ANTHROPOLOGY, that branch of natural history which deals with the human species (from Gr. anthropos, man; logos, theory). It is thus part of biology, the science of living things in general. Indeed, it was the development of biological studies dur ing the I 9th century, chiefly due to the stimulus afforded by research into the origin of species, that brought anthropology into being in its modern form. Of course the Greeks, from whom the whole scientific outlook of the western world is derived, were quite prepared to assign man a place in the animal kingdom, assuming him to be subject to natural law no less than any other organism. But, although they had the right spirit of disinterested inquiry, together with an imaginative genius that gave birth to the most ingenious speculations—so that Anaximander, for in stance, actually anticipated the modern theory of the evolution of life,—yet the Greeks were without the facts on which a uni versal science of mankind could be built. Theirs was a very nar row world, and a few years back or a few miles away brought them to the unknown.
The Igth century, on the other hand, found civilized man not only able to explore the entire face of the globe, but also eager to occupy and exploit it. Again, onwards from the earliest years of the same century, when Denmark got to work on its pre historic shell-heaps, archaeological research had been amassing evidence of the high antiquity of man; so that by the middle of it—in fact, just before Darwin published his Origin of Species— clear proof had been obtained that a cave-man, the contemporary of the cave-bear, had existed untold millennia before the so called "ancient" civilizations, such as Egypt or Babylon, had begun to flourish. Thus the time was at length ripe for a world wide, age-long survey of the human record.
remained to devise the most scientific way of handling so vast a subject. Now science may be defined as common sense controlled by method. The question, then, was how best to introduce method, that is, unity of aim and consequent thoroughness of procedure, into a study em bracing a diversity of matters hitherto considered disconnectedly and therefore without much profit. At this juncture Darwin revolutionized biology, and his theory of the struggle for exis tence—suggested to him in the first instance by Malthus's treat ment of a human problem, namely, how population is to be adjusted to food-supply—immediately served to supply the new science of man with a plan of campaign. If there is a struggle for existence not only between the human species and the other forms of life, but also within the species itself, it ought to be possible to show, by reference to the facts of history taken as a whole, what is the relative value of different kinds of behaviour.
and of the physical and mental powers involved in such behav iour, as they severally affect survival. This central interest pervading and unifying all anthropological studies may be termed "evolutionary," because life-process in general can be represented as the evolution or "unfolding" of certain powers at the expense of others that are gradually eliminated. If, however, the word is for any reason disliked, the more colourless expression "genetic" may be substituted, signifying that attention is concentrated on genesis, that is, the mode of birth, or becoming.
Given human survival, then, as the prime object of anthropological study, its attainment through superiority in adaptation to the conditions of life can be treated as a problem involving three factors, namely, environment, race and culture. Correspondingly, anthropology has three branches, anthro-geography, physical anthropology, and cultural anthro pology, which deal with these three principles singly. A fourth division considers the three in one, that is, correlates results, and is known as ethnology (q.v.). Derived from the Gr. ethnos, "people," it compares peoples or "ethnic types" in respect to their effectiveness as agencies of survival. Though survival is in the last resort an affair between individuals, it is only in so far as the individual conforms to some ethnic type that his chances of survival lend themselves to an anthropological estimate. Habi tat, race and culture alike help to create an ethnic type, though at different stages in human history they exert influence in vary ing degree, culture, for instance, counting for little at the start, but later playing a prepotent part in the shaping of peoples.
So much, then, for the scheme of topics that will be followed here. It would seem to be the only system that will directly subserve explanatory purposes; whereas other ways of breaking up the subject, based on practical rather than logical considerations, cut across the real connexions of the facts—in a word, do not carve at the joints. Thus nothing could be more arbitrary than to divorce from each other the prehistoric man, the modern savage and the civilized man, as if, because there were specialized methods of studying each, they were not equally subject to the same biological laws. Or, again, culture comprises languages, arts and crafts, and social institutions, with which comparative philology, comparative technology and social anthro pology can deal to some extent separately; yet nothing but a superficial and one-sided treatment will result unless the nature and function of culture in general be constantly borne in mind. In short, a man is not an anthropologist merely by reason of the fact that his studies have some bearing on the history of man; for most studies have that. To be worthy of the name he must try to see human history as a whole ; and its interpretation in terms of vital loss and gain must be the ultimate aim to which his work, however special, is directed.
