SECTION 20. STUDIES PREPARATORY TO ALL INVESTIGATIONS. 187 



only, and those original and important ones, are jotted down 

 in large numbers, practically to the point of not overlooking 

 any. 1 This method well illustrates the difference between ex- 

 haustion and subtlety. 



It should be also borne in mind that, as we proceed in an 

 enquiry, the dubious items will be either corrected or may 

 prove relatively unimportant or irrelevant. Hence it would be 

 unpardonable to pursue everything forthwith into the realm of 

 the infinite, and there is scarcely any danger that we shall do 

 this when numerous important and well-defined generalisations 

 are the object of our quest. Subtlety, particularly in the 

 cultural sciences, is frequently the cause that no general survey 

 of a problem is undertaken, that only one or a few general 

 conclusions of a somewhat indifferent character are arrived at, 



craniometric literature is at present as unsatisfactory as it is dull. Hitherto 

 observations have been concentrated on cranial measurements as methods 

 for the discrimination of the skulls of different races. Scores of lines, arcs, 

 chords, and indexes have been devised for this purpose, and the diagnosis 

 of skulls has been attempted by a process as mechanical as that whereby 

 we identify certain issues of postage-stamps by counting the nicks in the 

 margin. But there is underlying all these no unifying hypothesis; so that 

 when we, in our sesquipedalian jargon, describe an Australian skull as 

 microcephalic, phaenozygous, tapeinodolichocephalic, prognathic, platyrhine, 

 hypselo-palatine, leptostaphyline, dolichuranic, chamaBprosopic, and micro- 

 seme, we are no nearer to the formulation of any philosophic concept of 

 the general principles which have led to the assumption of these characters 

 by the cranium in question, and we are forced to echo the apostrophe of 

 von T6rOk, Vanity, thy name is Craniology!'." (Pp. 40-42.) 



Only recently have attempts been made to study the relation of the 

 cephalic index to the environment, with striking results. Prof. Franz Boas, 

 of Columbia University, conducted an enquiry into this question on behalf 

 of the United States Government, and the following is his startling conclusion : 

 "The investigation of a large number of families has shown that every single 

 measurement that has been studied has one value among individuals born 

 in Europe, another one among individuals of the same families born in 

 America. Thus, among the East European Jews, the head of the European- 

 born is shorter than the head of the American-born. It is wider among 

 the European-born than it is among the American-born. At the same time 

 the American-born is taller. As a result of the increase in the growth of 

 head, and decrease of the width of head, the length-breadth index is con- 

 siderably less than the corresponding index in the European-born. All these 

 differences seem to increase with the time elapsed between the emigration 

 of the parents and the birth of the child, and are much more marked in 

 the second generation of American-born individuals. . . . The old idea of 

 absolute stability of human types must evidently be given up, and with it 

 the belief of the hereditary superiority of certain types over others." 

 (Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 101, 103, edited by G. Spiller.) 



1 Aristotle's "vast works in natural history were based mainly on what 

 he considered of primary importance facts of actual personal knowledge 

 derived from personal observation. On this account alone his writings 

 deserved the place which they held for many centuries." (A. C. Haddon, 

 History of Anthropology, p. 14.) According to Sir Edward Thorpe, "Aristotle 

 affirmed that natural science can only be founded upon a knowledge of facts, 

 and facts can only be ascertained through observation and experiment." 

 (History of Chemistry, 1914, vol. 1, p. 19.) On Aristotle's method, see also 

 F. W. Westaway, Scientific Method, its Philosophy and its Practice, 1912. 



