utility gained its importance. In the era of Enlightenment, geography generated knowledge and made it intellectually and practically possible as a university discipline. The natural theology required geography to investigate the world as a grand machine from the Divine. Scientific voyages and travels constructed geopolitical power from geographical knowledge, partly sponsored by Royal Society. John Pinkerton appraised the eighteenth century had "the gigantic progress of every science, and in particular of geographical information" and "alteration has taken place in states and boundaries." The discourse of geographical history gave way to many new thoughts and theories, but the hegemony of the European male academia led to the exclusion of non-western theories, observations and knowledges. One such example is the interaction between humans and nature, with Marxist thought critiquing nature as a commodity within Capitalism, European thought seeing nature as either a romanticised or objective concept differing to human society, and Native American discourse, which saw nature and humans as within one category. The implied hierarchy of knowledge that perpetuated throughout these institutions has only been recently challenged, with the Royal Geographical Society enabling women to join as members in the 20th century. After English Civil War, Samuel Hartlib and his Baconian community promoted scientific application, which showed the popularity of utility. For William Petty, the administrators should be "skilled in the best rules of judicial astrology" to "calculate the events of diseases and prognosticate the weather." Institutionally, Gresham College propagated scientific advancement to a larger audience like tradesmen, and later this institute grew into Royal Society. William Cuningham illustrated the utilitarian function of cosmography by the military implement of maps. John Dee used mathematics to study location—his primary interest in geography and encouraged exploiting resource with findings collected during voyages. Religion Reformation stimulated geographical exploration and investigation. Philipp Melanchthon shifted geographical knowledge production from "pages of scripture" to "experience in the world." Bartholomäus Keckermann separated geography from theology because the "general workings of providence" required empirical investigation. His follower, Bernhardus Varenius made geography a science in the 17th century and published Geographia Generalis, which was used in Newton's teaching of geography at Cambridge. Science develops along with empiricism. Empiricism gains its central place while reflection on it also grew. Practitioners of magic and astrology first embraced and expanded geographical knowledge. Reformation Theology focused more on the providence than the creation as previously. Realistic experience, instead of translated from scripture, emerged as