366 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



which sets out to consider his works. Inasmuch as man is an organic 

 phenomenon, anthropology, the science of man — like botany, the science 

 of plants, and zoology, the science of animals — is properly speaking a 

 branch of biology, the general science of all organic phenomena. Call 

 this physical anthropology if you prefer — though the adjective seems 

 to me superfluous — but pause and consider before you speak of cultural 

 anthropology. The adjective in this case is incongruous; cultural in- 

 cludes man's works, which are confessedly super-organic. Now there 

 may be no principles capable of coordinating these super-organic phe- 

 nomena — if so there can be no such thing as a science of civilization — 

 but simply because these principles are still unknown, or unknowable, 

 if you like, is no reason why other known principles should be accepted 

 to serve their stead. You can not coordinate organic phenomena under 

 inorganic categories, why should you expect to coordinate super-organic 

 phenomena under organic categories? But this is precisely what is 

 proposed by the incongruous combination : cultural anthropology — the 

 science itself is organic, its subject-matter is super-organic. 



Congruity requires that the new science shall be super-organic to 

 correspond with its subject-matter. But there is such a science, you 

 say, sociology, which claims to be the science of super-organic phe- 

 nomena. If ' social ' and ' super-organic ' were synonymous, as 

 Spencer supposed, the claim would be justified, but they're not, and 

 no amount of argument or assumption can make them so. To go no 

 further for the moment, it is evident enough man's works are indi- 

 vidual and familial as well as social; then too, from another point of 

 view, some of man's works are economic, others esthetic, and so on, all 

 of which are included within the broader concept ' civilization,' but not 

 necessarily within the narrower concept ' society.' Thus though soci- 

 ology is, logically at least, a science of super-organic phenomena, it is 

 certainly not the science of super-organic phenomena, since it does not, 

 and can not be made to coordinate the subject-matter in question. All 

 organic phenomena are coordinated under the general science of biology, 

 perhaps some day all super-organic phenomena will be coordinated under 

 the general science of civology. If so, sociology will constitute one of 

 the subsidiary sciences of civology, even as morphology constitutes one 

 of the subsidiary sciences of biology. Till then the so-called science 

 should be classed among the above-mentioned ' systems.' Even as such 

 — if I may add a word by way of criticism — it is not a striking suc- 

 cess — to quote from a recent writer : " In regard to the fundamental 

 principles of sociology, the confusion is hopeless. The student will 

 search in vain in the systematic treatises on sociology for any definite 

 body of established doctrine which he can accept as the ground prin- 

 ciples of the science. He finds only an unmanageable mass of con- 

 flicting theories and opinions. Each treatise contains an exposition 



