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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1137 



gone much further, and try to elevate the con- 

 cept of diffusion to a universal interpretative 

 principle of cultural similarities. This school 

 is usually associated with the name of 

 Graebner, while among its other adherents, to 

 a greater or less extent, may be mentioned 

 Foy, Ankermann, Schmidt and, in the most re- 

 cent period, Rivers. While there may be little 

 in common between the work of these men 

 and that of the classical English anthropolo- 

 gists there is, however, one significant similar- 

 ity in the method pursued: both schools of 

 thinkers seize upon one of the two possible 

 modes of accounting for cultural similarities 

 and proceed to ruthlessly apply it in all in- 

 stances. In the one case as in the other, then, 

 the method is dogmatic and uncritical. 



Having apparently embraced the articles of 

 the Graebnerian faith, Professor Smith sees 

 nothing in the concepts of " independent de- 

 velopment " and " psychic unity " but " child- 

 ish subterfuges " and even " a fetish no less 

 puerile and unsatisfying than that of an 

 African negro." This curiously detached 

 attitude the professor attempts to justify fey 

 appealing to the testimony of history and of 

 psychology. " The teaching of history," he 

 asserts, " is fatal to the idea of inventions 

 being made independently. Originality is one 

 of the rarest manifestations of human fac- 

 ulty." As to psychology, we read: 



Nor does it appear to have struck the orthodox 

 ethnologist [here again some names would be 

 most welcome] that his so-called "psychological" 

 explanation and the meaningless phrase "similar- 

 ity of the working of the human mind" run coun- 

 ter to all the teachings of modern psychology. 

 For it is the outstanding feature of human in- 

 stincts that they are extremely generalized and 

 vaguely defined, and not of the precise highly 

 specialized character which modern ethnological 

 speculation attributes to them. 



As against Professor Smith's interpretation 

 of the historic record the writer ventures to 

 submit that the testimony of history proves 

 beyond the shadow of a doubt that independent 

 inventions do occur as well as that originality, 

 while rare in its most pronounced forms, is in 

 a more general sense as fundamental a trait 

 of the human mind as is that of the absorp- 



tion and assimilation of ideas. What, if not 

 originality, may we ask, the accumulation of 

 the " happy thoughts " of individual minds, 

 could account for the constant improvements 

 in technique and the neat adjustment and co- 

 operation of parts to which bear witness the 

 manufactures of uncivilized man, his traps 

 and snares, his tools, weapons, canoes, rafts, 

 houses and knots? And what is true of ma- 

 terial culture applies equally to the domain of 

 ideas. Again, if the term invention is given 

 a wide application — as in this instance it 

 should — can there be any doubt whatsoever 

 that numerous and independent inventions 

 have occurred of spirits, taboos and other 

 worlds, of modes of navigation, methods of 

 hunting, fishing, warfare, the making of fire, 

 punishments, ceremonies, myths, social cus- 

 toms, etc. Now, it is a matter of common 

 knowledge that among the things, ideas, proc- 

 esses, thus brought into being, there occur 

 numerous similarities, parallelisms — brief, 

 perhaps, but unmistakable — convergences. 

 When, in referring to these, the modern eth- 

 nologist speaks of "psychic unity," he is not 

 therefore guilty of that na'ive utilization of the 

 concept of human instincts so confidently 

 ascribed to him by Professor Smith. Again 

 we must urge the professor to name one eth- 

 nologist who can be shown to have attributed 

 similarities in cultures to the working of 

 " highly-specialized " human instincts. The 

 " psychic unity " is but a substratum, a uni- 

 versal common denominator, without which 

 the similarities referred to above could, of 

 course, not be expected to occur; but the 

 " psychic unity " is manifested no less in the 

 mechanisms of cultural diffusion than it is 

 in those of independent developments. In 

 neither case does " psychic unity " become an 

 explanatory factor. If there is such a thing as 

 explanation in history, then the complete re- 

 construction of the historic event is the ex- 

 planation the ethnologist would demand, in 

 the case of diffusion as well as in that of in- 

 dependent development. 



The realization of the equal theoretical 

 status of diffusion and independent develop- 

 ment presently resolves itself into the percep- 



