Anthropology is the whole history of man as fired and pervaded by the
idea of evolution. Man in evolution--that is the subject in its full
reach. Anthropology studies man as he occurs at all known times. It
studies him as he occurs in all known parts of the world. It studies
him body and soul together--as a bodily organism, subject to conditions
operating in time and space, which bodily organism is in intimate
relation with a soul-life, also subject to those same conditions.
Having an eye to such conditions from first to last, it seeks to plot
out the general series of the changes, bodily and mental together,
undergone by man in the course of his history. Its business is simply
to describe. But, without exceeding the limits of its scope, it can
and must proceed from the particular to the general; aiming at nothing
less than a descriptive formula that shall sum up the whole series
of changes in which the evolution of man consists.
That will do, perhaps, as a short account of the ideal scope of
anthropology. Being short, it is bound to be rather formal and
colourless. To put some body into it, however, it is necessary to
breathe but a single word. That word is: Darwin.
Anthropology is the child of Darwin. Darwinism makes it possible.
Reject the Darwinian point of view, and you must reject anthropology
also. What, then, is Darwinism? Not a cut-and-dried doctrine. Not a
dogma. Darwinism is a working hypothesis. You suppose something to
be true, and work away to see whether, in the light of that supposed
truth, certain facts fit together better than they do on any other
supposition. What is the truth that Darwinism supposes? Simply that
all the forms of life in the world are related together; and that the
relations manifested in time and space between the different lives
are sufficiently uniform to be described under a general formula, or
law of evolution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account