REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 45 



(if {)syi'}i<tl(),iiic iii((uiry haVe beey Huecessfully pvu^ued in tlie past. AVhile these are 

 ill s(Hiie degree antithetic, they also measurably represent stages in the development 

 of knowledge. The first method may be defined as that of introspection; the second 

 as that of experiment. During the past decade the latter has attained great vogue, 

 and departments of experimental psychology have been built up in several universi- 

 ties and colleges. The two inethods, more especially the latter, afford a foundation 

 fur a tliird method, wliicii is alone available for the study of large groups, such as 

 races, nati( ms, ( ir entire peoples. It may be defined as the method of direct observation 

 of normal interai-tions. In pursuing this method it is assumed, on the liasis of experi- 

 mental psychology, that physical acts are correlated with mental actions — in other 

 words, that human thought and human action are interdependent. The recognition 

 of this simple jirincijile removes the need for a large jiart of the detail work involved 

 in experimental psychology, for it permits the interpretation of mental characteristics 

 of individuals and groups from their habitual or normal actions rather than from a 

 repetition of special actions in a prearranged series. For this reason it has not hith- 

 erto been deemed necessary to introduce psychometric work in connection with the 

 ethnologic researches, the observations on Indian habits and artifacts seeming to afford 

 a satisfactory index to and measure of the aboriginal mind. In its general aspect 

 the principle may l)e said to have been established early in the history of the Bureau 

 through ol)servations on activital coincidences, which have since been fornu;late<l 

 in the comprehensive law of the Responsivity of JMind; so generalized, the prin- 

 ciple may be regarded as the keynote of ethnic science, the Rosetta stone wherel)y 

 the characters of all races may be interpreted. The recognition of the princi- 

 ple serves also to explain and establish the se(iuenci' of stages in human develop- 

 ment inferred from observations on many peojtles (i. e., from savagery, through 

 barbarism and civilization, up to enlightenment), sint-e it shows that each transition 

 was the product of cumulative experiences, long assimilated and api)lied through 

 commonplace habits rather than through aljstract reflection — for in all the lower 

 stages of human jirogress the mind borrows from the hand. Customarily the stages 

 of culture are delined on the basis of social organization, but they may l)e defined 

 nearly as conveniently in terms of psychic development. So defined, primordial 

 savagery is not merely the stage in which the law rests on maternal kinship, but that 

 of instinctive imitation, in which experience is jjerceptive rather than apperceptive, 

 while knowledge increases through accident rather than design. Similarly, barba- 

 rism is not only the stage of paternal kinship and jiatriarchy, but that of awakening 

 apperception accompanied by distrust and dread of nature, in which knowledge is 

 stimulated by notions of divination, with accompanying physical tests slowly assimi- 

 lated in conscious experience. In like manner civilization is not simply the stage of 

 law based on territorial right, but that of habitual discovery, in which new-found 

 facts are consciously perceived and utilized. So, also, enlightenment means more 

 than mere recognition of individual rights as the basis of law; for it is the stage of 

 invention and of the union of individuals for conquest over nature through the exer- 

 cise of definite prevision based on accumulated experience. Defined in a word, 

 respectively, the four psycliic stages are those of (1) imitation, (2) divination, (?>) 

 discovery, and (4) invention. Now, among the applications of the })rinciple of 

 the interdependence of thought and action, none are more important than those 

 pertaining to the develojimental stages; for the leading prol)lems of the world to-day 

 are connected with the lifting of lower races and more iirimitive cultures to 

 the planes of civilizaticm and enlightenment. The special applications are innu- 

 merable, but they cluster about the general facts (1) that in primitive culture 

 thought is engendered by action, (2) that in higher culture thought leads action 

 and ('A) that hence tlie most effective ways of raising lower jjeoples are those 

 of manual rather than mental training. All systematic observations indicati" that 



