A DEFINITION OF THE WORD GEOGRAPHY AND HOW I SHALL APPLY IT IN THE PRESENT VOLUME
BEFORE we start out upon a voyage we usually try to find out more or less definitely whither we are bound and how we are supposed to get there. The reader who opens a book is entitled to a little information of the same sort and a short definition of the word Geography’ will therefore not be out of order.
I happen to have the “Concise Oxford Dictionary” on my desk and that will do as well as any other. The word I am looking for appears on page 344, edition of 1912.
“Geography: the Science of the earth’s surface, form, physical features, natural and political divisions, climate, productions, populations.”
I could not possibly hope to do better, but I shall stress some of the aspects of the case at the expense of others, because I intend to place man in the centre of the stage. This book of mine will not merely discuss the surface of the earth and its physical features, together with its political and natural boundaries. I would rather call it a study of Man in search of food and shelter and leisure for himself and for his family and an attempt to find out the way in which man has either adapted himself to his background or has reshaped his physical surroundings in order to be as comfortable and well nourished and happy as seemed compatible with his own limited strength.
It has been truly said that the Lord hath some very strange customers among those who love Him and indeed we shall find our planet inhabited by a weird and extraordinary variety of fellow-boarders. Many of them, upon first acquaintance, will appear to be possessed of very objectionable personal habits and of general characteristics which we would rather not encounter in our own children. But two billion human beings, even if they do not cut much of a figure when packed in a wooden box, are still a very respectable number of people and amongst so many there is of course the widest possible scope for all sorts of experiments of an economic and social and cultural nature. It seems to me that those experiments deserve our attention before anything else. For a mountain is after all merely a mountain until it has been seen by human eyes and has been trod by human feet and until its slopes and valleys have been occupied and fought over and cultivated by a dozen generations of hungry settlers.