John Wesley Powell

“ It would be vain to claim that the course of zoölogic development is fully understood, or even that all of its most important factors are known. So the discovery of facts and relations guided by the doctrines of evolution reacts upon these doctrines, verifying, modifying, and enlarging them. Thus it is that while the doctrines lead the way to new fields of discovery, the new discoveries lead again to new doctrines. Increased knowledge widens philosophy; wider philosophy increases knowledge. ”

“ In the study of the tribes of the world a multitude of sociologic institutions and customs have been discovered, and in reviewing the history of feudalities it is seen that many of their important elements are survivals from tribal society.
So important are these discoveries that all human history has to be rewritten, the whole philosophy of history reconstructed. Government does not begin in the ascendency of chieftains through prowess in war, but in the slow specialization of executive functions from communal associations based on kinship. ”

“ If we lay aside the mass of worthless matter which has been published, and consider only the material used by the most careful writers, we find on every hand that conclusions are vitiated by a multitude of errors of fact of a character the most simple. ”

“ In tracing back the threads of its historical development the student should expect to find it more simple and childlike in every stage of his progress.
It is vain to search for truth in mythologic philosophy, but it is important to search for veritable philosphies, that they may be properly compared and that the products of the human mind in its various stages of culture may be known; important in the reconstruction of the history of philosophy; and important in furnishing necessary data to psychology. No labor can be more fruitless than the search in mythology for true philosophy ”

“ The study of astronomy, geology, physics, and biology, is in the hands of scientific men; objective methods of research are employed and metaphysic disquisitions find no place in the accepted philosophies; [Pg 079] but to a large extent philology remains in the hands of the metaphysicians, and subjective methods of thought are used in the explanation of the phenomena observed. If philology is to be a science it must have an objective philosophy composed of a homologic classification and orderly arrangement of the phenomena of the languages of the globe. ”

“ There is a symbolism inherent in language and found in all philosophy, true or false, and such symbolism was cultivated as an occult art in the early history of civilization when picture-writing developed into conventional writing, and symbolism is an interesting subject for study, but it has been made a beast of burden to carry packs of metaphysic nonsense. ”

“ Law does not begin in contract, but is the development of custom. Land tenure does not begin in grants from the monarch or the feudal lord, but a system of tenure in common by gentes or tribes is developed into a system of tenure in severalty. Evolution in society has not been from militancy to industrialism, but from organization based on kinship to organization based on property, and alongside of the specializations of the industries of peace the arts of war have been specialized. ”

“ In the monuments of antiquity found throughout North America, in camp and village sites, graves, mounds, ruins, and scattered works of art, the origin and development of art in savage and barbaric life may be satisfactorily studied. Incidentally, too, hints of customs may be discovered, but outside of this, the discoveries made have often been illegitimately used, especially for the purpose of connecting the tribes of North America with peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other portions of the world. ”

“ Instead of relegating the languages that had before been unclassified to the Aryan family, new families or stocks were discovered, and this process has been carried on from year to year until scores or even hundreds, of families are recognized, and until we may reasonably conclude that there was no single primitive speech common to mankind, but that man had multiplied and spread throughout the habitable earth anterior to the development of organized languages; that is, languages have sprung from innumerable sources after the dispersion of mankind. ”

“ With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it may also be said that mound-building tribes were known in the early history of discovery of this continent, and that the vestiges of art discovered do not excel in any respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to history. There is, therefore, no reason for us to search for an extra-limital origin through lost tribes for the arts discovered in the mounds of North America. ”

“ Migrations and enforced removals placed tribes under conditions of strange environment where new customs and institutions were necessary, and in this condition civilization had a greater influence, and the progress of occupation by white men within the territory of the United States, at least, has reached such a stage that savagery and barbarism have no room for their existence, and even customs [Pg 077] and institutions must in a brief time be completely changed, and what we are yet to learn of these people must be learned now. ”

“ Again, the higher languages are written and are thus immediately accessible. For such reasons, chief attention has been given to the most highly developed languages. The problems presented to the philologist, in the higher languages, cannot be properly solved without a knowledge of the lower forms. The linguist studies a language that he may use it as an instrument for the interchange of thought; the philologist studies a language to use its data in the construction of a philosophy of language. ”

“ The tracing of the origin of these arts to the ancestors of known tribes or stocks of tribes is more legitimate, but it has limitations which are widely disregarded. The tribes which had attained to the highest culture in the southern portion of North America are now well known to belong to several different stocks, and, if, for example, an attempt is made to connect the mound-builders with the Pueblo Indians, no result beyond confusion can be reached until the particular stock of these village peoples is designated. ”

“ It will be seen that to follow any tribe of Indians through post-Columbian times is a task of no little difficulty. Yet this portion of history is of importance, and the scholars of America have a great work before them.
Three centuries of intimate contact with a civilized race has had no small influence upon the pristine condition of these savage and barbaric tribes. The most speedy and radical change was that effected in the arts, industrial and ornamental. A steel knife was obviously better than a stone knife; firearms than bows and arrows ”

“ Here again North America presents a wide and interesting field to the investigator, for it has within its extent many distinct governments, and these governments, so far as investigations have been carried, are found to belong to a type more primitive than any of the feudalities from which the civilized nations of the earth sprang, as shown by concurrently recorded history. ”

“ True, all evolution has not been in this direction. There has often been degradation as exhibited in the multiplicity of languages and dialects of the same stock, but evolution has in the aggregate been integration by progress towards unity of speech, and differentiation (which, must always be distinguished from multiplication) by specialization of the grammatic process and the development of the parts of speech. ”

“ If we accept the conclusion that there is but one species of man, as species are now defined by biologists, we may reasonably conclude that the species has been dispersed from some common center, as the ability to successfully carry on the battle of life in all climes belongs only to a highly developed being ”

“ Anthropology needs trained devotees with philosophic methods and keen observation to study every tribe and nation of the globe almost de novo; and from, materials thus collected a science may be established. ”

“ With a large body of mythologists nature worship is now accepted as the primitive religion; and with another body, equally as respectable, ancestor worship is primordial. But nature worship and ancestor worship are concomitant parts of the same religion, and belong to a status of culture highly advanced and characterized by the invention of conventional pictographs. ”

“ In philology, North America presents the richest field in the world, for here is found the greatest number of languages distributed among the greatest number of stocks. As the progress of research is necessarily from the known to the unknown, civilized languages were studied by scholars before the languages of savage and barbaric tribes. ”

“ Philologic research began with the definite purpose in view to discover in the diversities of language among the peoples of the earth a common element from which they were all supposed to have been derived, an original speech, the parent of all languages. In this philologists had great hopes of success at one time, encouraged by the discovery of the relation between the diverse branches of the Aryan stock, but in this very work methods of research were developed and doctrines established by which unexpected results were reached. ”

“ When America was discovered by Europeans, it was inhabited by great numbers of distinct tribes, diverse in languages, institutions, and customs. This fact has never been fully recognized, and writers have too often spoken of the North American Indians as a body, supposing that statements made of one tribe would apply to all. ”

“ When a people once homogeneous are separated geographically in such a manner that thorough inter-communication is no longer preserved, all of the agencies by which languages change act separately in the distinct communities and produce different changes therein, and dialects are established. ”

“ The individuals of the one species, though inhabiting diverse climes, speaking diverse languages, and organized into diverse communities, have progressed in a broad way by the same stages, have had the same arts, customs, institutions, and traditions in the same order, limited only by the degree of progress to which the several tribes have attained, and modified only to a limited extent by variations in environment. ”

“ The names by which tribes have been designated have rarely been names used by themselves, and the same tribe has often been designated by different names in different periods of its history and by different names in the same period of its history by colonies of people having different geographic relations to them. ”

“ The Zuni and the Arapaho Indians have a language with a complex grammar and copious vocabulary well adapted to the expression of the thoughts incident to their customs and status of culture, and they have no more difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night than Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from each of three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness of a vast body of anthropologic material to which even the best writers resort. ”

“ Here again America presents a rich field for the scientific explorer. It is now known that each linguistic stock has a distinct mythology, and as in some of these stocks there are many languages differing to a greater or less extent, so there are many like differing mythologies. ”

“ When it was discovered that the whole structure of philosophy was without foundation, a new order of procedure was recommended—the Baconian method. Perception must precede reflection; observation must precede reason. ”

“ If the separation continues, such dialects become distinct languages in the sense that the people of one community are unable to understand the people of another. But such a development of languages is not differentiation in the sense in which this term is here used, and often used in biology, but is analogous to multiplication as understood in biology. The differentiation of an organ is its development for a special purpose, i. e., the organic, specialization is concomitant with functional specialization. ”

“ When people of different languages meet, especially if they speak languages of different stocks, a means of communication is rapidly established between them, composed partly of signs and partly of oral words, the latter taken from one or both of the languages, but curiously modified so as hardly to be recognized. ”

“ Arts, customs, institutions, and traditions extend beyond the boundaries of languages and serve to obscure them, and the admixture of strains of blood has obscured primitive ethnic divisions, if such existed. ”

“ Again, the rapid progress in the settlement and occupation of the country has resulted in the gradual displacement of the Indian tribes, so that very many have been removed from their ancient homes, some of whom have been incorporated into other tribes, and some have been absorbed into the body of civilized people. ”

“ And, further, neither of the two languages has made the progress one would have made, for one would have been developed sufficiently to serve all the purposes of the united peoples in the larger area inhabited by them, and, cœteris paribus, the language spoken by many people scattered over a large area must be superior to one spoken by a few people inhabiting a small area. ”

“ Working naturalists postulate evolution. Zoölogical research is largely directed to the discovery of the genetic relations of animals. The evolution of the animal kingdom is along multifarious lines and by diverse specializations. The particular line which connects man with the lowest forms, through long successions of intermediate forms, is a problem of great interest. ”

“ With the limitations thus indicated the identification of mound-building peoples as distinct tribes or stocks is a legitimate study, but when we consider the further fact now established, that arts extend beyond the boundaries of linguistic stocks, the most fundamental divisions we are yet able to make of the peoples of the globe, we may more properly conclude that this field promises but a meager harvest ”