Franz Boas

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 has been claimed that the conciseness and clearness of thought of a people depend to a great extent upon their language. The ease with which in our modern European languages we express wide abstract ideas by a single term, and the facility with which wide generalizations are cast into the frame of a simple sentence, have been claimed to be one of the fundamental conditions of the clearness of our concepts, the logical force of our thought, and the precision with which we eliminate in our thoughts irrelevant details. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It would almost seem that among primitive tribes decorative art for its own sake does not exist. The only analogies in modern decorative art are such as the use of the flag, of the cross, or of emblems of secret societies, for decorative purposes; but their frequency is insignificant as compared to the general symbolic tendencies of primitive art. Thus it will be seen that we have here again a type of association in primitive society quite different from the type of association found among ourselves. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We may enlarge on the danger of the impending submergence of the northwest European type, or glory in the prospect of its dominance over all others. Would it not be a safer course to investigate the truth or fallacy of each theory rather than excite the public mind by indulgence in the fancies of our speculation? ”

“ Such is the contrast that presents itself to the observer. What wonder if civilized man considers himself a being of higher order as compared to primitive man, if he claims that the white race represents a type higher than all others! ”

“ If it could be shown that distinct languages belong to distinct racial types, and that these languages exhibit different levels of development or indicate different types of thought, we should have gained a sound basis which would allow us to discuss the genius of each people as reflected in its language. If, furthermore, we could show that certain cultural types belong to certain races and are foreign to the genius of others, our conclusions would be founded on much firmer ground. ”

“ The more successful he is in freeing himself from the bias based on the group of ideas that constitute the civilization in which he lives, the more successful he will be in interpreting the beliefs and actions of man. He must follow lines of thought that are new to him. He must participate in new emotions, and understand how, under unwonted conditions, both lead to actions. Beliefs, customs, and the response of the individual to the events of daily life, give us ample opportunity to observe the manifestations of the mind of man under varying conditions. ”

“ Nothing seems to travel as readily as fanciful tales. We know of certain complex tales, which cannot possibly have been invented twice, that are told by the Berbers in Morocco, by the Italians, the Russians, in the jungles of India, in the highlands of Tibet, on the tundras of Siberia, and on the prairies of North America; so that perhaps the only parts of the world not reached by them are South Africa, Australia, Polynesia, and South America. The examples of such transmission are quite numerous, and we begin to see that the early inter-relation of the races of man was almost world-wide. ”

“ It is perhaps easiest to make this clear by the example of language, which in many respects is one of the most important evidences of the history of human development. Primitive languages are, on the whole, complex. Minute differences in point of view are given expression by means of grammatical forms; and the grammatical categories of Latin, and still more so those of modern English, seem crude when compared to the complexity of psychological or logical forms which primitive languages recognize, but which in our speech are disregarded entirely. ”

“ When, in our theories, we lay stress alone on observations which show that man is dependent upon geographical environment, and upon the assumption of a sameness or similarity of the mind in all races of mankind, we are necessarily led to the conclusion that the same environment will produce the same cultural results everywhere. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have been enabled to investigate this question by a study of the East European Hebrews living in New York. A simple consideration shows, that, if the children tend to follow a type intermediate between the type of their parents, then the children of one family will show the same degree of resemblance among themselves, no matter how great the difference between the parents; for, if they simply tend to reproduce a middle type, it would not make any difference whether the mother is excessively short and the father excessively tall, or whether both parents are of middle stature. ”