December 8, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



805 



in these "Methods." It appears from Mr. 

 Foy's, the editor's, preface, that in this respect 

 his own views and Graebner's coincide; in 

 fact, in outlining the program of the whole 

 series, Mr. Foy excludes expressly " alle 

 geschichtsphilosophischen und volkerpsycho- 

 logischen Betrachtungen " (p. v). This ex- 

 clusion of the psychological field seems to me 

 to give to the whole " Method " a mechanical 

 character, and to be the essential cause of dif- 

 ferences of opinion between the author and 

 myself which I shall briefly characterize in 

 the following pages. 



The book is divided into three chapters: 

 critique of sources, interpretation of data and 

 combination of data. I do not quite share 

 Mr. Graebner's unfavorable view in regard 

 to the lack of critique of all writers on ethno- 

 logical subjects, and in regard to the feeling 

 that we are confronted by an appalling lack 

 of all method; a feeling that, according to the 

 author, the historian experiences who takes 

 up the study of ethnology. It is true that 

 much that has been written is based on in- 

 adequate evidence, and that particularly the 

 so-called " comparative " ethnologists do not 

 weigh their evidence well. Spencer, Frazer 

 and Westermarck, not to mention others, have 

 been criticized again and again by experts 

 from this point of view. However, the whole 

 modern method of ethnology, at least as de- 

 veloped in the United States, is a continuous 

 struggle for gaining a critical view-point in 

 regard to data collected by earlier authors 

 who did not understand the objects and prob- 

 lems of modern anthropology. We believe 

 that a safe interpretation of the older ob- 

 served data must be based on careful archeo- 

 logical, ethnological and somatological field 

 work. While I see a perfectly sound tendency 

 in these studies, sounder than Mr. Graebner 

 believes it to be, I still recognize the useful- 

 ness of the first chapter in which the author 

 expresses the experiences of the historian in a 

 form interesting and important to the unex- 

 perienced ethnologist. On the whole, the 

 training given nowadays to students in uni- 

 versities and museums will impress upon 

 them the safeguards on which the author in- 



sists, and which are too often forgotten by the 

 amateur. 



Our interest centers in the following two 

 chapters : Interpretation and Combination of 

 Data. The fundamental difference of opinion 

 between the author and myself appears in the 

 chapter on Interpretation. He defines inter- 

 pretation as the determination of the pur- 

 pose, meaning and significance of ethnic phe- 

 nomena (p. 55) ; but he does not devote a 

 single word to the question, how these are to 

 be discovered. He accepts, without any at- 

 tempt at a methodical investigation, myths as 

 interpretations of celestial phenomena (pp. 

 56, 57), as, for instance, the Jona theme as 

 signifying the temporary disappearance of a 

 heavenly body; a conclusion which I for one 

 am not by any means ready to accept. At this 

 place the complete omission of all psycholog- 

 ical considerations makes itself keenly felt. 

 The significance of an ethnic phenomenon is 

 not by any means identical with its distribu- 

 tion in space and time, and with its more or 

 less regular associations with other ethnic 

 phenomena. Its historical source may per- 

 haps be determined by geographic-historical 

 considerations, but its gradual development 

 and ethnic significance in a psychological 

 sense, as it occurs in each area, must be 

 studied by means of psychological investiga- 

 tions in which the different interpretations 

 and attitudes of the people themselves toward 

 the phenomenon present the principal mate- 

 rial. In the case of mythology, by means of 

 which Mr. Graebner exemplifies his consid- 

 erations, I should demand first of all an in- 

 vestigation of the question: why, and in how 

 far are tales explanatory or related to ritual- 

 istic forms? The very existence of these 

 questions and the possibility of approaching 

 them has been entirely overlooked by the au- 

 thor. On the whole, he seems to assume that 

 the psychological interpretation is self-evi- 

 dent in most cases, but that by migrations 

 and by dissemination combinations may be 

 brought about which may lead to misinter- 

 pretations in so far as several groups that 

 were originally distinct may be considered 

 as one by origin (p. 64). 



