unthinking persistence of the peasant thrift, which grudges good land to
[Page: 107] road-way, and is jealous of oblique short cuts. In short,
then, in what seems our most studied city planning, we are still
building from our inherited instincts like the bees. Our Civics is thus
still far from an Applied Sociology.



B--THE HISTORIC SURVEY OF CITIES

But a city is more than a place in space, it is a drama in time. Though
the claim of geography be fundamental our interest in the history of the
city is supremely greater; it is obviously no mere geographic
circumstances which developed one hill-fort in Judea, and another in
Attica, into world centres, to this day more deeply influential and
significant than are the vastest modern capitals. This very wealth of
historical interests and resources, the corresponding multiplicity of
specialisms, more than ever proves the need of some means by which to
group and classify them. Some panoramic simplification of our ideas of
history comparable to that of our geography, and if possible congruent
with this, is plainly what we want. Again the answer comes through
geography, though no longer in mere map or relief, but now in vertical
section--in the order of strata ascending from past to present, whether
we study rock-formations with the geologist, excavate more recent
accumulations with the archaeologist, or interpret ruins or monuments
with the historian. Though the primitive conditions we have above noted
with the physiographer remain apparent, indeed usually permanent, cities
have none the less their characteristic phases of historic development
decipherably superposed. Thus below even the characteristically
patriarchal civilisations, an earlier matriarchal order is often