December 18, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



903 



man shows that the analogy between many 

 of the qualities of animals and human quali- 

 ties has led to the generalization that all the 

 qualities of animals are human. In other 

 cases the causes are not so self-evident. Thus 

 the question why all languages distinguish 

 between the self, the person addressed and 

 the person spoken of, and why most lan- 

 guages do not carry out this sharp, logical 

 distinction in the plural is difficult to an- 

 swer. The principle when carried out con- 

 sistently requires that in the plural there 

 should be a distinction between the ' we ' 

 expressing the self and the person addressed 

 and the ' we ' expressing the self and the 

 person spoken of, which distinction is found 

 in comparatively few languages only. The 

 lesser liability to misunderstandings in the 

 plural explains this phenomenon partly but 

 hardly adequately. Still more obscure is 

 the psychological basis in other cases, for 

 instance, in that of widely spread marriage 

 customs. Proof of the difficulty of this 

 problem is the multitude of hypotheses that 

 have been invented to explain it in all its 

 varied phases. 



In treating this, the most difficult problem 

 of anthropology, the point of view is taken 

 that if an ethnological phenomenon has 

 developed independently in a number of 

 places its development has been the same 

 everywhere ; or, expressed in a diflerent 

 form, that the same ethnological phenomena 

 are always due to the same causes. This 

 leads to the still wider generalization that the 

 sameness of ethnological phenomena found 

 in diverse regions is proof that the human 

 mind obeys the same laws everywhere. It 

 is obvious that if different historical devel- 

 opments could lead to the same results, that 

 then this generalization would not be ten- 

 able. Their existence would present to us 

 an entirely different problem, namely, how 

 it is that the developments of culture so 

 often lead to the same results. It must, 

 therefore, be clearly understood that an- 



thropological research which compares sim- 

 ilar cultural phenomena from various parts 

 of the world, in order to discover the uni- 

 form history of their development, makes 

 the assumption that the same ethnological 

 phenomenon has everywhere developed in 

 the same manner. Here lies the flaw in 

 the argument of the new method, for no 

 such proof can be given. Even the most 

 cursory review shows that the same phe- 

 nomena may develop in a multitude of 

 ways. 



I will give a few examples : Primitive 

 tribes are almost universally divided into 

 clans which have totems. There can be no 

 doubt that this form of social organization h as 

 arisen independently over and over again. 

 The conclusion is certainly justified that 

 the psychical conditions of man favor the 

 existence of a totemistic organization of so- 

 ciety, but it does not follow that totemistic 

 society has developed everywhere in the 

 same manner. Dr. Washington Matthews 

 has shown that the totems of the Navajo 

 have arisen by association of independent 

 clans. Capt. Bourke has pointed out that 

 similar occurrences gave origin to the 

 Apache clans, and Dr. Fewkes has reached 

 the same conclusion in regard to some of 

 the Pueblo tribes. On the other hand, we 

 have proof that clans may originate by 

 division. I have shown that such events 

 took place among the Indians of the North 

 Pacific coast. Association of small tribes, 

 on the one hand, and disintegration of in- 

 creasing tribes, on the other, has led to re- 

 sults which appear identical to all intents 

 and pui'poses. 



Here is another example. Recent inves- 

 tigations have shown that geometrical de- 

 signs in primitive art have originated either 

 from naturalistic forms which were gradu- 

 ally conventionalized or from technical 

 motives, or that they were primarily geo- 

 metrical or that they were derived from 

 symbols. From all these sources the same 



