The influence of geographical environment on
culture seems a matter not so much of logical
inference as of direct observation. Taking our
own continent, we know that cotton is raised in
the South, that our wheat belt lies in Minnesota
and the adjoining states and Canadian provinces,
that the Rocky Mountain and some of the
Plateau states are the seat of the mining industry
while Florida and California form our tropical
fruit orchards. With these obvious facts are
combined correlations not so clear, perhaps, yet
very convincing to the mind as yet undebauched
by ethnological learning. What seems more nat-
ural than that culture in its highest forms should
develop only in temperate regions, that the
gloomy forests of the North be reflected in a
mythology of ogres and trolls, that liberty
should flourish amidst snowy mountain tops and
languish in the tepid plain, or that islanders
should be expert mariners?

This geographical theory of culture bears a
certain resemblance to the classical association-
ist theory in psychology. According to that doc-
trine, the mind is something in the nature of a
wax tablet on which the outer world produces

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