The history of the life forms of the world leads always back to the land on which that life arose, spread, and struggled for existence.

The philosophy of history was superior to early sociology, in that its method was one of historical comparison, which inevitably guided it back to the land as the material for the first generalization.
Thus it happens that the importance of the land factor in history was approached first from the philosophical side.

Montesquieu and Herder had no intention of solving sociological and geographical problems, when they considered the relation of peoples and states to their soil; they wished to understand the purpose and destiny of man as an inhabitant of the earth.
[Sidenote: Theory of progress from the standpoint of geography.] The study of history is always, from one standpoint, a study of progress.

Yet after all the century-long investigation of the history of every people working out its destiny in its given environment, struggling against the difficulties of its habitat, progressing when it overcame them and retrograding when it failed, advancing when it made the most of its opportunities and declining when it made less or succumbed to an invader armed with better economic or political methods to exploit the land, it is amazing how little the land, in which all activities finally root, has been taken into account in the discussion of progress.

Nevertheless, for a theory of progress it offers a solid basis.