158 ADAPTATION AND PROGRESS 
progress of faculty is even greater.” 1 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.” 
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.® 
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.® 
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.? Moreover, 
1 Mind of Primitive Man, pp. 118, 119. 4 Ibid., p. 194. 
2 Tbid., p. 123. 5 Ibid., p. 262. 
3 Ibid., ch. V, esp. pp. 133, 154+ § [bid., 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 
