Human Infancy and the Recapitulation Theory 95 



considered general. Later investigation and discussion seems 

 to have sadly shaken the foundations of the conception. It has 

 been pointed out that similarities may be due to factors other 

 than common mentality, such as similar geographical environ- 

 ments, common points of radiation of culture, common tradi- 

 tions, and convergence from unlike sources of origin. Investi- 

 gation has dealt even more seriously with parallels in develop- 

 ment. The words of two anthropologists writing with high 

 authority will suggest the present situation in the science with 

 respect to the conceptions in question. 



"The theory of parallel development, if it is to have any sig- 

 nificance, would require that among all branches of mankind 

 the steps of invention should be followed, at least approximately, 

 in the same order, and that no important gaps should be found. 

 The facts, so far as known at the present time, are entirely 

 contrary to this view. We are thus led to the conclusion that 

 the assumption of a uniform development of culture among all 

 the different races of man and among all tribal units is true in a 

 limited sense only." 47 



The different races cannot be arranged, therefore, on a scale of 

 culture. 



"While parallelisms of a certain kind were shown [by the 

 older students] to occur, this does not hold for parallelisms of 

 any degree of complexity and duration, nor for integral historic 

 processes, the individuality of which seems so conspicuous that 

 doubt prevails in the highest quarters as to whether anything 

 like historic laws in the strict sense will ever become more than 

 a desideratum" 



"Whether the parallelisms refer to entire historical complexes 

 and embrace millenniums, or modestly comprise parallel develop- 

 ments of less extent and duration, when demonstrated they do 

 not constitute a solution, but a problem which has not so far 

 been successfully attacked." 48 



It will be noticed that these writers do not wholly repudiate 

 parallelisms in development due presumably to common men- 

 tality. Their expressions have the force of setting positive 

 limits to the idea of their general prevalence held by the older 

 anthropologists. They also may not do justice to the fact that 

 there exists in their science an element or school laying great 

 stress upon the factor of common mind. Wundt's "Volker- 



Boas, op. cit., pp. 182, 195. 



Goldenweiser, Jour, of Amer. Folklore, July-Sept., 1913, pp. 281, 283. See also, 

 Boas, in Thomas, Source Book of Social Origins, 313-15. 



