ON ACTIVITAL SIMILARITIES. 



Some remarks on the interpretation of activital similarities 

 seem to be called for here, from the fact that inferences appear 

 in the papers of this volume which although ingenious and 

 suggestive may perhaps not be in harmony with sound prin- 

 ciples of interpretation. 



Those who survey human activities over a broad field, from 

 land to land and from people to people, discover very many unex- 

 pected similarities, and are apt to take them as suggestions of 

 genetic relationship existing between the peoples among whom 

 such similarities are found. Much research has been devoted 

 to the classification of peoples and the complementary study 

 of ethnic characteristics, and the similarities mentioned have 

 been used for such purposes in many and diverse ways. 



The conditions of life and progress under which man inhab- 

 its the globe are largely homogeneous in the various regions 

 which he occupies. Within this general homogeneity there is 

 a variety in conditions of habitat, confined to somewhat narrow 

 limits. All men obtain their subsistence from biotic life; all 

 men protect themselves from the inclemency of the weather; 

 all men defend themselves from enemies; where men have lived 

 near streams and other bodies of water they have constructed 

 rafts and boats by which they may float on its surface. And 

 in a broad survey of human activities we find men everywhere 

 to a large extent performing the same functions. These func- 

 tional similarities are so common that they do not challenge 

 attention. On the other hand, the means by which activital 

 functions are performed are more varied. The savage by the 

 sea-shore may use a shell for a knife; the savage by the obsid- 

 ian cliffs may use a stone flake for a knife. The savage who 

 dwells among the hills of steatite uses stone vessels; the sav- 

 age who lives by the banks of clay makes vessels of pottery. 

 The savage living among the glacial fields of the north con- 

 structs his shelter of ice; the savage who inhabits the deep for- 

 est constructs a shelter of wood; the savage who roams the 



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