520 



SCIENCE. 



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



Folklorists occupy themselves primarily 

 with the folklore of Europe and thus sup- 

 plement the material collected by anthro- 

 pologists in foreign lands. The theorists of 

 folklore are also divided into the two camps 

 of the adherents of the psychological theory 

 and those of the historical theory. In 

 England the former holds sway, while on 

 the continent the historical theory seems 

 to be gaining ground. The identity of the 

 contents of folklore all over Europe seems 

 to be an established fact. To the one party 

 the occurrence of these forms of folklore 

 seems to be due in part to psychic necessity, 

 in part to the survival of earlier customs 

 and beliefs. To the other party it seems to 

 owe its origin to the spread of ideas over the 

 whole continent which may, in part at least, 

 be followed by literary evidence. 



However this controversy, both in folk- 

 lore and in anthropology, may be settled, it 

 is clear that it must lead to detailed his- 

 torical investigations, by means of which 

 definite problems may be solved, and that 

 it will furthermore lead to psychological 

 researches into the conditions of transmis- 

 sion, adaptation and invention. Thus this 

 controversy will carry us beyond the limits 

 set by the theory of elementary ideas, and 

 by that of a single system of evolution of 

 civilization. 



Another aspect of the theories here dis- 

 cussed deserves special mention. I mean the 

 assumption of a 'folk psychology' (Volker- 

 psychologie) as distinct from individual 

 psychology. Folk psychology deals with 

 those psychic actions which take place in 

 each individual as a social unit, and the 

 psychology of the individual must be in- 

 terpreted by the data of a social psychol- 

 ogy, because each individual can think, 

 feel and act only as a member of the 

 social group to which he belongs. The 

 growth of language and all ethnic phe- 

 nomena have thus been treated from the 

 point of view of a social psychology, and 



special attention has been given to the 

 subconscious influences which sway crowds 

 and masses of people, and to the processes 

 of imitation. I mention Steinthal, Wundt, 

 Baldwin, Tarde, Stoll, among the men who 

 have devoted their energies to these and 

 related problems. Notwithstanding their 

 efforts, and those of a number of sociol- 

 ogists and geographers, the relation of 'folk 

 psychology' to individual psychology has 

 not been elucidated satisfactorily. 



We will now turn to a consideration of 

 the recent history of somatology. The his- 

 torical point of view wrought deep changes 

 also in this branch of anthropology. In 

 place of classification the evolution of hu- 

 man types became the main object of in- 

 vestigation. The two questions of man's 

 place in nature and of the evolution of 

 human races and types came to the front. 

 The morphological and embryological meth- 

 ods which had been developed by biologists 

 were applied to the human species and the 

 new endeavors were directed to the discov- 

 ery of the predecessor of man, to his posi- 

 tion in the animal series, and to evidences 

 regarding the direction in which the species 

 develops. I need mention only Huxley and 

 Wiedersheim to characterize the trend of 

 these researches. 



In one respect, however, the study of the 

 human species differs from that of the 

 animal series. I stated before that the 

 slight differences between types which are 

 important to the anthropologist had led to 

 the substitution of the metric quantitative 

 description for the verbal or qualitative 

 method. The study of the effects of nat- 

 ural selection, of environment, of heredity, 

 as applied to man, made the elaboration of 

 these methods a necessity. Our interest in 

 slight differences is so much greater in man 

 than in animals or plants, that here the 

 needs of quantitative precision were first 

 felt. We owe it to Francis Galton that the 

 methods of the quantitative study of the 



