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O kierunkach rozwoju geografii człowieka w Polsce

works as, for instance, in Sorre’s work, which places social conditions and technical development at the base of factors shaping the phenomena covered by human geography. One can find, of course, individual works that have not freed them-selves from deterministic formulatioms, but these remain outside the great theo-retical conceptions of human geography.

The economic trend which introduced the Marxist method to Polish geography justly pointed out the decisive role of economic conditions in the shaping of phenomena in the sphere of human geography, sińce these factors had been taken into account only in a smali degree hithertofore. But this trend went too far; it became detached from many Polish works written in the course of the twenty years between the wars and led to the obliteration of some synthetic works of great importance on human geography. Similarly, the objection that human geography deals with the formal aspect of the landscape ought not to hamper the development of this science in Poland, sińce investigations concerning landscape may be conducted not only farmaMy, but also in other wayts.

The rejecting of human geography or its limitation to merely economic geography does not necessarily result from changes of logical method consequent upon the introduction to geography of Marxist dialectics.

Economic geography is divided into: 1) geography of industry, 2) geography of agriculture, 3) geography of tranport, 4) geography of settlement and population. Such, a division according to specialities facilitates a morę thorough methodological grasp of production processes.

The relegation of geography of settlement and population to the last place and the uniting of these two problems into one treated merely from an economic point of view is unjustified. The geographical knowledge of population has a wide scope of its own and connections with the science of Man, which determine it as a separate field of geographical science. It deals not only with problems of the distribution of population, migration, etc., but also with problems of adaptation of the human organism to the geographical environment.

According to the author, the durable edifices constructed on the face of the Earth by Man are the primary object of the researches of the geography of settlement, although the concept of a settlement comprises, besides durable constructions build-ings, roads, etc., also Man and his activities — social and economic. The main object of the investigations of the geography of settlement does not consist in the cha-racteristics of the substance of economic life in the settlement. but in the co-relation existing between constructions, i. e. the physiognomy of the settlement, and life therein. From such a concept of geography of settlement there results the necessity of landscape research and analysis of the physiognomy of the settlement, to which their former significance must be restored.

Geography of production, which comprises three branches corresponding to the specialities of geographical economy, differs from farmer economic geography, beoause it deails with factors affecting production and with production processes, and 'not merely with the results of production and their distribution.

In the last part of her article, the author draws attention to the necessity of revising prevalent views on the role of human geography and its scientific achievements in the inter-war period, pointing to various trends in approach which have been able to develop on the basis of free contacts with other countries.

Translated by Bogusława Sczaniecka