On Limitations to the Use of Some Anthropologic Data

by John Wesley Powell

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.

SOCIOLOGY.

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.

Yet in this history many facts have been discovered suggesting that feudalities themselves had an origin in something more primitive. 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. Deliberative assemblies do not start in councils gathered by chieftains, but councils precede chieftaincies. 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.

So, one by one, the theories of metaphysical writers on sociology are overthrown, and the facts of history are taking their place, and the philosophy of history is being erected out of materials accumulating by objective studies of mankind

PSYCHOLOGY.

Psychology has hitherto been chiefly in the hands of subjective philosophers and is the last branch of anthropology to be treated by scientific methods. But of late years sundry important labors have been performed with the end in view to give this department of philosophy a basis of objective facts; especially the organ of the mind has been studied and the mental operations of animals have been compared with those of men, and in various other ways the subject is receiving scientific attention.

The new psychology in process of construction will have a threefold basis: A physical basis on phenomena presented by the organ of the mind as shown in man and the lower animals; a linguistic basis as presented in the phenomena of language, which is the instrument of mind; a functional basis as exhibited in operations of the mind.

The phenomena of the third class may be arranged in three subclasses. First, the operations of mind exhibited in individuals in various stages of growth, various degrees of culture, and in various conditions, normal and abnormal; second, the operations of mind as exhibited in technology, arts, and industries; third, the operations of mind as exhibited in philosophy; and these are the explanations given of the phenomena of the universe. On such a basis a scientific psychology must be erected.