March 9, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



245 



In the light of the complex history and the 

 scores of wholly chance circumstances that 

 contributed to the making of this Asiatic 

 wonder-beast, is it at all credible that the 

 Algonkin and Iroquois serpent with wings and 

 deer's horns is an independent invention ? 



I have so frequently discussed the question 

 of man's inventiveness" that it would be un- 

 justifiable to take up more space for this 

 matter here. 



When Dr. Goldenweiser claims that Spencer, 

 Tylor, Lubbock, Frazer and Lang "may have 

 neglected to make sufficient use of the con- 

 cept of the diffusion of culture through his- 

 toric contact," I agree with him; but I think 

 the words " may have " are superfluous. Yet 

 American scholars, such as Brinton, Hopkins, 

 Spinden and many others, as well as many 

 writers, such as Keane, on this side of the 

 world, have repeatedly attacked Tylor for 

 over-using the concept of diffusion. 



It is a quaintly piquant situation to find 

 Tylor, who more than any one is responsible 

 for the modern attitude of denial of these cul- 

 tural migrations, being reproved by his more 

 reckless followers for not pushing his views to 

 the limits of absurdity, and Dr. Goldenweiser, 

 in a letter that is frankly ultra-Tylorian, pre- 

 tending to hold the scales impartially between 

 the conflicting views. 



It is very surprising that so eminent a 

 scholar as Professor Hopkins joins in this 

 attack on Tylor, especially as he can give no 

 reason in justification of his attitude except 

 the flimsy pretext that " we require more 

 proof than Aztec pictures of hell to believe any 

 such theory " (" Eeligions of India," p. 557, 

 footnote 4). For the very chapter of Hop- 

 kins's book where this statement occurs is de- 



G See for example ' ' Ships as Evidence of the 

 Migrations of Ancient Culture," Journal of the 

 Manchester Egyptian and Oriental Society, 1916; 

 also Man, February, 1916, p. 27: and if indepen- 

 dent witness is desired, see Pitt-Eivers, "Evolu- 

 tion of Culture," p. 91 et seq.; the whole question 

 has been discussed by Professor Frederick J. Teg- 

 gart, of the University of California, in hia admir- 

 able "Prolegomena to History," 1916, pp. Ill 

 et seq. 



voted mainly to the use of precisely the same 

 kind of argument as he condemns when Tylor 

 uses it. He is urging the claim that Indian 

 culture exerted a great influence upon Greece 

 from the sixth century B.C. onwards. The 

 evidence he makes use of is of precisely the 

 same kind as, but infinitely less voluminous 

 and precise than, that which goes to prove an 

 analogous influence of India in America. He 

 rightly claims that " such coincidences are far 

 too numerous to be the result of chance." But 

 if that is so, why is it forbidden to use the 

 same argument in the case of " the pictures of 

 hell " ? Are they the sort of thing two peoples 

 would have independently invented? 



But Professor Hopkins goes much further 

 than this. In developing the argument (pp. 

 161 et seq.) that certain elements of culture 

 in India can not be regarded as tokens of 

 Aryan influence, he cites a very remarkable 

 series of exact coincidences between complex 

 Hindu and Iroquois beliefs and ideas. So in- 

 tent is he upon the demolition of the Aryan 

 argument that he does not seem to realize the 

 more important outcome of his demonstration. 

 For, if it is permissible to use the method of 

 reasoning which he himself employs in the case 

 of Greek borrowing from India, Hopkins has 

 also proved up to the hilt, though without 

 realizing it himself, the Asiatic derivation of 

 many of the religious ideas of the American 

 Iroquois. To quote his own words again, 

 " such coincidences are far too numerous to be 

 the result of chance." 



In the light of our present knowledge it is 

 now possible" to refer to its original source the 

 germ of a very large number of the elements 

 in the Pre-Columbian civilization of America. 



But I should not like Dr. Goldenweiser to 

 mislead the readers of Science into the belief 

 that I am ignoring considerations of the work- 

 ing of the human mind and of the importance 



7 1 have in manuscript an analysis of many 

 scores of American practises, beliefs and myths, 

 each of them traced back to its home in the Old 

 World. Some of these are now being published in 

 the reports of two lectures, "Incense and Liba- 

 tions" and "Dragons and Rain-Gods," in the 

 Bulletin of the John Eylands Library. 



