Accordingly, what we should demand of investigators is not a creed, a philosophic system, but "the objective method in their researches and in the sources of their inductions." For this is the way to train the workers and philosophers of experimental science.
And the same lines must serve us for building up a philosophy capable of shaping a regenerated method of pedagogy.
The Method
The determining factor in anthropology is the same that determines all experimental science: the method. A well-defined method in natural science applied to the study of living man offers us the scientific content, which we are in the course of seeking.
The content bursts upon us as a surprise, as the result of applying the method, by means of which we make advances in the investigation of truth.
Whenever a science prescribes for itself, not a content but a method of experimenting, it is for that reason called an experimental science.
It is not easy for those who come fresh from the pursuit of philosophic studies to adapt themselves to this order of ideas. The philosopher, the historian, the man of letters prepare themselves by assimilating the content of one particular branch of learning; and thereby they define the boundaries of their individual knowledge and close the circle of their individual thought, however vast that circle may be.
Indeed, the elaboration of human thought, the series of historic deeds, the accumulated mass of literature, may offer immense fields; but after the student has little by little assimilated them, he cannot do otherwise than contain them within him precisely as they are. Their extent is limited by the centuries that cover the history of civilised man, and it is invariable, since it exists as a work accomplished by man.
Experimental science is of an entirely different sort. We must look upon it as a means of investigation into the field of the infinite and the unknown. If we wish to compare it to some branch of learning that is universally familiar, we may say that an experimental science is similar to learning to read. When as children we learn to read, we may, to be sure, estimate the effort that it costs us to master a mechanical device; but such a mechanical device is a means, it is a magic key that will unlock the secrets of wisdom, multiply our power to share the thoughts of our contemporaries, and render us dexterous in despatching the practical affairs of life.