106 THE EIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



ramifications of the " psychic ancestral tree " are 

 very numerous. The psychic difference between the 

 crudest savage of the lowest grade and the most 

 perfect specimen of the highest civilisation is colossal 

 — much greater than is commonly supposed. By the 

 due appreciation of this fact, especially in the latter 

 half of the century, the " Anthropology of the 

 uncivilised races ' ' has received a strong support, 

 and comparative ethnography has come to be 

 considered extremely important for psychological 

 purposes. Unfortunately, the enormous quantity of 

 raw material of this science has not yet been treated 

 in a satisfactory critical manner. What confused and 

 mystic ideas still prevail in this department may be 

 seen, for instance, in the Volkergedanke of the famous 

 traveller, Adolf Bastian, w 7 ho, though a prolific writer, 

 merely turns out a hopeless mass of uncritical com- 

 pilation and confused speculation. 



The most neglected of all psychological methods, 

 even up to the present day, is the evolution of the 

 soul ; yet this little-frequented path is precisely the 

 one that leads us most quickly and securely through 

 the gloomy primeval forest of psychological prejudices, 

 dogmas, and errors, to a clear insight into many of 

 the chief psychic problems. As I did in the other 

 branch of organic evolution, I again put before the 

 reader the two great branches of the science which I 

 differentiated in 1866 — ontogeny and phylogeny. The 

 ontogeny, or embryonic development, of the soul, 

 individual or biontic psychogeny, investigates the 

 gradual and hierarchic development of the soul in the 

 individual, and seeks to learn the laws by which it is 

 controlled. For a great part of the life of the mind a 

 good deal has been done in this direction for centuries ; 



