Franz Boas

“ Given a national conflict, and the same unreasoning passions will sway our people that are carrying Europe to the brink of ruin.
Those who look forward to the federation of nations must work together to teach their ideals to the young, to teach that no nation has the right to impose its individuality upon another one, that no war is justifiable except for the defence of the threatened integrity of our ideals. ”

“ Neither would it be intelligible why modern Germany should never have pursued the policy of unifying all German-speaking peoples in Europe, why she should not covet the large German provinces of Austria, and should patiently witness the forcible Russianization of the German towns in the Baltic provinces and the Magyarization of the Germans in Hungary.
Neither the bonds of blood nor those of language alone make a nation. ”

“ The sameness of all these phenomena in different parts of the world has been considered as proof not only of the fundamental unity of the mind of all the races of man, but also of the truth of the theory of evolution of civilization; and thus a grand structure has been reared, in which we see our present civilization as the necessary outcome of the activities of all the races of man, that have risen in one grand procession, from the simplest beginnings of culture, through periods of barbarism, to the stage of civilization that they now occupy. ”

“ Thus we are led to a consideration of the all-important question whether types, languages, and cultures are so intimately connected that each human race is characterized by a certain combination of physical type, language, and culture.
It is obvious, that, if this correlation should exist in a strict sense, attempts to classify mankind from any one of the three points of view would necessarily lead to the same results; in other words, each point of view could be used independently or in combination with the other ones, to study the relations between the different groups of mankind. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that the problem of the study of languages is not one of classification but that our task is to trace the history of the development of human speech. Therefore, classification is only a means to an end. Our aim is to unravel the history of the growth of human language, and, if possible, to discover its underlying psychological and physiological causes. ”

“ Many do not consider the discovery of new lands and new seas a task worthy a life's work, as they do not consider it a benefit for science—for their science, which is the deduction of laws from facts. They do not regard the composition of the wonderful picture of the world, as Humboldt tried to delineate in his "Cosmos" a science equal in its worth to the one which abstracts physical laws that govern matter in the worlds as well as in the atoms. ”

“ The formulas of myths and folk-tales, if we disregard the particular incidents that form the substance with which the framework is filled in, are almost exclusively events that reflect the occurrences of human life, particularly those that stir the emotions of the people. If we once recognize that mythology has no claim to priority over novelistic folk-lore, then there is no reason why we should not be satisfied to explain the origin of these tales as due to the play of imagination with the events of human life. ”

“ Each social unit consists of a series of individuals whose bodily form depends on their ancestry and on their environment. If the opinion of the critics of physical anthropology regarding the predominant effect of environment is correct, then we cannot hope to make any discoveries as to ancestry of local or social groups by means of anatomical investigations. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that heredity is the predominant factor, then the prospects of important discoveries bearing on the early history of mankind are very bright indeed. ”

“ Another good example is the feeling connected with acts that in our society are considered as modest or immodest. Every one will feel instinctively the strong resistance that he would have to overcome, even in a different society, if he were required to perform an action that we are accustomed to consider as immodest, and the feelings that would be excited in his mind if he were thrown into a society in which the standards of modesty differed from our own. It seems to my mind that these feelings of displeasure exert a very strong influence upon the development and conservation of customs. ”

“ We should remember that symbolic interpretation has occupied a prominent position in the philosophy of all times. It is present not only in primitive life, but the history of philosophy and of theology abounds in examples of a high development of symbolism, the type of which depends upon the general mental attitude of the philosopher who develops it. The theologians who interpreted the Bible on the basis of religious symbolism were no less certain of the correctness of their views, than the psycho-analysts are of their interpretations of thought and conduct based on sexual symbolism. ”

“ When we turn our attention to the negro problem as it presents itself in the United States, we must remember our previous considerations, in which we found that no proof of an inferiority of the negro type could be given, except that it seemed possible that perhaps the race would not produce quite so many men of highest genius as other races, while there was nothing at all that could be interpreted as suggesting any material difference in the mental capacity of the bulk of the negro population as compared to the bulk of the white population. ”

“ In the vastness of the outlook over the unwritten history of past ages, the individual is merged entirely in the social unit of which he forms a part, and we see in the dim distance of time and space only the movements of peoples, the emergence of new types of man, the gradual development of new forms of civilization, and a constant repetition of processes of integration and disintegration of peoples and cultures. ”

“ Such a deliberate selection of qualities which would modify the character of nations implies an overestimation of the standards that we have reached, which to my mind appears intolerable. Personally the logical thinker may be most congenial to me, nevertheless I respect the sacred ideals of the dreamer who lives in a world of musical tones, and whose creative power is to me a marvel that surpasses understanding. ”

“ At the same time let us ask, What is the object of polar expeditions? It is the thorough exploration of the Arctic region and of all its phenomena, a great task which will give scientists work for years to come. The problems will not be solved by pushing north and gaining the pole. There are many more objects of study left besides, and it is not necessary at all to work with all our might for the achievement of this single aim. The desires of humanity and the wants of science both direct us the same way. ”

“ If community of racial descent is not the basis of nationality, is it community of language?
When we glance at the national aspirations that have characterized a large part of the nineteenth century, community of language might seem to be the background of national life. It touches the most sympathetic chords in our hearts. Italians worked for the overthrow of all the small local and great foreign interests that were opposed to the national unity of all Italian-speaking people. German patriots strove for the federation of the German-speaking people in one empire. ”

“ Anthropologists who limit their work to the mechanical application of measurements, particularly of single measurements, and who try to trace the relationships of races by such means, do not apply the metric method in a correct way. It must be borne in mind that measurements serve the purpose only of sharper definition of certain peculiarities, and that a selection of measurements must be adapted to the purpose in view. I believe the tendency of developing a cast-iron system of measurements, to be applied to all problems of physical anthropology, is a movement in the wrong direction. ”

“ Proofs without number have been forthcoming which show that ideas have been disseminated as long as people have come into contact with one another, and that neither race nor language nor distance limits their diffusion. As all have worked together in the development of the ancient civilizations, we must bow to the genius of all, whatever group of mankind they may represent,—Hamitic, Semitic, Aryan, or Mongol. ”

“ We infer from these linguistic facts that the categories of thought, and the forms of action, that we find among a people, do not need to have been developed by conscious thought, but that they have grown up owing to the fundamental organization of the human mind. Linguistic evidence is of such great value, because grammatical categories and forms have never risen into the consciousness of the speaker, while in almost all other ethnological phenomena people have come to observe what they think and what they do. ”

“ The science of anthropology deals with the biological and mental manifestations of human life as they appear in different races and in different societies. The phenomena with which we are dealing are therefore, from one point of view, historical. We are endeavoring to elucidate the events which have led to the formation of human types, past and present, and which have determined the course of cultural development of any given group of men. From another point of view the same phenomena are the objects of biological and psychological investigations. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the conclusions to be drawn from the study of the customs and habits of mankind show that such an ideal is unattainable, and more particularly that the emotions clustering about procreation belong to those that are most deeply seated in the human soul, and that are ineradicable.
Here again the anthropologist and the biologist are at odds. The natural sciences do not recognize in their scheme a valuation of the phenomena of nature, nor do they count emotions as moving forces: they endeavor to reduce all happenings to the actions of physical causes. ”

“ In every branch of science the connection between the phenomena and processes, and the reasons for their distribution in space and time, can only be understood by the most thorough and detailed investigation.
If it be granted that every fact added to our knowledge is of value for science, not by itself, but by connecting other facts already known, there is no reason for excluding geographical researches from this principle, or to consider discoveries of unknown regions as trifling. ”

“ There is no doubt that the idea of nationality has been a creative force, making possible the fuller development of individual powers by widening the field of individual activity, and by setting definite ideals to large co-operating masses; but we feel with Fichte and Mazzini that the political power of a nation is important only when the national unit is the carrier of ideals that are of value to mankind. ”

“ In music as well as in decorative design we find a complexity of rhythmic structure which is unequalled in the popular art of our day. In music, particularly, this complexity is so great that the art of a skilled virtuoso is taxed in the attempt to imitate it. If once it is recognized that simplicity is not always a proof of antiquity, it will readily be seen that the theory of the evolution of civilization rests to a certain extent on a logical error. ”

“ The principles of biological science forbid us to assume a permanent stability of bodily form. Our whole modern concept of the development of varieties and of species is based on the assumption of cumulative or sudden variation. The variations that have been found in the human body are quite in accordance with this view, and I may quote here a few words from Wiedersheim’s admirable treatise on the structure of man as an index of his past history: “In the course of Phylogeny the body of Man has undergone a series of modifications which still in part find expression in his ontogeny. ”

“ We know that poor people develop slowly and remain short of stature as compared to wealthy people. We may find, therefore, in a poor area, apparently a low hereditary stature, that, however, would change if the economic life of the people were changed. We may find proportions of the body determined by occupations, and apparently transmitted from father to son, provided both father and son follow the same occupation. It in obvious that the more far-reaching the environmental influences are that act upon successive generations, the more readily will a false impression of heredity be given. ”

“ Devotion to the nation is taught as the paramount duty, and it is instilled into the minds of the young in such a form that with it grows up and is perpetuated the feeling of rivalry and of hostility against all other nations.
Conditions in Europe are intelligible only when we remember that by education patriotism is surrounded by a halo of sanctity, and that national self-preservation is considered the first duty. ”

“ While this evolutionary aspect has occupied the centre of attention for a long time, another view of the field of the phenomena of ethnology was defended by Bastian,—a view which makes its influence felt ever more deeply as time goes on. The sameness of the forms of thought found in regions wide apart appeared to Bastian as a proof of the unity of the human mind, but it also suggested to him that the forms of thought follow certain definite types, no matter in what surroundings man may live, and what may be his social and historical relations. ”

“ It is therefore not surprising, that, with the advance of civilization, reasoning becomes more and more logical, not because each individual carries out his thought in a more logical manner, but because the traditional material which is handed down to each individual has been thought out and worked out more thoroughly and more carefully. While in primitive civilization the traditional material is doubted and examined by only a very few individuals, the number of thinkers who try to free themselves from the fetters of tradition increases as civilization advances. ”

“ Together with the positive, creative side of nationalism, there has developed everywhere another one, which forms the basis of the passions that are blinding the people of Europe to the high aims of humanity. Instead of seeing in each nation one of the members of mankind that contributes in its own way toward the advance of civilization, an aggressive intolerance of all other units has grown up. ”

“ When we speak of the idea of life after death as one of the ideas which develop in human society as a psychological necessity, we are dealing with a most complex group of data. One people believes that the soul continues to exist in the form that the person had at the time of death, without any possibility of change; another one believes that the soul will be reborn in a child of the same family; a third one believes that the souls will enter the bodies of animals ”

“ After thus clearing away the racial prejudice, the most formidable obstacle to a clear understanding of our problem, we turned to an investigation of the question whether human types are stable, more particularly whether environment may change the anatomical structure of man, and thus of his mental make-up, and to the correlated question, what man owes to heredity. In treating the general question of the stability of human types, we described some rudimentary organs and some peculiar anatomical traits which prove a phylogenetic development of man, traces of which were found in all races. ”

“ Nevertheless, anthropology has been able to teach certain facts that are of importance in our common every-day life. Owing to the breadth of its outlook, anthropology teaches better than any other science the relativity of the values of civilization. It enables us to free ourselves from the prejudices of our civilization, and to apply standards in measuring our achievements that have a greater absolute truth than those derived from a study of our civilization alone. ”

“ The character of a system of philosophy is, just like that of any other literary work, determined first of all by the personality of its originator. Every true philosophy reflects the life of the philosopher, as well as every true poem that of the poet. ”

“ In this sense, anthropology is the science that endeavors to reconstruct the early history of mankind, and that tries, wherever possible, to express in the form of laws ever-recurring modes of historical happenings. Since written history covers a brief span of time, and relates in fragmentary records the fates of a few only of the multitude of peoples of the earth, the anthropologist must endeavor by methods of his own to clear up the darkness of past ages and of remote parts of the world. ”

“ From this time on, the uses of fire, and of tools for cutting and striking, for scraping and perforating, have increased in number and complexity, and a gradual development may be traced from the simple tools of primitive man to the complex machinery of our times. The inventive genius of all races and of unnumbered individuals has contributed to the state of industrial perfection in which we find ourselves. On the whole, inventions once made have been kept with great tenacity, and, owing to incessant additions, the available resources of mankind have constantly been increased and multiplied. ”

“ If we confine our consideration for the present to the intermixture of European types in America, I think it will be clear, from what has been said before, that the concern that is felt by many in regard to the continuance of racial purity of our nation is to a great extent imaginary. The history of Europe proves that there has been no racial purity anywhere for exceedingly long periods, neither has the continued intermixture of European types shown any degrading effect upon any of the European nationalities. ”

“ Since Waitz’s thorough discussion of the question of the unity of the human species, there can be no doubt that in the main the mental characteristics of man are the same all over the world; but the question remains open, whether there is a sufficient difference in grade to allow us to assume that the present races of man may be considered as standing on different stages of the evolutionary series, whether we are justified in ascribing to civilized man a higher place in organization than to primitive man. ”

“ Everything appeared to him in an anthropomorphic form of thought; and thus the first primitive concepts regarding the world came into being, in which the stone, the mountain, the heavenly orbs, were viewed as animate anthropomorphic beings endowed with will-power, and willing to help man or threatening to endanger him. The observation of the activities of man’s own body and of his mind led to the formulation of the idea of a soul independent of the body; and with increasing knowledge and with increasing philosophic thought, religion and science grew out of these simple beginnings. ”

“ Nevertheless it must be granted that in a theoretical consideration of the history of the types of mankind, of languages, and of cultures, we are led back to the assumption of early conditions, during which each type was much more isolated from the rest of mankind than it is at the present time. For this reason the culture and the language belonging to a single type must have been much more sharply separated from those of other types than we find them to be at the present period. ”

“ In regard to the former point, it might be said, that, although achievement is not necessarily a measure of aptitude, it seems admissible to judge the one by the other. Have not most races had the same chances for development? Why, then, did the white race alone develop a civilization which is sweeping the whole world, and compared to which all other civilizations appear as feeble beginnings cut short in early childhood, or arrested and petrified in an early stage of development? ”

“ It is somewhat difficult for us to recognize that the value which we attribute to our own civilization is due to the fact that we participate in this civilization, and that it has been controlling all our actions since the time of our birth; but it is certainly conceivable that there may be other civilizations, based perhaps on different traditions and on a different equilibrium of emotion and reason, which are of no less value than ours, although it may be impossible for us to appreciate their values without having grown up under their influence. ”

“ There is, however, no evidence whatever that would stigmatize the negro as of weaker build, or as subject to inclinations and powers that are opposed to our social organization. An unbiassed estimate of the anthropological evidence so far brought forward does not permit us to countenance the belief in a racial inferiority which would unfit an individual of the negro race to take his part in modern civilization. We do not know of any demand made on the human body or mind in modern life that anatomical or ethnological evidence would prove to be beyond the powers of the negro. ”

“ In the numerous conflicts of these times the more civilized people were often vanquished. The conqueror, however, learned the arts of life from the conquered, and carried on the work of civilization. Thus the centres of civilization were shifting to and fro over a limited area, and progress was slow and halting. At the same period the ancestors of the races that are now among the most highly civilized were in no way superior to primitive man as we find him now in regions that have not come into contact with modern civilization. ”