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 511 
 
 Brinton. 
 
 <pt^ 
 
AN 
 
 Ethnologists View of History. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, 
 
 AT 
 
 Trenton, New Jersey, January 28, 1896. 
 
 DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL. D., D. Sc. 
 
 Professor of American Archaeology in the University of 
 
 Pennsylvania and of General Ethnology at the 
 
 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
 
 1896. 
 
/y^THROPOLOOY 
 
 

 ANTHROP 
 UBfWRy 
 
 An Ethnologist's View of History. 
 
 Mr. Pri:sident : 
 
 The intelligent thought of the world is ever advancing 
 to a fuller appreciation of the worth of the past to the 
 present and the future. Never before have associations, 
 societies and journals devoted to historical studies been so 
 numerous. All times and tribes are searched for memo- 
 rials ; the remote corners of modern, medieval and an- 
 cient periods are brought under scrutiny ; and going beyond 
 these again, the semi-historic eras of tradition and the 
 nebulous gleams from pre-historic milleniums are diligently 
 scanned, that their uncertain story may be prefaced to that 
 registered in "the syllables of recorded time." 
 
 In this manner a vast mass of material is accumulating 
 with which the historian has to deal. What now is the 
 real nature of the task he sets before himself? What is 
 the mission with which he is entrusted ? 
 
 To understand this task, to appreciate that mission, he 
 must ask himself the broad questions : What is the aim of 
 history? What are the purposes for which it should be 
 studied and written? 
 
 He will tlnd no lack of answers to these inquiries, all 
 offered with equal confidence, but singularly discrepant 
 among themselves. His embarrassment will be that of 
 
 •■'^^^r:^' 
 
 17 
 
selection between widely divergent views, each ably sup- 
 ported by distinguished advocates. 
 
 As I am going to add still another, not exactly like any 
 already on the list, it may well be asked of me to show 
 why one or other of those already current is not as good 
 or better than my own. This requires me to pass in brief 
 review the theories of historic methods, or, as it is properly 
 termed, of the Philosophy of Histor}', which are most pop- 
 ular to-day. 
 
 They may be classified under three leading opinions, as 
 follows : 
 
 I. History should be an accurate record of events, and 
 nothing more ; an exact and disinterested statement of what 
 has taken place, concealing nothing and coloring nothing, 
 reciting incidents in their natural connections, without bias, 
 prejudice, or didactic application of any kind. 
 
 This is certainly a high ideal and an excellent model. 
 For many, yes, for the majority of historical works, none 
 better can be suggested. I place it first and name it as 
 worthiest of all current theories of historical composition. 
 But, I would submit to you, is a literary production answer- 
 ing to this precept, really History? Is it anything more 
 than a well-prepared annal or chronicle? Is it, in fact 
 anything else than a compilation containing the materials 
 of which real history should be composed? 
 
 I consider that the mission of the historian, taken in its 
 completest sense, is something much more, much higher, 
 than the collection and narration of events, no matter how 
 well this is done. The historian should be like the man 
 of science, and group iiis facts under inductive systems so 
 as to reach the general laws which connect and explain 
 them. He should, still further, be like the artist, and en- 
 deavor so to exhibit these connections under literary forms 
 that they present to the reader the impression of a sym- 
 metrical and organic unity, in which each part or event 
 
bears definite relations to all others. Collection and colla- 
 tion are not enough. The historian must " work up his 
 field notes," as the geologists say, so as to extract from his 
 data all the useful results which they are capable of yield- 
 intj. 
 
 I am quite certain that in these objections I can count on 
 the suffrages of most. For the majority of authors write 
 history in a style widely different from that which I have 
 been describing. They are distinctly teachers, though 
 not at all in accord as to what they teach. They are gen- 
 erally advocates, and with more or less openness maintain 
 what I call the second theory of the aim of history, to wit : 
 
 2. History should be a collection of evidence in favor of 
 certain opinions. 
 
 In this category are to be included all religious and poli- 
 tical histories. Their pages are intended to show the deal- 
 ings of God with man ; or the evidences of Christianity, or 
 of one of its sects, Catholicism or Protestantism ; or the 
 sure growth of republican or of monarchial institutions ; or 
 the proof of a divine government of the world ; or the 
 counter-proof that there is no such government ; and the 
 like. 
 
 You will find that most general histories ma}'^ be placed 
 in this class. Probably a man cannot himself have ver}^ 
 strong convictions about politics or religion, and not let 
 them be seen in his narrative of events where such ques- 
 tions are prominently present. A few familiar instances 
 will illustrate this. No one can take either Lingard's or 
 Macauley's History of England as anything more than a 
 plea for either writer's personal views. Gibbon's anti- 
 Christian feeling is as perceptibly disabling to him in many 
 passages as in the church historians is their search for 
 *' acts of Providence," and the hand of God in human af- 
 fairs. 
 
 All such histories suffer from fatal flaws. They are de- 
 
ductive instead of inductive ; they are a defensio sentcnti- 
 arum instead of an invcstigatio veri; they assume the final 
 truth as known, and go not forth to seek it. They are 
 therefore " teleologic," that is, they study the record of 
 man as the demonstration of a problem the solution of 
 which is already known. In this they are essentially 
 " divinatory," claiming foreknowledge of the future ; and, 
 as every ethnologist knows, divination belongs to a stad- 
 ium of incomplete intellectual culture, one considerably 
 short of the highest. As has been well said by Wilhelm 
 von Humboldt, any teleologic theory "disturbs and falsi- 
 fies the facts of histor}^ ; "^ and it has been acutely pointed 
 out by the philosopher Hegel, that it contradicts the notion 
 of progress and is no advance over the ancient tenet of a 
 recurrent cycle. ^ 
 
 I need not dilate upon these errors. They must be pat- 
 ent to you. No matter how noble the conviction, how 
 pure the purpose, there is something nobler and purer than 
 it, and that is, unswerving devotion to rendering in history 
 the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 
 
 I now turn to another opinion, that which teaches that — 
 
 3. History should be a portraiture, more or less ex- 
 tended, of the evolution of the human species. 
 
 This is claimed to be the "scientific" view of history. 
 It was tersely expressed by Alexander von Humboldt in 
 <^he phrase: "The history of the world is the mere ex- 
 pression of a predetermined, that is, fixed, evolution."^ 
 
 It is that advocated by Auguste Comte, Draper and 
 
 'In his epochal essay "DieAufgabe des Geschichtschreibers." Ges- 
 ammelic Wcrkc, Bd. I., s. 13. It was republished with a discriminating 
 introduction by Professor Steinthal in Die Sprachphilosophischen Wcrkc 
 Wilhelm von Iluviboldfs (Berlin, 1883). 
 
 *"Der Zweck-Begriff bewirkt nur sich selbst, und ist am Ende was er 
 im Anfange, in der UnspriJnglichkeit, war." Encyclopddie dcr philoso- 
 phischcn Wissetisc/iaf/cn. Theil, I., § 204. 
 
 3 " Die Weltgeschichte ist der blosse Ausdruck einer vorbestimmten 
 Entwicklung." (Qiioted bj Lord Acton.) 
 
Spencer, and a few years ago Prof. Gerland, of Strasburg, 
 formulated its basic maxim in these words: "Man has 
 developed from the brute through the action of purely me- 
 chanical, therefore fixed, laws."^ 
 
 The scientist of to-day who hesitates to subscribe to 
 these maxims is liable to be regarded as of doubtful learn- 
 ing or of debilitated intellect. I acknowledge that I am 
 one such, and believe that I can show sound reasons for 
 denying the assumption on which this view is based. 
 
 It appears to me just as teleologic and divinatory as those 
 I have previously named. It assumes Evolution as a law 
 of the universe, whereas in natural science it is only a 
 limited generalization, inapplicable to most series of natu- 
 ral events, and therefore of uncertain continuance in any 
 series. The optimism which it inculcates is insecure and 
 belongs to deductive, not inductive, reasoning. The me- 
 chanical theory on which it is based lacks proof, and is, I 
 maintain, insufficient to explain motive, and, therefore, his- 
 toric occurrences. The assumption that history is the 
 record of a necessary and uninterrupted evolution, progres- 
 sing under ironclad mechanical laws, is a preconceived 
 theory as detrimental to clear vision as are the preoccupa- 
 tions of the theologian or the political partisan. 
 
 Any definition of evolution which carries with it the 
 justification of optimism is as erroneous in history, as it 
 would be in biology to assert that all variations are bene- 
 ficial. There is no more certainty that the human species 
 will improve under the operation of physical laws than 
 that any individual will ; there is far more evidence that 
 it will not, as every species of the older geologic ages has 
 succumbed to those laws, usually without leaving a repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 I am aware that I am here in opposition to the popular 
 
 1 "Die Menschheit hat sich aus natiirlicher, tierischer Grundlage auf 
 rein natUrliche mechanische Weise entwickelt." Anthrofolgische Bei- 
 trdge, s. 21. 
 
8 
 
 as well as the scientific view. No commonplace is better 
 received than that, "Eternal progress is the law of na- 
 ture ;" though by what process eternal laws are discovered 
 is imperfectly explained. 
 
 Applied to history, a favorite dream of some of the most 
 recent teachers is that the life of the species runs the same 
 course as that of one of its members. Lord Acton, of Ox- 
 ford, in a late lecture states that: "The development of 
 society is like that of individual ;" ^ and Prof. Fellows, of 
 the University of Chicago, advances the same opinion in 
 the words, " Humanity as a whole developes like a 
 child."" 
 
 The error of this view was clearly pointed out some years 
 ago by Dr. Tobler.^ There has been no growth of hu- 
 manity at large at all comparable to that of the individual. 
 There are tribes to-day in the full stone age, and others 
 in all stages of culture above it. The horizons of progress 
 have been as local as those of geography. No solidarity 
 of advancement exists in the species as a whole. Epochs 
 and stadia of culture vary with race and climate. The 
 much talked of "law of continuity" does not hold good 
 either in national or intellectual growth. 
 
 Such are the criticisms which may be urged against the 
 historical methods now in vogue. What, you will ask, is 
 offered in their stead? That which I offer is the view of 
 the ethnologist. It is not so ambitious as some I have 
 named. It does not deal in eternal laws, nor divine the 
 distant future. The ethnologist does not profess to have 
 been admitted into the counsels of the Almighty, nor to 
 have caught in his grasp the secret purposes of the Uni- 
 verse. He seeks the sufhcient reason for known facts, and 
 
 ^A Lecture on the Study of Hiatoiy, p. i (London, 1895). 
 
 '^See his article "The Relation of Anthropology to the Study of His- 
 tory, " in The American Journal of Socto/o<,'y, July, 1S95. 
 
 ^Ludwig Tobler, in his article " Zur Philosophie der Geschichte," in 
 the Zcitschrift fiir Volkerpsychologie^ Bd. XII., s. 195. 
 
is content with applying the knowledge he gains to present 
 action. 
 
 Before stating the view of the ethnologist, I must briefly 
 describe what the science of Ethnology is. You will see 
 at once how closely it is allied to history, and that the ex- 
 planation of the one almost carries with it the prescription 
 for the other. 
 
 It begins with the acknowledged maxim that man is by 
 nature a gregarious animal, a zoon -poUtikon^ as Aristotle 
 called him, living in society, and owing to society all those 
 traits which it is the business of history, as distinguished 
 from biology, to study. 
 
 From this standpoint, all that the man is he owes to others ; 
 and what the others are, they owe, in part, to him. To- 
 gether, they make up the social unit, at first the family or 
 clan, itself becoming part of a larger unit, a tribe, nation or 
 people. The typical folk, or cthnos, is a social unit, the 
 members of which are bound together by certain traits com- 
 mon to all or most, which impart to them a prevailing char- 
 acter, an organic unity, specific peculiarities and general 
 tendencies. 
 
 You may inquire what these traits are to which I refer 
 as making up ethnic character. The answer cannot be so 
 precise as you would like. We are dealing with a natural 
 phenomenon, and Nature, as Goethe once remarked, never 
 makes groups, but only individuals. The group is a subjec- 
 tive category of our own minds. It is, nevertheless, psy- 
 chologically real, and capable of definition. 
 
 The Ethnos must be defined, like a species of natural 
 history, by a rehearsal of a series of its characteristics, not 
 by one alone. The members of this series are numerous, 
 and by no means of equal importance ; I shall mention the 
 most prominent of them, and in the order in which I be- 
 lieve they should be ranked for influence on national 
 character. 
 
lO 
 
 First, I should rank Language. Not only is it the me- 
 dium of intelligible intercourse, of thought-tranference, but 
 thought itself is powerfully aided or impeded by the modes 
 of its expression in sound. As "spoken language," in 
 poetry and oratory, its might is recognized on all hands ; 
 while in " written language," as literature, it works silently 
 but with incalculable effect on the character of a people.^ 
 
 Next to this I should place Government, understanding 
 this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on 
 which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with 
 woman, family, therefore, as well as society ties. This 
 includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relation- 
 ship and descent, the rights of property and the customs 
 of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, 
 and those international relations on which depend war and 
 peace. I need not enlarge on the profound impress which 
 these exert on the traits of the people. - 
 
 After these I should name Religion, though some bril- 
 liant scholars, such as Schelling and Max Miiller,^ have 
 claimed for it the first place as a formative influence on 
 ethnic character. No one will deny the prominent rank it 
 holds in the earlier stages of human culture. It is scarcely 
 too much to say that most of the waking hours of the 
 males of some tribes are taken up with religious ceremo- 
 
 ' One of the most lucid of modern German philosophical writers sajs, 
 "Without language, there could be no unity of mental life, no national 
 life at all." Friedrich Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, p. 193. 
 (English translation, New York, 1895.) I need scarcely recall to the 
 student that this was the cardinal principle of the ethnological writings 
 of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and that his most celebi-ated essay is entitled 
 " Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren 
 Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts." The 
 thought is well and tersely put by Prof. Frank Granger — "Language is 
 the instinctive expression of national spirit." ( The Worship of the Ro- 
 mans^ p. 19, London, 1S96.) 
 
 ^"Law, in its positive forms, may be viewed as an instrument used to 
 produce a certain kind of character." Frank Granger, ubi supra, p. 19. 
 
 -' Lectures on the Science of Religion, p. 55. 
 
II 
 
 nies. Religion is, however, essentially " divinatory," that 
 is, its chief end and aim is toward the future, not the pres- 
 ent, and therefore the impress it leaves on national charac- 
 ter is far less permanent, much more ephemeral, than either 
 government or language. This is constantly seen in daily 
 life. Persons change their religion with facility, but ad- 
 here resolutely to the laws which protect their property. 
 The mighty empire of Rome secured ethnic unity to a de- 
 gree never since equalled in parallel circumstances, and its 
 plan was to tolerate all religions — as, indeed, do all enlight- 
 ened states to-day — but to insist on the adoption of the 
 Roman law, and, in official intercourse, the Latin language. 
 I have not forgotten the converse example of the Jews, 
 which some attribute to their religion ; but the Romany, 
 who have no religion worth mentioning, have been just as 
 tenacious of their traits under similar adverse circumstances. 
 
 The Arts, those of Utility, such as pottery, building, 
 agriculture and the domestication of animals, and those of 
 Pleasure, such as music, painting and sculpture, must come 
 in for a full share of the ethnologist's attention. They 
 represent, however, stadia of culture rather than national 
 character. They influence the latter materially and are 
 influenced by it, and different peoples have toward them 
 widely different endowments ; but their action is generally 
 indirect and unequally distributed throughout the social 
 unit. 
 
 These four fields, Language, Government, Religion 
 and the Arts, are those which the ethnologist explores 
 when he would render himself acquainted with a nation's 
 character ; and now a few words about the methods of 
 study he adopts, and the aims, near or remote, which he 
 keeps in view. 
 
 He first gathers his facts, from the best sources at his 
 command, with the closest sifting he can give them, so as 
 to exclude errors of observation or intentional bias. From 
 
12 
 
 the facts he aims to discover on the above Hnes what are or 
 were the regular characteristics of the people or peoples he 
 is studying. The ethnic differences so revealed are to him 
 what organic variations are to the biologist and morpholo- 
 gist ; they indicate evolution or retrogression, and show an 
 advance toward higher forms and wider powers, or toward 
 increasing feebleness and decay. 
 
 To understand them they must be studied in connection 
 and causation. Hence, the method of the ethnologist be- 
 comes that which in the natural sciences is called the " de- 
 velopmental " method. It may be defined as the historic 
 method where history is lacking. The biologist explains 
 the present structure of an organ by tracing it back to 
 simpler forms in lower animals until he reaches the germ 
 from which it began. The ethnologist pursues the same 
 course. He selects, let us say, a peculiar institution, such 
 as caste, and when he loses the traces of its origin through 
 failure of written records, he seeks for them in the survivals 
 of unwritten folk-lore, or in similar forms in primitive con- 
 ditions of culture. 
 
 Here is where Arch£eology renders him most efficient 
 aid. By means of it he has been able to follow the trail 
 of most of the arts and institutions of life back to a period 
 when they were so simple and uncomplicated that they are 
 quite transparent and intelligible. Later changes are to 
 be analyzed and explained by the same procedure.* 
 
 This is the whole of the ethnologic method. It is open 
 and easy when the facts are in our possession. There are 
 no secret springs, no occult forces, in the historic develop- 
 ment of culture. Whatever seems hidden or mysterious, 
 is so only because our knowledge of the facts is imperfect. 
 No magic and no miracle has aided man in his long con- 
 
 1 Mow different from the position of Voltaire, wiio, expressing, the 
 general sentiment of his times, wrote, — "The history of barbarous na- 
 tions has no more interest than that of bears and wolves!" 
 
13 
 
 flict with the material forces around him. No ghost has 
 come from the grave, no God from on high, to help 
 him in the bitter struggle. What he has won is his own 
 by the right of conquest, and he can apply to himself the 
 words of the poet : 
 
 " Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet, 
 Ileilig gliihend Herz?" {Goct/ic). 
 
 Freed from fear we can now breathe easily, for we know 
 that no Dcus ex machina meddles with those serene and 
 mighty forces whose adamantine grasp encloses all the 
 phenomena of nature and of life. 
 
 The ethnologist, however, has not completed his task 
 when he has defined an cthnos, and explained its traits by 
 following them to their sources. He has merely prepared 
 himself for a more delicate and difficult part of his under- 
 taking. 
 
 It has been well said by one of the ablest ethnologists of 
 this generation, the late Dr. Post, of Bremen, that "The 
 facts of ethnology must ever be regarded as the expres- 
 sions of the general consciousness of Humanity."^ The 
 time has passed when real thinkers can be satisfied with 
 the doctrines of the positive philosophers, who insisted 
 that events and institutions must be explained solely from 
 the phenomenal or objective world, that is, by other 
 events. 
 
 Sounder views prevail, both in ethnology and its history. 
 " The history of man," says a German writer, " is neither 
 a divine revelation, nor a process of nature ; it is first and 
 above all, the work of man ;"^ an opinion reiterated by Prof. 
 Flint in his work on the philosophy of history in these 
 
 1 Gru7idrissder eflniologischen Jiirisfrudenz, Bd. I., s. 5. (Leipzig, 1S94.) 
 
 2 "Das Geschichte ist weder eine Oft'enbarung Gottes, noch ein Natur- 
 process, sonderneben Menschenwerk." Tobler in \.h.& Zcitschrift fur V'ol- 
 kerpsychologie, Bd. XII., s. 201. 
 
H 
 
 words : " History is essentially the record of the work and 
 manifestation of human nature.''''^ In both sciences it is 
 the essentially human which alone occupies us ; it is the 
 life of man. 
 
 Now men do not live in material things, but in mental 
 states ; and solely as they affect these are the material 
 things valuable or valueless. Religions, arts, laws, his- 
 toric events, all have but one standard of appraisement, to 
 wit, the degree to which they produce permanently benefi- 
 cial mental states in the individuals influenced by them. 
 All must agree to this, though they may differ widely as 
 to what such a mental state may be ; whether one of plea- 
 surable activity, or that of the Buddhist hermit who sinks 
 into a trance by staring at his navel, or that of the Trappist 
 monk whose occupations are the meditation of death and dig- 
 ging his own grave. 
 
 The ethnologist must make up his own mind about this, 
 and with utmost care, for if his standard of merit and de- 
 merit is erroneous, his results, however much he labors on 
 them, will have no permanent value. There are means, 
 if he chooses to use them, which will aid him here. 
 
 He must endeavor to picture vividly to himself the men- 
 tal condition which gave rise to special arts and institu- 
 tions, or which these evolved in the people. He must as- 
 certain whether they increased or diminished the joy of 
 living, or stimulated the thirst for knowledge and the love of 
 the true and the beautiful. He must cultivate the liveliness 
 of imagination which will enable him to transport himself 
 into the epoch and surroundings he is studying, and feel 
 on himself, as it were, their peculiar influences. More 
 than all, chief of all, he must have a broad, many-sided, 
 tender sympathy with all things human, enabling him to 
 appreciate the emotions and arguments of all parties and 
 all peoples. 
 
 '^History of the Philosophy of IIisio>y, p. 579. 
 
15 
 
 Such complete comprehension and spiritual accord 
 will not weaken, but will strengthen his clear perception 
 of those standards by which all actions and institutions 
 must ultimately be weighed and measured. There are 
 such standards, and the really learned ethnologist will be 
 the last to deny or overlook them. 
 
 The saying of Goethe that "The most unnatural action 
 is yet natural," is a noble suggestion of tolerance ; but 
 human judgment can scarcely go to the length of Madame 
 de Stael's opinion, when she claims that "To understand 
 all actions is to pardon all." We must brush away the 
 sophisms which insist that all standards are merely rela- 
 tive, and that time and place alone decide on right and 
 wrong. Were that so, not only all morality, but all sci- 
 ence and all knowledge were fluctuating as sand. But it 
 is not so. The principles of Reason, Truth, Justice and 
 Love have been, are, and ever will be the same. Time 
 and place, race and culture, make no difference. When- 
 ever a country is engaged in the diffusion of these immor- 
 tal verities, whenever institutions are calculated to foster 
 and extend them, that country, those institutions, take noble 
 precedence over all others whose efforts are directed to 
 lower aims. ^ 
 
 Something else remains. When the ethnologist has ac- 
 quired a competent knowledge of his facts, and deduced 
 from them a clear conception of the mental states of the 
 peoples he is studying, he has not finished his labors. In- 
 stitutions and arts in some degree reflect the mental condi- 
 tions of a people, in some degree bring them about ; but 
 
 ^ There is nothing in this inconsistent with the principle laid down by 
 Lecky : "The men of each age must be judged bj the ideal of their own 
 age and country, and not by the ideal of ourselves." — The Political Value 
 of History^ p. 50, New York, 1892. The distinction is that between the 
 relative standard, which we apply to motives and persons, and the absolute 
 standard, which we apply to actions. The effects of the latter, for good 
 or evil, are fixed, and independent of the motives which prompt them. 
 
i6 
 
 the underlying source of both is something still more im- 
 material and intangible, yet more potent, to wit, Ideas 
 and Ideals. These are the primary impulses of conscious 
 human endeavor, and it is vain to attempt to understand 
 ethnology or to write history without assigning their con- 
 sideration the first place in the narration. 
 
 I am anxious to avoid here any metaphysical obscurity. 
 
 J My assertion is, that the chief impulses of nations and 
 
 I peoples are abstract ideas and ideals, unreal and unrealiz- 
 
 fable; and that it is in pursuit of these that the great as 
 
 well as the small movements on the arena of national life 
 
 and on the stage of history have taken place. 
 
 You are doubtless aware that this is no new discovery of 
 mine. Early in this century Wilhelm von Humboldt 
 wrote : "The last and highest duty of the historian is to 
 portray the effort of the Idea to attain realization in fact ;" 
 and the most recent lecture on the philosophy of history 
 which I have read, that by Lord Acton, contains this 
 maxim : " Ideas which in religion and politics are truths, 
 in history are living forces." 
 
 I do claim that it is timely for me to repeat these doctrines 
 and to urge them with vehemence, for they are generally 
 repudiated by the prevailing schools of ethnology and his- 
 tory in favor of the opinion that objective, mechanical in- 
 fluences alone suffice to explain all the phenomena of 
 human life. This I pronounce an inadequate and an un- 
 scientific opinion. 
 
 There is in living matter everywhere something which 
 escapes the most exhaustive investigation, some subtle 
 center of impulse, which lies beyond the domain of corre- 
 lated energy, and which acts directively, without increas- 
 ing or diminishing the total of that energ3^ Also in the 
 transformations of organic forms, there are preparations 
 and propulsions which no known doctrine of the mechan- 
 ical, natural causes can interpret. We must accept the 
 
17 
 
 presence of the same powers, and in a greater degree, in 
 the life and the history of man.^ 
 
 It may be objected that abstract ideas are far beyond the 
 grasp of the uncultivated intellect. The reply is, con- 
 sciously to regard them as abstract, may be ; but they ex- 
 ist and act for all that. All sane people think and talk ac- 
 cording to certain abstract laws of grammar and logic ; 
 and they act in similar unconsciousness of the abstractions 
 which impel them. Moreover, the Idea is usually clothed 
 in a concrete Ideal, a personification, which brings it home 
 to the simplest mind. This was long ago pointed out by 
 the observant Machiavelli in his statement that every re- 
 form of a government or religion is in the popular mind 
 personified as the effort of one individual. 
 
 In every nation or ethnos there is a prevailing opinion as 
 to what the highest tvpical human being should be. This 
 " Ideal of Humanity," as it has been called, is more or less 
 constantly and consciously pursued, and becomes a spur to 
 national action and to a considerable degree an arbiter of 
 national destiny. If the ideal is low and bestial, the course 
 of that nation is downward, self-destroying ; if it is lofty 
 and pure, the energies of the people are directed toward 
 the maintenance of those principles which are elevating 
 and preservative. These are not mechanical forces, in any 
 rational sense of the term ; but they are forces the potent 
 directive and formative influence of which cannot be denied 
 and must not be underestimated. 
 
 Just in proportion as such ideas are numerous, clear and 
 true in the national mind, do their power augment and 
 their domain extend ; just so much more quickly and firmly 
 do they express themselves, in acts, forms and institutions, 
 and thus enable the nation to enrich, beautify and 
 strengthen its own existence. We have but to glance 
 
 J "The historian," says Tolstoi, " is obliged to admit an inexplicable 
 force, -which acts upon his elementary forces." Po-aier and Liberty^ p> 
 28 (Eng. Trans., New York, 18S8). 
 
along the nations of the world and to reflect on the outlines 
 of their histories, to perceive the correctness of the conclu- 
 sion which Prof. Lazarus, perhaps the most eminent ana- 
 lyst of ethnic character of this generation, reaches in one 
 of his essays: " A people which is not rich in ideas, is 
 never rich ; one that is not strong in its thinking powers, 
 is never strong."^ 
 
 I claim, therefore, that the facts of ethnology and the 
 study of racial psychology justify me in formulating this 
 maxim for the guidance of the historian : The conscious 
 and deliberate -piirstiit of ideal aims is the highest causality 
 in human history. 
 
 The historian who would fulfil his mission in its amplest 
 sense must trace his facts back to the ideas which gave 
 them birth ; he must recognize and define these as the 
 properties of specific peoples ; and he must estimate their 
 worth by their tendency to national preservation or national 
 destruction. 
 
 This is the maxim, the axiom, if you please, which both 
 the ethnologist and the historian must bear ever present in 
 mind if they would comprehend the meaning of institu- 
 tions or the significance of events. They must be referred 
 to, and explained by, the ideas which gave them birth. 
 As an American historian has tersely put it, "The facts 
 relating to successive phases of human thought constitute 
 History." 2 
 
 I am aware that a strong school of modern philosophers 
 will present the objection that thought itself is but a neces- 
 sary result of chemical and mechanical laws, and therefore 
 that it cannot be an independent cause. Dr. Post has 
 pointedly expressed this position in the words: "We do 
 
 ' See his article " Ueber die Ideen in der Geschichte," in the Zcitsclirift 
 fur Volker psychologic. Bd. III., S. 486. 
 
 ^Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay, Preface (Lon- 
 don, 1895). This author lias reached an advanced position -with reference 
 to thought and emotion as the impulses of humanity. 
 
19 
 
 not think ; thinking goes on within us," ^ just as other 
 functions, such as circulation and secretion, go on. 
 
 It is not possible for me at this time to enter into this 
 branch of the discussion. But I may ask your attention 
 to the fact that one of the highest authorities on the laws 
 of natural science, the late George J. Romanes, reached 
 by the severest induction an exactly opposite opinion, which 
 he announced in these words : "The human mind is itself 
 a causal agent. Its motives are in large part matters of 
 its own creation. * * * Intelligent volition is a true 
 cause of adjustive movement."' 
 
 For myself, after what I have endeavored to make an 
 unbiased study of both opinions, I subscribe unhesitatingly 
 to the latter, and look upon Mind not only as a potent but 
 as an independent cause of motion in the natural world, of 
 action in the individual life, and, therefore, of events in the 
 history of the species. 
 
 Confining ourselves to ethnology and history, the causa- 
 tive idea, as I have said, makes itself felt through ethnic 
 ideals. These are influential in proportion as they are 
 vividl}' realized by the national genius ; and elevating in pro- 
 portion as they partake of those final truths already referred 
 to, which are all merely forms of expression of right rea- 
 soning. These ideals are the idola/ori, which have some- 
 times deluded, sometimes glorified, those who believed in 
 them. 
 
 I shall mention a few of them to make my meaning more 
 apparent. 
 
 That with which we are most familiar in history is the 
 warrior ideal, the personification of military glory and 
 martial success. It is present among the rudest tribes, and 
 
 1 Gru>idiiss der ethnologischen Jurisfrudenz, Band I., s. 4. 
 
 "^ Mind and Motion^ pp. 29, 140, etc. (London, 1895.) Prof. Paulsen 
 goes much further, as, "The inner disposition spontaneously determines 
 the development of the individual," and "The organism is, as it were, 
 congealed voluntary- action." — hitrodnctton to Philosophy, pp, 1S7, 190. 
 
20 
 
 that it is active to-day, events in recent European history 
 prove only too clearly ; and among ourselves, little would 
 be needed to awaken it to vivid life. 
 
 We are less acquainted with religious ideals, as they have 
 weakened under the conditions of higher culture. They 
 belong in European history more to the medieval than to 
 the modern period. Among Mohammedans and Brahmins 
 we can still see them in their full vigor. In these lower 
 faiths we can still find that intense fanaticism which can 
 best be described by the expression of Novalis, "intoxi- 
 cated with God," drunk with the divine ;^ and this it is 
 which preserves to these nations what power they still re- 
 tain. 
 
 Would that I could claim for our own people a grander 
 conception of the purpose of life than either of these. But 
 alas ! their ideal is too evident to be mistaken. I call it 
 the " divitial " ideal, that of the rich man, that which makes 
 the acquisition of material wealth the one standard of suc- 
 cess in life, the only justifiable aim of effort. To most 
 American citizens the assertion that there is any more im- 
 portant, more sensible purpose than this, is simply incom- 
 prehensible or incredible. 
 
 In place of any of these, the man who loves his kind 
 would substitute others ; and as these touch closel}' on the 
 business of the ethnologist and the historian when either 
 would apply the knowledge he has gained to the present 
 condition of society, I will briefly refer to some advanced 
 by various writers. 
 
 The first and most favorite is that of moral perfection. 
 It has been formulated in the expression : "In the prog- 
 ress of ethical conceptions lies the progress of history it- 
 self." (Schafer.) To such writers the ideal of duty per- 
 formed transcends all others, and is complete in itself. The 
 
 'Before him, however, the expression " ebriiis Deo" was applied to the 
 ancient rhapsodists. 
 
21 
 
 chief end of man, they say, is to lead the moral life, dili- 
 gently to cultivate the ethical perception, the notion of 
 " the ought," and to seek in this the finality of his existence.^ 
 
 Keener thinkers have, however, recognized that virtue, 
 morality, the ethical evolution, cannot be an end in itself, 
 but must be a means to some other end. Effort directed 
 toward other, altruism in any form, must have its final 
 measurement of value in terms of self ; otherwise the im- 
 mutable principles of justice are attacked. I cannot en- 
 large upon this point, and will content myself with a refer- 
 ence to Prof. Steinthal's admirable essay on "The Idea of 
 ethical Perfection," published some years ago.^ He shows 
 that in its last analysis the Good has its value solely in the 
 freedom which it confers. Were all men truly ethical, all 
 would be perfectly free. Therefore Freedom, in its highest 
 sense, according to him and several other accomplished 
 reasoners, is the aim of morality, and is that which gives it 
 worth. 
 
 This argument seems to me a step ahead, but yet 
 to remain incomplete. For after all, what is freedom? It 
 means only opportunity, not action ; and opportunity alone 
 is a negative quantity, a zero. Opportunity for what, I 
 ask? 
 
 For an answer, I turn with satisfaction to an older writer 
 on the philosophy of history, one whose genial sympathy 
 with the human heart glows on every page of his volumes, 
 to Johann Gottfried von Herder.^ The one final aim, he 
 tells us, of all institutions, laws, governments and religions, 
 
 'As expressed by Prof. Drojsen, in his work, Principles of History, 
 (p. i6, New York, 1893), recently translated by President Andrews, of 
 Brown University — "Historical things are the perpetual actualization of 
 the moral forces." Elsewhere he says — "History is humanity becoming 
 conscious concerning itself," There is no objection to such expressions ; 
 they are good as far as they go ; but they do not go to the end. 
 
 ''In the Zeitschrift fUr Volkerpsychologie, Band XI., Heft II. 
 
 ' Idcen ziir Geschichte dcr Mensc/iJieit, B. XV., Cap. I. 
 
22 
 
 of all efforts and events, is that each person, undisturbed 
 by others, may employ his own powers to their fullest ex- 
 tent, and thus gain for himself a completer existence, a 
 more beautiful enjoyment of his faculties. 
 
 Thus, to the enriching of the individual life, its worth, 
 its happiness and its fullness, does all endeavor of human- 
 ity tend ; in it, lies the end of all exertion, the rev/ard of all 
 toil ; to define it, should be the object of ethnology ; and to 
 teach it, the purpose of history. 
 
 Let me recapitulate. 
 
 The ethnologist regards each social group as an entity or 
 individual, and endeavors to place clearly before his mind 
 its similarities and differences with other groups. Taking 
 objective facts as his guides, such as laws, arts, institutions 
 and language, he seeks from these to understand the men- 
 tal life, the psychical welfare of the people, and beyond 
 this to reach the ideals which they cherished and the ideas 
 which were the impulses of their activities. Events and 
 incidents, such as are recorded in national annals, have for 
 him their main, if not only value, as indications of the 
 inner or soul life of the people. 
 
 By the comparison of several social groups he reaches 
 wider generalizations ; and finally to those which charac- 
 terize the common consciousness of Humanity, the psy- 
 chical universals of the species. By such comparison he 
 also ascertains under what conditions and in what direc- 
 tions men have progressed most rapidly toward the culti- 
 vation and the enjoyment of the noblest elements of their 
 nature ; and this strictly inductive knowledge is that alone 
 which he would apply to furthering the present needs and 
 aspirations of social life. 
 
 This is the method which he would suggest for history 
 in the broad meaning of the term. It should be neither a 
 mere record of events, nor the demonstration of a thesis, 
 but a study, through occurrences and institutions, of the 
 
23 
 
 mental states of peoples at different epochs, explanatory 
 of their success or failure, and practically applicable to 
 the present needs of human society. 
 
 Such explanation should be strictly limited in two direc- 
 tions. First, by the principle that man can be explained 
 only by man, and can be so explained completely. That 
 is, no super-human agencies need be invoked to interpret 
 any of the incidents of history : and, on the other hand, no 
 merely material or mechanical conditions, such as climate, 
 food and environment, are sufficient for a full interpreta- 
 tion. Beyond these lie the inexhaustible sources of im- 
 pulse in the essence of Mind itself. 
 
 Secondly, the past can teach us nothing of the future 
 beyond a vague surmise. All theories which proceed on 
 an assumption of knowledge concerning finalities, whether 
 in science or dogma, are cobwebs of the brain, not the 
 fruit of knowledge, and obscure the faculty of intellectual 
 perception. It is wasteful of one's time to frame them, and 
 fatal to one's w'ork to adopt them. 
 
 These are also two personal traits which, it seems to me, 
 are requisite to the comprehension of ethnic psychology, 
 and therefore are desirable to both the ethnologist and the 
 historian. The one of these is the poetic instinct. 
 
 I fear this does not sound well from the scientific rostrum, 
 for the prevailing notion among scientists is that the poet 
 is a fabulist, and is therefore as far off as possible from the 
 platform they occupy. No one, how^ever, can really un- 
 derstand a people who remains outside the pale of the world of 
 imagination in which it finds its deepest joys ; and nowhere 
 is this depicted so clearly as in its songs and by its bards. 
 The ethnologist who has no taste for poetry may gather 
 much that is good, but will miss the best ; the historian who 
 neglects the poetic literature of a nation turns away his 
 eyes from the vista w^hich would give him the farthest 
 insight into national character. 
 
24 
 
 The other trait is more difficult to define. To apprehend 
 what is noblest in a nation one must oneself be noble. 
 Knowledge of facts and an unbiased judgment need to be 
 accompanied by a certain development of personal char- 
 acter which enables one to be in sympathy with the finest 
 tissue of human nature, from the fibre of which are formed 
 heroes and martyrs, patriots and saints, enthusiasts and 
 devotees. To appreciate these something of the same 
 stuff must be in the mental constitution of the observer. 
 
 Such is the ethnologist's view of history. He does not 
 pretend to be either a priest or a prophet. He claims 
 neither to possess the final truth nor to foresee it. He is, 
 therefore equally unwelcome to the dogmatist, the optim- 
 istic naturalist and the speculative philosopher. He refuses 
 any explanations which either contradict or transcend 
 human reason ; but he insists that human reason is one of 
 the causal facts which he has to consider ; and this brings 
 him into conflict with both the mystic and the materialist. 
 
 Though he exalts the power of ideas, he is no idealist, 
 but practical to the last degree ; for he denies the worth of 
 any art, science, event or institution which does not directly 
 or indirectly contribute to the elevation of the individual 
 man or woman, the common average person, the human 
 being. 
 
 To this one end, understanding it as we best can, he 
 claims all effort should tend ; and any other view than this 
 of the philosophy of history, any other standard of value 
 applied to the records of the past, he looks upon as delu- 
 sive and deceptive, no matter under what heraldry of title 
 or seal of sanctity it is offered. 
 
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