Largely through recent researches among the American aborigines, it has
been shown that decorative and many if not all other esthetic concepts
normally arise in symbolism, gradually expand in conventionism,
and eventually mature in a realism which is itself the source of
ever-extending esthetic motives; and the observations on the lowly Seri
afford opportunity for somewhat extending the generalizations based on
higher tribes.
When peoples of unequal cultural development are compared, it is
commonly found that the higher are the more independent in action and
thought: thus, advanced peoples make conquest of nature for their own
behoof, while primitive peoples are largely creatures of environment;
Caucasian citizens are self-conscious lawmakers, while Amerind
tribesmen are semiconsciously dominated by mysteries fearsomely
interpreted by their shamans; and, in general, enlightened men think
and speak freely, come and go as they like, and discard the badges
of conventionism, while savages are constrained by customs carrying
the power of law, controlled by precedent, and clothed in hierarchic
regalia. So, too, when a particular series of tribes are compared, it
is found that those of higher culture (or wider knowledge) are the
more independent, the more given to essays in social and industrial
and other lines of activity, and hence the more varied in esthetic and
economic motives: thus, the several Iroquoian tribes integrated the
knowledge proper to each, and thus made themselves an intellectual and
physical power able to eliminate or assimilate the isolated tribes on
their borders; the sages of the Siouan stock induced the warriors of
their leading tribes to combine in a circle of seven council fires,
which grew into the great Dakota confederacy and soon gained strength
to dominate the entire northern plains; but while these and other
federations were pushing forward on the way leading to feudalism and
thence to national organization, the self-centered California tribes
consecrated their tongues to their own kindred, thereby stifling
culture at its source and virtually leashing themselves unto the
acorn-bearing oaks of their respective glades. Still more striking are
the differences in independence revealed by a comparison of human and
subhuman organisms; for the humans are immeasurably freer and more
spontaneous in thought and action than even the highest beasts: thus,
the Seri blood-bearer applies, renews, and elaborates her face-mark
at will, while the antelope and the raccoon unconsciously develop
their standard-marks through the tedious operation of vital processes
regulated under the cruel law of survival; men make their beds
according to the dictates of judgment, while the half-artificialized
dog lies down in accordance with a hereditary custom which has been
needless for a hundred generations; and the very essence of human
activity is volitional choice (or artificial selection), while the
keynote of merely organic agency is the nonvolitional chance of
natural selection. No less striking are the differences found on
comparing other realms of nature, in which the higher are invariably
characterized by the greater independence; the animal realm is
distinguished from the vegetal realm mainly by the possession of
volitional motility; while the vegetal is distinguished from the
mineral realm chiefly by those better selective powers exemplified
in vital growth. The several comparisons seem to define that course
of volitional development arising in the chemical and mechanical
affinities of the mineral realm, burgeoning in simple vitality,
multiplying in the motility of animal life, greatly expanding in the
collective activity of demotic organization, and culminating in the
conquest of nature through the mind-guided powers of enlightened
mankind. Expressed briefly, this course of development may be
characterized as the progressive passage from _automacy_ to _autonomy_.
The volitional development thus seriated may be divided, somewhat
arbitrarily yet none the less safely, into its esthetic and economic
factors; and, for convenience, the latter maybe considered to comprise
the industrial, institutional, linguistic, and sophic constituents—i.
e., the esthetic activities may be juxtaposed against the several other
activities of demotic life. When this division is made, it at once
becomes manifest that the esthetic activities are the freest and most
spontaneous of the series, and hence lead the way to that autonomy
which marks the highest development. This significant relation has been
glimpsed by various artists and poets, scholars and naturalists; it was
at least partly caught by Goethe when he taught that knowledge begins
in wonder; it was loosely seized by Schiller, and later by Spencer,
in the surplus-energy theory of play; it was grasped by Groos in his
prophecy theory of play,[264] and still more firmly (although less
conspicuously) by Seton-Thompson in his analysis of animal conduct and
motives. The relation has for some years been recognized as one of the
principles underlying the American ethnologic researches; yet it is not
so well understood as to obviate the need for further consideration.
Accordingly it may be pointed out that while the human activities and
the agencies of lower nature rest alike on a mechanical foundation,
the mechanical element diminishes in relative magnitude in passing
from the lower to the higher realms of nature: in the mineral realm
the agencies may be deemed mechanical in character and individual in
effect; in the vegetal realm vitality is superadded, and the effects
are carried forward through heredity; in the animal realm motility
is added in turn, and instinct arises to shape the individual and
hereditary and motile attributes; the social realm may be considered
to be marked by the accession of conjustment, with its multifarious
and beneficent effects on individuals, generations, movements, and
groups; while the rational realm maybe defined as that arising with
the accession of reason as a guide to action, and with the development
of nature-conquest as its most characteristic effect—though it is to
be noted that the several transitions are progressive rather than
saltatory. Thus each realm is characterized by the attributes of
each and all of those lower in the scale, plus its own distinctive
attribute. It may also be pointed out that each new attribute defining
a higher realm is freer and more spontaneous than those of lower
realms; for vitality is freer than mere affinity, self-movement than
mere growth, and cooperation than mere movement, while reason-led
action is freest of all. Accordingly each realm (as already implied)
is characterized by a larger autonomy than any of those lower in the
scale; i. e., by all the factors of autonomy in the lower realms, plus
its own distinctive factor.
[264] Cf. American Anthropologist, new series, vol. 1, 1899, p. 374.
It may be pointed out farther that, in the higher realms at least, the
action normal to each realm tends to generate that characteristic of
the next higher realm: the self-movement of the animal realm is, under
favorable conditions, constrained through vital economy to fall into
the conjustment of the social realm; and the organization of the social
realm, involving as it does a hierarchic arrangement of organisms
according to mentality,[265] habituates the higher individuals of
the organizations to that control of lower individuals which buds in
agriculture, blossoms in civil rule, and fruits in nature-conquest.
Thus the factors of each realm are prophetic of the distinctive factor
of the next higher—and the prophecy is not merely passive, but is,
rather, an actual step in causal sequence.
[265] The spontaneous arrangement of organisms in accordance with
mental grade is well illustrated by that solidarity of desert life
which matures in the cultivation of plants and the investigation of
animals (The Beginning of Agriculture, in The American Anthropologist,
vol. VIII, October, 1895, pp. 350-375; The Beginning of Zooculture,
ibid., vol. X, July 1897, pp. 215-230.)
It may be pointed out still further that, in the higher realms at
least, spontaneous action necessarily precedes maturely developed
function: in the vegetal realm the tree shoots upward before its form
is shaped and its tissue textured by wind and sun and environing
organisms; in the animal realm youthful play presages the prosaic
performances normal to adult life; in the social realm men behave
before framing laws of behavior; and in the rational realm fortuitous
discovery paves the road for sure-footed invention. Thus natural
initiative arises in spontaneous action, while mechanical action is
mainly consequential.
It may be pointed out finally that the field of spontaneous action
is relatively increased with the endless multiplications of action
accompanying the passage from the lower realms to the higher—indeed
the relations may be likened unto those of exogenous growth, which is
largely withdrawn from the irresponsive and stable interior structures
and gathered into the responsive and spontaneously active peripheral
structures; so that spontaneous activity attending natural development
is relatively more important in the higher stages than in the
lower.[266]
[266] The laws of growth recognized herein have been somewhat more
fully outlined elsewhere, notably in The Earth the Home of Man
(Anthropological Society of Washington, Special Papers 2, 1894, pp.
3-8), and in Piratical Acculturation (American Anthropologist, vol. XI,
1898, pp. 243-249).
Now, on combining the several indications it is found clear (1)
that the more spontaneous developmental factor in all normal growth
corresponds with the esthetic factor in demotic activity; (2) that this
is the initiatory factor and the chief determinant of the rate and
course of development; (3) that it is of relatively enlarged prominence
in the higher stages; and hence (4) that the esthetic activities afford
a means of measuring developmental status or the relative positions in
terms of development of races and tribes.
* * * * *
On applying these principles to the Seri tribe, in the light of their
meager industrial motives and still poorer esthetic motives, it would
appear that they stand well at the bottom of the scale in demotic
development. Their somatic characteristics are suggestively primitive,
as already shown; and the testimony of these characteristics is fully
corroborated by that of their esthetic status as interpreted in the
light of the laws of growth.