478 ANTHROPOLOGY 



plants, that here the needs of quantitative precision were first felt. 

 We owe it to Francis Galton that the methods of the quantitative 

 study of the varieties of man have been developed, and that the 

 study has been extended from the field of anatomy over that of 

 physiology and experimental psychology. His researches were 

 extended and systematized by Karl Pearson, in whose hands the 

 question, which was originally one of the precise treatment of 

 the biological problem of anthropology, has outgrown its original 

 limits, and has become a general biological method for the study of 

 the characteristics and of the development of varieties. 



We may now summarize the fundamental problems which give 

 to anthropology its present character. In the biological branch 

 we have the problem of the morphological evolution of man and 

 that of the development of varieties. Inseparable from these ques- 

 tions is also that of correlation between somatic and mental char- 

 acters, which has a practical as well as a theoretical interest. In 

 psychological anthropology the important questions are the dis- 

 covery of a system of the evolution of culture, the study of the 

 modifications of simple general traits under the influence of dif- 

 ferent geographical and social conditions, the question of trans- 

 mission and spontaneous origin, and that of " folk-psychology " versus 

 individual psychology. It will, of course, be understood that this 

 enumeration is not exhaustive, but includes only some of the most 

 important points of view that occupy the minds of investigators. 



The work of those students who are engaged in gathering the 

 material from which this history of mankind is to be built up is 

 deeply influenced by these problems. It would be vain to attempt 

 to give even the briefest review of what has been achieved by the 

 modest collector of facts, how his efforts have covered the remotest 

 parts of the world, how he has tried to uncover and interpret the 

 remains left by the races of the past. 



I think we may say, without injustice, that his work is directed 

 principally to the explanation of special problems that derive their 

 chief interest from a personal love for the particular question and 

 from an ardent desire to see its obscurity removed and to present its 

 picture in clear outlines. Nevertheless, the well-trained and truly 

 scientific observer will always be aware of the general relations of 

 his special problem, and will be influenced in his treatment of the 

 special question by the general theoretical discussions of his times. 

 It must be said with regret that the number of anthropological ob- 

 servers who have a sufficient understanding of the problems of the 

 day is small. Still their number has increased considerably during 

 the last twenty years, and consequently a constant improvement in 

 the reliability and thoroughness of the available observations may 

 be noticed. 



