248 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. II. No. 35. 



And I have also endeavored to demon- 

 strate that the sacredness which we observe 

 attached to certain numbers, and the same 

 numbers, in so many mj'thologies and cus- 

 toms the world over, is neither fortuitous, 

 nor borrowed the one fi-om the other ; but 

 depends on fixed relations which the hu- 

 man bodjr bears to its surroundings, and 

 the human mind to the laws of its own ac- 

 tivity. And, therefore, that all such coin- 

 cidences and their consequences — and it is 

 surprising how far-reaching these are — -do 

 not belong to the similarities which reveal 

 contact, but only to those which testify to 

 psychical unity.* 



So numerous and so amazing have these 

 examples of culture-identities become of 

 late years that they have led more than one 

 student of ethnology into a denial of the 

 freedom of the human will under any of 

 the definitions of voluntary action. But 

 the aims of ethnology are not so aspiring. 

 It is strictly a natui-al science, dealing with 

 outward things, to wit, the expressions of 

 man's psj-chical life, endeavoring to ascer- 

 tain the conditions of their appearance and 

 disappearance, the organic laws of their 

 birth, growth and decay. These laws must 

 undoubtedly be correlated with certain 

 mental traits, but it is not the business of 

 the ethnologist to pursue them to their last 

 analysis in the realm of metaphysics. For 

 instance, we maj^ trace all forms of punish- 

 ment back to the individual's passion for 

 revenge ; or we may analyze all systems of 

 religion until we find the common source of 

 all to be anan's dread of the unknown ; and 

 these will be sufficient ethnologic explana- 

 tions of both these j)henomena, but not a 

 final analysis of the emotion of dread or the 



*"nie Origin of Sacred Numbers.' By D. G. 

 Brinton. In the American Anihrojiologisf, April, 1894. 

 In my MyfJis of the New World (New York, 1868, 

 Chapter III, 'The Sacred Number, its Origin and 

 Applications'), I had shown the prepotency of the 

 number four both in American and Old "World my- 

 thology, ritual, statecraft, etc. 



thirst for vengeance. Ethnology declines 

 to enter these realms of abstractions. 



I repeat that to define ' the universal in 

 humanity ' is the aim of ethnology, that is, 

 the universal soul or psyche of humanity. 



But let me not be understood as speaking 

 of this as of some entity, like the ame hu- 

 maine of the Comtists. That were sophis- 

 tical word-mongering in the style of ancient 

 scholasticism. There is no such entity as 

 humanity, or race, or people, or nation. 

 There is nothing but the individual man 

 or woman, the 'single, separate person,' 

 as Walt Whitman says. Hence some of 

 the most advanced ethnologists are ready 

 to give up the ethnos itself as a subject of 

 study. Those terms so popular a few years 

 ago, ViJlkerpsehologie, Volkergedanken, racial 

 psychology, ethnic sentiments, and the like, 

 are looked upon with distrust. The ex- 

 ternal proofs of the psychical unity of the 

 whole species have multiplied so abun- 

 dantly that some maintain strenuously 

 that it is not ethnic or racial peculiarities, 

 but solely external conditions on the one 

 hand and individual faculties on other, 

 which are the factors of culture-evolution. 



While I admit that this question is still 

 subjudice, I add that the position just stated 

 seems to be erroneous. All members of the 

 species have common human mental traits: 

 that goes without saying; and in addition 

 it seems to me that each of the great races, 

 each ethnic group, has its own added special 

 powers and special limitations compared 

 with others ; and that these ethnic and ra- 

 cial psychic jjeculiarities attached to all or 

 nearly all members of the group are tremen- 

 dously potent in deciding the result of its 

 struggle for existence. 



I must still deny that all races are equally 

 endowed — or that the position with refer- 

 ence to civilization which the various eth- 

 nic groups hold to- day is one merely of op- 

 portunity and externalities. I must still 

 claim that the definition of the ethnos is one 



