586 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



botany, and zoology, in which the comparisons are world- 

 wide. 



To sum up : the central problem of mental anthropology is 

 to trace that evolution of the human mind which has accom- 

 panied the evolution of the human body from the earliest times. 

 But as the later stages of that evolution have long been studied 

 by older sciences, it is only fair that the new science should con- 

 fine itself for the most part to those earlier stages of which the 

 older sciences had hardly taken account. That is why anthro- 

 pology is commonly, and on the whole rightly, regarded as a 

 science of origins. It is because the question of human origins 

 was till lately a sort of no man's ground, untrodden by the foot 

 of science but trampled by the hoofs of ignorance and super- 

 stition, that anthropology has come forward to reclaim this 

 desert from the wild asses which roamed over it, and to turn it 

 into a garden of knowledge. Her efforts have not been wholly 

 in vain. Already the desert has begun to bear fruit and to 

 blossom as the rose. 



But if mental anthropology, refusing to poach on the preserves 

 of her elder sisters, confines the scope of her inquiries mainly to 

 the earlier phases of human thought, how is she to accomplish 

 her object ? So far as I can see, she can accomplish it only in 

 one of three ways — by a study of the uncivilised races, by a 

 study of children, and by a study of mental pathology. Of the 

 three studies the first is the only one to which I have paid any 

 attention and on which I have the least claim to speak. But, 

 before passing to it, I may be allowed, for the sake of complete- 

 ness, to say a few words about the other two. And first in re- 

 gard to the study of children. That the intelligence of children 

 in normal cases undergoes a process of development from 

 infancy to maturity is too obvious and notorious to need proof ; 

 and it is a reasonable inference that, just as the development of 

 their bodies in the womb reproduces to some extent the cor- 

 poreal evolution of their remote ancestors out of lower forms of 

 animal life, so the development of their minds from the first 

 dawn of consciousness in the embryo to the full light of reason 

 in adult life reproduces to some extent the mental evolution of 

 their ancestors in ages far beyond the range of history. This 

 inference is confirmed by the analogy which is often traced 

 between the thought and conduct of children and the thought 

 and conduct of savages ; for there are strong grounds for holding 

 that savage modes of thinking and acting closely resemble 

 those of the rude forefathers of the civilised races. Thus a 

 careful study of the growth of intelligence and of the moral sense 

 in children promises to throw much light on the intellectual 

 and moral evolution of the race. 



A study of mental pathology, under which I include all 



