780 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XXI. No. 542. 



their leaders, and (2) that less vigorous 

 peoples fall behind contemporary law- 

 makers in such wise that their institutions 

 are inferior to those of progressive nations ; 

 while under the conditions of modem life 

 laggards and leaders commingle so freely 

 that the differences are emphasized and 

 kept in mind. Nor are these differences 

 slight or meaningless; they touch the very 

 fiber of living and being so deeply that 

 primal savages can not share the thought 

 of those in any higher culture-stage, that 

 barbaric serf and despot are wholly alien 

 to subjects and citizens, and that subjects 

 are out of place among citizens. So every 

 advanced nation has its quota of aliens 

 through foreign or ill-starred birth and de- 

 fective culture, who can be lifted to the 

 level of its institutions only through a re- 

 generation extending to both body and 

 mind, both work and thought— they are 

 the mental and moral beggars of the com- 

 munity who may not be trusted on horse- 

 back, but only on the rear seat of the 

 wagon. In truth, standards are rising so 

 rapidly that the lower half find it hard to 

 keep up. 



In one aspect the problem of the unre- 

 generate is ever pressing, since knowledge 

 is not yet a birthright (save in the promis- 

 ing germ of instinct) among human scions 

 of lower ancestry; but even in this aspect 

 a progressive solution is wrought with ever- 

 increasing success through public educa- 

 tion. The most serious side of the prob- 

 lem arises in the immigration or upgrowth 

 of the unfit, who sometimes ferment in the 

 unwholesome leaven of anarchy before edu- 

 cation has time for perfect work; and this 

 danger cries out for public action through 

 the blood of both presidential and mon- 

 archical martyrs to public duty. The mor- 

 bid view imported by Nordau and his ilk 

 demands little American notice, however 

 large the problem in Europe ; for under the 

 stimulus of that personal freedom which 



is the essence of enlightenment, normal 

 exercise of mind and body springs spon- 

 taneously, while hereditary disease, consti- 

 tutional taint, idiocy, unhealthy diathesis, 

 and all manner of transmissible abnormal- 

 ities tend to wear themselves out, as our 

 vital statistics sufficiently show. 



These are a few of the present problems 

 of anthropology involved in classifications 

 growing out of the dual nature of man- 

 kind—the physical nature inherited from 

 lowly ancestry and the mental nature (in 

 all its protean aspects) built up through 

 exercise during uncounted generations of 

 functional development. They may seem 

 irrelevant to that archaic anthropology 

 which is content to define mankind by 

 skulls of the dead; but they illustrate the 

 living importance of that modern science 

 which defines mankind by actions and 

 thoughts, movements and motives. 



MEANING OF ACTIVITAL COINCIDENCI^S. 



About 1875 archeologists, and after them 

 students of primitive folk still living, be- 

 came impressed with certain similarities 

 among industrial and symbolic devices of 

 remote regions. One of the widespread de- 

 vices is the arrow ; used commonly with the 

 bow, sometimes with the atlatl or throwing- 

 stick, and again as a dart projected by the 

 hand alone, it has been found on every con- 

 tinent and in nearly every primitive tribe. 

 Another is a quadrate or cruciform symbol : 

 either in the form of a simple cross or iu 

 that of the cross with supplementary arms 

 known as the swastika or fylfot, these sym- 

 bols are common to Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 both Americas, and numerous islands, 

 though they have not been found in Aus- 

 tralasia. At the outset such devices were 

 accepted as links in a chain of suppositious 

 relationships, and as suggestions of com- 

 mon origin of both devices and devisers: 

 but as observations multiplied, the hypo- 

 thetic chain broke beneath its own weight, 

 for the few similarities were gainsaid and 



