XVIII REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY 



and more or less intellig-eut groups; the pi'imary unit of the 

 investigator of mankind from this standpoint is not the indi- 

 vidual, but the group — the Jiair, family, elan, gens, tribe, or 

 confederacy among primitive men, the family, bodj'-corporate, 

 municipalitv, bodv-i)olitic, state, nation, or alliance among civi- 

 lized peoples — \\hile the secondary units are not biotic norms or 

 types, but the normal 2:)i'oducts of collective activity in the vari- 

 ous groups, comprising languages, arts of welfare and pleasure, 

 institutions, and opinions. Accordingly the science of man, 

 defined from this standpoint, is primarily and in every essential 

 resjiect superorganic, and is clearly set ajjart from biology as 

 from all other sciences. 



There are thus two essentially distinct points of view from 

 which the science of man may be reg'arded: From one stand- 

 point man is an animal, and his kind is an assemblage of indi- 

 vidual organisms susceptible of arrangement by type into 

 varieties, and the science of man, regarded from this standpoint, 

 is closely akin to biology; while, from the higher standj)oint, 

 mankind must be regarded as an assemblage of superorganic 

 and essentially collective groups, and mav be classified by the 

 products of collective activitv; and from this standpoint the 

 science of man is fundamentally distinct. For certain purposes 

 it is desirable, and indeed necessar}', to regard man alterna- 

 tively from the two points of view, and to connect the two 

 widely diverse branches of the science of man, and this is com- 

 mold^' done under the general term Anthropolog\'. Sometimes 

 it is desiral)le to study mankind with special reference to racial 

 and trilial characteristics, and in such manner as to weigh the 

 varietal features of the genus and species, and such studies are 

 combined under Ethnology: but it lias been found that, after 

 the primary division into three, four, or five races, the A'arietal 

 features afford little or no aid in defining and classifying tribes, 

 so that etlmologic researches on any given continent are neces- 

 sarily carried forward in accordance with the superorganic 

 science of man. For most purposes it is found best to study 

 both primitive and civilized peoples as superorganic groups, in 

 Avhich each individual reflects and is molded bv the character- 

 istics of his associates, and this is the function of Demology 



