The Heart of Nature; or, The Quest for Natural Beauty

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHY

PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, DELIVERED AT THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING, MAY 31, 1920

NATURAL BEAUTY AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE

I have something to say which to old-fashioned geographers may appear very revolutionary, and which you may hesitate to accept straight away. But it has come to me as the result of much and varied geographical work in the field; of listening to many lectures before this Society; and of composing this Address and five lectures for you, firstly, as far back as 1888, on my journey across Central Asia from Peking to India; secondly, on my journey to Hunza and the Pamirs; thirdly, on Chitral; fourthly, on my mission to Tibet; and fifthly, on the Himalaya. And I expect when you come to think over what I have now to say you will find that, after all, my conclusions are not anything desperately revolutionary but something quite obvious and natural.

What I want to lay before you for your very earnest consideration is this—that we should take a profounder and broader view of Geography, of its fundamental conception, and of its scope and aim, than we have hitherto taken; and should regard the Earth as Mother-Earth, and the Beauty of her features as within the purview of Geography.

I will state my case as clearly and briefly as I can. Geography is a science. Science is learning, knowing, understanding. The object of geographical learning, knowing, understanding is the Earth. We must first, then, have a true conception of what the Earth really is. And next we must be certain in our minds as to what is most worth knowing about it.

To begin with our conception of the Earth. At the dawn of Geography it was believed to be a flat disc. Later it was discovered to be a sphere. Then it was found to be not a hard solid sphere like a billiard-ball, but to be hard only on the surface, and within to be quick with fervent heat. Now it is coming to be regarded as spirit as well as body—as in its essential nature spiritual rather than material.

When we get as far back as science is able to take us we find that the ultimate particles of which the Earth is made up are not minute specks of some substance or material, but are simply centres of radiant energy. Even with a microscope of infinite power we should never be able to see one, like we see a grain of pollen or a grain of sand. And if we had fingers of infinite delicacy, we should never be able to take one up between the forefinger and thumb and feel it. These ultimate particles are invisible and intangible. Nothing could be less substantial. And we find further that, inconceivably minute as they are, they act of themselves under the mutual influence of one another. The electrons are not like shot which have been heaped together by some outside agency, and which roll about the floor if someone outside gives them a push, but which will otherwise remain immobile. They congregate together of their own inner prompting. They are like a swarm of midges or bees in which each individual acts on its own impulsion, and, in the case of bees, all together form themselves into a definite organisation with a collective spirit of its own. The Earth is indeed influenced by its parent the Sun, and acts in accordance with the same laws and is swayed by the same impulses as govern the whole Universe, of which it is a minute though highly important mite. But the point is that the Earth is not something like a lump of clay which a potter takes in his hands and moulds into a ball. The Earth moulds itself from activities that it contains within itself.

Running through the whole mighty swarm of electrons we call the Earth is a tendency to order, organisation, and system. The myriad millions of ultimate particles in their all-togetherness and from their interaction upon one another become possessed of an imperative urge towards excellence. The electrons group themselves into atoms; the atoms clump themselves together into molecules; the molecules combine into chemical compounds, and these into organisms of ever-increasing size and complexity. So in the process of the ages there came into being, from out of the very Earth itself, first, lowly forms of plants and animals, then higher and higher forms exhibiting higher and higher qualities, till the flowers of the field, the animals, and man himself came into existence.