158 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 



progress of faculty is even greater." x He believes that a large 

 proportion of individuals among primitive races are capable of 

 reaching the level of civilization represented by the bulk of our 

 own people. 2 



Boas holds that language does not furnish the much-looked- 

 for means of discovering differences in the mental status of differ- 

 ent races, but on the contrary, that similar cultural traits are 

 found in most widely-separated groups and languages. 3 



Our author criticizes strongly the use of the evolutionary 

 formula as often applied to social progress concluding that " the 

 assumption of a uniform development of culture among all the 

 different races of man and among all tribal units is true in a 

 limited sense only," — that increasing complexity, for example, 

 does not apply to linguistic development or to that of music and 

 art. 4 



Applying his conclusions to race problems in America, he says 

 that " the danger to the vigor of the American nation due to an 

 influx of alien European types, is imaginative, not real." 5 His 

 attitude on the negro question is very similar. Rejecting the 

 theory of racial inferiority, he does not believe there is anything 

 to be feared from race mixture. 6 



1 Boas has contributed to our subject chiefly by way of criticism 

 of the dogmatism of many social evolutionists, and " selection- 

 ists," by the scientific, inductive spirit of his work and by the 

 prominence given to the factor of environment in variation and 

 progress. 



His contribution is almost wholly along the line of passive 

 physical adaptation. There is a seeming lack of the sociological 

 point of view, however, especially in his discussion of race prob- 

 lems in the United States. The problem of immigration and 

 the amalgamation of diverse races is as much social as biological, 

 and the social results that come from the union of representatives 

 of diverse ethnic groups are not usually satisfactory. 7 Moreover, 



1 Mind of Primitive Man, pp. n8, 119. 4 Ibid., p. 194. 



2 Ibid., p. 123. 6 Ibid., p. 262. 



3 Ibid., ch. V, esp. pp. 133, 154. 6 Ibid., p. 277. 



7 Boas touches this question (p. 277), and says: " When the bulky literature of 

 this subject is carefully sifted, little remains that will endure serious criticism; and 



