514 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XX. No. 512. 



erable amount of specialization of the sub- 

 ject matter of their researches according to 

 the divisions here given. 



As in other sciences whose subject matter 

 is the actual distribution of phenomena and 

 their causal relation, we find in anthropol- 

 ogy two distinct methods of research and 

 aims of investigation : the one, the historic- 



method, which endeavors to reconstruct 

 the actual history of mankind; the other, 

 the generalizing method, which attempts to 

 establish the laws of its development. 

 According to the personal inclination of 

 the investigator, the one or the other 

 method prevails in his researches. A con- 

 siderable amount of geographical and his- 

 torical specialization has also taken place 

 among what may be called the historical 

 school of anthropologists. Some devote 

 their energies to the elucidation of the 

 earliest history of mankind, while others 

 study the inhabitants of remote regions, 

 and still others the survivals of early times 

 that persist in our midst. 



The conditions thus outlined are the re- 

 sult of a long development, the beginnings 

 of which during the second half of the 

 18th century may be clearly observed. 

 The interest in the customs and appearance 

 of the inhabitants of distant lands is, of 

 course, much older. The descriptions of 

 Herodotus show that even among the na- 

 tions of antiquity, notwithstanding their 

 self-centered civilization, this interest was 

 not lacking. The travelers of the Middle 

 Ages excited the curiosity of their contem- 

 poraries by the recital of their experiences. 

 The literature of the Spanish conquest of 

 America is replete with remarks on the cus- 

 toms of the natives of the New World. But 

 there is hardly any indication of the 

 thought that these observations might be 

 made the subject of scientific treatment. 

 They were and remained curiosities. It 

 was only when their relation to our own 

 civilization became the subject of inquiry 



that the foundations of anthropology were 

 laid. Its germs may be discovered in the 

 early considerations of theologists regard- 

 ing the relations between pagan religions 

 and the revelations of Christianity. They 

 were led to the conclusion that the lower 

 forms of culture, more particularly of re- 

 ligion, were due to degeneration, to a fall- 

 ing away from the revealed truth, of which 

 traces are to be found in primitive beliefs. 



During the second half of the eighteenth 

 century we find the fundamental concept of 

 anthropology well formulated by the ra- 

 tionalists who preceded the French Revolu- 

 tion. The deep-seated feeling that political 

 and social inequality was the result of a 

 faulty development of civilization and that 

 originally all men were born equal, led 

 Rousseau to the naive assumption of an 

 ideal natural state which we ought to try to 

 regain. These ideas were shared by many 

 and the relation of the culture of primitive 

 man to our civilization remained the topic 

 of discussion. To this period belong Her- 

 der's 'Ideen zur Geschichte der Mensch- 

 heit, ' in which perhaps for the first time 

 the fundamental thought of the develop- 

 ment of the culture of mankind as a whole 

 is clearly expressed. 



About this time Cook made his mem- 

 orable voyages and the culture of the tribes 

 of the Pacific Islands became first known to 

 Europe. His observations and the descrip- 

 tions of Forster were eagerly taken up by 

 students and were extensively used in sup- 

 port of their theories. Nevertheless even 

 the best attempts of this period were essen- 

 tially speculative and deductive, for the 

 rigid inductive method had hardly begun 

 to be understood in the domain of natural 

 sciences, much less in that of the mental 

 sciences. 



While, on the whole, the study of the 

 mental life of mankind had in its beginning 

 decidedly a historical character, and while 

 knowledge of the evolution of civilization 



