398 ON TRACES OF THE EARLY MENTAL CONDITION OF MAN. 



M'ords one of the g-rcat generalizations of our intellectual history. "]\Ian,'' he 

 says, '' ever seeks the connection, even of external phenomena, first in the realm 

 of thought ; * * * * his first endeavor is to rule nature from the idea 

 outward." 



Now if the result of inquiries like the present were to bring out mere abstract 

 truth, barren of all practical importance, this would perhaps be the last place 

 where it would l)e needful to apologize for the want. But it is to be noticed 

 that they do happen to have this practical importance. There are certain studies 

 which have entered upon a thoroughly scientific stage, and ask no aid from 

 ethnographic research ; the}^ care nothing for the crude theories of earlier times, 

 but go directly to their own observed facts l)y which they must stand or fall. 

 But there are other studies, of not less importance to us than astronomy or chem- 

 istry, which are in a very different state. In such especially as relate to man, 

 the operations of his mind, his relations to the rest of the universe, the past and 

 future condition of his race, his ethical and political rights and duties — in all 

 these complex and difficult prol)lems we find established side by side sources of 

 opinion of very different value. Some ojiinions come to us authorized by the 

 best of evidence, and when put to the test of reason and experience the trial 

 proves their soundness. Others again, though founded on some crude theory 

 of less educated times, have been so altered in their scope and meaning by the 

 lessons of experience, as to be on the whole the best known representatives of facts, 

 and by this not unsatisfactory title they hold their ground. Others, lastly, may 

 arise out of opinions belonging to a low stage of culture, and maintain their 

 place, not because they are proved to be true or useful, but simply because they 

 have been inherited from long past generations. Now it is one duty of ethno- 

 graphic research to follow up these lines of thought, to mark out, among existing 

 opinions, which are old notions kept up in a modified condition to answer a more 

 modern purpose ; in wdiat cases a growing knowledge goes about with the 

 remains of the old philosophy which once clothed it, now hanging in strips and 

 tatters about its back ; in wdiat case opinions belonging to a low and early 

 mental state survive into the midst of a higher culture, pretending to be knowl- 

 edge, and being really superstition. Thus the study of the lower races has a 

 work to do in facilitating the intellectual progress of the higher, by clearing the 

 ground, and leaving the way open for the induction of general laws and their 

 correction by the systematic observation of facts, to the results of which method 

 alone we mav fitlv a"ive the name of Science. 



