Will the one invasion prove an incident, he asks, and the other an event, as judged by a history of long perspective?
Or, again, there are whites and blacks and redskins in the southern portion of the United States of America, having at present little in common save a common climate.
Different races, different cultures, a common geographical situation--what net result will these yield for the historian of patient, far-seeing anthropological outlook?
Clearly there is here something worth the puzzling out.

But we cannot expect to puzzle it out all at once.
In these days geography, in the form known as anthropo-geography, is putting forth claims to be the leading branch of anthropology.

And, doubtless, a thorough grounding in geography must henceforth be part of the anthropologist's equipment.[3] The schools of Ratzel in Germany and Le Play in France are, however, fertile in generalizations that are far too pretty to be true.

Like other specialists, they exaggerate the importance of their particular brand of work.

The full meaning of life can never be expressed in terms of its material conditions.
I confess that I am not deeply moved when Ratzel announces that man is a piece of the earth.