THE HISTORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY 469 



one, the historical method, which endeavors to reconstruct the 

 actual history of mankind; the other, the generalizing method, 

 which attempts to establish the laws of its development. According 

 to the personal inclination of the investigator, the one or the other 

 method prevails in his researches. A considerable amount of geo- 

 graphical and historical specialization has also taken place among 

 what may be called the " historical school of anthropologists." Some 

 devote their energies to the elucidation of the earliest history of 

 mankind, while others study the inhabitants of remote regions, and 

 still others the survivals of early times that persist in our midst. 



The conditions thus outlined are the result of a long develop- 

 ment, the beginnings of which during the second half of the eight- 

 eenth century may be clearly observed. The interest in the cus- 

 toms and appearance of the inhabitants of distant lands is, of 

 course, much older. The descriptions of Herodotus show, that 

 even among the nations of antiquity, notwithstanding their self- 

 centred civilization, this interest was not lacking. The travelers 

 of the Middle Ages excited the curiosity of their contemporaries 

 by the recital of their experiences. The literature of the Spanish 

 conquest of America is replete with remarks on the customs of the 

 natives of the New World. But there is hardly any indication of 

 the thought that these observations might be made the subject 

 of scientific treatment. They were and remained curiosities. It 

 was only when their relation to our own civilization became the 

 subject of inquiry that the foundations of anthropology were laid. 

 Its germs may be discovered in the early considerations of theo- 

 logists regarding the relations between Pagan religions and the 

 revelations of Christianity. They were led to the conclusion that 

 the lower forms of culture, more particularly of religion, were due 

 to degeneration, to a falling-away from the revealed truth, of which 

 traces are to be found in primitive beliefs. 



During the second half of the eighteenth century we find the 

 fundamental concept of anthropology well formulated by the ra- 

 tionalists Vho preceded the French Revolution. The deep-seated 

 feeling that political and social inequality was the result of a faulty 

 development of civilization, and that originally all men were born 

 equal, led Rousseau to the nai've assumption of an ideal natural 

 state which we ought to try to regain. These ideas were shared 

 by many, and the relation of the culture of primitive man to our 

 civilization remained the topic of discussion. To this period belong 

 Herder's Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheti, in which, perhaps 

 for the first time, the fundamental thought of the development 

 of the culture of mankind as a whole is clearly expressed. 



About this time, Cook ntade his memorable voyages, and the 

 culture of the tribes of the Pacific Islands became first known to 



