OF SOCIETY. 513 



Waitz, although brought up in classical studies, of 57. 



Th. Waitz. 



the thoroughness of which he gave evidence in his 

 excellent edition of the Aristotelian ' Organon,' started 

 upon a similar line of study but, as far as he was 

 concerned, not in connection with the science of 

 language, but with elaborate and detailed researches 

 into the life and history of what he termed " Natur- 

 volker." These were the savage as distinguished from 

 the civilised or historical Peoples and nations. The 

 work of Lazarus and Steinthal was introduced by 

 elaborate philosophical discussions as to the principles 

 on which anthropological research was to be conducted, 

 and it started a long controversy, not yet concluded, as 

 to the definite meaning to be attached to such terms as 

 the " Soul of the People," the " popular mind," the 

 " social mind or self." Is this a definite and useful 

 conception, or is it only a name for the average of 

 individual characteristics, mental and moral, of an age 

 or a country ? 



The work of Waitz approaches a region of research 

 which had, for a long time, been neglected in Germany, 

 though that country had one illustrious representative 

 in the earlier part of the century, a naturalist of 

 European celebrity, Blumenbach of Gottingen (1752- 53. 



Blumen- 



1840). After his time the term anthropology was used bach, 

 more in the philosophical sense as denoting a study of 

 human nature from the psychological point of view, 

 whereas in England and France it was used to denote 

 the study of man as the highest product in the animal 

 scale of creation. Anthropology became thus rather a 

 branch of natural than of mental history. As such, 

 VOL. iv. 2 K 



