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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 650 



complete finished exhibit, in which every- 

 thing has its place in a definite system. 

 Such a museum will fail to bring home 

 the complexity of nature and an apprecia- 

 tion of the efforts required for a mastery 

 of its secrets. 



The impossibility of basing museum in- 

 stallation on a classification of objects 

 from a single material point of view can 

 be made clear best by the example of an- 

 thropological exhibits. At the same time 

 this consideration will show in what the 

 difference between anthropological collec- 

 tions and natural-history collections con- 

 sists. An assemblage of material such as 

 is found in anthropological collections con- 

 sists entirely of things made by the various 

 peoples of the world — their tools, house- 

 hold utensils, their ceremonial objects, etc. 

 All of these are used in the daily life of 

 the people, and almost all of them receive 

 their significance only through the thoughts 

 that cluster around them. For example, 

 a pipe of the North American Indians is 

 not only a curious implement out of which 

 the Indian smokes, but it has a great num- 

 ber of uses and meanings, which can be 

 understood only when viewed from the 

 standpoint of the social and religious life 

 of the people. It even happens fre- 

 quently in anthropological collections that 

 a vast field of thought may be expressed 

 by a single object or by no object what- 

 ever, because that particular aspect of life 

 may consist of ideas only; for instance, 

 if one tribe uses a great many objects in 

 its religious worship, while among another, 

 practically no material objects of worship 

 are used, the religious life of these tribes, 

 which may be equally vigorous, appears 

 quite out of its true proportions in the 

 museum collections. Another reason, 

 namely the natural destruction of material, 

 makes it quite impossible to make archeo- 

 logical collections systematic. Thus it 

 happens that any array of objects is always 



only an exceedingly fragmentary presenta- 

 tion of the true life of a people. For this 

 reason any attempt to present ethnological 

 data by a systematic classification of speci- 

 mens will not only be artificial, but will 

 be entirely misleading. The psychological 

 as well as the historical relations of cul- 

 tures, which are the only objects of anthro- 

 pological inquiry, can not be expressed 

 by any arrangement based on so small a 

 portion of the manifestation of ethnic life 

 as is presented by specimens. Any one 

 who has grasped this truth will recognize 

 at once that an anthropological exhibit can 

 not be cast into the single schematic mold 

 which is to be repeated automatically the 

 world over for every single people. With 

 the wealth of interesting and important 

 problems of anthropology, it is, however, 

 perfectly easy to bring out in a popular 

 manner one salient point here, another 

 salient point there, according to the char- 

 acteristics of the life of the people dealt 

 with. 



The difference between anthropological 

 exhibits and those relating to natural sci- 

 ences is only one of degree, because in no 

 case do specimens alone convey the full 

 idea that a collection is intended to ex- 

 press. This is particularly true in any 

 exhibit intended to express function rather 

 than form; as, for instance, in exhibits 

 illustrating dynamic geology or facts re- 

 lating to the physiology of plants and 

 animals. The difference between anthro- 

 pological and natural-history collections, 

 however, consists in the trifling importance 

 of the specimens as compared with their 

 functional importance in anthropology, and 

 to the fact that all the specimens are pri- 

 marily incidental expressions of complex 

 mental processes that are themselves the 

 subject of anthropological inquiry. These 

 latter are almost entirely missing in that 

 field of biology which is ordinarily pre- 

 sented in museums. 



