NATURE 



233 



THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1920. 



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Methods and Aims of Anthropology. 



PROF. K.\KL l'i:.\RSON'S presidtniial ad- 

 dress to the Anthropological Section of the 

 British .Association .it the recent Cardiff meeting' 

 sounded a note of challenge which it is not usual 

 to hear from the chair. Vet perhaps few of his 

 .-ludience were inclined to agree with him in this 

 case that "a Daniel had no right to issue judg- 

 ment from the high seat of the feast." In science, 

 perhaps even more than in other departments of 

 human affairs, criticism is the breath of life, and 

 perfection, if it were attainable, might prove peril- 

 ously akin to stagnation. 



.Although Prof. Pearson disclaimed any intention 

 of speaking in a conlroversial spirit, his address 

 was in fact a severe indictment of the traditional 

 subject-matter and methods of anthropology. 

 "Why is it," he asked, "that we are .Section H 

 and not .Section A?" Anthropology should be the 

 "Queen of the Sciences," the crowning study of 

 the curriculum. If, in fact, it does not occupy this 

 position, whose is the responsibility and what is 

 the reason? His address was at once an answer 

 to these questions and an attempt t(j suggest a 

 remedy for what he feels to be the present unsatis- 

 factory position of the science. 



.Anthropologists will cordially endorse Prof. 

 Pearson's contention that the claims of anthro- 

 pology as a leading science have not received full 

 recognition, either from the .Stale or the univer- 

 sities : they arc unlikely, as a lx>dy, to agree with 

 him as to the cause. For in his view the responsi- 

 bility lies with the tradition of the orthodox school, 

 in respect both of subject-matter and of method. 

 Anthropology, and in particular anthropometrv, he 

 NO. 2660. VOL. 106] 



maintains, has produced no results of utility to the 

 State, and its methods are not of such a kind as 

 to afford either the training of the mind or the 

 doorway to a career which would attract young 

 men entering the universities. His chief criticism 

 was directed against the subject-matter of anthro- 

 pometry, the multitudinous observations on 

 "height-setting," and the censu.ses of hair and eye 

 colour, "things dead almost from the day of their 

 record." But further, he went on to say, the bulk 

 of the recorders were untrained, and the associated 

 factors, without which the records were valueless, 

 were usually omitted. The anthropologist, seizing 

 the superficial and easy to observe, had let slip 

 the more subtle and elusive qualities on which 

 progress depends. It was the psycho-physical and 

 the psycho-physiological characters, and not the 

 superficial measurements of a man's body, which 

 carry the greater weight in the struggle of nations. 

 On this ground Prof. Pearson refused to admit the 

 plea of the supporters of "science for its own 

 sake," who argue that researches not immediately 

 " utile " will Ije useful .some day, as has happened 

 in the case of the study of hyperspace. .Anthropo- 

 metric studies, he holds, must turn to more certain 

 appreciations of bodily health and mental aptitude 

 if they are to be useful to the State. 



It is perhaps worth while to note that the two 

 points to which Prof. Pearson directs attention are 

 not entirely in the same category. One is a ques- 

 tion of the subject-matter of the science, the other 

 of method. In the case of the latter it is true 

 that anthropometric records have sometimes been 

 vitiated by lack of training in the observer ; and it 

 is equally true that associated factors have not 

 always been recorded. But both these are remedi- 

 able defects which will tend to disappear with in- 

 creased facilities for training and increasing know- 

 ledge of es.sential relations in the facts to be 

 observed. Neither, unless shown to be inherent 

 in the subject-matter ' or unavoidable, can per- 

 manently affect the position of the science. 



But Prof. Pearson went further. He was not 

 prepared to allow that the material furnished by 

 the present methods of anthropometrics was even 

 indirectly of value as an indication of a close asso- 

 ciation between physical characters and soundness 

 both of body and of mind. His grounds for 

 this view were twofold. In the first place, he 

 maintained, purity of race is merely a relative 

 term ; but even granting the hypothesis of pure 

 races, it is known by mass observation that (as .1 

 result of interbreeding) elements belonging to one 

 r:ice arc found in association in the same individual 



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