THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGISTS ISI 
strata and also of portions of the human skeleton some basis 
has been found for scientific generalizations.1 
Besides relics of bygone ages and peoples, anthropologists 
have endeavored to get light on prehistoric conditions from the 
following sources: (1) operations of modern savages; (2) the 
publications of historians and travelers who were acquainted 
with savage tribes long ago; (3) the languages of cultured and 
uncultured races; (4) the makeshifts and contrivances of chil- 
dren and of the folk who never receive letters-patent upon their 
devices.2, But the presupposition in every case except that of 
relics is that savages of these later centuries are like those of 
earliest time. This assumption is based on some logical principle 
of classification as with Spencer and De Greef, on the theory of 
recapitulation * as with Lilienfeld and many pedagogical writers, 
or on the theory that mind is essentially the same in its operations 
and manifestations everywhere and in all ages. This last is 
accepted so generally today that it must be regarded as of scienti- 
fic worth though even here the principle must be used with 
caution.* Anthropologists are generally agreed today, also, that 
social development has not been linear, but by a process, either 
similar to that termed by Ward “‘ sympodial,” or irregular, deter- 
mined by environmental conditions. 
At the other extreme of those who emphasize social origins and 
genetic development is T. N. Carver, who holds that “ all past 
development . . . must be accounted for on the ground of forces 
and factors now at work, and which can be observed at first hand 
by the student ”’; and that “ it is in this study of first-hand mate- 
rials, in the observation of social activities about us, that we must 
get our clue to the relation of cause and effect in social and politi- 
cal affairs.” 5 
1 Keith, Ancient Times; Keane, Ethnology, ch. IV. 
* Mason, Origin of Invention, pp. 28, 29. Cf. Boas, op. cit., p. 182. 
3 For criticism of this theory, see Kellogg, Darwinism To-day, p. 21; Mason, 
op. cit., p. 45; Thorndike, Educational Psychology, i, pp. 248 ff. 
4 Cf. Boas, op. cit., pp. 184-1953; Ross, Foundations of Sociology, p. 61; Tylor, 
Early History of Man, pp. 5,190. The chief difficulty is to find primitive savages, 
practically all, even when visited and “‘ written up ” hundreds of years ago, having 
come in contact with higher or lower cultures. 
5 Sociology and Social Progress, p. 5. 
