470 ANTHROPOLOGY 



Europe. His observations and the descriptions of Forster were 

 eagerly taken up by students, and were extensively used in sup- 

 port of their theories. Nevertheless, even the best attempts of this 

 period were essentially speculative and deductive, for the rigid 

 inductive method had hardly begun to be understood in the domain 

 of natural sciences, much less in that of the mental sciences. 



While, on the whole, the study of the mental life of mankind 

 had in its beginning a decidedly historical character, and while 

 knowledge of the evolution of civilization was recognized as its 

 ultimate aim, the biological side of anthropology developed in an 

 entirely different manner. It owes its origin to the great zoologists 

 of the eighteenth century; and in conformity with the general 

 systematic tendencies of the times, the main efforts were directed 

 towards a classification of the races of man and to the discovery of 

 valid characteristics by means of which the races could be described 

 as varieties of one species, or as distinct species. The attempts at class- 

 ification were numerous, but no new point of view was developed. 



During the nineteenth century a certain approach between 

 these two directions was made, which may be exemplified by the 

 work of Klemm. The classificatory aspect was combined with the 

 historical one, and the leading discussion related to the discovery 

 of mental differences between the zoological varieties or races of 

 men, and to the question of polygenism and monogenism. The pas- 

 sions that were aroused by the practical and ethical aspects of the 

 slavery question did much to concentrate attention on this phase 

 of the anthropological problem. 



As stated before, most of the data of anthropology had been 

 collected by travelers whose prime object was geographical dis- 

 coveries. For this reason the collected material soon demanded 

 the attention of geographers, who viewed it from a new stand- 

 point. To them the relations between man and nature were of 

 prime importance, and their attention was directed less to psycho- 

 logical questions than to those relating to the dependence of the 

 form of culture upon geographical surroundings, and the Control of 

 natural conditions gained by man with the advance of civilization. 



Thus we find about the middle of the nineteenth century the 

 beginnings of anthropology laid from three distinct points of view: 

 the historical, the classificatory, and the geographical. About this 

 time the historical aspect of the phenomena of nature took hold 

 of the minds of investigators in the whole domain of science. Be- 

 ginning with biology, and principally through Darwin's powerful 

 influence, it gradually revolutionized the whole method of natural 

 and mental science, and led to a new formulation of their problems. 

 The idea that the phenomena of the present have developed from 

 previous forms with which they are genetically connected, and 



