The next marked advance in the theory of geography may be taken as the
nearly simultaneous studies of the physical earth carried out by the
Swedish chemist, Torbern Bergman, acting under the impulse of
Linnaeus, and by the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Bergman's
_Physical Description of the Earth_ was published in Swedish in 1766,
and translated into English in 1772 and into German in 1774. It is a
plain, straightforward description of the globe, and of the various
phenomena of the surface, dealing only with definitely ascertained
facts in the natural order of their relationships, but avoiding any
systematic classification or even definitions of terms.
Kant.
The problems of geography had been lightened by the destructive
criticism of the French cartographer D'Anville (who had purged the map
of the world of the last remnants of traditional fact unverified by
modern observations) and rendered richer by the dawn of the new era of
scientific travel, when Kant brought his logical powers to bear upon
them. Kant's lectures on physical geography were delivered in the
university of Konigsberg from 1765 onwards.[8] Geography appealed to
him as a valuable educational discipline, the joint foundation with
anthropology of that "knowledge of the world" which was the result of
reason and experience. In this connexion he divided the communication
of experience from one person to another into two categories--the
narrative or historical and the descriptive or geographical; both
history and geography being viewed as descriptions, the former a
description in order of time, the latter a description in order of
space.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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