m, so that
your particular society of zoophytes, mollusks, and echinoderms may feel
themselves, as the Germans say, at ease in their skin; so the most
complete equipment of theory will not enable a statesman or a political
and social reformer to adjust his measures wisely, in the absence of a
special acquaintance with the section of society for which he legislates,
with the peculiar characteristics of the nation, the province, the class
whose well-being he has to consult. In other words, a wise social policy
must be based not simply on abstract social science, but on the natural
history of social bodies.

Riehl's books are not dedicated merely to the argumentative maintenance
of this or of any other position; they are intended chiefly as a
contribution to that knowledge of the German people on the importance of
which he insists. He is less occupied with urging his own conclusions
than with impressing on his readers the facts which have led him to those
conclusions. In the volume entitled "Land und Leute," which, though
published last, is properly an introduction to the volume entitled "Die
Burgerliche Gesellschaft," he considers the German people in their
physical geographical relations; he compares the natural divisions of the
race, as determined by land and climate, and social traditions, with the
artificial divisions which are based on diplomacy; and he traces the
genesis and influences of what we may call the ecclesiastical geography
of Germany--its partition between Catholicism and Protestantism. He
shows that the ordinary antithesis of North and South Germany represents
no real ethnographical distinction, and that the natural divisions of
Germany, founded on its physical geography are threefold--namely, the low
plains, the middle mountain region, and the high mountain region, or
Lower, Middle, and Upper Germany; and on this primary natural division
all the other broad ethnographical distinctions of Germany will be I
found to rest. The plains of North or Lower Germany include all the
seaboard the nation possesses; and this, together with the fact that they
are traversed to the depth of 600 miles by navigable rivers, makes them
the natural seat of a trading race. Quite different is the geographical
character of Middle Germany. While the northern plains are marked off
into great divisions, by such rivers as the Lower Rhine, the Weser, and
the Oder, running almost in parallel lines, this central region is cut up