soil particles from uplands to plains and deltas being a physical process
fundamental to the life of the human race.^^^

Jared Ehot himself marveled at the physical changes that had taken place
since the first settlement of New England, whose colonists, small in number,
had come from a cultivated to a thickly forested and unimproved country,
with httle in their former experience to guide them, with no beasts of burden
or carriage; ''unskill'd in every Part of Service to be done: It may be said.
That in a Sort, they began the World a New.'''^^^ He also understood the
process by which a valley was enriched through sedimentation at the expense
of denuding the hillsides and depriving them of their fertility. Implicit in the
ideas of careful observers like Bartram and Eliot, I think, is the realization that
the new processes under human control should be acceptable biological sub-
stitutions for those processes going on before human interference.

When our fore-Fathers settled here, they entered a Land which probably
never had been Ploughed since the Creation; the Land being new they depended
upon the natural Fertility of the Ground, which served their purpose very well,
and when they had worn out one piece, they cleard another, without any con-
cern to amend their land, except a little helped by the Fold and Cart-dung, where-
as in England they would think a Man a bad Husband, if he should pretend to
sow Wheat on Land without any Dressing.^^^
The comparison of the work of man in the new land with an act of creation,
which is frequently made by early writers on America, recurs in Eliot's en-
thusiastic praise of drainage.

Take a View of a Swamp in its original Estate, full of Bogs, overgrown with
Flags, Brakes, poisonous Weeds and Vines, with other useful Product, the gen-

See the undated letter from John Bartram to Jared Eliot published in Jared Eliot,
Essays upon Field Husbandry in New Eitgland and Other Papers, i'j48-i'j62. Ed. by
Harry J. Carman and Rexford G. Tugwell (New York, 1934), PP- 203-204. 1 am indebted
to Angus McDonald's Early American Soil Conservationists, USDA
Misc. Public. No.
449 (Washington, 1941), for the references to Bartram, Eliot, and Lorain.
109 Jared Eliot, op. cit.,
p. 7.
110 Ibid.,
p. 29.
 The Epoch of Man 693

uine Offspring of stagnant Waters. Its miry Bottom, and Harbour to Turtles,
Toads, Efts, Snakes, and other creeping Verm'n. The baleful Thickets of
Brambles, and the dreary Shades of larger Growth; the Dwelling-Place of the
Owl and the Bittern; a Portion of Foxes, and a Cage of every unclean and hateful
bird.

Then see it after clearing, ditching, draining, burning, "and other needful
Culture" have transformed it.

Behold it now cloathed with sweet verdant Grass, adorned with the lofty wide
spreading well-set Indian-Corn; the yellow Barley; the Silver coloured Flax;
the ramping Hemp, beautified with fine Ranges of Cabbage; the delicious Melon,
and the best of Turnips, all pleasing to the Eye, and, many, agreeable to the
Taste; a wonderful Change this! and all brought about in a short Time; a Resem-
blance of Creation, as much as we, impotent Beings, can attain to, the happy
Product of Skill and Industry.^^^

Human activities, however, might interfere with the harmony of nature,

and man must proceed with awareness and caution. Benjamin Franklin's ex-
ample of the blackbirds and the corn illustrates, as did Darwin's cats-to-clover
chain in 1859, the workings of the web of life.

Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere

with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do
more harm than good. In New England they once thought blackbirds useless,
and mischievous to the corn. They made efforts to destroy them. The conse-
quence was, the blackbirds were diminished; but a kind of worm, which de-
voured their grass, and which the blackbirds used to feed on, increased prodi-
giously; then finding their loss in grass much greater than their saving in corn,
they wished again for their blackbirds.^^^

10. Nature and Reason Harmonized

The most thoughtful and sustained contemporary discussion of the effects of

the American settlement known to me is by John Lorain (ca. 1764-18 19)
whose Nature and Reason Harmonized in the Practice of Husbandry was
published posthumously in 1825. Lorain is a practical man, aware, however,
that land use practices of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
are not mere techniques but belong to a philosophy of nature. Such an attitude
has not been unusual in Western civilization among writers on agriculture,
forestry, and animal husbandry, partly, I think, because of the strength of the
design argument, partly also because these men felt close to the field, the
and the barnyard and saw them as part of the economy of nature.
clearing,
Wild and untamed nature did not horrify Lorain as it did Count Buffon; it

Ibid., pp. 96-97.

The Origin of Species. Modern Library Giant ed., p. 59 = Chap. 3; Franklin, "To
Richard Jackson," Writings, ed. Smyth, Vol. 3, p. 135. Curiously similar to the example
cited by Derham's editor. See chap. VIII, note 165. Quoted in Chinard, "America as
Human Habitat," PAPS, Vol. 91 ( 1947), p. 40.
694 Epoch of Man
is described dispassionately as an interdependent natural system. In the lonely
forests every piece of ground is covered with vegetation, the smaller trees,
shrubs, and annuals growing at proper though not regular distances between
the large trees. "The whole gradually [descends] in size from the largest trees
to the mosses." Nature carefully spreads vegetation wherever it can, even on
fallen tree trunks, the plants sinking with them and taking root in the earth as
they decay.^^^ Large living trees often stand on the durable wood of fallen
timber. Each year new fallen leaves cover the vegetation of yesteryear, pre-
venting grasses from growing and injuring nature's design. This covering is
screened in winter by stems and branches, in the summer more effectively by
the foliage. Fermentation and decomposition provide food for plants, enrich
the soil, "and also minutely divide and keep the soil more open and mellow
for the ready admission of their roots, than could be effected by the general
mode of cultivation pursued in fields." Foliage, branches, dead trees, and other
plants produce a "prodigious mass of decaying vegetation." It is full of life;

the larger animals, reptiles, birds, find shelter here. "Every leaf and every
crevice in the bark or elsewhere, is thickly peopled." Animalcula live off the
decaying vegetation, other animalcula and worms find similar food in the soil.

"It is also probable that incalculable tribes of animalcula . . . live plentifully

on the dead carcasses and on the scraps and crumbs left by the large ones:
added to this, the quantity of animal matter is prodigiously increased, by the
creation of animals of every size, whose existence either in part or altogether
depends on preying on others." The smaller animals of a limited life-span
multiply fast; alive, their excreta return to the soil and manure it; dead, their
remains greatly increase it. The cumulative mass of manure from all forms of
animal life is adequate for the purposes for which nature intended it.

It was certainlyvery wise provision of nature, to cause the greater part of this
a
matter to This has vastly increased the quantity, and pro-
exist in small bodies.
moted the ready and effectual application of it. If the whole or the greater part
of this prodigious bulk of animal matter, had been made to exist in the larger
animals, they could not have been supported; neither, could the manure fur-
nished by them have been so intimately blended with the soil, as is the vegetable
matter, which we all see has been made to exist in plants, that spread over and
cover the surface of the habitable parts of the earth.

There is something wonderful in the blending of animal and vegetable matter.

"The fertilizing effects of this perfect system of economy, is equally as clearly
seen in our glades and prairies, as in our forests, where nature is suffered to
pursue her own course."
Lorain has described here a system of nature without man; in the hierarchy
of plant and animal life, individual species have varying rates of population
growth. Life and death are closely interrelated, and in the life cycle the small
individual bulk of vastnumbers of organisms and the manufacture of fertil-

Nature and Reason Harmonized in the Practice of Husbandry, p. 24.

 The Epoch of Man 695

izers by decomposition are vital in maintaining the stability of the environ-

ment.^^^
To Lorain the creations of civilized man— the term is his— bring about a new
order in this primordial cycle of the natural world. "The living as well as the
dead vegetation found in his way is destroyed and the grounds are cultivated.
By these means, by far the greater part of the animalcula within, as well as
upon the soil are destroyed." If the agriculturist keeps his lands in grass, keeps
livestock to graze on it, and spreads their manure over the soil, then "nature
is assisted by art, and the fertility of the soil is considerably increased."^^^ By
these methods man creates acceptable artificial substitutes for that portion of
the process he has eliminated; but if a backwoods farmer plows and crops,
paying no attention to grass or to stock, the cycle is broken and the soil is

exhausted.
Lorain is impressed with the role of animalcula in the economy of nature
untouched by man. After clearing, the quality of their excreta will be inferior
to that produced under natural conditions, but even in artificial processes, the
grasses will provide them with much food. Farmers have too casual an attitude
toward them, he says, paying too much attention to the annoyances they en-
dure. "Although it would appear at least probable, that neither man, nor the
domesticated animals in which he seems to be more immediately interested,
could have existed in any thing like the same numbers, or have been supplied
with an abundance of nutriment, if animalcula had not been created, [sic] The
same may be said of weeds, notwithstanding slovenly farmers complain still
more loudly of the injury done by them."^^^
Lorain's conception of the biology of the soil— the importance of the animal-
cula and of the accumulation and subsequent decomposition of organic matter
in the cycle of life and death which insures the continuity of nature— explains
his fear of soil exhaustion (caused by continual plowing and cropping) and
erosion when the soil is exposed to the injurious action of the sun, wind, rain,
and melting snow.^^^
In an interesting passage notable for the posterity argument and for the ease
with which the biblical curse on man and the land is dispatched, Lorain says
such ruinous practices bring about poverty of soil and of purse. Posterity,
"heirs of the wretchedness introduced by their inconsiderate forefathers," has
the Herculean task of counteracting this curse of poverty. "Whether Satan
is also the instigator of this evil, I do not presume to determine, but certain I

am, that it is much greater (so far as farming be concerned), than the curse
entailed on the soil by the fall of Adam. That seems to consist simply in bram-
bles and thorns, including in these, such other vegetation as would compel man
to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow." The curse is irrevocable, but it is

Ibid., pp. 25-26.

Ibid., pp. 26-27.
^^^Ibid., p. 27.
Ibid., p. 517.
696 The Epoch of Man
also a mild decree from Heaven, for man need only remove these obstacles to
plant growth for a flourishing agriculture and the satisfaction of rational
v^ants. "But when the hand of folly introduces the additional curse of poverty
on the soil, this insatiable monster, like Aaron's serpent, swallows all the rest."
This "hand of folly" is the perpetual plowing and cropping which destroy
nature with little or no attention to the priceless decaying living matter or to
livestock/^^
Lorain's graphic comparisons between the clearing methods of the Penn-
sylvania and the Yankee farmers reveal their efficacy and their rudeness. He
is critical of both, but more severely critical of the Pennsylvania farmer
primarily because he breaks the organic cycle in nature. These descriptions
have a universality that transcends their value as descriptions of early farming
practices in the United States, for with few changes they could well apply to
the clearings of Neolithic man, surprising results coming from simple tools
and perseverance.
The Pennsylvania farmer begins his clearing by girdling the timber. The
land is then logged off and the grubs are taken out by the roots. The smaller
trees are also cut down and logged off. This logging continues with no thought
of possible exhaustion even if stone coal could be used for fuel. In the war
against the trees, the Pennsylvania backwoods farmer believes his crops are
multiplied in proportion to the area of land he clears, and as a perpetual plower
and cropper he invites soil exhaustion.^^^
In criticizing the backwoods farmer, Lorain grants that soils formed and
remaining free of human interference for ages may not be stable. Torrents
and winds may sweep organic matter away. Hillsides and hillocks are suscep-
tible of denudation even under natural conditions; hence, in cultivating them
great care needed to form water furrows to prevent washing away the soil
is

on and declivities. The steeper parts can be put in grass, for "it is use-
hillsides

less and very injurious to cultivate grounds, from which the soil must be soon

washed away."^"°
Man two fundamental processes of nature: the cycle
thus can interfere in
of growth and decay when he fails to return humus to the soil, and the normal
relation between highland erosion and lowland stream deposition by failing
to provide an adequate vegetative cover to control the natural tendency to-
ward the gradual removal of upland soils to the lowlands.
With his perpetual plowing and cropping, his inadequate attention to grass,
and his failure even to use the barnyard manure accumulating in his yard, the
Pennsylvania farmer is far more destructive than is the Yankee, who does all in

his power to increase his livestock, and who clears his woods by burning (wait-
ing, however, until everything is so dry that the fire burns the soil; enough

Ibid., p. 518.
^^^Ibid., p. 333.
'^^Ibid., p. 339.
 The Epoch of Man 697

moisture should be retained in order to keep the fire from penetrating deeply

in the soiland destroying too much organic matter).

The Yankee farmer finishes chopping down the already fallen timber and
scalps off the grubs level with the ground; he then cuts down all the trees so
that they fall regularly side by side. Some log off the timber before, some
any event, the farmer awaits an opportune dry period for the
after, the fire. In
firing. The ground is then worked with a heavy harrow, and the tex-
cleared
ture thus created favors the processes of vegetation. The salts in the ash and
the organic matter that has escaped the flames can also produce very large
crops. The Pennsylvania farmer is careless of the humus and manuring; the
Yankee, of fire. Like others witnessing the extension of settlement and culti-
vation, Lorain saw the contrast between the patient accumulations of slowly
acting nature and the dramatic changes which man could make in days or even
in hours. "Perhaps a better method could not be devised for clearing wood-
lands, or a more profitable first course of crops be introduced, if it were not
that by far the greater part of the animal and vegetable matter which nature
had been accumulating for a great length of time, is destroyed in a day or two,
by the destructive and truly inconsiderate and savage practice of burning."
The ruin is compounded when the two methods are joined: Yankee burning
with Pennsylvania continual cropping.^^^ The humus theory of the soils may
have been responsible for part of this emphasis, but in the main, the concept of
the economy and unity of nature was the matrix from which the warnings
came.
In the preceding discussion, I have made no attempt to explore these atti-

tudes as a chapter in American history. A practical and utilitarian attitude

toward change, most dramatically by deforestation, seems to have had an early
and powerful hold, as in Richard Frame's poem, "A Short Description of
Pennsilvania" [1692]:

Although I have a good intent.

Yet hardly can express,
How we, through Mercy, were content
In such a Wilderness.
When we began to clear the Land
For room to sow our Seed
And that our Corn might grow and stand,
For Food in time of Need,
Then with the Ax, with Might and Strength,
The trees so thick and strong
Yet on each side such strokes at length.
We laid them all along.
So when the Trees, that grew so high
Were fallen to the ground,
Which we with Fire, most furiously
To ashes did Confound.
Ibid., pp. 335-336.
698 The Epoch of Man
The American examples also illustrate the impact of clearing, the dramatic
contrasts between supposedly pristine and altered lands, and between the long
time processes of nature and the short ones of man. Jared Eliot, John Bartram,
John Lorain, and others saw evidences of destructive interferences in bio-
logical processes apparent in soil erosion and exhaustion, overcropping, burn-
ing, and deforestation. What they feared, I think, was that European man in
the New World was faihng to understand the organic cycle in nature, from
life to death and from decay to life, and its importance to human welfare.^^^

1 1 . The Torrents of the Var

Let us return to the Old World to examine a question that interested an
-eighteenth centuryFrench engineer, Jean Antoine Fabre. It is an upland-
lowland problem, and man is in the center of it. Fabre's work begins a new
chapter in Western natural science and engineering whose nineteenth and
twentieth century practitioners will study torrents carefully and publish on
them voluminously. Fabre was chief engineer of bridges and highways in

^22 The following works are valuable guides into the complex history of American
attitudes toward nature: Arthur A. Ekirch, Man and Nature in America; Hans Huth,
Nature and the Ajnerican; Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden; Technology and the
Pastoral Ideal in A?nerica; and John K. Wright, Hu7nan Nature in Geography, especially
chap. 14, "Notes on Early American Geopiety." See the works of Gerbi, Chinard, and
McDonald already cited for early American attitudes to nature in general, and to the
forests, the soil, to humus, etc. Frame's poem (quoted in part by Huth, p. 5) is in Albert
'Cook Myers, ed., Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware
160^-i'jo'j, pp. 301-305. See also the papers of Ralph Brown, published posthumously in
AAAG, Vol. 41 (1951), pp. 188-236: "A Letter to the Reverend Jedidiah Morse Author
of the American Universal Geography," pp. 188-198; "The Land and the Sea: Their
Larger Traits," pp. 199-216; "The Seaboard Climate in the View of 1800," pp. 217-232;
and "A Pleafor Geography, 1813 Style," pp. 233-236. In the third essay. Brown discusses
several writers that 1 have mentioned and gives more examples; see esp. the discussion of
climatic change, pp. 227-230. I do not agree, however, with his statement that "Volney
evaded the question [that the climate was changing] altogether" (p. 227). See note 105
above.
Josephine Herbst, New Green World (New York, 1954), on John Bartram and the
early naturalists, shows the importance of scientific traveling, plant collecting and intro-
ductions, and attitudes toward nature of the early American naturalists; Jefferson's writ-
ings also illustrate this contemporary interest in environmental change. See Saul K. Pad-
over, ed., The Complete Jefferson: "To the Miamis, Powtewatamies, and Weeauks,"
on the advantages of cultivation, raising animals, and of the civihzed arts, p. 459; "To
Brother Handsome Lake," on a similar theme, p. 461; "To the Choctaw Nation," on the
advantages of cultivation over hunting, p. 465; "To the Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation,"
on a similar subject, pp. 478-479; "To Little Turtle, Chief of the Miamis," pp. 497-498;
"To Captain Hendrick, the Delawares, Mohiccons, and Munries," pp. 502-503. See also
his comments in "Notes on the State of Virginia" on winds and clearing, Query 7, pp.
619-620. In his intro. to the Carman and Tugwell ed. of Jared Eliot's Essays upon Field
Husbandry in New England and Other Papers, 1^48-1^62, Rodney True discusses EHot
and the modifications which Americans made of English soil and agricultural theory of
Tull, Townshend, and others.
Surell, A Study of the Torrents in the Department of the Upper Alps, 2nd ed., Vol.
I, trans. Augustine Gibney. To my knowledge this trans, has not been published; a carbon
 The Epoch of Man 699

the Departement du Var; his studies of torrents and their control, published
in 1797, were based on areas of France, the departments of the Var, Basses-
Alpes, and Bouches-du-Rhone, in which he had worked and which he knew
well. He had also studied the courses of the Rhone and the Durance.
Alexander Surell, one of the most remarkable nineteenth century students
of the High Alpine torrents of France, was critical of his work, but it was
a kindly criticism that understood the pioneer nature of Fabre's contribution.
Surell thought Fabre's observations, stated virtually as aphorisms, detracted
from their scientific value, and he chided him with giving too much space to
reasoning without giving evidence in support of his deductions, so that it

became difficult to between his observations and surmises, the

distinguish
certain and the doubtful. Curiously, Fabre had criticized his predecessors for
the same faults.
Fabre's short studies are symbolic of new inquiries into old practices, into
the relation between mountain and plain, and into the effect of stream flow
on settlement. Such researches were greatly expanded in the nineteenth cen-
tury, as studies of man's modifications of the environment, divorced from
idealism, meliorism, philosophy,and religious considerations were made with
reference to cultural and economic policy, but on a far higher plane than a
purely engineering outlook. Fabre was certainly an imaginative pioneer in
this new trend. His pages are notable for a sense of time and history (earth
history and human history), and a skepticism which makes him critical of
theory.
Environmental change owing to natural causes, Fabre says, is character-
istic of the earth's history since the creation. Rain, storms, avalanches, freez-
ing and thawing, clearly make such changes, their cumulative effects being
greatest at the present, decreasing as one goes backward in time to the cre-
ation. Then mountain slopes were stable, appearing quite different than they
do at present, for they were not degraded nor were massifs separated from
one another by valleys. The causes producing the effects now observable
on the landscape have been operative since the creation, and in a great number
of places existing slopes are so steep that the mountains are no longer stable.
Although the waters of the earth and of streams have reduced and dissected
these primitive massifs, they are neither the sole nor the principle cause of
tearing down the mountains. Fabre thinks that alternating freezing and thaw-
ing cause these steep precipices on the flanks of mountains (perhaps he is
referring to the Matterhorn type of glacial landforms) as well as the avalanches
which follow in their wake. Degradation results usually from gullies, the

copy of it is in the Forestry Library of the University of California at Berkeley. The fact
that earlier technical French works are hard to come by country makes John
in this
Croumbie Brown's studies especially important; in his Reboisejnejtt in France are gener-
ous excerpts from many eighteenth and nineteenth century French students of torrents
including Fabre and Surell.
Essai, pp. 5-6.
700 The Epoch of Man
Powerful ava-
frightful ravines so often torn out of the sides of mountains.
lanches can take rocks and boulders with them down the slope, but snow is
not necessary to reduce the mountains; freezing and thawing are sufficient to
accomplish their wearing away. Avalanches make soils extremely friable,
and they even crack and weaken stones. To Fabre, who wrote before glacia-
tion was understood, the history of the earth is marked by constant change-
by and cooling of rock, avalanches from melting snow,
dissection, heating
and deposition of alluvium at the mouths of rivers.^^^ A man with such a vivid
conception of the operation of natural processes in transforming the earth's
surface throughout time would also be sensitive, I think, to the acts of man
or other geologic agents which might accelerate the processes, or which
might keep them at their present rate, taking measures to control them if
they are harmful.
It is the study of the torrent which work. The best lands in
unifies Fabre's
the mountains, he observes, lie along streams; they are exposed to floods which
become more severe with deforestation because rainwater collects in a much
shorter time and the water of rivers rises much more rapidly. The fertile banks
are thus eroded away, the bed is enlarged and elevated as a result of the deposi-
tion of its load. The damage is not confined to mountains; the disharmony is

apparent in the building up of the banks of rivers, in deposition along the

Mediterranean, the shallow river mouths inhibiting navigation. Torrent con-
trol at the source will bring about better agriculture, preserve the fine stream-
deposited soil particles (limon), enhance the opportunities for irrigation.^^^
Fabre's explanation for the slight progress made so far in torrent control is

of considerable interest. Many authors have tried to express mathematically

the laws governing stream flow, but this general theory cannot be applied
to these rivers because of the infinite variety of conditions. One must study
the actual course of the river. Furthermore, students of the subject have
lacked a point of view; observations have been desultory and often have
been made out of pure curiosity.
The fundamental cause of torrents, according to Fabre, is the destruction
of the mountain woods. Fohage and branches intercept a considerable part
of the rain, while the rest of the water, faUing drop by drop and at sufficiently
long intervals, filters into the soil. Vegetable earth, gradually accumulating in
undisturbed conditions, absorbs a considerable quantity, and shrubbery may
bar the way, controlHng at their source torrents which may have formed
despite all these other obstacles. When the woods are destroyed, water from
gentle rain or from storms cannot be absorbed into the earth as fast as it
accumulates, and no shrubbery breaks up and divides the torrent's course.
Clearings on the mountains loosen the soil, diminish the cohesiveness of
the earth materials of which the mountain is formed, thus encouraging the
formation of torrents. The law of the ancien regime^ which permitted clear-

ibid.^ pp. 9-10.

Ibid., p. vii.
 The Epoch of Man 701

ing on slopes if sustaining walls were constructed at intervals on the slopes,

was futile in a great number of two or three
areas because people planted
crops and then abandoned the land; they could not make enough from their
crops to pay for the walls.
Fabre lists (unfortunately without elaboration) seven kinds of disasters that
ensue from these two causes: (i) The forest is ruined. (2) Vegetable earth
in many mountainous which formerly provided abundant sheep
areas, earths
pasture, are washed away, leaving denuded and dry rocks. (3) Properties
along river banks are ruined. The character of holdings at the foot of moun-
tains has alsobeen changed by deposits of the torrents. (4) Damage to down-
stream and river-mouth navigation, formerly an infrequent occurrence, results
from the division of watercourses owing to torrents. ( 5 ) Strife and quarrehng
occur on both banks of a stream; when it had only one bed it formed a per-
manent boundary. (6) A much more rapid deposition of alluvium than for-
merly at river mouths such as the Rhone impedes navigation. (7) The waters
of the springs which feed the rivers are diminished in volume. Water no
longer infiltrates the soil, and there is only surface flow off the mountains
despoiled of their vegetable earth. If the springs diminish, the streams too
will lose volume. Fabre seems to be comparing stream flow under natural
conditions with a less stable regime characterized by torrential flow during
heavy rains, followed by diminished volume, the instability being conse-
quent upon deforestation and clearing.
Fabre's remedies are technical ones, and we need not discuss them here,
but we should mention the assumption upon which the proposals are based.
In essence, Fabre advocates the restoration of natural conditions in the moun-
tains, allowing trees to grow where enough vegetable earth still remains.

Restoration can be promoted by protecting young trees and with strict en-
forcement of goat laws. These measures may be supplemented by the con-
servation of existing woods.
Equally strict measures should be adopted regarding clearings; none should
ever be permitted, for any reason, on a slope of one in three. The old law
was too tolerant of such excesses. Clearings on lands of less declivity should
also be strictly controlled. If they are allowed, they should be made in trans-
verse horizontal strips, with intervening uncultivated strips (about five toises
—about thirty- two feet— wide) for woods grow in. These belts should be
to
used in lieu of the sustaining walls; they would permit the destruction of
torrents which may have been forming above. Fabre advocates strict legal
supervision l)y the communes of all clearings. Since nature is more active
when aided by human industry, acorns, beechnuts, or the seeds of other trees
could be sown on the steep slopes, areas lacking sufficient soil for trees could
be put in grass, and the turf would resist the formation of torrents and create
useful pasture as well.^^^

Ibid., pp. 1 31-134.

702 The Epoch of Man
This far-sighted French engineer saw the widespread effects of age-old
practices in the mountains on social and economic conditions in southern
Provence. He saw that man must understand his power to create conditions
favorable to the movement of things, whether they are soil particles or rocks.
By simulating through restoration the natural conditions which formerly pre-
vailed, he can control the speed of water, its volume, its absorption into the
earth, its runoff. Man can imitate natural processes by the mass planting of
trees on hillsides, but in permitting the washing away of the vegetable earths,
he can make these processes irreversible. Social conditions including ancient
custom are thus directly related to physical processes: anticipating a theme
stressed by Marsh in 1864, the notion of the irreversibility of certain kinds
of environmental change is introduced, a far more pessimistic idea than a
simple warning about damage to a single holder or to a commune.

12. The Society Islands: A Union of Nature and Art

Areas that are different, both culturally and physically, naturally offer dif-
ferent examples. County Volney in Kentucky sees different effects than
does Fabre in the Alpine lands of Provence. Let us find a last illustration from
another New World, Oceania, which Cook and the Forsters described. Both
Forsters notice changes which man makes in the natural environment, for
they are interested in science, in society, and in nature. Neither of the Forsters
admires environments, whether inhabited by Tahitians or Europeans, which
are unchanged by human Buffon is
culture. In both cases the influence of
clear and acknowledged. Johann Reinhold Forster says that the changes
made by man are not the least of those which the earth has undergone. Where
man has not attempted any change, nature seems to thrive; but this impres-
sion is only an appearance, for it languishes and "is deformed by being left to
itself." Such observations are inspired by Buffon: Decaying and rotting trees

accumulate, the ground cover is thick, mosses, lichens, and mushrooms suf-
focate and bury all that vegetates and thrives. Stagnant waters and swamps
make the surroundings unhealthful. But man eradicates plants which are
useless to him and to the useful animals; he opens up passages "for himself
and his assistants" through the woods and luxurious vegetation; he preserves
and cultivates the useful plants; he keeps noxious effluvia from the air and
channels the swampy waters. By drying out the earth he promotes husbandry
and then, where needed, he can irrigate. The emphasis thus is on the role
of man in increasing the beauty of the earth and its usefulness to him. The
significant acts are the opening up of nature, so to speak, by making passage-
ways, by increasing air circulation, by encouraging the evaporation of surplus

Selections from Fabre's work are published in trans, in Brown, Reboisement in

France, pp. 55-59.
pp. 135-137; G.F., "Ein Blick in das Ganze der Natur," SdmmtUche Schriften,
129 Obs.,

Vol. 4, pp. 316-325.

 The Epoch of Man 703

water. New Zealand and Tahiti illustrate the contrasts Forster is making. In
Tahiti the breadfruit, the apple, the mulberry, and beautiful gardens have in
part replaced the native vegetation. The beauty of the Society Islands is an
expression of the union of nature and art. The plains are inhabited and cul-
tivated hke gardens, with planted beds of grass, with fruit trees and dwellings,
while the sides of some hills are wooded and the highest summits are covered
with forests. This is the kind of primitive life and environment which both
Forsters admire— a life based on cultivation of plants and on improvement of
the beauty of natural surroundings. The reason for this praise of cultivation
and plant growing is that the Forsters consider them to be pathways to civili-
zation, encouraging it more than do pastoralism and a dependence on animals.^^^
In their general and all-encompassing views of nature, both Forsters follow
Buffon. In his essay, "Ein BHck in das Ganze der Natur," Forster says, "An
Biiffons Hand sei uns denn heute ein Blick ins Heiligthum vergonnt! Dann
erst empfinden wir die Wiirde unserer Wissenschaft, wenn der ganze
Reichthum der Natur und ihres grossern Schopfers sich unserm innern Sinne
majestatisch entfaltet!"^^^ He paraphrases and even directly translates sev-
eral passages from Buffon. As it is with Buffon, too, appreciation for the
beauty of nature is combined with a realization of its usefulness. And the
sea, like the land, is not dead or infertile; it is a new kingdom (ein neues

Reich) as productive and as populous as the land. Man, the highest being in
the creation, should come to the help of nature, for beauty and perfection
of the whole are its general end. Since, unassisted, the earth is burdened with
the ruins of its own production, Forster, like Buffon, sees man opening and
clearing it, drying up its stagnant waters and swamps.
In his essay on the breadfruit tree, one of the most interesting of George
Forster's writings, he says that man is probably responsible for the distribution
of this plant, that it is not found in uncultivated places. In his migrations, man
seems to have carried it with him and spread it throughout the South Seas
from the Asian mainland. In a striking paragraph, Forster speaks of the in-
comparable richness of life in the island groups, particularly Java and Sumatra,
of the western Pacific near the Asian shore where the breadfruit is also found.
The general area, he thinks, is a kind of hearth of plants, listing many valuable
products which have come from it. He notes improvements made in the plant

by and there are interesting paragraphs on its manifold

artificial selection,

uses; until the work of Rumpf, he says, the virtues of this tree, a "modest
beauty" {eine sittsajne Schdne), were unsuspected in the outside world long
after the discoveries in the Pacific.^^^
George Forster also showed considerable interest in the contrast between

130 0^5., pp. I35-I37* 161-163, 177-178.

"Ein Blick in das Ganze der Natur," 55, Vol. 4, p. 310.
See for example "De la Nature. Premiere Vue," HN, Vol. 12, p. xiii, and "Ein Blick
in das Ganze der Natur," 55, Vol. 4, pp. 324-326.
"Der Brothbaum," 55, Vol. 4, pp. 329, 332-341.
 The Epoch of Ma?i

inhabited and uninhabited lands. In a charming passage describing activities at

Dusky Bay, on the southwest coast of South Island, New Zealand, he describes
an apparently primeval forest, its climbing plants, shrubs, and rotten trees
being perpetually succeeded by new generations of trees, by parasitic plants,
ferns, and mosses from the rich mold derived from the rotten timber. The
animal creation afforded further proof of a primeval environment untouched
by man, and numbers of unsuspecting birds "familiarly hopped upon the
nearest branches, nay on the ends of our fowHng pieces." (Soon they were
more cautious, made so by a sly cat on board. )^^^ At Dusky Bay within a few
days the superiority of civilization over barbarism was quickly demonstrated.
"In the course of a few days, a small part of us had cleared away the woods
from a surface of more than an acre, which fifty New Zealanders, with their
tools of stone, could not have performed in three months." A confused, in-
animated heap of living plants and decayed residues was converted "into
an active scene." Trees were was made for the rivulet
felled, a better passage

to wind to the sea, the men prepared casks, brewed a drink from the in-
digenous plants, and they fished. Caulkers and riggers worked on the sides
of the boat and the masts. The noise of the anvil and hammer resounded on
the hills. An artist, in his sketches, imitated the animal and the vegetable
creation. A small observatory with the most accurate instruments was set
up, while the plants and animals attracted the notice of philosophers. "In a
word, all around us we perceived the rise of arts, and the dawn of science,
in a country which had hitherto lain plunged in one long night of ignorance
and barbarism!" Then, as quickly as it was created, it vanished like a meteor
as the men reimbarked and left the bay.^^^
But in this passage Forster is not talking about the peoples of the Society
Islands but about the primitive New Zealanders. He sees no cleavage between
civilized societies and the more simple ones, as BufTon did, in seconding the
hand of nature. The Tahitians, too, are capable of creating new beauty in
the landscape, in joining art with nature.

13. Conclusion

By the end of the eighteenth century, the cumulative observations and in-
sights of many generations had placed the idea of man as a modifier of nature
in new perspective; it was still, however, too diffuse, too casually handled,
except by Buffon, to attain the philosophic importance it deserved. Such
recognition was not achieved until later in the nineteenth century in the
writings of Marsh, Shaler, Reclus, Woeikof, and many others. The convic-
had been more complex than the creation, the deluge,
tion that earth history
and the retirement of the waters, that the changes the earth has undergone
134 VRW, Vol I, pp. 127-128.
135 VRW, Vol. I, pp. 177-178, 179.
 The Epoch of Man 705

since the creation are the results of natural processes (notably in Fabre),
that its historybe divided into epochs, suggested that man had also con-
may
tributed to earth history. This conception of man as a geographical agent in
a historical continuum along with other historical agents of change was the
message of Buffon, who also saw the great historic significance of domestica-
tion. The idea that man creates in the domesticated animals secondary agents
of change subservient to him, that he makes massive substitutions of life forms
(also well developed by Buffon), transforms conceptions concerning the na-
ture of landscapes dominated by man.
The study and observations of uninhabited environments, or those sparsely
inhabitedby primitive peoples thought to be existing in ageless harmony and
equihbrium owing to the interplay of natural forces, dramatized the role of
man as an outsider intervening in a primordial balance of nature. The contrasts
between the New World and the Old did not engender this idea, but they
were powerful schoolmasters. John Lorain is an excellent example, but there
are many others who see man as an accelerator of natural processes, as an in-
terloper substituting his choices in a world which already has been well and
judiciously furnished by the Creator. The apparent timelessness and perma-
nence of nature is illusory as time-conscious man destroys or makes changes
in nature in a matter of hours or days.
Buffon's ideas were not lost on George Forster, and Forster's were not lost
on Humboldt. Fabre's torrents led to other and more searching Alpine ad-
ventures. Their works and those of many others whom I have mentioned or
neglected to mention became building blocks for Marsh's great synthesis Man
and Nature in 1864, whose pages on the significance of human changes of the
environment were nourished on activities with which men had long been
familiar: drainage, clearing, irrigation, canal building, firing, plant introduc-
tions, domestications. The great transformations of the earth's surface which
were now to come through the Industrial Revolution, as we can divine in the
pages of Buffon and Malthus, can now barely be seen on the horizon.
But the Revolution— how unfortunate this term is— does not dis-
Industrial
place these older forms of environmental change; it supplements them. The
shepherd and goatherd are still in Cyprus, the charcoal burner is in the Ar-
dennes, the tree girdler in New England, but it will not be long before men
will look on the vistas of the new Lieges, the Manchesters, the Diisseldorfs.
With the eighteenth century there ends in Western civilization an epoch
in the history of man's relationship to nature. What follows is of an entirely
different order, influenced by the theory of evolution, specialization in the
attainment of knowledge, acceleration in the transformations of nature.
 Conclusion

A historian of ideas throws his own pebbles into the water, and the con-
centric ripples he creates naturally are different from those of another. If

the pebbles are thrown close enough together, the ripples visibly interfere
with one another; if far enough apart, the interferences may not be discernible.

So one person's pebble might be another's ripple, the choice of what is to be

discussed deciding what is central and what is peripheral. If instead of the idea
of a designed earth, I had chosen the idea of an artisan-deity; instead of en-
vironmental influence, the idea of culture; instead of environmental change,
the idea of technology, what now are the stones would have become the
ripples.
And so I thought in summary it might be worthwhile to say a few words
about each of these ideas, the wider fields of which they are a part, and how
they often confronted or interfered with one another despite divergent his-
torical backgrounds, and to follow the discussions with some observations
about certain periods of unusual significance in the history of these ideas. In
 Conclusion 707

their development, in the changes and accretions coming about through time
and circumstance, in their apphcation at different times and places to different
situations, they neither completely lost their original identity nor did they
retain it. This process is typical of the history of an idea; it is like the history
of a culture, which changes and innovates, accepting this, rejecting that,
abandoning something as useless or obsolescent, retaining something held dear,
each new synthesis preparing its own opportunities for further change, reten-
tion, or innovation.
The idea of a designed earth, the doctrine of final causes applied to the
natural processes on earth, is an important segment— but only that— of a much
broader and deeper body of thought suffused throughout all types of writings:
science, philosophy, theology, literature. This is the idea of teleology in gen-
eral. One cannot deny, however, its immense historical force in the field of
nature and earth study, nor the reinforcements to the broader area of teleo-
logical explanation coming from its use here. The idea of a designed earth,
whether created for man or for all life with man at the apex of a chain of being,
has been one of the great attempts in Western civilization, before the theory
of evolution and modern ecological theories emerging from it, to create a
holistic concept of nature, to bring within its scope as many phenomena as
possible in order to demonstrate a unity which was the achievement of an
artisan-creator. It is a doctrine at home with the religious interpretation of
nature, with pre-evolutionary thought which was congenial to the behef in
special creation and the fixity of species. (Evolution, admittedly, could be and
has been interpreted as part of a design.) The combination of special creation
and fixity of species meant the existence of harmonies in nature from the be-
ginning. It is a mistake, however, to speak of the design argument without
including the criticism it evoked, in the ancient world centering mainly
around the Epicurean philosophy, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
by such thinkers as Spinoza, Buffon, Hume, and Kant. Protagonists of both
sides contributed to the idea of a unity in nature because it was not the order
that was in dispute but the nature of it, the vahdity of the artisan analogy, and
the relation of this order to the creative activity of a deity. As this idea de-
veloped through the centuries, drew sustenance from many different sources;
it

obviously it has affinities with the literature on nature. With exaltation at the
beauty of nature comes wonderment as well, and the behef that man comes
closer to the heartbeats of the creation when he is alone in primordial har-
monies, away from other men and their artifacts, because unhke the haunts
of men these 'are sacred precincts. It is self-evident that these need not be
religious ideas but many of them are. In natural history the design argument
was favorable to the study of associations of things and their interrelationships
rather than to taxonomies. Of was the conception of an inter-
necessity there
locking in nature— much of was crude, unnecessarily anthropocentric, too
it

full of the spirit of wonderment rather than inquiry— and yet the effect was to
7o8 Conclusion

see man and nature as a whole, to see life on earth in all its manifestations as a
great living mosaic sustained by inanimate nature. Much has been learned since
the end of the eighteenth century in the study of nature based on evolutionary
theory, genetics, ecological theory; but it is no accident that ecological theory
—which is the basis of so much research in the study of plant and animal
populations, conservation, preservation of nature, wildHfe and land use man-
agement, and which has become the basic concept for a holistic view of nature
—has behind it the long preoccupation in Western civilization with interpret-
ing the nature of earthly environments, trying to see them as wholes, as
manifestations of order.
It is easy to see also why the phrase "man's place in nature" has in recurrent
forms been one of the great themes of our period— indeed it has continued to
the present, as so much of the literature on modifications of the environment
and nature protection proves. Man is of nature, a part of it, yet there is good
reason for the age-old dichotomy. Why is there? It is too simple to put it
down to a narrow preoccupation with man. Few of the men whose writings
we have reviewed could be accused of this. It is, I think, because early in this
period (it is already relatively late in the history of thought if we bear in mind
that the"Theology of Memphis" dates from about 2500 B.C.) the fundamental
cleavage of human from other forms of life was recognized. It was recognized
by Sophocles, in the Genesis verses, by Panaetius, by Philo the Jew as he
marveled at the ability of unimpressive men to force beasts far larger and
stronger than they to obey them. Skill, combining the powers of hand and
brain, was an obvious human attribute. The countless examples in the ancient
world alone of the long tradition of artisanry, of the accumulation from gen-
eration to generation of skills, of lore, of knowledge, influenced the men who
were trying to see the human world existing in the natural one. Furthermore,
the dichotomy was tied up with the question of purpose and meaning in the
creation. I know of no more dramatic contrast illustrating this fact than that
cited in the first chapter, the contrast between Balbus the Stoic and Lucretius
the Epicurean. The Stoic sees the beauties of the earth about him and con-
cludes that such an astonishingly wonderful creation could not be for the
sake of plants that lack intelligence or for the dumb animals; it could only
be for the sake of a being like man who partakes of the divine and the gods
themselves. The Lucretian-Epicurean position on this was unflattering to both
the nature of man and the nature of the earth: how is it possible to conceive
of a world made for man when so many are wicked and stupid, so few good
and wise, when the physical constitution of the earth is so obviously imper-
fect? In such a philosophy, lacking a benevolent Mother Nature, man achieves
his place in nature, not by sharing the attributes of a divine artisan, but by
imitation of natural processes and learning from them or by working hard to
supply his needs on the principle that necessity is the mother of invention.
Christian thought is saturated with the idea, too, because so much Judeo-
 Conclusion

Christian theology has been concerned with the creator and the creature and
because man, sinful and wicked as he is, is a special creature of God. In no
other body
of thought have the ramifications and implications of man's place
in nature been discussed with more thoroughness than in the literature on
design and teleology in nature.
Since the design argument applied to the earth was an all-encompassing
attempt to bring a unity into the observed phenomena— nonliving matter,
plants, animals, and man— it is only natural that it involved the other two ideas,

but they, as we have seen, also enjoyed an independent existence and history
of their own.
The idea of environmental influences on culture is as important historically
for the questions it suggested as for its own
and philosophical con-
intellectual
tent. It is part of that broad and ancient contrast between physis and nomas,
between nature and law or custom. It is an idea deeply involved with inter-
preting the endlessly fascinating array of human differences, rich new ma-
terials for which were furnished in the ancient world during the Hellenistic

period, in the modern by the age of discovery. It probably grew out of medi-
cine; travel and voyaging have both helped it along, for men apparently lived
everywhere— in deserts, on hot sandy coasts, near swamps, in mountains— and
brought it into disfavor as examples appeared which contradicted it. If one is
inclined to emphasize its monistic nature, the attempt to explain all culture
as aproduct of environment, one should also remember that it had a relativist
sidewhich came out clearly after the Reformation when climatic factors were
thought to be active in determining religious observances if not fundamental
doctrine. The important point in its impingement on ethical and religious
theory was the implication that people living under a certain environment
could be expected to act as they did, the environment rather than human
frailty being responsible for shortcomings. Thus climate was a favorite ex-
planation for inebriety or sobriety of whole peoples. Nomos, however, was
never completely forgotten. Men's customs, their governments, their religions,
were great cultural molding forces. These truths were seen in the Hippocratic
writings; they were seen with greatest clarity, during our period, in the
eighteenth century. Theories of environmental influence are compatible with
design arguments because adaptation of life to environment is assumed in both
cases; both provided answers to the question why men were living where they
were, how they prospered, why and how they lived in inhospitable and bleak
environments. In the modern period, continuing a trend noticeable in the
ancient world ^nd culminating in Hume's essay, theories of environmental
influence have had strong affiliations with writings on national character; more
often than not they have encouraged monolithic summation: the Germans,
few sentences. On the other
the French, the Arabs, could be characterized in a
hand, they were safeguards— albeit negative ones— against a purely cultural
determinism. Surely it is a mistake to think the history of civilization can be
7IO Conclusion

written purely as cultural, social, or economic history; it is significant that

during the period discussed the most impressive works in this field were writ-
ten in the eighteenth century and that the outstanding example, Herder's
Outlines of a Fhilosophy of the History of Man, makes full use of the historical,
ethnographic, and geographic knowledge then available.
In the eighteenth century, the writings of Montesquieu, Wallace, Hume,
and particularly Malthus bring to maturity and influence a difiFerent kind of
environmental theory, emphasizing not the elements of climate or the physical
differences in environment but the limitations which the environment as a
whole imposes on all life. This idea in varying forms has produced some of
the most polemical writing of the last century and a half.
The idea of design in nature really focused attention on God as artisan,
man and nature being in the subordinate position as the created. The idea of
environmental influence centered on nature; if it were expressed within a
religious context, God was there as creator and man was largely plastic in
the molds of nature. The idea of man as a modifier of nature, however, cen-
tered on man; if the idea is expressed in a religious context, God often becomes
an artisan purposefully leaving the creation unfinished; nature is there to be
improved by human skill. In many ways it is the most interesting of the three
ideas because it assumes choices; different results come from different skills.

Its sources he, I and order-bringing, and when

think, in ideas of artisanry
man's activity is seen within a religious framework, he becomes a finisher of
nature, set on earth as its guardian and custodian. One of the most distinctive
aspects of this idea is the fundamental distinction, often imphcit, between the
nature of human and animal art. It was not that animals or lowly insects lacked
skills— we need only read the homilies on the ants and bees and the eager
moralizing in them. In the ancient world, the distinction was implied in the
combined power of hand and mind. In the modern, the quarrel between the
ancients and the moderns, and the development of the idea of progress throw
light on the nature of the human endowment: it is greater because what is
known in one generation may be communicated to the next, and an accumu-
lation of skills, knowledge, artisanry, may take place, and over a period of
time broaden the gulf between human and animal skill. In secular thought,
the idea in general has optimistic overtones, especially with men hke Ray and
Buff on (despite some sour notes). The pessimism comes later in the nineteenth
century with more frequent communication of ideas, knowledge of the his-
torical depth of the changes, and observation of the unprecedented pace of
the changes consequent upon the increase in technological ability and the
growth in world population. The historical march of this idea has been from
local to more general observation and generalization. At the present day it is
all-pervasive, a natural and expected outcome of the tremendous force of
human agency.
 Conclusion 711

In the long time-span covered by work, certain periods stand out when
this
intensifications of thought clustered about one or more of these ideas. In the
ancient world I would single out the Hellenistic period for special emphasis.

It is true that the sources of these ideas go far back in time, but they begin
to take on life and shape in the Hellenistic age and the Hellenized Roman
period that followed. So, for example, there are Chrysippus, Panaetius, and
Posidonius; Epicurus and Lucretius; Polybius and Strabo; Eratosthenes, Theo-
phrastus, and Theocrates, to say nothing of the writers of a later period, such
as Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Varro, and even Columella and Plutarch. A phi-
losophy of resource development seems to go hand in hand with the economic
and poHtical aspirations of the Hellenistic monarchs. It is hard to forget those
Greeks in foreign lands, impatient for their olives, their wine, their wool, their
fruits and vegetables, and the kind of experimentation this impatience in part
brought about and the changes in the appearance of the land it caused. The
confrontation of Epicureanism with Stoicism, especially in Cicero's De natura
deomm and Lucretius' poems, broadened the idea of design and deepened
the criticisms of it. Both had the idea of a unity in nature, to both came more
evidence from the world of nature and of man. Communication over the
Hellenistic world by a common language— New Testament Greek is written
in it— and encouragement by the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, especially, to
maintain the customs of native cultures engendered, I believe (one cannot
prove this), a more self-conscious awareness of cultural differences than had
existed before. If the geographical and ethnological writings of Posidonius
had survived in whole rather than in garbled fragments in the works of others,
one might see this.
The second is the early Christian period centering on the writings of such
men as Basil the Great and St. Ambrose and reaching a cHmax in St. Augustine,
although one can see the preparations in TertuUian and Origen. Part of these
are homiletics, part are polemics, part are apologetics. From Origen's Contra
Celsum to St. Augustine's City of God what stands out is the need for the new
religion to defend itself. In its early beginnings, the literature reaches back
into still essentially Hellenistic Alexandria which in Gilson's words had been
"for a long time a sort of clearing house for the religions of the Roman Em-
pire." There was a meeting of ideas from different sources in the writings of
Basil, Ambrose, and St. Augustine, and ideas of nature, nature appreciation
(not always but in the vast majority of cases for religious reasons), concep-
tions of the creator and the created, came from the various matrixes of re-
ligious feeling and ancient philosophy and science.
belief, natural history,
Viewed in this light St. Augustine's writings are most important syntheses
and collations as well, bringing together not only Christian ideas but Hellenic,
Hellenistic, and Roman ideas of nature and religious interpretations of it.
712 Conclusion

granting, as we must, the contradictions and the difficulties in exploring that

intractable subject, the Christianview of nature, once one has advanced be-
yond the first easy assertions. The
design argument in Christian form and
applied to nature observable on earth is filled out in this period; and one can
recognize the continuity from the homilies of Basil the Great to Ray's Wisdom
of God, both exceptional works in their genre. This period was strong in
exegesis, preeminent in examining the idea of creation. The theme of the
creator and the created dominated the design argument from this period to the
natural theology of the eighteenth century, which could make use of recent
scientific discovery.
Both the Hellenistic and the early Christian periods, therefore, were notable
for an interest in nature and natural history. In the former period, it was mani-

fest in both Stoic religious behef and in the antireligious philosophy of Epi-
curus as expressed by Lucretius. In the latter, it is strong in St. Basil and in St.
Augustine; St. Ambrose, his teacher, is inspired by the nature imagery of
Virgil even though it is transformed into religious symbolism.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was another such period, and
the most important contributions to the three ideas made during the Middle
Ages come from it. It is the period of Albert the Great, of Thomas Aquinas,
of The Romance of the Rose, of naturahstic motifs in rehgious art. Like the
Hellenistic, it was a period of great activity, resource development, building
of cathedrals and cities, with opportunities for contrasts and interpretation.
It is not improper for our purposes to think of the Renaissance and the age
of discovery, insofar as our ideas are concerned, as compatible partners; one
brought news and criticism of the past, the other news from abroad. Both en-
forced revisions of a fundamental kind. They widened the scope of ideas and
knowledge of ancient thought— as witness Alberti's history of architecture—
and the age of discovery revealed that both men and the environments in which
they live were far more varied than had been realized. Indeed their variety
seemed to be inexhaustible. With time the marvelous adaptability of the human
race to all kinds of environments was plain for all men to see. This realization,
however, does not come to full fruition until the eighteenth century, but it
was an important insight in the history of Western thought relating to nature
and culture.
•
The penultimate period is the golden age of natural theology in the late
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The religious underpinnings and
assumptions are the same as they had always been, but the earth is now seen
in ways which suggest more scientific knowledge, leaving behind forever the
fantastic, grim, and stark cosmogonies of the past. Profiting from the scientific
successes of the age of Newton, the argument as expressed by Ray, Derham,
and others becomes a late seventeenth century statement of the case for the
fitness of the earthly environment: the earth is suited for life and well or-
ganized for it; the conception was achieved partly in the course of rebutting
 Conclusion

atheism, sometimes vaguely and anoymously identified with modern sympa-

Lucretius— even Descartes did not escape censure here as an abettor
thizers of
of ungodly thoughts— mainly in rebutting the cosmologists beginning with
Burnet who saw too clearly for their own good— and other people's, too—
man's sins enshrined and ossified, impressed for all to see and for all time in
the constitution of the earth's surface.
The last period spans the eighteenth century; here the publication of
Montesquieu's Esprit des Lois in 748 and the first volumes of Buffon's His-
1

toire Naturelle, beginning in 1 749, are the landmarks. Only a few sentences
need be added to what has already been said of it. The thinkers of this period
garnered much from the past; they added much of their own. Their contribu-
tions were only possible because of the increased knowledge of the world's
peoples and the earth's environments— Buffon's Varietes de FEspece Hiimaine
and Theorie de la Terre are examples— that had been accumulating since the
age of discovery. It was not only increased knowledge of primitive peoples,
of the Indian, Muslim, or Chinese and the places in which they lived. Euro-
peans knew more about their own history, customs, and lands, too; one can
see this truth already in Bodin.
The ideas of the eighteenth century with which this work is brought to a
close were generated in a preindustrial world; it may
even be permissible to
call it also a traditional society if we do not imply that such a society does not
change. One might regard them as an introductory chapter to a work which
continues the history to the present, but I prefer not to think of them as pre-
ludes (the term to me imphes that their worth lies in their introducing some-
thing better that follows) but as a closing, once and for all, of a period in
the history of Western civihzation. The ideas generated by growing indus-
trialization of the Western world, the theories about the origin and evolution
of life and of human culture, the growing specialization of knowledge that
come with the nineteenth century and continue on to the present, are more
appropriately cast in the role of preludes.
The design argument explaining the nature of earthly environment really
looked upward to the creativity and activity of God; the idea of environmental
influence, to the force and strength of natural conditions; the idea of man as
a modifier of nature, to the creativity and activity of man. In exploring the
history of these ideas from the B.C. to the end of the eighteenth
fifth century
century, it is a striking fact that virtually every great thinker who lived
within this 2300-year period had something to say about one of the ideas,
and many had something to say about all of them.
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.

—
—
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.

"Les Animaux Sauvages," HN, Vol. 6.

.

"L'Autruche," HNO, Vol. i.

— .

"La Brebis," HN, Vol. 5.

.

—
—
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.

"Le Chameau et la Dromadaire," HN, Vol. 11.

.

— "Le Chat," HN, Vol. 6.

.

"Le Cheval," HN, Vol. 4.

.

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.

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.

— "De la Degeneration des Animaux," HN, Vol. 14.

.

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.

"De la Nature. Premiere Vue," HN, Vol. 12.

.

"De la Terre Vegetale," HNM, Vol. i.

—
—
.

"Discours sur la Nature des Oiseaux," HNO, Vol. i.

.

—
—
"L'Elan et le Renne," HN, Vol. 12.
.

"L'Elephant," HN, Vol. 11.

.

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.

"Les Lamantins," HNS, Vol. 6.

.

HN,
. "Le Lion," Vol. 9.

— .

.
"Le
"Le
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Mouflon et les Autres Brebis," HN, Vol. 11.
Phoque Commun," HNS, Vol. 6.
. "Le

— .

.
"Le
"Sur
HN, Vol. 7.
Rat,"
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la

— Histoire de VAcademie Roy ale des Sciences, Memoires, 1739, pp. 140-156.)
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 Index

Acosta, Jose de: on migration of man and ani- Animals, 47; and design argument, 43; extinc-
mals to New World, 366-367; and Hale, 401; tion of, 139, 677-678; destructiveness of do-
on the Indies, 450; m. 361, 401, 42'?, 606-607 mestic, 143, 342-343; feral, 290, 311, 675;
Acts 14 and Romans 1:20: on evidences of in Christian lore, 309-311; degeneration of,
God in creation, 161 589. See also Buffon
Adam, 153, 159
Anthropocentrism: 44, 391-392, 684; in Eccle-
Adelard of Bath: on human science in nature, siasticus, 160; and man's rationality, 185; and

219 St. Augustine, 198; and insects, 205; in John

Aedificare: meanings of, 331 the Scot, 212; in Paracelsus, 467; in Linnaeus,
Aesculapius: cult of, 5 511; Goethe on, 535-536
Aesthetics: and geography in Humboldt, 546- Anthropomorphism, 527
Antiteleological ideas: and Theophrastus, 50;
547
Afforest atio: meaning of, 326-327. See also and atomic theory, 62-64; Democritus,
Forest conservation 65; in Epicurus, 66; in Lucretius, 68; in Hel-
Agatharchides: on ethnology of Red Sea shore, lenistic Age, 73; in 17th cent., 377-378; in

20-2 1 custom and climate, 96-97

;
i8th cent., in Buffon, 518, 678; and
517;
Age of Discovery: and the Renaissance, 355; Hume, See also Final causes; Design
525.
and ideas of environmental influence, 358, argument; Artisan analogy; Artisan diety;
Teleology
374; and design, 358; and population theory,
Apollonius of Egypt: and religion, 21-22; on
359; and Vespucci on New World, 362;
Munster on, 364; F. Bacon on, 473-474; Con- planting, 122-123
dorcet on, 595 Apollonius Rhodius: descriptions of nature
Agricola, Georgius: Bodin on, 440; in defense by, 26-27
of mining, 468-469; m. 495 Arbuthnot, John: on effects of air on health,
Air. See Atmosphere 562-565; and Montesquieu, 567; m. 601, 602
Akh-en-Aton: Hymn to sun, 37-38 Arab thought. See Muslim thought
Alaise: meaning of, 345. See also Forest con- Arcadia: Polybius on, 95-96
servation Architects: in Hellenistic Age, 125. See also
Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus): natu- Alberti
ral theology of, 227-229; on astrology, 266; Aristotle: on the divine, 4; and principle of
on environmental influence, 268-270; on ra- plenitude, 6; and the four elements, 9-10;
tional use of natural environment, 314-315; on animals, 47; teleology of, 47-49; and
on environmental change by man, 316, 351; Christian theology, 49; climatic theory of,
on soil fertility, 346; m. 174, 256, 264 93; Froble?ns of, 93-94; revival of interest
Alberti, Leon environmental ideas of,
Battista: in, in 12th and 13th cents., 219; and Fred-

125, 430-431, 464-465; m. 355, 490

erick II, 225; in Thomas Aquinas, 233-234,
Albert I: ordinance of 1304 on forest care, 274; in The Romance of the Rose, and 242;

337-338 condemnations of 1277, 248-249

Albertus Magnus. See Albert the Great Arnaud, Francois: on Ubaye Valley, 341-342
Alan of Lille: on nature as a book, 204, 216- Arndt, Johann: and physcio-theology, 510
218, 241-242 Arnobius: on Christianity and natural calami-
Alchemy: as human creation in Paracelsus, 467 ties, 179-180; m. 386

Alcmaeon of Croton: theory of health of, 11 Artificial selection: Darwin on, 56, 672-673;
Alembics: theory of, 395, 413-414 Buffon on, 674
Alexander the Great: and diffusion of civili- Artisan: Seltman on Greek, 46; Seneca on,
zation, 23; and brotherhood of man, 24; m. 118-119; Hume on, 526
loi, 631 n. 31 Artisan analogy: and a creator-deity, 14; St.
Alexander Neckam: on man's dominion of na- Augustine on, 177; Thomas Aquinas on,
ture, 206 230-231; Ramon Sibiude on, 239-240; and
Ambrose. See St. Ambrose the clock, 392; Ray on, 394; Cudworth on,
Amun: hymn to, 37-38 394; D'Holbach on, 521; Hume on, 525; Kant
Anaxagoras, 39-40 on, 532
Anaximander, 8-9 Artisan deity, 44-46, 528
750 Index

Astrology: and astrological ethnology, 15, iii, Bion: The La?ne?it of, 28-29
265-266, 280, 282, 437, 460; Cumont on, 15; Birds: BufTon on, 679
as unifying principle, 15-16; Thorndike on, Birth control: Malthus on, 638-639
16, 53; Diodorus on Chaldean training in, Bloch, Marc: on hydraulic saw, 320; m. 317
22-23; ^rid Posidonius, 53, 100; and Cicero, Bodin, Jean: importance of, 434-435; his theo-
102-103; and St. Augustine, 201; in The Ro- ries in relation to the times, 435, 445-446;
mance of the Rose, 242; condemned in 1277, on national character, 435; on the universe,
249; and Christian thought in Middle Ages, 436; on astrological ethnology, 437, 441; on
254-255; and theories of environmental in- humors and design, 438-439; on strength of
fluence, 265-266, 572-573; and Albert the environmental control, 439; on sexual ac-
Great, 266; and R. Bacon, 282 tivity, 439-440; on eff^ect of climate on re-
Astro-theology, 392 ligion, 440; and Agricola, 440; on cultural
Aten: hymn to, 36, 37-38 diversity, 442; on theories applied to gov-
Athenaeus: on effect of climate, 98 n. 46; m. ernment, 442-443; and Hippocrates, 443; on
lOI theories of environment and design argu-
Athenagoras: on God as artist, 182-183 ment, 443; on German culture, 443-444; on
Atmosphere: related to mind or tempera- non-environmental influences, 443-444; on
ment, 56, 81-82, 101-102, 258, 457; pollution life in Toulouse, 444; on clustering of genius,
of London's, 488-491; Seybert on, 689 444; on environmental basis of history, 445;
Atomic theory: in ancient philosophy, 64-65 on morals, 445; and Montesquieu, 567-568
Attica: deforestation and erosion of, 121; Boethius, 208
farming in 133-134 Bonaventura. See St. Bonaventura
Augustine. See St. Augustine Botero, Giovanni: on duties of a prince, 368;
Averroes: on design and teleology, 220-222 on environmental influences, 369; on evils
Avicenna: on climate and health, 264-265 of culture contact, 370; and Polybius, 370;
and design argument, 371; on urban life,
Bacon, Francis: against final causes in natural 372; on population, 370-374 passim; m. 471,
history, 377; on relation of climate to activ- 625
on man's control of nature, 471- "Boundless": concept of, in Anaximander, 8
^
ity, 450;

474; m. 383, 495 Boyle, Robert: on final causes, 377

Bacon, Roger: on geography and astrological Breasted, James H.: on origins of Psalm 104,
ethnology, 282-285 38 n. 6
Bailey, Cyril: atomic theory and antiteleolog- Browne, Sir Thomas: Religio Medici, 426, 475-
ical ideas of, 62-64 Passim 476, 501
baliveaii: meaning of, 328-329. See also Forest Buff on, Comte Georges Louis Leclerc: on do-
conservation mestication, 139, 672-677 passim; on earth
Baltic: peoples of, 285-286 and earth history, 407, 503, 655, 666, 668;
hannovhim: meaning of, 342-343. See also For- antiteleological ideas of, 518, 678; on con-
est conservation ceptions of nature, 519, 624, 663-664, 680-
Barclay, John: on national character, 451-454, 681; and Herder, 538, 539-540; on climate
559 and natural history, 587-588; on cultural dif-
Bartholomew of England (Bartholomaeus An- ferences, 588, 591; on primitive peoples, 588-
glicus): his De proprietatibus rerum, 262- 589, 681; on degeneration of animals, 589;
263; on climate and ethnology, 272-273; m. on causes of racial differences, 590-591; on
1
15, 209, 256 man's place in nature, 590, 664, 668, 684;
Bartram, J.: on erosion, 691-692 and Montesquieu, 591; and Lord Karnes,
Basil of Caesarea: homilies of, 189-190, 189- 595; and Dunbar, 599-600; influence on the
195 passim, 240, 298 Forsters, 611, 702-703; on man as disturber
Bede the Venerable: on eff^ect of man's Fall and exterminator of life, 662, 677-679; anti-
on nature, 205-206; on founding of mon- primitivism of, 665; on natural and cultural
asteries, 306 landscapes, 661^-666; 668, 679-680; on human
Beekeeping: custom and consequences of, 322 history, 666-66'j; on deforestation and forest
Benedict. See St. Benedict conservation, 669-671; and Williamson, 669;
Benedictbeuern: nature poetry of, 247-248 on soils, 671; on fertilizers, 672; on animal
Benedictine order: and transformation of and insect societies, 677; and praise of wild-
Monte Cassino, 304; and use of land at life, 677; and Jefferson, 681-682; and De

Troarn, 331 Pauw, 683, 685; and Kalm, 683, 685; and
Benedictine Rule, 214, 289 n. i, 294, 304-306, W. Robertson, 684; m. 6, 509, 536, 537, 581.
350 n. 210 See also Chap. 14, Sees. 4-8
Bentley, Richard: and Newton, 395-397 Building: during Hellenistic Ages, 125; dur-
Bernard. See St. Bernard ing Middle Ages, 350. See also Alberti
 Index 75^
Bull: Sublimis Deus of Paul III, 359-360 as a modifier of nature, 151, 293; and dignity
Burgos, Laws of, 360-361 of labor, 302; and population theory, 425,
Burnet, Thomas, 396-397, 407-408, 633 512, 514, 637; place of natural catastrophes
Burton, Richard, 456-458, 479-480 in, 160, 521-522
Busching, D.: on geography and natural the- Christianity: Thomas Aquinas' defense of, 232;
ology, 515-517 and condemnations of 1277, 249; and human
Busiris. See Isocrates origin and dispersal, 261
Chrysippus: on purpose in cosmos, 56-58; m.
Caesar, Julius: and ethnology, 103
Caesarius of Prum: on environmental change Cicero: on Strato, 51; and Posidonius, 54; De
by man, 292 natura deorum, 54-55, 376; on Stoic view of
Cambridge Platonists, 78-79, 393-394, 522; m. world, 55; and Renaissance thinkers, 62 n.
252, 406, 507 71; on sites of cities, 101-102; on effects of
Canals: in ancient Egypt, 127; du Midi, 496- moist air, 102; on environmental and astro-
497 logical determinism, 102; on man's power
Canticle of Brother Sun: of St. Francis, 214 to change earth, 145; Ray on, 416; m. 144,
Capitular e de Villis of Charlemagne, 333-335
Carre, Meyrick: on Aquinas, 233, 251 nn. 259 Cistercian order: Otto of Freising joins, 278;
and 260 and rule of work, 308-309; and cultivation,
Cassiodorus: effect of nature on man, 257- ,349-350
258; m. 254 Cities: in Hellenistic Age, 126-127; Theocritus
Catastrophes, natural: as punishment for sin, on Ptole'my's, 128; contrast to country in
in Christian thought, 160, 521-522; Hume Middle Ages, 246; on sites of, 101-102, 276;
on, 529. See also Evil R. Bacon on influence of, 285; and the
Cathedral building: in Middle Ages, 350 sacred, 303; Botero on, 372-373
Causes, final. See Final causes Civilization: Hippocrates on age of, 119; Virgil
Celibacy, clerical, 243-244, 514, 627 on development of geographic
of, 143; idea
Centuriation, Roman; system of described, march of wood, 318;
of, 276-277, 455, 597;
146—147; m. 117 autochthonous in New World, 608; J. R.
Chain of being, 481-482, 599-600 Forster on development of, 617-618; and
Characteristics, acquired: inheritance of, 85, historical sequence in land occupation, 643.
613 See also entries under Cultural and Culture
Charcoal: u^e of in Aliddle Ages, 322; restric- Clearing, See Deforestation
tions on making of, 493 Clearings: prohibition of, 338; as earthly para-
Chardin, Sir John: climate and cultural per- dises, 349
sistence, 553-554. 567, 592 Climate: and custom, g6-gj\ changes of, due
Charlemagne: and Capitular e de Villis, 333- to human agency, 129-130, 137, 316, 487-
334 488, 542, 560, 659, 669, 689-691; and cultural
,

Charron, Pierre: on environmental influence relativism, 255 n. 3, 256; and race, 258; and
on morality and religion, 447-448, 552 pregnancy, 269; and rehgion, in Botero, 369;
Chartres, Bernard de, 380 and relation to laws, 432; and love of liberty,
Chartres, Cathedral of, 245 449; and cultural persistence, 553-554, 567,
Chastellux, 657, 686-687 592; and crime, 558; and homesickness, 558;
Chimborazo: Humboldt's map of, 547 and cultural inertia, 559-560; Montesquieu
China, 572, 577, 595, 598, 643-644, 651-652 on relation of, to population, 579; Helvetius'
^

Christian thought: conceptions of nature in, dismissal of influence of, 583-584; and natu-
150-153, 165-165; and feeling for nature, 151, ral history, in Buffon, 587-588; and degen-
196-197; and God's care for the world, 151, eration in Kames, 595-596; de Pauw on
153; and man as steward of God, 152-153, degeneration of in New World, 609, 683,
155; and Psalm 8 on man's place in cre- 685; Hume on, 659; Webster on, 661-662;
ation, 155; and Syncretism of New Testa- Adams' of influence of, 685;
rejection
ment, 161; and rejection of the world and Woodward on, 687. See also entries under
of nature, 162, 181; and environmental theo- Environmental influence; Nature, modifica-
and diffusionism, 167, 368, 403, 425,
ries, 167; tions by human agency
607; and independent invention, 167; and Columella: on rural-urban contrasts, 32-33;
preoccupation with creation, 168, 253, 708- on senescence in nature, 72, 135-136;' on
709; and importance of patristic period, 172; care of the land, 136-137; on plant intro-
and tics with classical thought, 178; and St. ductions, 137; and Hakewill, 383; Burton
Augustine, 201-202; Muslim challenge to, on, 480; m. 125, 381, 388
218-219, 222; reflected in 13th cent, iconog- Comparative method, 6—7, 141
raphy, 247; and astrology, 254-255; and man Condemnations of 1277, 248-250
752 Index

Condorcet, Antoine-Nicolas de: on population chides, 96; in Posidonius, 97; counteracts en-
control, 400; on climate and custom, 594- vironment, 95-96; and environmental change
595; on progress and population, 634-635, in Middle Ages, 316, 322-330; and rational

637 use of forest in Middle Ages, 323-325

Cook, Captain James: stimulus of his voyages Cyprian, 385-386
on natural history and ethnology, 502, 610,
620; and population theories, 626 D'Amilaville: on constancy of population, 631
Cooking: Hippocrates on, 88 Darius, 131
Copernican theory: and final causes, 376 Darwin, Charles: and Lucretius, 139; and web
Cosmas Indicopleustes: on man's stewardship of life, 427; on effects of fencing, 487; and
of nature, 300-301 Malthus, 624-625; on artificial selection, 56,
Cosmos: history of the word, 16-17; as or- ^72-673; m. 119, 404, 517, 548, 549, 550, 620,
ganic whole in Plotinus, 77; in Greek 693
thought, 174; in Old Testament, 174 Dawson, Christopher: on Thomas Aquinas,
creatio continua, 153, 416 219-220 and n. 146; on condemnations of
Creation: Hermes Trismegistus, 75; Plotinus 1277, n. 257; on Christian religion and
on, 76, 78; man's control over, 151; in Gene- peasant life, 293; on forest clearance, 294;
sis, 151, 153, 159; regret of God for, 154; on acts of synod of Trosle, 355 n. 161
evidence of God in, 161; Christian preoccu- Deforestation, 121; effects on climate, 130,
pation with, 168, 253, 708-709; unfinished by 270, 659-661, 687, 691; in Middle Ages, 290-
God, 181; in Athenagoras, 1 81-182; a work 292, 294, 318-320, 333-335. 340-341. 345; and
of love, 183; rational creatures give meaning torrents, 341-342; 700-701; Buffon on, 669-
to, 186; and the hexaemeral literature, 187; 671; Richard Frame on, 697
St. Augustine on, 196, 199; as a divine revela- Degeneration: Buffon's concept of, 589, 674
tion, 211; R. Bacon on, 282; and cosmicizing Democritus: and atomic theory, 64-65
lands, 303; Browne on, 475; resemblance of De Jiatiira locorinn literature, 174-175; 263-
New World to, 685-686, 692 264
Creator: deity, 14; goodness of in Plato, 45; Depopulation. See Population
his relation to created in Augustine, 196 De proprietatibus rerum literature, 263-264
Crime: climatic causes of, 558 Derham, William: physico-theology of, 421-
Cudworth, Ralph, on plastic nature, 393-394 423; on food chain, 423
Cultural determinism, 709 Descartes, Rene: on final causes, 377; on con-
Cultural development, 140-142 stancy of natural law, 381; on control over
Cultural difi^erences: after the Fall, 262; con- nature, 426-427, 476-477; Cudworth on, 393;
cern with in 17th cent. England, 451; Herder Ray on, 394, 417; Keill on, 412-413; Hazard
on, 540, 542; Fontenelle on, 559; Bufi^on on, on, 509-510; Voltaire on, 523-524; Leibniz
588, 591; G. Forster on, 612-620 passim; and onCartesians, 506; m. 406, 495
fertiHty, Montesquieu on, 627-628 Design argument: in antiquity, 42-44; and eye
Cultural milieu: and Bacon, 285; in Fontenelle, and hand, 42; and domestication, 58; in Sen-
458-459, 552-553; in Hume, 585-586; and eca, 61; and ideas of environmental influ-
Malthusian theory, 638; in Montesquieu, ence, 255; and Botero, 371; in Copernicus,
653-654 376; in Galileo, 376; in Newton, 377; in
Cultural persistence, 439, 553-554, 559-560, Boyle, 377; in Spinoza, 378; and optimism,
567, 571, 592, 594-595 380; and Bentley, 395-396; and population
Cultural relativism: and climate in Muslim theory, 398, 403-404, 625; and microscope,
thought, 255 n. 3; in Montesquieu, 573 417, 526; in i8th cent, natural history, 510;
Culture: development of, 6-7, 107-109, 281- and telescope, 526; in Herder, 539; vitality
282, 545, 595-596; Strabo on, 104-105; i8th of, in 19th cent., 548; in G. Forster, 619
cent, interest in, 501. See also Comparative Dicaearchus: on cultural development, 7; on
method Golden Age, 133, 140; on domestication of
Culture contact: in classical writings, 92, 102; animals, 141; m. 281, 596
Vitruvius on, 108; Bartholomew of England Diderot, Denis: on climatic influences, 584-
on, 273; Thomas Aquinas on, 275-276;
Giraldus Cambrensis on, 281; Otto of Freis- Diffusionism: and Genesis, 167; and Christian
ing on, 287 n. 81; Botero on, 370; Hale on theology, 368, 403, 425; Robertson on, 607-
pre-Columbian, between Old and New 608; G. Forster on, 619
World, 402-403; Alberti on, 431; Hume on, Diodorus: on Chaldean training in astrology,
585-586; Rousseau on, 593-594; Dunbar on, 22; on Chaldean concept of the world, 36;
599; Forster on, 619 on African ethnology, 96; Hume on, 629-
Custom: role of, among Longheads, 85; in 630
Herodotus, 89; in Polybius, 95; in Agathar- Diogenes of Apollonia: and teleology, 39-40
 1

Index 753
Diognetus: letter to, on the Christians, 182 Eden, Garden of, 153, 164, 235, 273, 347-348
Discoveries, accidental: Acosta on, 366 Education: relation of, to climate, 593
Discovery. See Age of Discovery Egypt: civilization of, 21, 36-38, 89, 90, 128
Disease: among the Greeks, 11; Lucretius, loi; Element: concept of, 63-64
Wallace, on venereal, 63 Elements: four, 9-10, 12, 64, 263-265 passim^
Division: and the four elements, 64 and observation, 10, 154, 241
Domestication; utilitarian theory of, 57, 139; Emasculation and self-mutilation, 514
and design argument, 58; Chrysippus on, Empedocles: and four elements, 9-10; and
58; Hippon on, 129; Theophrastus on, 129; Parmenides, 63; on existence of life before
Pliny on, 137; Lucretius on animal, 138; Buf- sun's creation, 193 n. 52
fon on, 139, 672-678 passim; Dicaearchus on, Encyclopedists: of Middle Ages, 209, 256, 262-
141; Varro on, 141; and Fall of man, 206, 236, 264, 271
471; and Romance of the Rose, 242; Gregory Engineers: in Hellenistic Age, 125
of Nyssa on, 298; and legends of animals as Environment: hard and soft, 87, 547; cosmi-
servants, 311; late recognition of implica- cized, 117, 303; Plato on relict, 121; sacred
tions, 344; Ray on, 420; Ficino on, 463; Hale of Prussians, 330; fitness of, 408, 427, 535,
on, 480-482; Hume on, 527; Kant on, 533; 543; adaptation to, 549-550
Robertson on, 684-685 Environmental change by human agency. See
Drainage: and health, 348; Dienne's history of, Nature, modifications by human agency
496; Evelyn's advocacy of, 488-489 Environmental influence, theories of: sources,
Drunkenness: J. Barclay on, 454; and climate, 80; types, 80-81; in Hippocrates, 87; in
573, 586-587 Herodotus, 89; in Thucydides, 91; Pseudo-
Du Bartas, Guillaume de Salluste, Sieur: en- Xenophon, 91-92; Plato, 92; Aristotle, 93-95;
vironmental theories of, 448-449; and Mil- Polybius, 95-96; Agatharchides, 96-97; Posi-
ton, 449 donius, 98; Athenaeus, loi; Florus, loi;
Du Bos, Jean Baptiste: on climatic influences, Seneca, loi; Horace, 10 1; Tacitus, 103;
444, 554-562 on progress, 555; on
passi77i; Cicero, 103; Strabo, 103-105; Vitruvius, 105;
European art, 556; on homesickness, 558; on static quality of, 109; and theories of cul-
the Romans, 560; on the Dutch, 561; on tural development, 109; temperate climates
trade, 562; and Fontenelle, 555; and Barclay, and civilization, no; Philo on, no; Josephus,
559; and Temple, 561-562 iio-iii; Ptolemy, 11 3-1 14; Servius, 114-115;
Du Halde, J. B.: on China, 621, 644 and Christian theology, 254; as theories of
Dunbar, James; environmental ideas of, 596- adaptation, 255; and design argument, 255,
600 passim 519-520; and political theory, 256; and clas-
Dutch: Du Bos on, 561; of Cape of Good sical continuities in iVliddle Ages, 256;
Hope, 613 Orosius, 257; Cassiodorus, 257-258; Paul the
Deacon, 259-261; and Goth's love of liberty,
Earth: as orderly, harmonious whole, 36, 54, 260-261; John the Scot, 261-262; and re-
392, 396-397, 422-423; a product of design, ligion, 263, 447; and astrology, 265-266; Al-
42-43. 59, 60-61, 178, 202, 357, 379-380, 406, bert the Great, 268-270; Bartholomew of
505, 707, 710; utilitarian and aesthetic atti- England, 271-273; Thomas Aquinas, 274, 276;
tudes toward, 52; Clemente of Rome on, Giraldus Cambrensis, 279; Gunther of Pairis,
178; a school and training place for man, 286; Botero, 369; Alberti, 430-431; relation
191; F. de Gomara on its beauty and di- to history in early modern times, 432-433;
versity, 362-363; its resources as limiting MachiaveUi, 433; Bodin, 434-447; and cul-
factor in population growth, 373, 623, 633, tural relativity, 439, 440; Louis Le Roy, 447;
636, 639; inclination of its axis an evidence Du Bartas, 448-449; Charron, 447-448, 552;
of design, 408, 414; Woodward on, 409-411; Burton, 456-457; critique of early modern
antediluvian, 412; Leibniz on progress of its ideas of, 460; Herder, 539, 570; Humboldt,
cultivation, 477-478; as fit environment for 545; from Bodin to Montesquieu, 551; Fon-
life, 510; as theater of human history,
539; tenelle, 552-553;Chardin, 554; Du Bos, 556—
history of, 666, 668, 669-700 562 passim; Arbuthnot, 562-565; Montes-
Earth as a mother: myth of, 13-14; Philo on, quieu, 577, 580-581; Voltaire, 582-583; Hel-
14; Plutarch, on, 36; Columella on, 136; St. vetius, 583-584; Diderot, 584-585; Hume,
Augustine on, 197 585-587; Buffon, 587, 591; Rousseau, 592-593;
East, the unchanging: Chardin on, 554, 571, 595 Condorcet, 594; Dunbar, 596, 601; Falconer,
East- West contrasts, 279-280 601-605; Ferguson, 605; Robertson, 605;
Ecology: succession in, 194; and physico- Forster, J. R., and George, 610-620 passi?n;
thcology, 423, 425, 427, 633; and Goethe, Malthus, 636; John Adams, 685; summary,
536; antecedents of, 707-708 709-710
Ecosystem, 6, 379, 511 n. 25, 549-550 Environmentalism, cosmic, 15
754 Index

Epicurean philosophy, 51, 55, 62-65, 66, 67, 73 and Humboldt, 543-544; and South Seas,
Epidemics: Lucretius on, loi 616, 618-619, 703-704
Epimetheus: myth of, 41-42 Forster, John R., 502; and South Seas, 611-618,
Equatorial regions: habitability of, 235, 437- 703
438 Fossils, 409
Erosion, 389, 415, 465, 691-692 Four elements. See Elements, four
Eternal recurrence. See Recurrence, eternal Francis. See St. Francis
Ethiopia, 96, 259; people of, 21, 112 Franciscans: and observation of nature, 237
Ethnology: Greek, 8; in Hellenistic Age, 20- Franklin, Benjamin: on reproductive power of
21; Hippocrates, 85; in Herodotus, 89;
in life, 624, 693
classical,1 00-101, 103; Caesar on, 103; Tac- Frederick II: his Art of Falconry, 224-225
itus on, 103; astrological, 15, in, 265-266, French, national character of, 452, 556, 593
280, 282, 437, 460; and Genesis 2, 164; and Frontier in Middle Ages: and United States
religion, 167; of the South Seas, 612; com- of 19th cent., 289-290
parative, in 1 8th cent,, 621
Evelyn, John: on environmental change by Galen: on humors, 11, in; Bodin opposes,
man, 485-491; on forest conservation, 485- 444; m. 83, 460
486; and Darwin, 487; and historical perspec- Galileo: on final causes, 376, 505
tive of, 488; and advocacy of draining, 488- Garden: in Middle Ages, 347-348
489; on London's air pollution, 489-491; m. Genesis: and population questions, 166-167,
134, 670 512
Evil: St. Augustine on, 197-201; and secondary Genesis i, 151-153, 159, 163-164, 193, 198, 202,
causes, 234; Hume on natural, 529; Lisbon 646
earthquake as physical, 521; physical, and Genesis 2, and ethnological thought, 164
tout est bien, 549 Genesis 3, curse on nature, 153, 162, 164
Exegesis: biblical, 176; and number, 188; and Genesis 6, 154
Averroes, 222; as a sociology of knowledge, Genesis 8, 408
222; in Maimonides, 222; and Ramon Si- Genius: clustering of, 444-445, 454. SS^SSS
biude, 239; importance of, 253; allegorical, Geographic march of civilization. See Civili-
283; m. 379, 712. See also Hexaemeron litera- zation
ture Geography: cultural, 18, 365, 547-548; relation
Exeniplarism, 237-238. See also Nature, as a to religion, 35, 167, 173-174, 283-284, 364;
book late Tudor and early Stuart, 432 n. 8;
Extinctions, 480, 677-678 physico-theology in history of, 505, 515-
517, 597-598; need for, 516-517; Kant's in-
Falconry: and nature study, 224-225; Fred- terest in, 534-535; defects of education in,
erick on, 224
II 538; and aesthetics, 546; and art history, 546;
Fallow land, 132 Rousseau's sympathy for, 593
Farmers: in Attica, 133-134; Yankee and Pcnn- German culture, 443-444
sylvanian, 696-697 Giles of Rome: his Err ores Philosophorum,
Fencing: effects of,
487 224 n. 160
Fertilizers, 345, 672, 694-695 Gilson, Etienne: on Minucius Felix, 176-177;
Final causes, 64, 375-378, 502, 517-521, 523 on Tertullian, 177 n. i; on Arnobius, 180 n.
Fire: Lucretius on discovery of, 139; and 6; on Irenaeus, 183 n. 11; on Origen, 184 n.
origin of metallurgy, 139; and the forest, 14; on Alan of Lile, 217 n. 136; on Muslim

294i 322, 344-345. 492, 667, 696-697 threats to Christian theology, 220 n. 148; on
Florus: effects of hard climate, loi exeniplarism, 238; on condemnations of 1277,
Fontenelle, Bernard: on constancy of nature 250 n. 257
and observable differences, 390; on in- Giraldus Cambrensis, 279; m. 256
flupnces of climate and culture, 458-459, Glassmaking: in forests, 340
552-553. 555. 559 Goats: destructiveness of, 142-143, 342-343;
Food: Greek interest in, 21; and national char- Buff on on, 675; Fabre on, 701
acter, 455; and melancholy, 457 God: his care iFor the world, 5, 36-39, 151-153,
Forest: retreats as paradise, 294; uses of, in 162, 179, 213, 513; as creator, 153-154; his
Middle Ages, 294, 320-321, 324-326, 336-337, covenant with Noah, 154; wisdom of, in
341, 493; history of word, 325 n. 122, 327; Psalm 8, 157; creativeness of, in Corinthians
conservation, 326-327, 329-330, 336-339, 342, I, 161-162; as artisan, 202-203; in control of

345, 347, 669-671; as habitat of living things, nature, 208; revealed in his works, 376, 396,
344; fires, 344; Chastellux and Chateaubriand 467; wTath of, 523 n. 57
on, 686. See also Deforestation Gods: proofs of existence of, 55-56, 59, 229,
Forstcr, George: and scientific voyages, 502; 239-240, 419, 528, 530
 Index 755
Godwin, William: on progress and environ- Hexaemeral literature: nature of, 163-164, 174;
mental limitations, 634-636; on population, links with Genesis i, 177, 189-190; relation

649-652 to creation, 187; in Philo, 187; in Basil of

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: coolness to Caesarea, 189-190; in St. Augustine, 196; and
teleology of, 535-536; m. 543 iconographical representation, 247
Golden Age, 31-134, 139, 140, 143, 408
7, 118, 1 Hippocrates: his medical corpus, 5; on humors,
Goodman, Godfrey, 381 II, 80; Airs, Waters, Places, Edelstein on
Goths: love of liberty and climate, 260-261, textual problems of, 82-83; on culture and
432. 449 environment, 82-88; and Problems of Aris-
Graunt, John: his work on bills of mortality, totle, 94; on present ways of living, 119; his
398-399, 403, 426, 490-491 influence in Middle Ages, 256; and Bodin,
Grazing, 321-322, 323-324, 328-329, 334-335, 443; and Burton, 457; respect for, in early
342, 492 modern times, 460; and Herder, 540; attitude
Gregory of Nyssa, 298 toward, in i8th cent., 552; and Arbuthnot,
Groves: sacred, 135, 310 562-563; and Montesquieu, 567-568; and
Gruerie: meaning of, 326—327 Falconer, 601
Grunebaum, Gustave E. von: on Thomas History: typical chronology of sacred, 167;
Aquinas and A4uslim scholasticism, 220 and andenvironmental change by human
n. 147; on Muslim ideas of geographical in- agency, 289-292
fluence, 255 n. 3; on geographic march of Hodgen, Margaret, 363 n. 12
civilization, 277 Holbach, Paul Henri d': critic of final causes,
Gunther of Pairis, 285-286 520; nature not a work, 521; and Voltaire,

Habitats, animal: in Job, 155-156; destruction Holy Land: Hakewill on physical decline of,
of,by man, 662, 674 478
Hahn, Edward, m. 58, 673 Homosexuality, 217
Hakewill, George: refutes idea of senescence Horace: on rural life, 31-32; on atmosphere of
in nature, 383-389; on man perfecting na- Boeotia, loi
ture, 478;m. 70, 134 Hottentots: Locke on, 583; J. R. Forster on,
Hale, Matthew: man and nature, 400-403; de- 613
sign argument and population theory, 403- House: Vitruvius on development of, 108
404; man as steward of God, 405, 480-482; Humboldt, A. von: on Basil's hexaemeron,
m. 495. 534. 625 177; on pastoral stage unobserved in New
Harmonic analogy, 17 World, on vegetation, 543-548; and G.
142;
Harmony, preestablished: of Leibniz, 477, 507 Forster, 543-544, 611; on environmental
Harpalus: and plant acclimatization, 124 stimuli and map of Chimborazo, 547; on
Health: concepts of, in antiquity, 11; and settlement, 547-548; and Dunbar, 600; and
drainage, 348; Arbuthnot's conception of, Malthus, 643; m. 12, 119, 596, 616
563-564; public, 573, 604; and climate, i8th Hume, David: 525-529; and climatic theories,
cent, summary, 621; and disease, 647, 661; 585-587; and senescence in nature, 629; on
and clearing, 687-689 population history, 629, 630, 651; on climatic
Hehn, Victor, 137 change by man, 659; m. 552, 621
Hellenistic Age: characteristics of, 18-25; and Humors: theory of, 10-12, 80-82; Avicenna
urbanization, 33; teleological and antiteleo- on, 264; Bodin on, 438-439; Evelyn on, 490;
logical ideas during, 62, 73-74;and environ- Du Bos on, 557
mental change during, 122-127; architecture Humus, 410, 424
and engineering in, 125 Hunting: reservation of forests for, 326, 338;
Helvetius, Claude A.: his dismissal of climatic passion for, in Middle Ages, 346-347; pro-
influences, 583-584 hibition of, 347
Herder, Johann G. von: 537-543; on Voltaire Huxley, Thomas H., 482, 666
and Lisbon earthquake, 524, 538; Bufl^on's Hydrologic cycle, 193, 388, 413, 510
use of, 538, 539-540; criticism of Montes- Hymn to Sun, 36-38
quieu, 569-570; m, 12, 406, 612
Heresy, 218, 22v2, 232, 233 Iconography, 247
Hermetical writings: on order and purpose in Ideas: stemming from daily life and observa-
the cosmos, 75-76, 146, 266 tion, 49, 71-72, 272, 295-296, 392, 624
Herodotus: teleology of, 40-41; general ideas, Indians: of Chinantla, D. de Esquivel on, 359;
88-89; on the Nile, 89-90, 127; on influence Garces against enslavement of, 360; Siibliinus
of hard environments, 90-91, 104; m. 8, 18, Deus of Pope Paul III on humanity of, 360;
38, 262 Acosta on origin of, 366-368
Hesiod: on cultural history of man, 1 31-133 Industrial Revolution, 705
756 Index

Insects: and design, 76, 205, 533, 677 Lamarck, Chevalier de: on adaptive evolution,
Institutions: effects of, on culture, 7-8 549, 620
Invention: independent, 108, 167, 607-608; and Las Casas, Bartolome de, 360, 367
climate, 587 Law: and environmental change in Middle
Irenaeus: shortcomings of knowledge of na- Ages, 316; and climate, 432
ture, 183 Lefebvre des Noettes, Richard: inventions and
Iron mills: Evelyn on, 487 environmental changes, 318-319
Isaiah: curse on earth, 162 n. 32; and Cedd's
Leff, Gordon: on John the Scot's view of na-
founding of a monastery, 306 on condemnations of 1277,
ture, 212 n. 125;
Isidore of Seville: as transmitter of classical
250, n. 257; on Duns Scotus, 251; on Thomas
knowledge, 115, 208-209, 227; and environ- Aquinas, 251
mental influences, 257-258, 264; geography
Leibniz, Gottfried W.: defender of final
of, 260, 264, 272
causes, 377, 506-508; on preestablished har-
Islands: encourage rise of civilizations, 616
mony, 477; on human knowledge, 477; opti-
Isocrates, 127-128
mism of, 477-478; on progress in earth's cul-
Isolation: effects on culture of, 7, 282, 593-594
tivation, 477, 478, 636; on partial views, 505-
Israel, lost tribes of, and America, 367
506;on the Cartesians, 506; and advances in
Jefferson, Thomas: and Buffon, 681-682; m. the study of life, 507; on invention, 507; on

685 monads, 507; on law of sufficient reason,

Jerome. See St. Jerome 508; on principle of plenitude, 508; on ra-
Jerusalem, 303 tionality and morality in the universe, 508
Job, Book of, on God as creator of an ordered Le Roy, Louis, 447
world, 155-156 Leucippus: and classical atomist theory, 64
John, Chrysostom: on nature as a book, 203, Liberty: and the Goths, 261; reigns in moun-
205 tains, 576-577
John the Scot: his theophany, 209-212; Gilson Life: Origen on, 184; existence of before sun's
on his theophany, 238; environmental causes creation, 193 and n. 52; fecundity of, 624
of human differences, 261-262 Linnaeus: and design argument with reference
Josephus: on Greek historians, iio-iii to plants and animals, 510-512; m. 624
Lisbon earthquake, 515, 521-522, 524
Kahn, Charles H., 8-9, 10, 17
Locke, John: on moral causes, 583
Kalm, Peter: on North America, 541, 609, 683,
Logos: creativity of, in Posidonius, 54
685-686
London: Evelyn's plan for, 489-490
Kames, Lord: on pastoralism, 142; on climate
and degeneration, 595-596; m. 545, 616
Lope de Vega: on the New World, 362
Lorain, John: on land uses in i8th cent. Amer-
Kant, Immanuel: on teleology in nature, 529-
ica, 693-697; m. 685
535; and George Forster on race, 619; on en-
Lorris, Guillaume de. See Romance of the Rose
vironmental change by man, 659; m. 50, 509
Love: and the four elements, 63
Keill, John: defense of final causes, 412-414;
Lovejoy, Arthur O.: principle of plenitude, 5-
m. 74
6; in Plotinus, 77 and nn. 122, 123
Kepler, Johannes: on final causes, 376
Lucretius: his organic analogy, 7; his feeling
Kliger, Samuel: on climate and Gothic love of
for nature, 29-30; and Theophrastus's tele-
liberty, 261 n. 17
ology, 50-51; and Democritus, 65; Epicu-
Klimata, the seven: in Posidonius, 98; in Art
reanism of, 67; on design argument, 68-69;
of Falconry, ii6\, in Ibn Khaldun, 255 n. 3;
mixtures in, 265; traditional classification of,
on senescence in nature, 70-72, 135; teleol-
ogy in, 70; on niggardliness of nature, 72-73;
267; in Albert the Great, 267; in Diderot's
Encyclopedic, 584 environmental biology in, loi; on wisdom of
gods, 134; on animal domestication, 138-139;
Koran, Latin translation of, 218
on forest fires and origin of metallurgy, 139;
Labor: dignity of, in Christian thought, 302- summary, 140; on environment changed by
306, 350 n. 210 man, 140; and Arnobius, 179; and Celsus, 185;
Lactantius: on utility of earth to man, 180-181 and Hakewill, 386; m. 17, 357, 381, 667
Lafitau, Joseph Francois: on Indians, 361; Rob- Ludwig of Bavaria: forest regulations of, 339
inson's objections to, 608 Lull, Ramon. See Ramon Lull
Land: study of nonagricultural, 137; mul-
late Lyell, Charles: versus physico-theologists, 548;
470 n. 21; historical sequence in
tiple uses of, anticipation of his ideas in Buffon, 679-680;
occupation of, 642 m. 646
Landscapes: ancient, J. Bradford on, 146-147;
Buffon's distinction between natural and cul- MachiaveUi, Nicolo: on soil and civilization,
tural, 679-680 433-434
 Index 757

Macrocosm: in Greek thought, 17; Stoic idea 301; H. More on, 395; Hale on, 400-401, 405,
of sympathy and, 57; Maimonides on, 223; 480; Ray on, 420-421; in physico-theology,
Paracelsus on, 465-466; m. 413 425, 504; F. Bacon on, 471-472; T. Browne
Maimonides, Moses: on creation and design, on, 475; Linnaeus on, 511; Biisching on, 515-
222-224 516; Kant on, 533-534; in Malthus and God-

Male, £mile: on love of nature in Middle Ages,

win, 653; Buff on on, 590, 664, 668, 684; Wm.
Robertson on, 684; summary, 708-709
173; on medieval religious art and nature,
245-246; m. 253 Manuring, 136-137, 316 n. 95
Malthus, Thomas R.: general ideas, 502, 637- Maritime location: effects of, on culture, 7,

638; and Siissmilch, 515, 649; on fecundity of 102, 431

life, 624, 640-641, 648; on populousness of Marsh, George P.: on human changes of en-
ancient nations, 632; and Condorcet and vironment, 149, 663, 679, 702, 704, 705
Godwin, 634, 635; and Godwin, 640, 649-650, Marshes, 680, 689
653; and birth control, 638-639; on earth as a Marxism, 550, 646, 649
limiting factor, 639; and distribution of Maulde, Rene de: on use of forests in Middle
world population, 639-641; on concept of Ages and Renaissance, 323-324, 326-327; m.
land, 639-640, 643; and modifications of na-
336
ture by man, 641-642, 649; pessimism of, 642; Maury, Alfred: on Salic law on forest protec-
his concepts of soil, 642; and Humboldt, 643;
tion, 344
and institutional reform, 644; and progress,
Mediterranean environment, 10, 39, 85, 148, 155
644- 645; on nature of man, 645; optimism of, Memphite theology: J. A, Wilson on, 36-38
645-646; and religion, 646-647; and disease, Metallurgy: origin of, 139
647; philosophy of, 647-648; human passions Metals: agricola on civilizations' need of, 469
in, 648; m. 6, 399, 422, 581 Metempsychosis, 296, 580
Man: significance of his erect carriage, 42, 52,
Meun, Jean de. See The Romance of the Rose
117, 187; as apex of creation, 52, 57, 60; on Microcosm: in Greek thought, 17; Stoic idea
origin of, 96, 261, 401-402; as creator of nov- of sympathy and, 57; Paracelsus on, 465-466
elty in nature, 116; as steward o*^ God, 152, iMicroscope, 375, 417, 506-507, 526
155, 168, 236, 311-312, 405, 463, 480-482; and Middle Ages: modern study of, 172-173, 288-
rationahty, 185-186; evaluations of human
289, 319
nature, 198; St. Augustine on his nature, 201; Mijrration: causes of, 259-261
as finisher of the Creation, 293, 427-428, 466,
Milton, John: and theories of climatic influ-
506, 529; reasons for his creation, 405; adapt- ence, 449
ability of, 459-460, 590;uniqueness of, 463-
Minerals: Seneca on distribution of, 61
464; an amphibious piece, 475-476; as ex- Mining, 290, 340; Agricola's defense of, 468-469
terminator of life, in BufTon, 677-678. See Minucius Felix: on the earth as a planned
also entries under Man's; and Nature, modi-
abode, 176-179
fication by human agency
Moisture: and thinking, 81-82, 102, 258
Man's dominion over nature: and Genesis, 151, Monads: Leibniz on, 507
159, 293; and daily observation, 166; in Psalm Monasteries, 303-309; selection of sites for,
8, 166; and relation of, to God, 168; Bede on, 306-307, 312; Thomey abbey, 313; land use
205-206; Neckam on, 206; Thomas Aquinas by Troarn abbey, 331
on, 236; Philo on, 295; Origen on, 297; Greg- Monastic siting: Orderic Vital on, 312
ory of Nyssa on, 298; ideas of monks on, 310; Monks: labor of, G. Coulton on, 289 n. i, 314
after the Fall, 311. See also Nature, control of n. 87; friendship with animals, 346
Man's Fall: Raven on, 163 n. 34; symbolism of, Monogamy: Botero on, 371; Graunt on, 398;
163 n. 35; St. Augustine on, 200; Neckam on, and Christian religion, 514; Montesquieu on,
206; John the Scot on, 212; Albert the Great 573-574.627
on, 228-229; Thomas Aquinas on, 236; and Montaigne, M.: and Ramon Sibiude, 238; in-
cultural diversity, 262; and his dominion fluence of place, 450
over nature, 311, 349; and curse on nature, Monte Cassino: poet Mark's description of,
379; Woodward on, 409; Whiston on, 411; 303-304
F. Bacon on, ,47 1-472; Lorain on, 695 Montesquieu: senescence in nature, 134; re-
Man's place in nature: Stoic and Epicurean vival of environmental theories, 502, 551;
views, 67; in Stoicism, 145; in Psalm 8, 155; Siissmilch on, 512; Herder on, 540; reception
in Job 38, 156; Lactantius on, 181; Philo on, of his Vesprit des Lois, ^66-';6-]\ influences
189; St. Augustine on, 198; Maimonides on, on, 567-568; sources of his ideas, 567-568,
222-223; Ramon Sibiude on, 240; in The 574 n. 64; and sheep's tongue experiment, 569;
Romance of the Rose, 243; Albert the Great on climate and religion, 571-572, 579-580;
on, 270-271; Cosmas Indicopleustes on, 300- on China, 572, 577; cultural relativism in,
758 Index

573; on drunkenness, 573; on public health, 165-166; Judeo-Christian idea of habitable

573;on slavery, 573; on peoples of Asia and world, 168; providence creates for rational
Europe, 574-575; and Plutarch, 576 n. 69; on nature, 185; St. Augustine on, 175, 198-199;
liberty in mountains, 576-577; population as movement powered by the love of God,
theory of, 578-579, 627-629, 653; and A. Fer- 212; in Alan of Lille, 216-217; Thomas
guson, 605; on clerical celibacy, 627; God- Aquinas, 230, 232-233; in The Romance of
win on, 651; and cultural milieu, 653-654; on the Rose, 241, 245; in 12th and 13th cents.,
environmental change by man, 658; m. 12, 245; in Duns Scotus, 251; in 17th cent., 378-
537 379, 391, 406, 414-415; in 17th and i8th cents.,
Moon: Plutarch on life on, 74-75 424; in Wotton, 391; in Ray, 394, 419; in
More, Henry: physico-theology of, 395 Leibniz, 505-506; teleological view of, 508-
Moschus: feeling for nature in, 28-29 509; geometrical view of, 509-510; in Lin-
Mountains: necessary in the design, 376, 413, naeus, 511; in D'Holbach, 521; in Hume,
419; attitude to, 411; as alembics, 413; and 524-526; in Kant, 532; in Goethe, 536; as par-
liberty, 576-577 ent and teacher, 542, 549; in Humboldt, 543;
Miinster, Sebastian: cosmography of, 363-366 in Malthusian theory, 647; dignity of, be-
Music: of spheres, 17; Polybius on, 95-96 stowed by man, 653; in Buff on, 664, 680-
Muslim theology. See Theology, Muslim 682; weakness of, in New World, 681-685;
Muslim thought: and ideas of environmental in the Forsters, 703
influence, 255 n. 3
Nature, feeling for: Scully on sacred land-
Myth: concepts of order and purpose in, 3; scapes, 12-13; Hellenistic Age, 13, 24-25,
personification of natural forces, 5; celestial 32-25, 32-33; in Homer, 13, 25, 32; in Apol-
archetypes, 117; man as orderer of nature, lonius Rhodius, 26-27; Theocritus, 27-28;
117 in Bion, 28-29; in Lucretius, 29-30; in Virgil,
30; in Tibullus, 31-32; in Horace, 31-32; in
National character: Greek interest in, 8; Serv- Columella, 32-33; in Varro, 32-33; contrasts
ius on, 115, 209; Medieval interest in, 263; between natural and cultural landscapes, 32-
Bodin on, 435; 17th cent, interest in, 451; 33; in Panaetius, 51-52; in Plotinus, 77-78;
Bishop Hall on, 451; Overbury on, 451-452; in Christian thought, 151, 196-197; in Psalms,
Barclay on, 452-454; Temple on, 454-455; 157-158, 165; in Proverbs 8, 158; in the Wis-
chanijed by diet, Du Bos on, 559; Ar- dom literature, 158; in Ecclesiasticus, 160;
buthnot on, 564; Helvetius on, 584; Hume in Middle Ages, 173, 207, 245-246; in St.
on, 586; 8th cent, interest in, 621; and en-
1 Augustine, 199; and cloister foundings, 207;
vironmental theories, 709. in St. Bernard, 213-214; in St. Francis, 214-
Natural history, 416, 419-420, 423-424, 508-509, 215; in Villard de Honnecourt, 246-247; in
587-588, 621, 657-658, 707 manuscript of Benedictbeuern, 247-248; in
Nature: constancy of, 7, 165, 380-382, 384, 387, Gunther of Pairis, 285-286; in Pope Pius II,
389-390, 416; as proof of God's existence, 36, 355-357; in Ray, 418; in Barclay, 452-453; in
175, 392; niggardliness of, 72-73, 165, 433, Kant, 533-534; in Humboldt, 546-547; in
527, 529, 549, 636, 645; struggle in, 77; curse Dunbar, 600; in G. Forster, 703
on, 153-154, 162-165, 212, 232, 236, 481; re- Nature, man's control of: in ancient world,
jection of, in Christian thought, 162, 181; 116-117; and human memory, 146; Philo on,
beauties of, 392, 395, 397; asymmetry in, 397; 295-296; modern ideas on, contrasted with
light of, 466; chaos of disharmony in, 508; earlier ones, 349; modern interest in, 425-427,
blindness of, 529-530 494; and idea of man as a geographic agent,
Nature as a book: in Athanasius, 203; in St. 461-462; and domestication, 463; optimism
Augustine, 203-204; in Alan of Lille, 204; in of in i7th-i8th cent., 471, 478; F. Bacon on,
E. Curtius, 204-205; in Thomas Aquinas, 232; 472-473; Descartes on, 476; Hale on, 480-
in St. Bonaventura, 237; in Ramon Sibiude, 485; purposive nature of, 495-496; and tech-
238 nology, 496. See also Man's dominion over
Nature, conceptions of: 3; ecosystem, 6; prin- nature
ciple of plenitude, 6; balance, harmony, and Nature, man's place in. See Man's place in
unity of,6, 14-15, 17, 380, 391, 393, 502, 508, nature
519, 527-528, 547, 693-698 passi?n\ and as- Nature, modifications by human agency: in
trology, 16; and terrestrial unity, 17; in myth, 117; in antiquity, 119; in Sophocles'
Stoicism, 51-52; utilitarian view of, 57-58, Antigone, 119-120; in Plato's Critias, 119-
198-199, 395, 397, 423-424; Yahweh, God of 120; in Hellenistic Age, 122-123; Isocrates
an ordered universe, 155; in Book of Job, on, 127; Herodotus on, 127; Strabo on, 128;
155-156; in Psalm 104, 157; in Romans 1:20, Eratosthenes on, 128-129; and significance
,
161; in Psalms, 165; creator and the created, of domestication (see also domestication).
 Index 759
129, 236, 463; Theophrastus on, 129-130; and New Atlantis of F. Bacon, 473-475
soil fertility, 131; and the natural order, 135; New World: Acosta and Lafitau on, 361; Lope
and arable land, 137; in Stoic philosophy, de Vega and Vespucci on, 362; migrations
138, 144; Lucretius on, 138; Varro on, 141; to, 366-367; pre-Columbian contacts with,
Virgil on, 143; Cicero on, 145; in Hermetical 616; weakness of nature in, 681-684; like the
writings, 146; ancient and modern contrasts, creation, 685-686
149; in Christian thought, 151, 293; in Psalm Newton, Isaac: teleological beliefs of, 377
8, 157; in Middle Ages, 175, 206, 288 n. i, Nieuwentijdt, Bernard: and clock analogy,
290, 292-293, 318-320, 323-324, 331, 350; Lac- 392, 509
tantius on, 181; Origen on, 185, 297; Philo Nile, 38, 89, 127-128
on, 187-188, 295; St. Bernard on, 214; in The Nominalism, 251
Romance of the Rose, 242; Albert the Great Number in the Creation: Philo and St. Au-
on, 270, 314-316, 351; as history, 289-292; gustine on, 188-189
and theology, 294; by monastic settlements, Niirnberg: protection of its forest, 338-339
294, 302, 308-309, 312, 313; and attitude of
early Church Fathers, 295, 301; TertuUian Oak, destruction of, for bees, 322
on, 296; Gregory of Nyssa on, 298; St. Am- Ofjrcijia gentium: the Northlands as a hive of
brose on, 298-299; St. Augustine on, 299- nations, 260, 277, 432, 449, 667-668
300; Theodoret on, 300; in Cosmas Indicop- Oikoumene: meanings of, 17-18; of Eratos-
leustes, 300-301; and creations in the wilder- thenes, 20; cultural connotations of, in Hel-
ness, 312-313; and undesirable changes, 316, lenistic Age, 23-24

495; and law and custom, 316-317, 322-330, Opposites: order characterized by struggle of,
333; and destructiveness of domestic animals, 9-10
342-343; and deforestation, 345; and Age of Optimism: about control of nature in 17th
Discovery, 358-359; Sebastian Miinster on, and 1 8th cents., 471, 476-478, 549
365; Botero on, 371; Henry More on, 395; in Organic analogy: in Greek philosophy, 17; in
early modern period, 427-428, 462, 471, 484- Lucretius, 134
485, 494-497; in 17th cent, thought, 425, 471, Origen: on designed earth and man as modifier
478; Ficino on, 463-464; Alberti on, 464-465; of environment, 183-186; and Augustine,
Leonardo da Vinci on, 465; Paracelsus on, 198; and Thomas Aquinas, 233; on role of
466-467; in F. Bacon's New Atlantis, 474- necessity, 297; in Hakewill, 385
475; Hakewill on, 478; Burton on, 479-480; Otto of Freising, 263; and Church influence,
Hale on, 480-482; Ray on, 483-484; and op- 277-278
timism of modern interpretations, 484-485, Ovid, 133
494-497, 704-705; Evelyn on, 485-491; in
French Forest Ordinance of 1669, 494; Paley, W., 375, 537, 646
Biisching on, 516; Kant on, 531, 659; Herder Palissy, Bernard: on profiting from knowledge
on, 541-542; Kalm on, 541-542, 686; Du Bos of nature, 470, 495
on, 559; Montesquieu on, 577, 658; Rousseau Panaetius: and feeling for nature, 12, 51-52;
on, 594; Malthus on, 641-642, 649; modern m. 100, 144
literature on, 656-657; and chmatic change, Pangloss, Dr., in Voltaire's Candide, 518, 522,
659; Hume on, 659; and destruction of ani- 549
mal habitats, 662; Noah Webster on, 663; in Paracelsus, 465-468
Buffon (see also chap. 14), 663, 676; Chateau- Paradises: monastery sites as, 303, 306-307, 313,
briand on, 686; in New World, 686-698; 349
Chastellux on, 686-687; B. Rush on, 687-688; Parmenides, 63
T. Wright on, 688; Seybert on, 689; Volney Pathetic Fallacy, 28-30 passim
on, 690-691; Bartram on, 691-692; unique- Paul IIL his Sublimis Deus, 359-360
ness of by European man, 691-693; Jared Paul the Deacon: on climate, overpopulation,
Eliot on, 691-693; and harmony of nature, and migration, 259-261 passim; influence of
693; Lorain on, 695-697; and pristine and his ideas, 432-433, 454
altered nature, 698; and study of torrents, Paul. See St. Paul
698-699; Fabre on, 699-702; J. Forster on, Perrault, Charles: on constancy in nature, 389
702; in i8tK cent, thought, 704-705; sum- Petty, William: on population, 399
mary, 710 Philo: on nature as mother, 14; on Greek civili-
Nature, senescence in. See Senescence in na- zation, no; on artisan deity, 187-188; on
ture man's control over nature, 295-296; m. 174,
Necessity: idea of, in Democritus, 65; the 463
mother of invention, 68, 73, 88, 180, 185, 297, Physico-theology, 177, 392, 406, 421-422, 424-
466, 547, 587, 597, 607, 708 425, 504, 548, 603
760 Index

Pigs: destructiveness of, 342-343 627, 653; of Lord Kames on, 596; of William
Pius II, Pope: his feeling for nature, 355-357 Robertson, 607-608; earth as limiting factor
Plants: Hippon on form of, 129; Linnaeus on in, 623; and principle of plenitude, 623-624;

design and, 510-512; domestication of, 676- of Hume, 629; of Robert Wallace, 630, 632;
677; man as a distributor of, 703 of d'Amilaville, 631; of Condorcet, 634-635;
Plastic nature: idea of, 393-394, 416 of Godwin, 636, 649-653; of Malthus, 637,
Plato: principle of plenitude, 5; Plutarch on 649; and settlement of United States, 650-
The Laws, and myths of Epimetheus and
23;
Prometheus, 41; on goodness of creator, 45; Populousness: of ancient and modern nations,
on influence of natural environment, 92; on 625-632 passim
erosion of Attica, 121; and Timaeus, 198, Posidonius: emphasis on biology, ethnology,
208, 376; and Machiavelh, 433; m. 7, 38, 621 geography, and history in, 52-54, 97-101
Plenitude, principle of: in antiquity, 5-6; in passbn; as influence on Vitruvius, 107;
Plato, 46; in Lucretius, 69-70; in Plotinus, 77; Seneca's criticism of, 118; on man's powers,
optimistic and pessimistic implications of, 144-145; m. 12
79; in Alan of Lille, 217 n. 136; in Thomas Possibilism: of i8th cent., 602
Aquinas, 230; in The Romance of the Rose, Primitive peoples, 20-21, 282, 359-361, 418, 502,
241, 243; in Ray, 419; in Leibniz, 508; in Buf- 545, 588-589, 594-595. 611, 615-617, 680-681,
fon, 519; and theories of population, 623- 691, 704
624; and the Malthusian theory, 637-638, Primitivism: cultural, 164, 482-483, 665
640-641 Progress, idea of: and Leibniz, 506; Du Bos on,
Pliny: on climate and race, 109-110, 258; and 555; and faith in science, 634; Condorcet
Posidonius, no n. 71; on climatic change, on, 634, 654; and environment, 634, 636;
130, 137; on care of the land, 131; on domes- Ricardo on, 645; Malthus on, 644-645, 649,
tication, 137; soils not mortal, 137; hillside 654;Godwin on, 635-636, 654; and environ-
plowing, 137; cited by Bartholomew, 272 mental change, 655
Plotinus, 76-79, 1 1 3-1 14 Prometheus: interpretations of myth of, 41-42
Pluche, abbe de: his natural history, 509 Proverbs 8, 158, 159 n. 22
Plutarch: on Alexander's civilizing Asia, 23-24; Psalm 8, 155, 157, 166
on knowledge of gods, 36; and teleological Psalm 19, 157
explanations, 74-75; in Montesquieu, 576 n. Psalm 39, 197
Psalm 65, 157-158
Political theory: and theories of environmental Psalm 104, 5, 37-38, 156-157, 162, 416
influence, 256, 273-274 Psalm 115, 155
Pollution: air of London, 489-491; air of Psalms, feeling for nature in, 165
Rome, 560 Psychic unity, 108
Polynesians, 619 Ptolemies: cultural policy of, 19, 21-22, 122-
Polybius: and Posidonius, 53; on climate and 127; and natural resources, 124-125
music, 95; on Arcadia, 96; and Botero, 370; Ptolemy, Claudius: environmental and astro-
Bodin on, 444; and Fontenelle, 458; m. 433, logical theories of, 111-113; m. 280, 441
552 Purchas, S.: on senescence in nature, 381-382
Polygamy, 371, 398, 514, 573, 627
Ponds: artificial, 348 Quarrying, 290
Pope, Alexander, and tout est Men, 522 Quarrel over ancients and moderns: signifi-
Population: Acosta on peopling of New cance of, 380 n. 15, 654
World, 366; checks to growth of, 297, 372,
513, 624-625, 633-634, 638; Petty on, 399; Race: and climate, Pliny on, 258; Bufi^on on,
Linnaeus on animal, 511; depopulation of 590-591; Lord Kames on importance of, 596;
modern world, 579; J. R. Forster on peo- origins of, G. Forster on, 619
pling of South Seas, 614; world estimates of Ramon Lull: and Ramon Sibiude, 238; m. 203,
i7th-i9th cents., 626 n. 10, 630 205,231
Population, theories of: St. Augustine on man's Ramon Sibiude: on God revealed in nature,
ability to propagate after the Fall, 200; Age 238-240; m. 203, 205, 231, 419
of Discovery, 359; and the Bible, 359; of Ratzel, Friedrich, 445, 543, 679
Botero, 370-371, 373; and design argument, Raven, Charles E., 163 n. 33 and 34, 202 n. 94,
398, 401, 403-404, 422; of Graunt, 399; and 227 n. 170
physico-theology, 399; of Hale, 403-405; of Ray, John: on Cambridge Platonists, 79; on
Woodward, 410; Ray on statistical regulari- Plotinus, 79; on
creatio continua, 153, 416;
ties, 420; influence of Christian theology on, on Psalm 104, 157, 416; his Wisdom of God,
425, 512, 514, 637; of Siissmilch, 512-515; 379-380; on Descartes, 394, 417; and Henry
modern, 512; of Montesquieu, 578-579, 626- More, 395; and conceptions of nature, 415-
 Index 761

421; on man's active role in nature, 483-484; 231;on Origen, 184, 233; on combating error,
m. 74, 392, 665 222,232; on proofs for existence of God,
Recurrence, eternal, 6-7, 184-185 229; on nature of the creation, 230; on hier-
Reindeer: retreat of, 662, 675 archy in nature, 230; on artisan analogy,
Religion: and ethnology, 167; and geography, 230-231, 234; and nature passages in Bible
167; and theories of environmental influence, and Apocrypha, 231; on natural and revealed
447; Montesquieu on relation of to popula- theology, 231-232; Carre on, 233, 251 n.
tion, 578; and climate, 369, 558-559, 571- 259, 260; on goodness of nature, 233; on
572, 603-604, 621 otherworldliness, 233; and Aristotle, 233-234,
Renaissance: and Age of Discovery, 355 274; and evil, 234; on phases in the creation,
Resources, natural: interest of ancient world 234; on goodness of the Creator, 235; on
in, 118, 124 man's role in paradise, 235; on Garden of
Ricardo, David: on sequence of land occupa- Eden, 235; on habitability of equatorial
tion, 642 regions, 235; on animal domestication, 236;
Ritter, C: teleological view of geography of, on the Fall, 236; on man's dominion over
191, 277, ^10, 548 nature, 236; on philosophy of man and na-
Rivers: BufTon on, 680 ture, 236; and condemnations of 1277, 249;
Robertson, William: on the New World, 605- on divine and created, 251; on environment
610, 684-685 and government, 273-274; and Aristotle and
Romance of the Rose, The, 217, 240-244, 249, Vegetius, 274; and Vitrivius, 275; and trade,
514 275-276; on divine and kingly planning, 287;
Romans 1:20: 161-162, 183, 202, 204, 215, 231, on dressing and keeping paradise, 302; m.
237, 391, 475 174, 256
Romans 5: 162, 163 Sand dune: fixation of, 348
Rome: Cicero on site of, 102; Du Bos on site Savage, noble, 615
of, 560 Saw, hydraulic, 247, 319-320
Rostovtzeff, Michael: on cultural policy of the Sawmills, 340
Ptolemies, 19, 21, 22, 122-127 passijn Science: origin of modern, 173, 250, 252 n.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques: on effect of climate 263; faith in, 634, 654
and environment, 592-594 Scythians: Hippocrates on, 84, 85, 89, 112
Rural-urban contrasts, 32-33 Sea: in teleological arguments, 74, 75 n. 115,
Ruskin, John: feeling for nature in antiquity, 181, 192-193, 195-196
13; on the pathetic fallacy, 28 Sebond, Raymond. See Ramon Sibiude
Selection, artificial. See Artificial selection
St. Ambrose: and nature, 194-196; on man as Seleucids: cultural policy o*^, 23
cultivator, 298-299; m. 385 Seneca: and design argument, 61-62; primi-
St. Augustine: and Romans 1:20, 162; on order tivism of, 118-119; on soil fertility, 133; m.
in nature, 175; and artisan analogy, 177; and loi, 145 n. 76
Origen, 184, 198; on exegesis, 188; hexaem- Senescence in nature: 294, 379, 503; Democ-
eron of, 196; on creation, 196, 199; on Psalm ritus on, 65; Epicurus on, 70; Lucretius on,
39, 197; on pagan ideas, 197; on evil, 197, 70; Columella on, 72, 134, 136; Pliny on, 73,
201; and Plato's Timaeus, 198; on values in 137; Montesquieu on, 134, 626; in II Esdras,
nature, 198-199; on the Fall, 200; on divine 165;Giraldus Cambrensis on, 279; and mod-
governance of arts, 200; and astrology, 201, ern belief in, 381; Hakewill on, 383-389;
266; on relation of God to man, 201; thought Perrault on, 389; Fontenelle on, 390, 459;
of as creator of Christian synthesis, 201-202; Ray on, 415-416; Burton on, 479; and popu-
on his father, 202; on nature as a book, 203- lousness of ancient and modern nations,
204; on human genius in the arts, 299-300; on 625-626; Hume on, 629
manual work, 304-306 Servius: on environmental influences, 114-115,
St. Benedict: on work, 306; contribution of, 259
350 n. 120 Settlement: as act of creation, 117; Humboldt
St. Bernard: and nature, 213-214; and monas- on Old and New World, 547-548
ticism, 303; and activity, 349-350 Seven klimata. See Klimata
St. Bonaventui-a: on God's traces in sensible Sex: deviations, 217, 244; abstinence from, 243-
world, 162, 237-238 244; and divine intent, 244; in condemna-
St. Francis: feeling for nature, 214-216; m. 10 tions of 1277, 249; and environment, 268,
St. Paul: on relationships between God, man, 458-585; and humors, 439-440; Montesquieu
and nature, 161-162; St. Augustine and, 305; on, 573; Robertson on, 609; Malthus on, 648;
m. 646 and NewWorld primitive peoples, 680
St. Sturm: and founding of Fulda, 306-307, 310 Shepherds: Varro on antiquity of, 141; and
St. Thomas Aquinas: and Romans 1:20, 162, forest fires, 344
762 Index

Sibiude, Ramon. See Ramon Sibiude earth, 59; in Lucretius, 70; in Hellenistic
Sidon, 126 Age, 73; in Plutarch, 74; in earth and life
Sin, original: in Romans 5, 162 sciences, 233, 505; in Newton, 377; in Kant,
Slavery: of Indians, 360; Montesquieu on, 573, 529-535; Goethe on, 535; persistence of, and
627 Braithwaite, 550. See also Antiteleological
Societies, animal and insect: BufTon on, 677 ideas; Design argument; Final causes.
Socrates: on Anaxagoras, 39; as interlocutor Telescope: and the design argument, 506-507,
in Xenophon, 42-43 526
Soil: concepts of, 642, 644, 671, 695; Albert the Tempier, fetienne. Bishop of Paris: and con-
Great on erosion of, 315, 691-692 demnations of 1277, 248, 250; and origins of
Soil, fertility of: and golden age, 7, 132-133, modern science, 250
143; Cato on, 131; Lucretius on, 135; Colu- Temple, William: on peoples of the Neth-
Sir
mella on, 136-137; Albert the Great on, 346; erlands, 454-455, 561; on philosophy of
Woodward on, 424 civilization, 455-456; on Du Bos, 561
Soil, theory of: in Middle Ages, 345; Sclafert Terra Australis, 611, 626
on, 345-346; and humus, 410; Ray on, 418 Tertullian, 296-297, 301
Sophocles: on man's control of nature, 1 19-120 Theocritus: feeling for nature in, 27-28; on
South Seas: peoples of, 614-615; and Captain human skill and the Nile, 128
Cook, 502, 610, 620, 626; and G. and J. Theodoret, 300
Forster, 610-619 Theology: Sumerian, 3, 16; relation to geog-
Spinoza: on final causes, 378; Voltaire on, 524 raphy, 515-517; Memphite, 36-
35, 173-174,
Sprat, Thomas: on man's improvement of na- 38; Muslim, 218-222; supported by Reason,
ture, 482, 665 251; Christian, and ideas of environmental
Sterility: Hippocrates on, 86 influence, 254-255; and environmental
Stewardship, idea of, 152, 155, 168, 405, 427, change, 294
463, 480 Theophany: John the Scot on, 209-212; Gilson
Stoicism, 23-24, 51, 54-59 passim, 73, 144, 297 on, 238-239; R. Bacon on, 282
n. 20 Theophrastus: and botany in Hellenistic Age,
Strabo: RostovtzefT on, 19; on design, 61, 104- 19; on teleology, 49-51; as source for
105; and Posidonius, 97-99, 104; on ideas of Plutarch, 75; on plant acclimatization, 124;
environment, 103-105; on the Nile, 128 on domestication, 129; on climatic change
Strato, 51 due to human agency, 129-130; and Hippon,
Struggle for existence, 139, 425, 527, 549 129; and Pliny, 130, 137
Sturm. See St. Sturm Thomas Aquinas. See St. Thomas Aquinas
Sumerian: concept of civilization, 4, theology, Thorndike, Lynn: on astrology as unifying
3, 16 principle, 16, 53; on feeling for nature in
Sun: hymn to, 5,
37-39 Middle Ages, 173; on Adelard of Bath, 219
Siissmilch, Johann: and Derham, 421-422; n. 143; on William of Conches, 219 n. 144;
population theory of, 512-515; and Malthus, on condemnations of 1277, 250 n. 257; m. 175
515, 649; on Lisbon earthquake, 515; on Thucydides: and historical method, 6; and
world population estimate, 646; m. 399, 509 geographical explanations, 91
Suzuki, Daisetz, 494 Tibullus, 31-32
Swineherds: edict on, 343 Tierra del Fuego, 615, 618
Timaeus of Plato: artisan deity in, 44-46; and
Tacitus: ethnology of, 103; on religion and St. Augustine, 198
preservation of natural order, 134-135; m. Tongue of sheep: Montesquieu's experiment
444, on, 569, 570, 582
Tahiti: J. R. Forster on, 617; G. Forster com- Torrents: Arnaud on Ubaye, 341; and de-
pares with England, 619 forestation, 342; modern study of, 698;
Tatian, 183 Fabre, 698-702
Tebtunis Papyri: and agriculture, horticulture, Tout est bien, 418, 507, 522 n. 56, 549, 619
and reclamation, 122-123 Transhumance: Seneca on, 61-62; Varro on,
Technology: in ancient world, 118; in early 142; regulation of, 342
modern period, 464; and control over na- Travels and voyages: i8th cent, as stimulus
ture, 496 to natural history and ethnography, 502; in
Teggart, Frederick J., 260 n. 12, 444 Montesquieu, 568
Teleology: 375, 707; in Diogenes of ApoUonia, Trees: planting of in Hellenistic Age, 122, 125;
39; in Herodotus, 40-41; and sense of won- classified as to grazing value, 321; Palissy on
derment in, 43-44; utilitarian bias of, 44; in cutting of, 470
Aristotle, 47-49; in Theophrastus, 49-51; in Trinity: symbolism of, and cloister sites, 207
Stoicism, 51-52; and man's changes of the n. 104
 Index 763

Tropics: habitability of, 267, 362; Humboldt Wallace, Robert: and population estimates,
on, 545-546, 611; J. R. and G. Forster on, 630-633 passim, 636
611; J. R. Forster on islands of, 616 Water mills: Ansonius on, 319
Turf: removal of, 341 Webster, Noah: on climatic change, 560-561,
Tyre, 126 660, 661, 689
Weisthiimer: as sources on medieval customs,
United States: and history of ideas, 609 n. 170; 33'^-337. 341. 343
settlement history and population theories, Whiston, William: and theory of earth, 411-
650-651; literature on environmental change 412
by human agency in, 656. See also New White, Lynn: on view of nature in St. Francis,
World 216; on art in Middle Ages, 247 n. 247; on
Unity in the Universe: and God's care for the 13th and 14th cent, science, 252 n. 263
world, 39 Whitehead, Alfred N.r on 17th cent, concep-
Ussher, Archbishop: dating the creation, 407 tion of nature, 391, 428, 507 n. 8
WiUiam of Ockham: on nominalism, 251
vagina gentium^ 261 n. 18. See also ofjicina William of Tyre: his descriptions of places,
gentium 263, 286-287
Varro: on rural-urban contrasts, 32-33; on Williams, Samuel: on clearing and climate,
stages of cultural development, 140; on do- 661, 689-690
mesticated animals, 141-143; and St. Augus- Williamson, Hugues: on clearing and climate,
tine on pagan ideas, 197; and TertuUian, 542, 659-669; and Buffon, 669
296; m. 7, 133, 137, 293-294 Windmills: for draining, 476
Vegetation: Humboldt on distribution of, 545- Wisdom hterature, 158
547 Wollaston, William, 423
Woman: and the plowed earth, 244
^

Vegetius, 274; m. 432

Velleius Paterculus, 444 Wood: use of in Middle Ages, 318, 320-321,
Vespucci, Amerigo: and discovery of the New 323-324; Palissy on importance of, 470
World, 358, 362 Woodward, John: and theory of earth, 409-
Villard de Honnecourt; his descriptions of 41 1, 687
nature, 246-247; m. 320 Workman, Herbert, 302-303, 350 n. 210
Vinci, Leonardo da: interest in environmental World: Chaldean concept of, 36; eternity of,
change by man, 465 248-249, 396
Virgil:and nature, 30; on civilization and con- Worlds, best of all possible: in Plato, 46, in
trol of nature, 143-144; m. 293-294 Stoicism, 59, in Plotinus, 78, in Leibniz, 507.
Viticulture: and deforestation in Middle Ages, See also Tout est bien.
340-341 Worlds: plurality of, 64, 362
Vitruvius: on environmental influences, 105- Wotton, William, 390-391
108 passim; and acculturation, 108; and Al- Wright, John K.: on equatorial regions, 235
berti, 125, 430; and Hellenistic conception n. 202; Geographical Lore, 2^$ n. 3; on geo-
of architect, 125; used by Thomas Aquinas, graphic march of civilization, 276-277
275;m. 7, 355 Wright, Thomas, 688
Volney, C: on geography of United States,
650, 656, 690 Xenophon: design argument in, 42-43; in-
Voltaire: and Montesquieu, 439, 551, 575, 581- fluence of Memorabilia, 43 on hard environ-
;

583; on Canal du Midi, 497; on final causes, ments, 91; on care of the land, 131
518, 523-524; on tout est bien, 522-523; on Xenophon-Pseudo: on distribution of re-
Lisbon earthquake, 522-523; and Herder, sources and control of sea, 91-92
524; on Fontenelle, 553; on Chardin, 554; on
climatic influence on religion, 582-583; and Zeno: Plutarch on, 23-24; Balbus on, 58
interest in environment, 537 Zenon: and ApoUonius, 122
Voyaging, accidental, 616
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