American Geographical Society

Environmental Determinism in the Early Eighteenth CenturyThe Abbé Du Bos. His Advocacy of the Theory of Climate: A Precursor of Johann GottfriedHerder by Armin Hajman Koller; Johann Gottfried HerderReview by: John LeighlyGeographical Review, Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 1938), pp. 525-526Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/209768 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEWS 525

especially concerned with judging the accuracy of Pacheco's routier, and he makes extensive comparative use of today's Africa pilot. This is probably the most valuable feature of the book. He also comments on the world theory of Pacheco, with its precocious assumption of a North as well as a South America; on Pacheco's un- expected ignorance of Ptolemy; on his and his contemporaries' vain attempts to determine longitude by the variations of the compass; and on his generally skillful nautical practice.

It may not be ungrateful to wish that Mr. Kimble had made room for a some- what more thorough historical evaluation of the "Esmeraldo," to supplement the geographical examination. Inasmuch as most of the documents are lost in which the Portuguese discoveries are recorded, the book stands out as almost the unique summary of a century of Portuguese discovery in Africa. Moreover, it is a model work of its kind. Even the complete routiers of Joao de Castro of about 1540 do not dislodge the full and careful record of Pacheco.

The value of the " Esmeraldo" could not be better established than by comparing it with De Castro on the one hand and on the other with the contemporary pilot's charts that have survived. The Canerio world map of 1502 and the Cantino of I504,

for example, must have been based on much the same information as Pacheco assembled. Indeed, he must have made maps very like these, and one wonders whether the map that Mr. Kimble has reproduced is the nearest to Pacheco's material. We miss Mr. Kimble's comment or comparison. Only when we see the " Esmeraldo " in its setting can we really appreciate it. Now we are rather left to wonder why it was worth translating.

Our editor seems to have been diverted from ranging the book with its peers by what I must think an unfortunate theory-that censorship suppressed the "Es- meraldo" and deprived it of influence. I do not see that this theory is proved. The book was a commission of the king and was dedicated to him. It was an official report, and as such it presumably took its place in the "colonial" archives, where it would have been seen by authorized persons-pilots and cartographers. Possibly proof exists that the book never reached its destination, but Mr. Kimble does not cite it. Until proof is given, we are not ready to believe that the book was written in vain.

Mr. Kimble is needlessly puzzled by Pacheco's use of the word "winter" to describe the tropical rainy season. The term is frequent in the voyage records; for example, in Hakluyt. GEORGE B. PARKS

ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM IN THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

ARMIN HAJMAN KOLLER. The Abbe Du Bos-His Advocacy of the Theory of Cli- mate: A Precursor of Johann Gottfried Herder. v and 128 pp. The Garrard Press, Champaign, Ill., 1937. $1.75. 7Y2 x 534 inches.

In tracing the history of environmental determinism Professor Koller (compare his "The Theory of Environment," Part I, Menasha, Wis., I9I8) has come upon Jean-Baptiste Du Bos's " Reflexions critiques sur la poesie et sur la peinture" (first published in Paris in 17I9). which he thinks is the source of some of the ideas set forth later by J. G. von Herder. The little book reviewed here is a paraphrase of the pertinent parts of Du Bos's "Reflexions"; Professor Koller postpones to a later date his demonstration of Herder's debt to it. The material he has collated con- stitutes an argument concocted to explain the lack of uniformity in time and space in the appearance of works of genius. Having disproved to his own satisfaction the efficacy of "moral" (i.e. cultural) causes for the irregular incidence of genius. Du Bos was constrained to ascribe it to regional differences and temporal changes in the physical qualities of the countries in which artists have lived. It was not

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526 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

difficult for him to demonstrate regional differences in climate and temporary fluctua- tions of weather. By magnifying these fluctuations Du Bos arrived at large, secular changes in climate, and by similarly magnifying temporary effects of weather-on dispositions he obtained large and presumably correlated variations in artistic ability.

It is perhaps unfair to Professor Koller to compare the speculations of Du Bos with those in Herder's "Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit" before he has completed his elucidation of Herder's debt to Du Bos. (His exposition of "Herder's Conception of Milieu," Journ. of English and Germanic Philology, VOl. 23, 1924, pp. 217-240 and 370-388, stops short of the " Ideen.") I cannot refrain from remarking, however, that there is a wide abyss between Du Bos and Herder in their conceptions both of the nature of climate and of the supposed mech- anism of its influence on the fate of humanity. Du Bos conceived climate narrowly as temperature, closely coupled with latitude, as Montesquieu did; Herder used the term in a much wider and less schematic sense that included many nonatmospheric elements. Du Bos, again like Montesquieu, evidently thought that the qualities of different peoples were acquired by processes as simple as those embraced by Newtonian mechanics; to Herder these qualities were the result of a vastly more complicated interplay of forces, the nature and mode of operation of which were to be discovered only by secular observation, not through reasoning alone. Pre- cursor? In a temporal sense, certainly; but in the philosophic path that Herder trod Du Bos's footprints were probably not so conspicuous as Professor Koller's subtitle suggests. JOHN LEIGHLY

HISTORY OF CARTOGRAPHY

Imago Mundi: A Periodical Review of Early Cartography, No. 2. Edited by Leo Bagrow and Edward Lynam. Henry Stevens, Son, & Stiles, London, 1937.

The first number of Imago Mundi was published in Germany in 1935 (see Geogr. Rev., Vol. 27, 1937, PP. 349-350). As a result of circumstances the editor was forced to transplant his periodical to England, where he was fortunately able to obtain the services of an expert collaborator and a distinguished publisher. It is hoped that the publication will now be placed on a permanent footing.

The second number maintains the high standard set by the first. Having adopted the policy of printing all contributions in English, the editors have been forced to do considerable translating, some of which, it must be admitted, is marred by awkward- ness. The quality of the contributions remains high, however, and the range of subject matter is wide. In the leading article Eckhard Unger describes and compares a semicartographic diagram of the cosmos preserved on a Babylonian tablet and two related schemata, one of Germanic origin, the other from Teleilat Ghassul, on the Dead Sea. Dr. R. Uhden contributes a note on the projections of two celestial charts prepared by Konrad of Dyffenbach in 1426. In a book on fifteenth- century cartography that I hope to publish in the coming year I shall have oc- casion to discuss these diagrams in a somewhat fuller historical context.

Dr. Erwin Raisz of the Harvard Institute of Geographical Exploration has pre- pared a series of " Time Charts " illustrating the development of cartography through the ages. These artistically executed works deserve to be published separately for use in connection with instruction in the history of geography. Among the other contributions may be noted a new installment of George Nunn's penetrating inves- tigations of the geographical conceptions of Columbus, a description of an atlas by Vesconte Maggiolo from the pen of the well known Italian specialist G. Caraci, and a study by Heinrich Winter of the oblique meridian line appearing on many sixteenth- century maps.

The number contains numerous facsimiles of maps, diagrams, and manuscript

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