Hippocrates (if he really is the author of the essay commonly ascribed to him and entitled περὶ αέρων ὑδάτων τόπων) investigates the effect of climate on man’s nature, character, temperament, and life, with the emphasis on the regularity of the effect.[[21]] Owing to the imperfection of knowledge in his day, his observations are necessarily vague.[[22]] He limited himself to the problem of the relation between land and people.[[23]] He is said to be the founder of anthropo-geography.[[24]] His treatise is admirable and unequalled in the eyes of Auguste Comte.[[25]] Hippocrates, “in his work, About Air, Water, and Places, first discusses the influence of environment on man, physical, moral, and pathological. He divided mankind into groups, impressed with homogeneous characters by homogeneous surroundings, demonstrating that mountains, plains, damp, aridity, and so on, produced definite and varying types.”[[26]]
Aristotle, in his Politics, enquires into the influence especially of geographical position on laws and the form of government,[[27]] while in his Problems he shows the far-reaching dependence of national character on the physical environment: “Zeigt ja doch Aristoteles selbst in einem andern Werke das entschiedenste Bestreben, eine sehr weitgehende Abhängigkeit des Volkscharakters von geographischen Verhältnissen zu erweisen. Während die Politik [especially parts of the seventh book] nicht über Andeutungen [on the effect of the milieu] hinausgeht [discussed by Poehlmann, l.c., on pp. 64–8], läßt der vierzehnte Abschnitt der ‘Probleme,’ welcher sich mit den Einwirkungen der Landesnatur auf Physik und Ethik des Menschen beschäftigt, deutlich einen Standpunkt erkennen, welcher auf das Lebhafteste an die physiologische Betrachtungsweise der neueren französisch-englischen Geschichtsphilosophie erinnert ...”[[28]]
Eratosthenes, in a work cited by Varro, sought to prove, in the opinion of the Italian scholar Matteuzzi prematurely, that man’s character and the form of his government are subordinated to proximity or remoteness from the sun.[[29]] The greatest geographer of antiquity, Strabo, in his Geography, connected man with nature in a causal relation.[[30]]
John M. Robertson, noting that “theories of the influence of climate on character were common in antiquity,” refers[[31]] to Vitruvius (VI, 1), Vegetius (“De re militari,” 1, 2), and Servius (on Vergil, Aeneid, VI, 724). Ritter does not mention the effort of the ancients in this line of ideas.[[32]]
Giovanni Villani, the noted Florentine historian of the fourteenth century, observes with a deal of finesse that Arezzo by reason of its air and position produces men of great subtilty of mind.[[33]]
The Arabic statesman and philosopher of history, Ibn Khaldūn, little mentioned, yet known by his great work, the Universal History, attempted in the Muqaddama[[34]] (the preface, comprising the first volume of his History), which he composed between 1374 and 1378,[[35]] to explain the history and civilization of man, more especially of some of the Arabic peoples, by the encompassing physical and social conditions. The “First Section of the ‘Prolegomena’ treats of society in general, and of the varieties of the human race, and of the regions of the earth which they inhabit, as related thereto. It starts from the position that man is by nature a social being. His body and mind, wants and affections, for their exercise, satisfaction, and development, all imply and demand co-operation and communion with his fellows,—participation in a collective and common life....
“There follows a lengthened description of the physical basis and conditions of history and civilisation. The chief features of the inhabited portions of the earth, its regions, principal seas, great rivers, climates, &c., are made the subjects of exposition. The seven climatic zones, and the ten sections of each, are delineated, and their inhabitants specified. The three climatic zones of moderate temperature are described in detail, and the distinctive features of the social condition and civilisation of their inhabitants dwelt upon. The influence of the atmosphere, heat, &c., on the physical and even mental and moral peculiarities of peoples is maintained to be great. Not only the darkness of skin of the negroes, but their characteristics of disposition and of mode of life, are traced to the influence of climate. A careful attempt is also made to show how differences of fertility of soil—how dearth and abundance—modify the bodily constitution and affect the minds of men, and so operate on society....
“The Second Section of the ‘Prolegomena’ treats of the civilisation of nomadic and half-savage peoples.
“In it Ibn Khaldūn appears at his best, ... He begins by indicating how the different usages and institutions of peoples depend to a large extent on the ways in which they provide for their subsistence. He describes how peoples have at first contented themselves with simple necessities, and then gradually risen to refinement and luxury through a series of states or stages all of which are alike conformed to nature, in the sense of being adapted to its circumstances or environment.”[[36]]
Ibn Khaldūn seems also to have had a clear idea of some aspects of the principle of relativity,[[37]] an integral part and inevitable concomitant of the theory of milieu, since “As causes of historians erring as they have done, there are mentioned [by Khaldūn in the introduction] the overlooking of the differences of times and epochs, ...”[[38]]