It remains to add that, hitherto, anthropology has devoted most of
its attention to the peoples of rude--that is to say, of
simple--culture, who are vulgarly known to us as "savages." The main
reason for this, I suppose, is that nobody much minds so long as the
darwinizing kind of history confines itself to outsiders. Only when
it is applied to self and friends is it resented as an impertinence.
But, although it has always up to now pursued the line of least
resistance, anthropology does not abate one jot or tittle of its claim
to be the whole science, in the sense of the whole history, of man.
As regards the word, call it science, or history, or anthropology,
or anything else--what does it matter? As regards the thing, however,
there can be no compromise. We anthropologists are out to secure this:
that there shall not be one kind of history for savages and another
kind for ourselves, but the same kind of history, with the same
evolutionary principle running right through it, for all men,
civilized and savage, present and past.
* * * * *
So much for the ideal scope of anthropology. Now, in the second place,
for its ideal limitations. Here, I am afraid, we must touch for a moment
on very deep and difficult questions. But it is well worth while to
try at all costs to get firm hold of the fact that anthropology, though
a big thing, is not everything.
It will be enough to insist briefly on the following points: that
anthropology is science in whatever way history is science; that it
is not philosophy, though it must conform to its needs; and that it
is not policy, though it may subserve its designs.
Anthropology is science in the sense of specialized research that aims
at truth for truth's sake. Knowing by parts is science, knowing the
whole as a whole is philosophy. Each supports the other, and there
is no profit in asking which of the two should come first. One is aware
of the universe as the whole universe, however much one may be resolved
to study its details one at a time. The scientific mood, however, is
uppermost when one says: Here is a particular lot of things that seem
to hang together in a particular way; let us try to get a general idea
of what that way is. Anthropology, then, specializes on the particular
group of human beings, which itself is part of the larger particular
group of living beings. Inasmuch as it takes over the evolutionary
principle from the science dealing with the larger group, namely
biology, anthropology may be regarded as a branch of biology. Let it
be added, however, that, of all the branches of biology, it is the
one that is likely to bring us nearest to the true meaning of life;
because the life of human beings must always be nearer to human students
of life than, say, the life of plants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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