the particular creed in connection with which it finds them, that
anthropology deals. Its method is that of biology. Without bias, without
assumptions of relative truth or falsity, the anthropologist searches
into origins, traces variations, compares and classifies, and relates
the several families to one ordinal group. He must be what was said of
Dante, "a theologian to whom no dogma is foreign." Unfortunately, this
method, whose application to the physical sciences is unchallenged, is,
when applied to beliefs, regarded as one of attack, instead of being one
of explanation. But this should not deter; and if in analyzing a belief
we kill a superstition, this does but show what mortality lay at its
core. For error cannot survive dissection. Moreover, as John Morley puts
it, "to tamper with veracity is to tamper with the vital force of human
progress." Therefore, delivering impartial judgment, the verdict of
anthropology upon the whole matter is that the claims of Christian
theologians to a special and divine origin of their religion are refuted
by the accordant evidence of the latest utterances of a science whose
main concern is with the origin, nature, and destiny of man.
The extension of the comparative method to the various products of
man's intellectual and spiritual nature is the logical sequence to the
adoption of that method throughout every department of the universe. Of
course it starts with the assumption of differences in things, else it
would be superfluous. But it equally starts with the assumption of
resemblances, and in every case it has brought out the fact that the
differences are superficial, and that the resemblances are fundamental.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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