i6o CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY 



and II. 143; and in Korrespondenzbl. d. Deutsch. Ges. f. Anthrop. Ethnol. u. Urgesch., 

 191 1, Jahrg. xlii, 156. In America, again, whilst it is claimed that it has long been 

 customary with Americanists to attach importance to the effects of the blending of 

 cultures arising from racial mixture, it is contended that allowance must likewise be 

 made for the results of what biologists know as "convergence" or "convergent evolu- 

 tion " (Cf F. Boas, Science, Dec. 8, 191 1 ; and R. H. Lowie, ibid., Nov. 3, 191 1 ; /. of Am. 

 F oik-Lore, xxv, No. xcv, 1912). The fact would seem to be that the psychological and 

 ethnological methods are in no sense fundamentally opposed to each other. Granted 

 that the " adjacent anthropology," the cultural context, of each datum must be given for 

 the latter to be understood, it is none the less possible that such a datum may ultimately 

 serve to illustrate the evolution of human culture in general and of the mind of man in 

 general; for, if " man " is an illegitimate abstraction, then so assuredly must " anthro- 

 pology " be also. The ethnological method, in fact, stands chiefly for a self-denying 

 ordinance on the part of the present generation of students, who are content to put off 

 their all-embracing account of the history of culture until the history of cultures of the 

 developments confined to relatively discontinuous cultural areas has been more com- 

 pletely worked out (cf. " The Present State of Anthropology," Athenaeum, Mar. 12, 1910), 



Totemism.^-This question of method has been raised likewise in a more concrete 

 way by recent discussions about totemism. It must be noted, in the first place, that an 

 admirable survey of the facts relating thereto has been given to the world in Dr. J. G. 

 Frazer's Totemism and Exogamy, 1910; and it will be observed that, in accordance with 

 modern tendency, his descriptive work is broken up into sections corresponding to 

 geographical and ethnological provinces, though he likewise offers a general theory of 

 totemic origins. Then, again, an important work embodying the principles of the 

 school of thought represented by the writers in L'Annee Sociologique has recently ap- 

 peared in Prof. Emile : Durkheim's Les Formes Elementaires de la Vie Religieuse (1912), 

 wherein the analysis relates especially to the " Totemic system " of Australia, though 

 analogies from North America are allowed to play a secondary part in the argument. 

 Meanwhile, Dr. A. A. Goldenweiser in Totemism, an Analytical Study (reprinted from 

 J. of Am. Folk-Lore, xxiii, No. Ixxxviii, 1910), instead of comparing, seeks rather to 

 contrast the totemistic observances of Australia and of North America, insisting that 

 each " totemic complex " is the result of a separate set of historical causes, so that to 

 explain them on the assumption of common origins is methodologically unsound. On 

 this point there has followed an animated controversy between Mr. Goldenweiser and 

 the late Mr. Andrew Lang (A. Lang, Method in the Study of Totemism, Glasgow, 1911 

 privately printed, but published in a revised form in Am. Anthrop. N.S. xiv, No. 2, 1912; 

 A. A. Goldenweiser, ibid., xiii, No. 4; xiv, No. 2; cf. R. H. Lowie, ibid., xiii, No. 2 and W. 

 D. Wallis, ibid., No. i). Mr. Lang asks whether "convergent evolution " means " through 

 a series of flukes," and maintains that the hypothesis of more or less parallel develop- 

 ment from a common starting-point is sound, in that it " works." No better criterion 

 could be proposed. It may well turn out, however, to be the fact that, as intensive 

 study proceeds, even the homogeneity postulated for totemism within a given area, say 

 Australia, will have to be denied in favour of some theory of a mixture of ethnological 

 elements, in short, a theory of the same type, if not necessarily the same content, as 

 that which Graebner or Schmidt would offer. Meanwhile, the older method of classing 

 the peoples of the lower culture together may still bear fruit when the broader conditions 

 and functions of primitive mentality are in question: witness the brilliant essay of Prof. 

 L. Levy-Bruhl, Les F auctions Mentales dans les Societes Inferieures, 1910. Even if his 

 description of the primitive mind as " pre-logical " will hardly bear close examination 

 (see W. H. R. Rivers, The Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1912), the indistinct nature of the 

 thinking associated with an undifferentiated social life comes out very clearly in his 

 penetrating analysis, which includes a most valuable account of the relations between 

 primitive thought and language. Another work on this subject, remarkable for its 

 sanity and breadth of view, is Prof. Boas' The Mind of Primitive Man (1911). 



Regional Anthropology. Having considered the tendency towards ethnological 



