JOHN WESLEY POWELL. 59 



"Here again [in sociology] North America presents a wide 

 and interesting field to the investigator, for it has within its extent 

 many distinct governments, and these governments, so far as in- 

 vestigations have been carried, are found to belong to a type more 

 primitive than any of the feudalities from which the civilised na- 

 tions of the earth sprang, as shown by concurrently recorded his- 

 tory. 



"Yet in this history many facts have been discovered suggest- 

 ing that feudalities themselves had an origin in something more 

 primitive. In the study of the tribes of the world a multitude of 

 sociologic institutions and customs have been discovered, and in 

 reviewing the history of feudalities it is seen that many of their im- 

 portant elements are survivals from tribal society. 



"So important are these discoveries that all human history 

 has to be rewritten, the whole philosophy of history reconstructed. 

 Government does not begin in the ascendency of chieftains through 

 prowess in war, but in the slow specialisation of executive func- 

 tions from communal associations based on kinship. Deliberative 

 assemblies do not start in councils gathered by chieftains, but 

 councils precede chieftaincies. Law does not begin in contract, 

 but is the development of custom. Land tenure does not begin in 

 grants from the monarch or the feudal lord, but a system of tenure 

 in common by gentes or tribes is developed into a system of tenure 

 in severally. Evolution in society has not been from militancy to 

 industrialism, but from organisation based on kinship to organisa- 

 tion based on property, and alongside of the specialisations of the 

 industries of peace the arts of war have been specialised. 



"So, one by one, the theories of metaphysical writers on so- 

 ciology are overthrown, and the facts of history are taking their 

 place, and the philosophy of history is being erected out of mate- 

 rials accumulating by objective studies of mankind." 1 



The present chapter on Powell's scientific work and the fol- 

 lowing chapter on his administrative work were written about 

 twelve years ago, at a time when he was at the head of the Geo- 

 logical Survey as well as the Bureau of Ethnology. In preparing 

 them for publication at the present time, the writer has so far re- 

 vised them that they cover the whole period of his literary and 

 executive activity. But the following account of his literary style 

 and literary habits, written at the zenith of his activity, is permitted 

 to stand without change of tense or other qualification. 



Powell's literary style is influenced in a curious and interesting 



1 First Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology ', 1881, p. 83. 



