Enough has been said to show that the geographer can formulate no broad generalization as to the relation of pigmentation and climate from the occurrence of the darkest skins in the Tropics; because this fact is weakened by the appearance also of lighter tints in the hottest districts, and of darker ones in arctic and temperate regions. The geographer must investigate the questions when and where deeper shades develop in the skins of fair races; what is the significance of dark skins in the cold zones and of fair ones in hot zones. His answer must be based largely on the conclusions of physiologists and physicists, and only when these have reached a satisfactory solution of each detail of the problem can the geographer summarize the influence of environment upon pigmentation. The rule can therefore safely be laid down that in all investigation of geographic influences upon the permanent physical characteristics of races, the geographic distribution of these should be left out of consideration till the last, since it so easily misleads.[67] Moreover, owing to the ceaseless movements of mankind, these effects do not remain confined to the region that produced them, but pass on with the wandering throng in whom they have once developed, and in whom they endure or vanish according as they prove beneficial or deleterious in the new habitat.
Psychical effects.
II. More varied and important are the psychical effects of geographic environment. As direct effects they are doubtless bound up in many physiological modifications; and as influences of climate, they help differentiate peoples and races in point of temperament. They are reflected in man's religion and his literature, in his modes of thought and figures of speech. Blackstone states that "in the Isle of Man, to take away a horse or ox was no felony, but a trespass, because of the difficulty in that little territory to conceal them or to carry them off; but to steal a pig or a fowl, which is easily done, was a capital misdemeanour, and the offender punished with death." The judges or deemsters in this island of fishermen swore to execute the laws as impartially "as the herring's backbone doth lie in the middle of the fish."[68] The whole mythology of the Polynesians is an echo of the encompassing ocean. The cosmography of every primitive people, their first crude effort in the science of the universe, bears the impress of their habitat. The Eskimo's hell is a place of darkness, storm and intense cold;[69] the Jew's is a place of eternal fire. Buddha, born in the steaming Himalayan piedmont, fighting the lassitude induced by heat and humidity, pictured his heaven as Nirvana, the cessation of all activity and individual life.
Indirect effect upon language
Intellectual effects of environment may appear in the enrichment of a language in one direction to a rare nicety of expression; but this may be combined with a meager vocabulary in all other directions. The greatest cattle-breeders among the native Africans, such as the Hereros of western Damaraland and the Dinkas of the upper White Nile, have an amazing choice of words for all colors describing their animals—brown, dun, red, white, dapple, and so on in every gradation of shade and hue. The Samoyedes of northern Russia have eleven or twelve terms to designate the various grays and browns of their reindeer, despite their otherwise low cultural development.[70] The speech of nomads has an abundance of expressions for cattle in every relation of life. It includes different words for breeding, pregnancy, death, and slaughtering in relation to every different kind of domestic animal. The Magyars, among whom pastoral life still survives on the low plains of the Danube and Theiss, have a generic word for herd, csorda, and special terms for herds of cattle, horses, sheep, and swine.[71] While the vocabulary of Malays and Polynesians is especially rich in nautical terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of western Asia from the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four different terms for four kinds of mountain passes. A daban is a difficult, rocky defile; an art is very high and dangerous; a bel is a low, easy pass, and a kutal is a broad opening between low hills.[72]
To such influences man is a passive subject, especially in the earlier stages of his development; but there are more important influences emanating from his environment which affect him as an active agent, challenge his will by furnishing the motives for its exercise, give purpose to his activities, and determine the direction which they shall take.[73] These mold his mind and character through the media of his economic and social life, and produce effects none the less important because they are secondary. About these anthropo-geography can reach surer conclusions than regarding direct psychical effects, because it can trace their mode of operation as well as define the result. Direct psychical effects are more matters of conjecture, whose causation is asserted rather than proved. They seem to float in the air, detached from the solid ground under foot, and are therefore subject matter for the psychologist rather than the geographer.
The great man in history.