THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS 151 



strata and also of portions of the human skeleton some basis 

 has been found for scientific generalizations. 1 



Besides relics of bygone ages and peoples, anthropologists 

 have endeavored to get light on prehistoric conditions from the 

 following sources: (i) operations of modern savages; (2) the 

 publications of historians and travelers who were acquainted 

 with savage tribes long ago; (3) the languages of cultured and 

 uncultured races; (4) the makeshifts and contrivances of chil- 

 dren and of the folk who never receive letters-patent upon their 

 devices. 2 But the presupposition in every case except that of 

 relics is that savages of these later centuries are like those of 

 earliest time. This assumption is based on some logical principle 

 of classification as with Spencer and De Greef, on the theory of 

 recapitulation 3 as with Lilienfeld and many pedagogical writers, 

 or on the theory that mind is essentially the same in its operations 

 and manifestations everywhere and in all ages. This last is 

 accepted so generally today that it must be regarded as of scienti- 

 fic worth though even here the principle must be used with 

 caution. 4 Anthropologists are generally agreed today, also, that 

 social development has not been linear, but by a process, either 

 similar to that termed by Ward " sympodial," or irregular, deter- 

 mined by environmental conditions. 



At the other extreme of those who emphasize social origins and 

 genetic development is T. N. Carver, who holds that " all past 

 development . . . must be accounted for on the ground of forces 

 and factors now at work, and which can be observed at first hand 

 by the student "; and that " it is in this study of first-hand mate- 

 rials, in the observation of social activities about us, that we must 

 get our clue to the relation of cause and effect in social and politi- 

 cal affairs." 5 



1 Keith, Ancient Times; Keane, Ethnology, ch. IV. 



2 Mason, Origin of Invention, pp. 28, 29. Cf. Boas, op. cit., p. 182. 



3 For criticism of this theory, see Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, p. 21; Mason, 

 op. cit., p. 45; Thorndike, Educational Psychology, i, pp. 248 ff. 



4 Cf. Boas, op. cit., pp. 184-195; Ross, Foundations of Sociology, p. 61; Tylor, 

 Early History of Man, pp. 5, 190. The chief difficulty is to find primitive savages, 

 practically all, even when visited and " written up " hundreds of years ago, having 

 come in contact with higher or lower cultures. 



5 Sociology and Social Progress, p. 5. 



