CULTURAL CLASSIFICATION AND THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT
WE have seen that in its beginning the science of man was little more
than a branch of zoology, and that his structural characters were the
first to attract attention and to form the material of study; hence all
the earlier classifications were based on physical features. Gallatin
was one of the first to classify mankind rather by what they _do_ than
by what they _are_.
[Sidenote: =Gallatin.=]
Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) was born at Geneva, emigrated to America
before he was twenty, and rose rapidly to the position of one of the
foremost of American statesmen, becoming United States Minister to
France, and later to England. He noted the unsatisfactoriness of
groupings by colour, stature, head-form, etc., in the case of the races
of America, and made a preliminary classification of the native tribes
on the basis of language. Major J. W. Powell (1834-1902) and Dr. Brinton
(1837-1899) elaborated the linguistic classification of the American
Indians.
[Sidenote: =Wilhelm von Humboldt.=]
Classification by language had already been utilised by Wilhelm von
Humboldt (1767-1835) in the introduction to his great work on the Kawi
language of Java, entitled _Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen
Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des
Menschengeschlechts_, which was published posthumously, 1836-40. The
rise of the new science of philology gave a fresh impetus to this method
of classification, which was adopted by F. Müller (1834-1898), and
utilised recently by Deniker and various other writers.
Other classifications, by means of cultural distinctions, have been
attempted. Among these may be noted that based on mythology and religion
of Max Müller, on institutions and social organisation of Morgan and
Ratzel, or on musical systems of Fétis.
[Sidenote: =Hippocrates.=]
Hippocrates (_c._ 460-377), in his work, _About Air, Water, and Places_,
first discusses the influence of environment on man, physical, moral,
and pathological. He divided mankind into groups, impressed with
homogeneous characters by homogeneous surroundings, demonstrating that
mountains, plains, damp, aridity, and so on, produced definite and
varying types.
[Sidenote: =Bodin.=]
Bodin, writing in 1577 _Of the Lawes and Customes of a Common Wealth_
(English edition, 1605), contains, as Professor J. L. Myres has pointed
out,[128] “the whole pith and kernel of modern anthropo-geography....
His climatic contrasts are based on the Ptolemaic geography ... and he
argues as if the world broke off short at Sahara.... On his
classification of environments from arctic North to tropic South” he
superposes “a cross-division by grades of culture from civil East to
barbaric West.”
Footnote 128:
_Rept. Brit. Assoc._, 1909 (1910), p. 593.
[Sidenote: =Buffon.=]
Buffon followed Hippocrates. Man, said Buffon, consists of a single
species. Individual variations are due to three causes—climate, food,
and habits. These influences, acting over large areas on large groups of
people, produce general and constant varieties. To these varieties he
gave the name of _race_. This doctrine was the main support of the
monogenists.
[Sidenote: =Alexander von Humboldt, Ritter, and Waitz.=]
The year 1859 marks a crisis in this field of research, as in so many
others. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), the Prussian naturalist and
traveller, spent the later part of his life in writing his classic
_Kosmos_, a summary and exposition of the laws and conditions of the
physical universe. Karl Ritter (1779-1859), Professor of Geography at
the University of Berlin, published, between 1822 and his death, the ten
volumes of _Die Erdkunde im Verhältniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte des
Menschen_. These works formed the basis from which was developed the
German view of geography as a science of the co-relation of
distribution. In 1859 Waitz, in his _Anthropologie der Naturvölker_,
insisted on the inter-relation between the physical organisation and the
psychic life of mankind.
[Sidenote: =Buckle.=]
Between 1857 and 1861 appeared Buckle’s _History of Civilisation_, in
which the influence of environment on mankind is strongly emphasised.
“To one of these four classes (Climate, Food, Soil, and the General
Aspect of Nature) may be referred all the external phenomena by which
Man has been permanently affected.”[129] The recognition of the
environmental influence has long been a characteristic of the French
school. Ripley (1900, p. 4) points out that, wherever the choice lies
between heredity and environment, the French almost always prefer the
latter as the explanation of the phenomenon. This is seen from the time
of Bodin (1530-1596) and Montesquieu (1689-1755), with their objective
explanations of philosophy, and Cuvier, who traced the close
relationship between philosophy and geological formation, to Turquan
(1896), who mapped out the awards made by the Paris Salon, showing the
coincidence of the birth-place of the artists with the fertile river
basins.
Footnote 129:
_L.c._, chap. ii.
[Sidenote: =Ratzel. Reclus.=]
In Germany the exponents of these theories were Cotta and Kohl, and
later Peschel, Kirchhoff, Bastian, and Gerland; but the greatest name of
all is that of Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1904), who has written the
standard work on _Anthropo-Geographie_ (1882-91). Another monumental
work is that by Élisée Reclus (1820-1905), _Nouvelle Géographie
Universelle_ (1879-1894).
[Sidenote: =Le Play.=]
A great stimulus to the development of ethnological sociology was given
by the school of Le Play in France, the concrete application of whose
theories was worked out by Demolins and others, and published in _La
Science Sociale_ and separate works. It is the essential procedure of
the followers of this school, in their studies in descriptive sociology,
to begin with the environment, and to trace its effects upon the
occupation of the people, their sociology, and so forth. The method is
an extremely suggestive one, and has led to many brilliant
generalisations. The danger consists in theorising from imperfect data,
and there is a tendency to attribute certain social conditions directly
to the influences of environment and occupation, where a wider knowledge
of ethnology would show that these or analogous social conditions
obtained in other places where they were not produced by the causes
suggested.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_RETROSPECT_
ON taking a brief final survey of the history of anthropology, one is
struck by the fact that, owing to the tendency of students to limit
their attention to one of the varied subjects which are grouped under
the term Anthropology, the progress of the science has been very
irregular.
Physical anthropology has had very numerous devotees, who have
approached the subject mainly from the point of view of small anatomical
variations; but even at the present day the significance of many of the
details is not understood, and very little advance has been made
concerning the criteria of racial anatomy. We have yet to discover how
adequately to describe or gauge the essential anatomical distinctions
between races and peoples. This problem is complicated by our ignorance
of the stability of physical characters, and of how far or how speedily
they are affected by change of environment. At the present time the
effects of miscegenation and of environment afford fruitful fields for
research. The imperfection of the geological record is answerable for
the relatively slow progress that has been made in tracing the evolution
of man as an animal.
Whereas the structural characters of man have been studied by trained
scientific men, the history of man from a cultural point of view has
mainly been investigated by literary men, who have approached the
subject from various sides, and, from lack of experience in the field or
by virtue of their natural reliance upon documentary evidence, have
often not been sufficiently critical regarding their authorities. The
comparative method has yielded most valuable results, but it is liable
to lead the unwary into mistakes. To employ biological terms, analogy is
apt to be mistaken for homology, since customs or beliefs (which, it
must be remembered, are in the vast majority of cases extremely
imperfectly recorded) may have a superficial resemblance. If all the
facts were known, they might be found to have had a very different
origin or significance. Comparisons made within a given area or among
cognate peoples have a greater value than those drawn from various parts
of the world. What is most needed at the present day is intensive study
of limited areas; the studies already so made have proved most fruitful.
Although we know a good deal about many forms of social organisation, we
find that in very few cases is the knowledge sufficiently precise to
explain them, owing to the fact that the data were not collected by
adequately trained observers. In other words, cultural anthropology has
been too much at the mercy of students who have not received a
sufficiently rigorous training.
The objects made by man have only recently been subjected to critical
study. In this the archæologists have been in advance of the
ethnologists. The distribution of objects and its significance have been
studied more in Germany than elsewhere, and already afford promising
results.
Anthropology is slowly becoming a coherent and organised science. The
chief danger to which it is liable is that its fascination and
popularity, touching as it does every department of human thought and
activity, tend to premature generalisations.
The history of Anthropology, like that of most other sciences, is full
of examples of opposition from the prejudice and bigotry of those who
place more reliance on tradition than on the results of investigations
and the logical deductions therefrom; but the reactionaries have always
had to give way in the end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX OF AUTHORS
Agassiz, L., 91
Allen, Grant, 142
Aristotle, 6, 14, 51
Avebury, Lord, 131, 141
Bachofen, J. J., 132
Balfour, H., 127
Barclay, 32
Bastian, A., 80, 82, 152
Beard, 120
Beddoe, J., 44
Bernier, F., 88 _sq._
Bertillon, A., 49
Bertrand, A. J. L., 122
Blower, 92
Blumenbach, J. F., 25, 27 _sqq._, 99, 107
Boas, F., 69
Bodin, J., 110, 150 _sq._
Bonstetten, G., 122
Bory de Saint-Vincent, 53, 91 _sq._
Boucher de Perthes, J., 121 _sqq._
Bourgeois, Abbé, 123 _sq._
Boyd Dawkins, W., 115, 123
Breuil, H., 123
Brinton, D. G., 149
Broca, P. P., 35 _sqq._, 53, 71, 93
Brosses, C. de, 139 _sq._
Buckland, W., 116 _sq._
Buckle, H. T., 131 _sq._, 151
Buffon, G. L. L. Comte de, 18, 20 _sqq._, 55, 113, 150
Camper, P., 30 _sqq._
Capellini, 124
Capitan, Dr., 123
Cartailhac, E., 123
Chambers, R., 59 _sqq._
Chantre, E., 122
Christol, Tournal de, 117
Christy, H., 122
Comte, A., 131
Crawley, E., 142
Cunningham, D. J., 64
Cuvier, Baron G. L. C. F., 53, 57 _sqq._, 70, 91, 95, 152
Darwin, C., 62 _sqq._, 96
Daubenton, 32
Davis, J. Barnard, 123
Demolins, E., 152
Deniker, J., 93 _sq._, 108, 150
Dennett, R. E., 82 _sqq._
Desmoulins, A., 91 _sq._, 107
Doornik, J. E., 33
Dorsey, J. O., 142
Draper, J. W., 131
Dubois, E., 76 _sq._
Duckworth, W. H. L., 77, 97
Dupont, E., 117
Dupuis, C. F., 139
Durkheim, É., 135, 143
Ecker, J. A., 123
Edwards, W. F., 99
Ehrenreich, P., 142
Evans, J., 114, 122 _sqq._
Fechner, G. T., 85
Flower, W., 93 _sq._
Fontenelle, B. le B. de, 138
Fouillée, A., 85
Foy, W., 142
Frazer, J. G., 136, 142
Frere, J., 113
Frobenius, L., 142
Fuhlrott, C., 71, 123
Gallatin, A., 149
Galton, F., 47 _sqq._, 85, 87
Gerland, G., 98, 152
Giddings, F. H., 7, 135
Gillen, F. J., 142
Giraud-Teulon, A., 134
Gliddon, G. R., 53, 91, 107
Grattan, J., 33 _sq._
Greef, G. de, 135
Greenwell, Canon, 123
Grimm, J. L. K., 139
Grimm, W. K., 139
Guyot, A. H., 131
Gumplowicz, L., 135
Haeckel, E., 91, 93, 96
Hamy, E. T., 38
Harrison, B., 125
Hartland, E. S., 142
Hauser, O., 73
Haworth, S., 17
Hellwald, F. A. H. von, 135
Herder, J. G. von, 110
Herodotus, 101, 108
Herschel, W., 49
Heusinger, 92
Hippocrates, 13, 150
Hobbes, T., 110
Hobhouse, L. T., 143
Hovelacque, A. A., 53
Howitt, A. W., 133
Hubert, H., 137, 143
Humboldt, A. von, 102, 151
Humboldt, W. von, 144, 149
Hundt, Magnus, 6
Hunt, J., 53, 64 _sq._, 67 _sq._, 79
Huxley, T. H., 60 _sqq._, 71, 92, 96
Jevons, F. B., 132, 136, 142
Kames, Lord, 53
Keane, A. H., 91, 95, 108
Keller, F., 119 _sq._
Kölliker, 92
Kollmann, J., 19
Knox, R., 53, 107
Lamarck, J. B. A., 57
Lang, A., 137, 139, 141 _sq._
Lartet, E., 122
Latham, R. G., 107, 147
Lawrence, Sir W., 16, 55 _sq._
Le Play, 152
Letourneau, C., 134
Lindenschmidt, L., 123
Linnæus, K., 20 _sqq._, 54, 89 _sq._, 95
Lissauer, A., 123
Locke, J., 110
Lubbock, J. _See_ Avebury
Lucretius, 101 _sq._
Lyell, C., 117, 121 _sqq._
McDougall, W., 7, 86, 136
MacEnery, J., 117 _sq._
McLennan, J. F., 132 _sq._
MacRitchie, D., 19
Maine, H., 133
Mannhardt, W., 140, 142
March, H. Colley, 127
Marett, R. R., 142
Mason, Otis T., 127
Mauss, M., 137, 143
Meigs, J. A., 32, 35
Mercati, 113
Monboddo, J. B., 56
Montelius, O., 123
Montesquieu, C. de S., Baron de, 110, 152
Morgan, L. H., 132 _sqq._, 150
Mortillet G. de, 123 _sq._
Morton, S. G., 33
Müller, Friedrich, 93, 107, 150
Müller, F. Max, 140 _sq._, 145 _sqq._, 150
Myers, C. S., 46, 86
Myres, J. L., 99 _sqq._, 108, 110
Nicolucci, G., 123
Noetling, F., 124
Norris, E., 95
Nott, J. C., 53, 91, 107
Novicow, M., 135
Nyerup, R., 114
Owen, R., 64, 121
Pearson, K., 47, 87
Pengelly, W., 118, 120 _sq._
Peschel, O., 107, 152
Peyrère, de la, 52, 113
Peyrony, M., 73
Pickering, C., 107
Piette, E., 123
Pitt-Rivers, A. H. Lane-Fox, 126 _sq._
Post, H., 134
Powell, J. W., 149
Prichard, J. C., 53, 55, 95, 104 _sqq._
Pruner Bey, F., 92
Quatrefages, A. de, 18, 35, 38, 44, 53
Quetelet, L. A. J., 47
Ratzel, F., 104, 107, 150, 152
Read, C. H., 127
Reclus, J. Élisée, 104, 152
Retzius, Anders, 33 _sq._
Ribeiro, C., 124
Ridgeway, W., 109
Ripley, W. Z., 91
Ritter, K., 151
Rivers, W. H. R., 86, 134
Rivière, E., 122
Rolleston, G., 123
Ross, A., 139
Ross, E. A., 136
Saint-Hilaire, E. G., 59
Saint-Hilaire, I. G., 92
Schmerling, Dr., 117
Schoetensack, O., 73
Semper, G., 127
Sergi, G., 40
Serres, Marcel de, 117
Smith, W. Robertson, 142
Sollas, W. J., 75, 77, 125
Spencer, B., 142
Spencer, H., 62, 85, 132
Sperling, J., 17
Stolpe, H., 127
Strabo, 102
Tarde, G., 135
Thurnam, J., 123
Topinard, P., 35, 37, 93, 108
Tylor, E. B., 99, 104, 129 _sq._, 141 _sq._
Tyson, E., 17 _sqq._
Vesalius, 15
Virchow, R. L. K., 39, 44, 71, 123
Virey, J. J., 53, 91
Vogt, C., 65, 96
Waitz, F. T., 92, 95, 107, 151
Westermarck, E., 135, 143
White, C., 43
Windle, B. C. A., 19
Worsaae, J. J. A., 115
Wundt, W., 86
Wilde, W. R., 111, 118 _sq._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
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necessary.
○ Sidenote were moved to the beginning of the paragraph they were
found in.
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after footnotes were moved,
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○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=)
had extra character spacing by “plus” signs (+stretched+).
○ The use of a caret (^) before a letter, or letters, shows that the
following letter or letters was intended to be a superscript, as
in S^t Bartholomew or 10^{th} Century.