The Theory of Environment / An Outline of the History of the Idea of Milieu, and Its Present Status, part 1

by Armin Hajman Koller

[30]. “Die vollständigste Beschreibung [of the earth] gab erst Strabo in seinem Werk γεογραφικά. Hier begegnen wir zum zweitenmal der philosophischen Idee, Mensch und Natur in Kausalzusammenhang miteinander zu bringen. Strabos Geographie ist als ‘Länder- und Völkerkunde’ das größte Werk des Altertums. Die Anschauung eines kausalen Zusammenhanges des Menschen mit der Natur ging darauf unter [according to him, until the middle of the eighteenth century, until Montesquieu].”—Richthofen’s Vorlesungen, etc. (1908), p. 8.

[31]. Buckle and his Critics (London, 1895, 548 pp.), p. 7 n.

[32]. See Poehlmann, l.c., p. 7.—For a brief statement of the theory of milieu in Greek writers (Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus), cf. Curtius, Boden und Clima von Athen (1877), p. 4 f. For Aristotle, compare also Dondorff, Das hellenische Land als Schauplatz der althellenischen Geschichte (Hamburg, 1899, 42 pp.), pp. 11 f. Poehlmann, l.c., discusses the views on environment of Herodotus (pp. 37–47), of Thucydides (pp. 52–4), of Xenophon (pp. 55 f.), of Ephoros [only fragments of his great work, A Universal History, are extant; cited by Strabo] (pp. 56–9), of Plato (pp. 59–64), of Aristotle (pp. 64–74), of Polybios (pp. 75–7), of Posidonios [in Strabo and in Galen] (pp. 78–80), of Strabo (pp. 80–90), of Galen (pp. 91 f.).

[33]. Vide Élisàr v. Kupffer, Klima und Dichtung, Ein Beitrag zur Psychophysik [in Grenzfragen der Literatur und Medizin in Einzeldarstellungen hg. v. S. Rahmer, Berlin, 4. Heft] (München, 1907), p. 63.

[34]. Translated into French by Baron Meg. F. de Slane (3 vols., Paris, 1862–8).

[35]. See R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History, Historical Philosophy in France and French Belgium and Switzerland (New York: Scribner, 1894, 706 pp.), pp. 159 f.—“His [Mohammed Ibn Khaldūn’s] fame rests securely ... on his magnum opus, the ‘Universal History,’ and especially on the first part of it, the ‘Prolegomena’ (p. 162).... They [the Prolegomena] may fairly be regarded as forming a distinct and complete work.... It consists of a preface, an introduction, and six sections or divisions (p. 163).”

[36]. Flint, l.c., pp. 164 f.

[37]. Vide infra, p. 27.

[38]. Flint, l.c., p. 164.—Cf. also pp. 158–72, for Ibn Khaldūn in general.

[39]. Cf. Kupffer, Klima and Dichtung, p. 63.