EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



more, the published figures of sale of the volume 

 wherein the question is treated are so small that a 

 brief discussion of the matter may prove novel to 

 those readers who are already familiar with the 

 outlines of the evolutionary sociology, and may 

 serve to heighten their interest in the cheap edi 

 tion of the Principles of Sociology which Messrs. 

 Williams & Norgate are rumored to have in prep 

 aration. 



Anthropologists are beginning to realize not only 

 that the earliest pages in human history will never 

 be written, but also that no existing race, neither 

 Bushmen nor Fuegians nor Australians nor any 

 other, can be regarded as primitive, or even ap 

 proximately primitive. In the customs of no ex 

 tant tribe can we find an illustration of veritable 

 beginnings. It follows that any speculations as to 

 the actual origin of any professional institution 

 must necessarily have somewhat less certainty 

 than belongs to a generalization formed by strict 

 induction from positive data. Without dogma 

 tism, then, but yet with the warrant which its 

 source and the internal evidence provide, we may 

 adduce the theory of the origin of the medical 

 profession which Herbert Spencer has propounded. 

 If I succeed in interesting any reader to whom the 

 theory is new, he will find it in the section called 

 &quot;Data of Sociology,&quot; under the heading &quot;Exor 

 cism,&quot; and in the section &quot;Professional Institu 

 tions.&quot; The argument, in a word, is that priest 

 and physician have a common origin, neither be- 



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