Chapter V.
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY
At the present time the data for a comparison of the bodily functions of the members of one race with those of another are so scanty that the science of ethnical physiology can scarcely be said to exist. Fortunately, there is a quite different state of affairs for the study of the mind—or Psychology—though even in this field there is yet a great deal of work to be done.
During the eighteenth century the term “Anthropology,” which was very vaguely employed, was often used to designate a comprehensive psychology dealing with the entire mental side of man, as well as the relations between soul and body. Later, as its scope became widened, the centre of gravity shifted over to physical man; but anthropologists have always maintained their right to deal also more or less with psychology.
Phrenology.
Psychology in early times concerned itself with the essence of the soul as an independent entity, its relations to the body, its destructibility or indestructibility, and the laws of its operations. The word “Psychology” has always had a vague and varying significance. Thus, when Hunt, in his presidential address before the Anthropological Society in 1866, says: “I am glad to know that there are many Fellows of this Society who are at present working on the psychological aspects of our science,” he referred to the interest then taken by the members in the phrenology of the period. Later on, however, he expresses his opinion with regard to “modern phrenology” as being “wholly unscientific.” The old phrenology is now practically dead.
Psychical Research.
During the last quarter of the last century a study of various obscure mental states received a fresh impetus in this country by the founding of the Society for Psychical Research. This society principally investigates (1) hypnotism, disorders of personality, automatic writing, and crystal-gazing, which are universally recognised by psychologists as furnishing fields for scientific study; and (2) thought-transference and its manifestations, which are not, however, at present generally accepted as facts.
Though but recently crept forth, vix aut ne vix quidem, from the chill shade of scientific disdain, Anthropology adopts the airs of her elder sisters among the sciences, and is as severe as they to the Cinderella of the family, Psychical Research. She must murmur of her fairies among the cinders of the hearth, while they go forth to the ball, and dance with provincial mayors at the festivities of the British Association.[[59]]
[59]. A. Lang, Making of Religion, p. 43.
The hypnotic and kindred practices of the lower races have until lately scarcely attracted the attention of anthropologists. Bastian in 1890 wrote a tract, Ueber psychische Beobachtungen bei Naturvölkern, and Tylor has also touched on the subject in Primitive Culture; but its main advocate is Andrew Lang, who declares: “Anthropology must remain incomplete while it neglects this field, whether among wild or civilised men,” and “In the course of time this will come to be acknowledged.”
Methods and Aims.
If we turn now from popular to scientific notions of psychology, we discern the following methods and aims of the science. There are two methods—(1) the introspective, by which one’s own mental states are observed; and (2) the objective, by which the conduct of others is observed: both may be studied without or under experimental conditions. It is very difficult to secure reliable introspection in backward peoples, and also to interpret the mental state of an individual by observing his behaviour.
The objects of psychology are five-fold:—
1. The study of mind compared with non-mental processes.
2. The study of the mind of the individual compared with other minds.
3. The study of the normal mind of the individual compared with the abnormal.
4. The study of the mind of one race compared with that of other races.
5. The study of the mind of genus Homo compared with that of animals.
All these are of interest and value for Anthropology, especially the second, fourth, and fifth.
In the earlier days of psychology, when the subject was in the leading-strings of philosophy, it had little ethnological value. Indeed, the possibility of such a subject as ethnological psychology was not realised.
Ethnical Psychology.
Ethnical psychology, the study of the mind of other races and peoples, of which, among the more backward races, glimpses can be obtained only by living among them and endeavouring to reach their point of view by means of observation and experiment, is a modern conception; and for this branch of the subject there is no history.
As an illustration of the change of attitude with regard to ethnical psychology during the last fifty years, we may quote from Burmeister[[60]] in 1853: “It is not worth while to look into the soul of the negro. It is a judgment of God which is being executed that, at the approach of civilisation, the savage man must perish”; and again,[[61]] in 1857: “I have often tried to obtain an insight into the mind of the negro, but it was never worth the trouble.” Compare with this such works as R. E. Dennett’s At the Back of the Black Man’s Mind, 1906. In justification of his attempt to represent the basal ideas of the West African native, Dennett says: “I cannot help feeling that one who has lived so long among the Africans, and who has acquired a kind of way of thinking black, should be listened to on the off-chance that a secondary instinct, developed by long contact with the people he is writing about, may have driven him to a right, or very nearly right, conclusion” (pp. 133-4). And as the keynote of his elaborate investigation, which results in “crediting the Africans with thoughts, concerning their religious and political system, comparable to any that may have been handed down” to ourselves by our own ancestors, he quotes from Flora L. Shaw[[62]]: “It may happen that we shall have to revise entirely our view of the black races, and regard those who now exist as the decadent representatives of an almost forgotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an era yet to come.”
[60]. Der Schwarze Mensch.
[61]. Reise nach Brasilien.
[62]. Flora L. Shaw (Lady Lugard), A Tropical Dependency, p. 17.
The earliest recognition of the anthropological aspect of psychology is found in Germany, where Bastian was always insisting on the essential connection between psychology and ethnology; and, although his own literary method was peculiarly obscure, he did a very great deal, both by his writings and personal influence, to stimulate the study of psychology from the point of view of ethnology.
P. W. A. Bastian.
Bastian.
Folk Psychology.
Adolf Bastian (1826-1905), after passing through five universities—Heidelberg, Berlin, Jena, Wurzburg, and Prague—began his life of travel in 1851 as a ship’s doctor. The next twenty-five years were mainly spent in voyages of research in all parts of the world, and always with one object in view—the collection of materials for a comparative psychology, on the principles of a natural science. His first journey, which occupied eight years, resulted in the publication in 1860 of the first of a long series of writings. When not engaged in travel, his life was filled with his work in connection with the Berlin Museums. Great though these services were, Bastian’s main interest was always concentrated on psychology. The ideas of folk psychology were in the air, and the study of Welt-Anschauung, or, to use Bastian’s phrase, Völker-Gedanken, was already inaugurated in Germany. To organise this study by introducing wide scientific, inductive, and comparative methods, and to collect evidence from among all the peoples of the earth, was Bastian’s life-work, in which he was still engaged when death overtook him at Trinidad in 1905. Among the conceptions of the Natur-Völker—the “cryptograms of mankind,” as he called them—he worked unceasingly, demonstrating first the surprising uniformity of outlook on the part of the more primitive peoples, and secondly the correlation of differences of conceptions with differences in material surroundings, varying with geographical conditions. This second doctrine he elaborated in his Zur Lehre von den Geographischen Provinzen, in 1886.
The term “psychology of peoples” has become familiar of late, and books have been written on the psychology of special peoples, such as the Esquisse psychologique des Peuples Européens (1903), by A. Fouillée; but these are based on general considerations, and not on experimental evidence.
The place of Comparative Psychology in Anthropology was officially determined in this country by the request which the Anthropological Institute made to Herbert Spencer in 1875, to map out the Comparative Psychology of Man, with a view to providing some sort of method in handling the various questions that came before the Institute. The result of this was Spencer’s provisional Scheme of Character, in which the problem of measurement took an important place.
Experimental Psychology.
In the department of experimental psychology Germany again took the lead. G. T. Fechner[[63]] attempted by means of laboratory tests to discover the law of connection between psychical and bodily events. A band of workers arose, and the new science spread to other countries. In our country Sir Francis Galton took advantage of the International Health Exhibition at London, 1884, to install in the exhibition an anthropometric laboratory, in which a few psychological experiments were made on a large number of people, and since then he has frequently made arrangements for similar laboratories.
[63]. Elemente der Psychophysik, 1860.
In nearly all of the larger universities Experimental Psychology is a recognised study, and almost every variety of mental condition is investigated. Professor W. Wundt, in his Völkerpsychologie (1904), has been a master-builder on these foundations.
The experiments in psychological laboratories were of necessity confined to subjects readily accessible, who naturally were mainly Europeans or of European descent. A few observations had been made on aliens who, as a rule, had been brought from their native countries for show purposes; but in these cases the observations were made under unfavourable conditions so far as the subject was concerned. With the exception of these very few and unsatisfactory investigations, experimental psychology was mainly concerned with the subjects numbered 2, 3, and 5 in the table on p. 81.
A new departure was made in 1898 by the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits. For the first time trained experimental psychologists (Drs. W. H. R. Rivers, W. McDougall, and C. S. Myers) investigated by means of an adequate laboratory equipment a people in a low stage of culture under their ordinary conditions of life. The foundations of ethnical experimental psychology were thus laid.
Professor R. W. Woodworth sums up the conclusions arrived at from his own observations and those of others as follows: “We are probably justified in inferring that the sensory and motor processes and the elementary brain activities, though differing in degree from one individual to another, are about the same from one race to another.”[[64]]
[64]. Science, xxxi., 1910, p. 179.
Lately an attempt has been made, under the auspices of the Royal Anthropological Institute, to provide travellers with instructions for psychological investigations in the field.
Eugenics.
During the last few years the subject of race improvement, or Eugenics, has been greatly to the fore, and it has been in this country mainly connected with the name of Sir Francis Galton, who as long ago as 1865 published his views on the subject. Eugenics is officially defined in the Minutes of the University of London as “the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations, either physically or mentally.” A eugenics laboratory has recently been established in University College, London, in connection with Professor Karl Pearson’s biometric laboratory.