SEPTEMBER 17, 1897.] 
learning, and the two combine to advance 
mankind in knowledge and power. 
2. At the outset the science of ethnology 
was closely affiliated with zoology, repre- 
senting indeed little more than the concen- 
tration of biologic inquiry on a single order 
of animate organisms; but with the recog- 
nition of human activities this science was 
raised to a new plane. The applications of 
demonomy in the classification of peoples 
and races are many and sweeping; already 
the natives of the western hemisphere are 
classified primarily by language and inci- 
dentally by other demotic features rather 
than by any or all biotic characters; already 
the great stages in human progress from 
savagery to enlightenment are seriated in 
terms of social organization in lieu of those 
of the bodily features with which the biol- 
ogist is wont to deal; already the present- 
day ethnologist gives first thought to the 
arts, industries, institutions, languages and 
ideas of the races rather than to any or all 
of those individual features comprised in 
stature and form and color; already, indeed, 
the recognition of human activities and the 
course of human development has served 
to revolutionize the science of races no less 
completely than the older sciences were 
revolutionized by recognition of force and 
sequence ; and just as the New Astronomy, 
the New Chemistry and the New Geology 
are distinguished, soit is meet to distinguish 
a New Ethnology as a science of artificially 
organized groups rather than of mere up- 
right animals. 
3. With the rise of knowledge concern- 
ing activities, it was perceived that the 
primary function and ultimate end of de- 
vices have always been to extend and in- 
crease human power, to enable man to con- 
trol plants and subjugate animals, and to 
evade or utilize sun and storm, 7. e., to make 
conquest of lower nature ; accordingly it was 
recognized that, while the human charac- 
ters reflect environment measurably, as the 
SCIENCE. 
431 
purely biotic characters do fully, it is the 
essential tendency and character of man to 
control, rather than to be controlled by, 
his environment. This human power did 
not spring into being full-fledged—indeed, 
science knows no Minervan birth—but 
grew up slowly through the exercise and 
gradual strengthening of volition and the 
evolution of design; so primitive peoples 
are partially controlled by their environ- 
ment, while the control diminishes with 
successive culture stages up to that of en- 
lightened man who dominates by multifari- 
ous devices nearly every physical force. 
Examination of the successive stages in 
emancipation from environment brings to 
light many significant relations; thus it is 
found that when two or more primitive 
peoples of similar culture are subjected to 
similar conditions of environment their 
minds respond in similar ways, so that 
similar devices are discovered or invented ; 
and recognition of this law of human prog- 
ress has served to correct some of the 
most persistent misapprehensions by which 
anthropology, like all other sciences in their 
infancy, has been burdened. At the same 
time the recognition of progressively in- 
creasing conquest over the inorganic, and 
the organic merely, has served to define 
and dignify man’s estate at the head of all 
nature. 
4, Although certain human characters 
and characteristics were already under in- 
vestigation, it can hardly be said that man- 
kind in general came into the domain of 
scientific inquiry until the Darwinian doc- 
trine of evolution was accepted ; accord- 
ingly, anthropologists at first regarded Man 
as subject to the law of organic develop- 
ment through the survival of the fittest. 
Then came the recognition of activital devel- 
opment in contradistinction from organic 
development, and the pendulum of opinion 
swung back so far as the most modern an- 
thropologists implicitly assumed the human 
