402 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 



the work of Graebner 5 and of P. W. Schmidt. 8 It has resulted in an important 

 series of works in which the whole field of anthropological research is ap- 

 proached in a manner wholly different from that customary in this country. 7 I 

 must content myself with one example to illustrate the difference of standpoint 

 which separates the two schools. Few subjects have attracted more interest in 

 this and other countries than the study of primitive decoration. In the decora- 

 tive art of all lands there are found transitions from designs representing the 

 human form or those of animals and plants to patterns of a purely geometrical 

 nature. In this country it has been held, I think I may say universally, that 

 in these transitions we have evidence for an evolutionary process which in all 

 parts of the world has led mankind to what may be called the degradation and 

 conventionalisation of human, animal, or plant designs so that in course of time 

 they become mere geometrical forms. 



To the modern German school, on the other hand, these transitions are 

 examples of the blending of two cultures, one possessing the practice of decora- 

 ting their objects with human, animal, or plant designs, while the art of the 

 other is based on the use of geometrical forms. The transitions which have been 

 taken to be evidence of independent processes of evolution based on psycholo- 

 gical tendencies common to mankind are by the modern German school ascribed 

 to the mixture of cultures and of peoples. Further, similar patterns, even one 

 so simple as the spiral, when found in widely separated regions of the earth, 

 are held to have been due to the influence of one and the same culture. 



I have chosen this example because it illustrates the immense divergence in 

 thought and method Between the two schools, but the difference runs through the 

 whole range of the subject. In every case where British anthropologists see 

 evolution, either in the forms of material objects or in social and religious insti- 

 tutions, the modern German school sees only the evidence of mixture of cul- 

 tures, either with or without an accompanying mixture of the races to which 

 these cultures belonged. 



It will, I think, be evident that this difference of attitude of British and 

 German workers is one of fundamental and vital importance. When we find 

 the chief workers of two nations thus approaching their subject from two radi- 

 cally diffei'ent, and it would seem, incompatible standpoints, it is evident that 

 there must be something very wrong, and it has seemed to me that I cannot 

 better use the opportunity given to me by the present occasion than in devoting 

 my address to this subject. 



The situation is one which has an especial interest for me in that I have been 

 led quite independently to much the same general position as that of the German 

 school by the results of my own work in Oceania with the Percy Sladen Trust 

 Expedition. With no knowledge of the work of this school I was led by my 

 facts to see how much, in the past, I had myself ignored considerations arising 

 from racial mixture and the blending of cultures, and it will perhaps interest 

 you if I sketch briefly the history of my own conversion. 



Much of my time in Oceania was devoted to survey work, in which I col- 

 lected especially the systems of relationship of every place I visited, together 

 with such other facts concerning social organisation as I was able to gather. I 



5 See especially Graebner, ' Metlvode der Ethnologie, Heidelberg, 1911, and 'Die 

 melanesisehe Bogenkultur und ihre Verwandten,' Anthropos, 1909, iv., 726. The 

 annual Ethnologica, edited by W. Foy, is devoted to the illustration of this school of 

 thought. 



6 See especially ' L'origine de ITdee de Dieu,' Anthropos, iii.-v., 1908-10, and 

 ' Grundlinien einer Vergleichung der Religion u. Mythologie der austronesischen 

 Volker, Denksch. d. Akad. d. Wiss. Wien, Phil.-hist. Kl., 1910, liii. Schmidt differs 

 from Graebner in limiting the application of the ethnological method to regions 

 with general affinities of culture. Otherwise he remains an adherent of the doctrine 

 of independent origin. (See ' Panbabylonismus und ethnologischer Elementar- 

 gedanke,' Mitt. d. tinthrop. Gesellsch. in Wien, 1908, xxxviii., 73.) 



' It must not be understood from this account that all German anthropologists 

 are adherents of the ethnological school. There are still those who follow the 

 doctrines of Bastian, which have undergone an interesting modification through the 

 adoption of the biological principle of Convergence. 



