528 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
communication, and the currents of trade, have human volitions as their proximate causes, and not the features of the physical environment.
The ground for so bold an assertion is the neglected distinc- tion between the factors of a telic event and the factors of the volition that brings about the event. Let me illustrate. If a boatman, aiming to reach a pier on the other side of a swift river, fails to allow for the current, he may be swept a quarter of a mile below his destination. In such a case it may be per- missible to explain the outcome as the joint effect of the man's volition and the force of the current. But if the boatman "allows for" the current, and keeps the bow of the boat suffi- ciently upstream to land him at the pier, we explain the out- come either as the realization of a purpose, or as the resultant of the force of the current and the muscular force applied to the propulsion of the boat. We can adopt either the teleological or the mechanical explanation. But since both the physical factors were perceived and calculated in advance, we should never think of combining the two explanations ; they are alternative, not dual.
Now, the local distribution of immigrants in a region can and should be explained in terms of purpose. It is only when, pressing farther back, we undertake to account for their purposes that we come upon considerations relating to climate, soil, water, timber, and the like. Similarly, a railway net has all its causes in the volitions of the men who had it built. The topography of the country enters into the case only as affecting the motives that determine these volitions. It is a dim recognition of this distinction that leads most writers to speak of the physical environment as "influence" rather than cause.
Undoubtedly men's choices are conditioned and their pro- jects limited by the physical framework they live in. Mesology or the study of the influence of the environment will always be a fascinating chapter in our science. Still, since the external facts are foreseen and taken into account in intelligent telic action, it is necessary to regard social phenomena as essentially psychic, and to look for their immediate causes in mind.
