June 9, 1893.] 



SCIENCE. 



313 



without direct intermixture of blood ; that social planes, which 

 mean dififerent modes of life and nourriture, exert an influence ; 

 and so on. This is the newer science of craniology, more com- 

 plex, indeed, but far more promising than the old study of dry 

 bones alone. 



Ethnic Ideals of Physical Beauty. 



The vis superba formce, the "proud strength of beauty," has 

 never yet been sufficiently acknowledged as a formative principle 

 in the evolution of racial and national types. Through conscious 

 cultivation and sexual selection every individual strives more or 

 less to possess and propagate those traits which the national 

 imagination conceives as the oomeliest. In a recent thesis, Dr. 

 Loubier tells us from a wide reading of the French poets of the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries what they portray as the ideal 

 of manly beauty. It is this: tall, broad-shouldered, deep chest, 

 slender figure, foot arched, skin white, hair blonde, quick eyes, 

 high color, red lips. Evidently this is the High German type 

 rather than that of the modern French; but the poets drew their 

 heroes only from the nobles, and not from the common herd. 



Some years ago, in an article on "The Cradle of the Semites," 

 I had occasion to study the ideals of male and female beauty 

 shadowed forth in the erotic composition known as the " Song of 

 of Songs," or the "Song of Solomon," in the Old Testament. It 

 dates from about 250 B.C. There the male is portrayed as 

 " white and ruddy," his hair black and curly, his eyes gray ("like 

 doves washed with milk "), his stature tall. He describes his bride 

 as "fair all over, without a spot," slender, "like a palm tree "(not 

 fat, as modern Oriental beauties), her hair "as a flock of goats," 

 that is, wavy and light-brown, probably, her lips red, " like a 

 thread of scarlet." The interesting feature in both these descrip- 

 tions is that they point much more to the blonde than to the 

 brunette type as that which hovered before the imagination of 

 the sons and daughters of Israel as the realization of their amorous 

 dreams. 



The Easternmost Wave of the Early Aryan Migrations. 



The Khmers of Cambodia ha^e long been regarded as an iso- 

 lated people of mixed blood and uncertain affinities. In a merit- 

 orious work published in Geruiany this year, Schurtz's " Kathe- 

 cismus der Volkerkunde," the author refers to them as the probable 

 aboriginal inhabitants of Cambodia. On the other hand, in the 

 Memoires of the Society of Anthropology of Paris, Dr. Maurel of 

 the French Marine has a very able article, based on original ob- 

 servation, much of it anthropometric, going to show that the 

 ancestors of these Khmers were the leaders of the easternmost 

 wave of migration of the Aryan or Indo-European stock. 



That they came from Hindostan and brought with them the 

 Aryan culture of that country is proved by the stately ruins of 

 their temples around Ang-kok, whose walls are decorated with 

 bas-reliefs of scenes from the Ramayana. Their arrival was 

 probably about the third or fourth century of the Christian era, 

 and their route apparently was from the delta of the Ganges across 

 lower Birmah and Siam. It is likely that even at this time most 

 of their followers were non-Aryan and the leaders rarely of pure 

 blood. In later generations they received a large infusion of 

 Mongolian admixture from the tribes they found in Cambodia, 

 who belonged to that race. 



These conclusions are borne out by a close anthropologic study 

 of the existing •population and of the history and archceology of 

 the country. If correct, they show that the mighty Aryan stock, 

 wandering from its pristine seat in western Europe, reached in 

 its eastern wanderings almost to the shores of the Pacific, on the 

 China Sea. 



The Evolution of the Idea oi God. 



Last year a book was published in both French and English by 

 Professor G. D'Alviella, under the title, "The Idea of God as 

 Illustrated by Anthropology and History," and it received a careful 

 handling by the distinguished Professor Reville in the Proceedings 

 of the Musee Guimet. From these two excellent sources we may 



take the last word as to the genesis of the notion of Deity, as un- 

 derstood by scientific minds. 



It arises first from the associatioih of the idea of personal life 

 with that of motion; for instance, the swaying of the tree to the 

 primitive man is as certain a proof of personal life as the flying 

 of a bird. By extension of this, and later through dreams, mem- 

 ories of the dead, and casual associations of motionless objects 

 with motion (as a rock in the midst of a rapid), arose spiritism 

 or animism, to which these writers apply the general name 

 " polydemonism." In this stage there is no Pantheon, no hierarchy 

 of the gods, no idealized generalizations of divine powers. 



This appears in the next stage, which is "polytheism," in 

 which the mind of man seeks to coordinate the visible powers of 

 nature, and to explain one by the other, thus subsuming a group 

 under one abstraction, which becomes to him a personified ideal- 

 ized force. This is the epocli of mythology, which is at once an 

 imaginary history and a tentative philosophy of the unseen agen- 

 cies in nature. 



The ultimate stage, monotheism, has various origins, depending 

 on the ethnic psychology of the people among whom it arise&. It 

 may be an exaltation of the national god through national pr^de, 

 so that he shall be " God of Gods and Lord of Lords," as seems 

 to have been the case with the Israelites; or it may arise from 

 concentrated devotion to one divinity to the mental exclusion of 

 others, as in the so-called "henotheism" of ancient Egypt; or, 

 again, in nations of uncommon speculative insight, it may be a 

 purely logical deduction, as among the ancient Greeks. Most of 

 the so-called monotheisms are in reality only "monolatries;" that 

 is, there is worship of but one god, though many divine powers 

 are recognized as existing. 



The important point is urged, especially by M. Reville, that this 

 sequence of development is not historical; it is not even ethnic; 

 but strictly anthropologic ; that is, the whole of the sequence exists 

 contemporaneously and in the same locality with its highest mem- 

 ber. Alongside of the pure speculations of Plato were the pueril- 

 ities of paganism; and in modern Christian communities there are 

 far more polydemonists and polytheists than monotheists, in the 

 scientific sense of that term. 



Both writers reach the opinion that the religious sentiment is 

 not a passing phase of human mental evolution, but a permanent 

 trait; and that, though all existing cults and creeds may pass 

 away, it will only be to give place to nobler ideals of humanity 

 and loftier conceptions of divinity. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



A SERIES of international congresses, under the auspices of 

 the World's Congress Auxiliary, and the authority of the Govern- 

 ment of the United States, will be held in Chicago during the 

 progress of the World's Columbian Exposition. The Congress of 

 Anthropology will begin on Monday, Aug. 28, and will continue 

 until Saturday evening, Sept. 2, 1893. It is requested that the 

 title and abstract of any paper to be offered to the Congress be 

 forwarded as early as possible to the secretary of the Local Com- 

 mittee, with a statement of the time required for its reading, in 

 order that the Congress, at its organization, may have the mate- 

 rial for the arrangement of the programme for the week. The 

 committees of the International Anthropological Congress are: 

 Local Committee of Arrangements, F. W. Putnam, chairman, C. 

 Staniland Wake, secretary, Edward E. Ayer, James W. Ells- 

 worth, H. W. Beckwith, and Frederick Starr; Executive Commit- 

 tee, Daniel G. Brinton, president; Franz Boas, secretary; W. H. 

 Holmes, representative of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science; W. W. Newell, i epresentative of American 

 Folk Lore Society; Otis T. Mason, representative of Anthropo- 

 logical Society of Washington ; Alice C. Fletcher, representative 

 of the Women's Anthropological Society of America; Louis A. 

 LaGarde, representative of United States Army Medical Museum; 

 and the presidents and secretaries of the Sections of the Congress. 

 Address all communications to Professor C. Staniland Wake, Lo- 

 cal Secretary, Department of Ethnology, World's Columbian Ex- 

 position, Chicago. 



