Boas:
The Limitations of the Comparative Method
This is one of Franz Boas's
finest theoretical statements. It not only provides a valuable critique
of the method characteristic of late 19th century evolutionary anthropology
(which you have seen in use by, eg, Tylor and Morgan), but it also gives
an accurate description of the general strategy which Boas and his students
followed in their ethnographic work. Beyond that, it has the great virtue
of being clearly and simply written. The essay was originally published
in 1896 in Science
(new series) 4: 901-8; but I have inserted the pagination of the more commonly
referenced reprint, which appeared in Boas's own collection from among
his articles: Race, Language and Culture,
published in 1940 (New York: The Free Press). The single citation (to Andree)
is omitted.
THE LIMITATIONS OF THE COMPARATIVE
METHOD OF ANTHROPOLOGY
Modern anthropology has discovered the fact that
human society has grown and developed everywhere in such a manner that
its forms, its opinions and its actions have many fundamental traits in
common. This momentous discovery implies that laws exist which govern the
development of society, that they are applicable to our society as well
as to those of past times and of distant lands; that their knowledge will
be a means of understanding the causes furthering and retarding civilization;
and that, guided by this knowledge, we may hope to govern our actions so
that the greatest benefit to mankind will accrue from them. Since this
discovery has been clearly formulated, anthropology has begun to receive
that liberal share of public interest which was withheld from it as long
as it was believed that it could do no more than record the curious customs
and beliefs of strange peoples; or, at best, trace their relationships,
and thus elucidate the early migrations of the races of man and the affinities
of peoples.
While early investigators concentrated their attention
upon this purely historical problem, the tide has now completely turned,
so that there are even anthropologists who declare that such investigations
belong to the historian, and that anthropological studies must be confined
to researches on the laws that govern the growth of society.
A radical change of method has accompanied this
change of views. While formerly identities or similarities of culture were
considered incontrovertible proof of historical connection, or even of
common origin, the new school declines to consider them as such, but interprets
them as results of the uniform working of the human mind. The most pronounced
adherent of this view in our country is Dr. D. G. Brinton, in Germany the
majority of the followers of Bastian, who in this respect go much farther
than Bastian himself. Others, while not denying the occurrence of historical
connections, regard them as insignificant in re-
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sults and in theoretical importance as compared to the working of the uniform
laws governing the human mind. This is the view of by far the greater number
of living anthropologists.
This modern view is founded on the observation that
the same ethnical phenomena occur among the most diverse peoples, or, as
Bastian says, on the appalling monotony of the fundamental ideas of mankind
all over the globe. The metaphysical notions of man may be reduced to a
few types which are of universal distribution; the same is the case in
regard to the forms of society, laws and inventions. Furthermore, the most
intricate and apparently illogical ideas and the most curious and complex
customs appear among a few tribes here and there in such a manner that
the assumption of a common historical origin is excluded. When studying
the culture of any one tribe, more or less close analoga of single traits
of such a culture may be found among a great diversity of peoples. Instances
of such analoga have been collected to a vast extent by Tylor, Spencer,
Bastian, Andree, Post and many others, so that it is not necessary to give
here any detailed proof of this fact. The idea of a future life; the one
underlying shamanism; inventions such as fire and the bow; certain elementary
features of grammatical structure -these will suggest the classes of phenomena
to which I refer. It follows from these observations that when we find
analogous single traits of culture among distant peoples, the presumption
is not that there has been a common historical source, but that they have
arisen independently.
But the discovery of these universal ideas is only
the beginning of the work of the anthropologist. Scientific inquiry must
answer two questions in regard to them: First, what is their origin? and
second, how do they assert themselves in various cultures?
The second question is the easier one to answer.
The ideas do not exist everywhere in identical form, but they vary. Sufficient
material has been accumulated to show that the causes of these variations
are either external, that is founded on environment -taking the term environment
in its widest sense- or internal, that is founded on psychological conditions.
The influence of external and internal factors upon elementary ideas embodies
one group of laws governing the growth of culture. Therefore, our endeavors
must be directed to showing how such factors modify elementary ideas.
The first method that suggests itself and which
has been generally adopted by modern anthropologists is to isolate and
classify causes by grouping the variants of certain ethnological phenomena
according to
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external conditions under which the people live, among whom they are found,
or to internal causes which influence their minds; or conversely, by grouping
these variants according to their similarities. Then the correlated conditions
of life may be found.
By this method we begin to recognize even now with
imperfect knowledge of the facts what causes may have been at work in shaping
the culture of mankind. Friedrich Ratzel and W J McGee have investigated
the influence of geographical environment on a broader basis of facts than
Ritter and Guyot were able to do at their time. Sociologists have made
important studies on the effects of the density of population and of other
simple social causes. Thus the influence of external factors upon the growth
of society is becoming clearer.
The effects of psychical factors are also being
studied in the same manner. Stoll has tried to isolate the phenomena of
suggestion and of hypnotism and to study the effects of their presence
in the cultures of various peoples. Inquiries into the mutual relations
of tribes and peoples begin to show that certain cultural elements are
easily assimilated while others are rejected, and the time-worn phrases
of the imposition of culture by a more highly civilized people upon one
of lower culture that has been conquered are giving way to more thorough
views on the subject of exchange of cultural achievements. In all these
investigations we are using sound inductive methods in order to isolate
the causes of observed phenomena.
The other question in regard to the universal ideas,
namely that of their origin, is much more difficult to treat. Many attempts
have been made to discover the causes which have led to the formation of
ideas 'that develop with iron necessity wherever man lives.' This is the
most difficult problem of anthropology and we may expect that it will baffle
our attempts for a long time to come. Bastian denies that it is possible
to discover the ultimate sources of inventions, ideas, customs and beliefs
which are of universal occurrence. They may be indigenous, they may be
imported, they may have arisen from a variety of sources, but they are
there. The human mind is so formed that it invents them spontaneously or
accepts them whenever they are offered to it. This is the much misunderstood
elementary idea of Bastian.
To a certain extent the clear enunciation of the
elementary idea gives us the psychological reason for its existence. To
exemplify: the fact that the land of the shadows is so often placed in
the west suggests the endeavor to localize it at the place where the sun
and the stars vanish.
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The mere statement that primitive man considers animals as gifted with
all the qualities of man shows that the analogy between many of the qualities
of animals and of human beings has led to the generalization that all the
qualities of animals are human. In other cases the causes are not so self-evident.
Thus the question why all languages distinguish between the self, the person
addressed and the person spoken of, and why most languages do not carry
out this sharp, logical distinction in the plural is difficult to answer.
The principle when carried out consistently requires that in the plural
there should be a distinction between the 'we' expressing the self and
the person addressed and the 'we' expressing the self and the person spoken
of, which distinction is found in comparatively few languages only. The
lesser liability to misunderstandings in the plural explains this phenomenon
partly but hardly adequately. Still more obscure is the psychological basis
in other cases, for instance, in that of widely spread marriage customs.
Proof of the difficulty of this problem is the multitude of hypotheses
that have been invented to explain it in all its varied phases.
In treating this, the most difficult problem of
anthropology, the point of view is taken that if an ethnological phenomenon
has developed independently in a number of places its development has been
the same everywhere; or, expressed in a different form, that the same ethnological
phenomena are always due to the same causes. This leads to the still wider
generalization that the sameness of ethnological phenomena found in diverse
regions is proof that the human mind obeys the same laws everywhere. It
is obvious that if different historical developments could lead to the
same results, that then this generalization would not be tenable. Their
existence would present to us an entirely different problem, namely, how
it is that the developments of culture so often lead to the same results.
It must, therefore, be clearly understood that anthropological research
which compares similar cultural phenomena from various parts of the world,
in order to discover the uniform history of their development, makes the
assumption that the same ethnological phenomenon has everywhere developed
in the same manner. Here lies the flaw in the argument of the new method,
for no such proof can be given. Even the most cursory review shows that
the same phenomena may develop in a multitude of ways.
I will give a few examples: Primitive tribes are
almost universally divided into clans which have totems. There can be no
doubt that this form of social organization has arisen independently over
and over
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again. The conclusion is certainly justified that the psychical conditions
of man favor the existence of a totemic organization of society, but it
does not follow that totemic society has developed everywhere in the same
manner. Dr. Washington Matthews believes that the totems of the Navaho
have arisen by association of independent clans. Capt. Bourke assumes that
similar occurrences gave origin to the Apache clans, and Dr. Fewkes has
reached the same conclusion in regard to some of the Pueblo tribes. On
the other hand, we have proof that clans may originate by division. I have
shown that such events took place among the Indians of the North Pacific
coast. Association of small tribes, on the one hand, and disintegration
of increasing tribes, on the other, has led to results which appear identical
to all intents and purposes.
To give another example: Recent investigations have
shown that geometrical designs in primitive art have originated sometimes
from naturalistic forms which were gradually conventionalized, sometimes
from technical motives, that in still other cases they were geometrical
by origin or that they were derived from symbols. From all these sources
the same forms have developed. Out of designs representing diverse objects
grew in course of time frets, meanders, crosses and the like. Therefore
the frequent occurrence of these forms proves neither common origin nor
that they have always developed according to the same psychical laws. On
the contrary, the identical result may have been reached on four different
lines of development and from an infinite number of starting points.
Another example may not be amiss: The use of masks
is found among a great number of peoples. The origin of the custom of wearing
masks is by no means clear in all cases, but a few typical forms of their
use may easily be distinguished. They are used for deceiving spirits as
to the identity of the wearer. The spirit of a disease who intends to attack
the person does not recognize him when he wears a mask, and the mask serves
in this manner as a protection. In other cases the mask represents a spirit
which is personified by the wearer, who in this shape frightens away other
hostile spirits. Still other masks are commemorative. The wearer personifies
a deceased person whose memory is to be recalled. Masks are also used in
theatrical performances illustrating mythological incidents.
These few data suffice to show that the same ethnical
phenomenon
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may develop from different sources. The simpler the observed fact, the
more likely it is that it may have developed from one source here, from
another there.
Thus we recognize that the fundamental assumption
which is so often made by modern anthropologists cannot be accepted as
true in all cases. We cannot say that the occurrence of the same phenomenon
is always due to the same causes, and that thus it is proved that the human
mind obeys the same laws everywhere. We must demand that the causes from
which it developed be investigated and that comparisons be restricted to
those phenomena which have been proved to be effects of the same causes.
We must insist that this investigation be made a preliminary to all extended
comparative studies. In researches on tribal societies those which have
developed through association must be treated separately from those that
have developed through disintegration. Geometrical designs which have arisen
from conventionalized representations of natural objects must be treated
separately from those that have arisen from technical motives. In short,
before extended comparisons are made, the comparability of the material
must be proved.
The comparative studies of which I am speaking here
attempt to explain customs and ideas of remarkable similarity which are
found here and there. But they pursue also the more ambitious scheme of
discovering the laws and the history of the evolution of human society.
The fact that many fundamental features of culture are universal, or at
least occur in many isolated places, interpreted by the assumption that
the same features must always have developed from the same causes, leads
to the conclusion that there is one grand system according to which mankind
has developed everywhere; that all the occurring variations are no more
than minor details in this grand uniform evolution. It is clear that this
theory has for its logical basis the assumption that the same phenomena
are always due to the same causes. To give an instance: We find many types
of structure of family. It can he proved that paternal families have often
developed from maternal ones. Therefore, it is said, all paternal families
have developed from maternal ones. If we do not make the assumption that
the same phenomena have everywhere developed from the same causes, then
we may just as well conclude that paternal families have in some cases
arisen from maternal institutions; in other cases in other ways. To give
another example: Many conceptions of the future life have evidently developed
from dreams and hallucinations. Consequently, it is said, all notions of
this
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character have had the same origin. This is also true only if no other
causes could possibly lead to the same ideas.
We have seen that the facts do not favor at all
the assumption of which we are speaking; that they much rather point in
the opposite direction. Therefore we must also consider all the ingenious
attempts at constructions of a grand system of the evolution of society
as of very doubtful value, unless at the same time proof is given that
the same phenomena must always have had the same origin. Until this is
done, the presumption is always in favor of a variety of courses which
historical growth may have taken.
It will be well to restate at this place one of
the principal aims of anthropological research. We agreed that certain
laws exist which govern the growth of human culture, and it is our endeavor
to discover these laws. The object of our investigation is to find the
processes
by which certain stages of culture have developed. The customs and
beliefs themselves are not the ultimate objects of research. We desire
to learn the reasons why such customs and beliefs exist -in other words,
we wish to discover the history of their development. The method which
is at present most frequently applied in investigations of this character
compares the variations under which the customs or beliefs occur and endeavors
to find the common psychological cause that underlies all of them. I have
stated that this method is open to a very fundamental objection.
We have another method, which in many respects is
much safer. A detailed study of customs in their relation to the total
culture of the tribe practicing them, in connection with an investigation
of their geographical distribution among neighboring tribes, affords us
almost always a means of determining with considerable accuracy the historical
causes that led to the formation of the customs in question and to the
psychological processes that were at work in their development. The results
of inquiries conducted by this method may be three-fold. They may reveal
the environmental conditions which have created or modified cultural elements;
they may clear up psychological factors which are at work in shaping the
culture; or they may bring before our eyes the effects that historical
connections have had upon the growth of the culture.
We have in this method a means of reconstructing
the history of the growth of ideas with much greater accuracy than the
generalizations of the comparative method will permit. The latter must
always
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proceed from a hypothetical mode of development, the probability of which
may be weighed more or less accurately by means of observed data. But so
far I have not yet seen any extended attempt to prove the correctness of
a theory by testing it at the hand of developments with whose histories
we are familiar. Forcing phenomena into the straitjacket of a theory is
opposed to the inductive process by which the actual relations of definite
phenomena may be derived. The latter is no other than the much ridiculed
historical method. Its way of proceeding is, of course, no longer that
of former times when slight similarities of culture were considered proofs
of relationships, but it duly recognizes the results obtained by comparative
studies. Its application is based, first of all, on a well-defined, small
geographical territory, and its comparisons are not extended beyond the
limits of the cultural area that forms the basis of the study. Only when
definite results have been obtained in regard to this area is it permissible
to extend the horizon beyond its limits, but the greatest care must be
taken not to proceed too hastily in this, as otherwise the fundamental
proposition which I formulated before might be overlooked, viz: that when
we find an analogy of single traits of culture among distant peoples the
presumption is not that there has been a common historical source, but
that they have arisen independently. Therefore the investigation must always
demand continuity of distribution as one of the essential conditions for
proving historical connection, and the assumption of lost connecting links
must be applied most sparingly. This clear distinction between the new
and the old historical methods is still often overlooked by the passionate
defenders of the comparative method. They do not appreciate the difference
between the indiscriminate use of similarities of culture for proving historical
connection and the careful and slow detailed study of local phenomena.
We no longer believe that the slight similarities between the cultures
of Central America and of eastern Asia are sufficient and satisfactory
proof of a historical connection. On the other hand, no unbiased observer
will deny that there are very strong reasons for believing that a limited
number of cultural elements found in Alaska and in Siberia have a common
origin. The similarities of inventions, customs and beliefs, together with
the continuity of their distribution through a limited area, are satisfactory
proof of the correctness of this opinion. But it is not possible to extend
this area safely beyond the limits of Columbia River in America and northern
Japan in Asia. This method of anthropological research is represented in
our country by
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F. W. Putnam and Otis T. Mason; in England by E. B. Tylor; in Germany by
Friedrich Ratzel and his followers.
It seems necessary to say a word here in regard
to an objection to my arguments that will be raised by investigators who
claim that similarity of geographical environment is a sufficient cause
for similarity of culture, that is to say, that, for instance, the geographical
conditions of the plains of the Mississippi basin necessitate the development
of a certain culture. Horatio Hale would even go so far as to believe that
similarity of form of language may be due to environmental causes. Environment
has a certain limited effect upon the culture of man, but I do not see
how the view that it is the primary moulder of culture can be supported
by any facts. A hasty review of the tribes and peoples of our globe shows
that people most diverse in culture and language live under the same geographical
conditions, as proof of which may be mentioned the ethnography of East
Africa or of New Guinea. In both these regions we find a great diversity
of customs in small areas. But much more important is this: Not one observed
fact can be brought forward in support of this hypothesis which cannot
be much better explained by the well known facts of diffusion of culture;
for archaeology as well as ethnography teach us that intercourse between
neighboring tribes has always existed and has extended over enormous areas.
In the Old World the products of the Baltic found their way to the Mediterranean
and the works of art of the eastern Mediterranean reached Sweden. In America
the shells of the ocean found their way into the innermost parts of the
continent and the obsidians of the West were carried to Ohio. Intermarriages,
war, slavery, trade, have been so many sources of constant introduction
of foreign cultural elements, so that an assimilation of culture must have
taken place over continuous areas. Therefore, it seems to my mind that
where among neighboring tribes an immediate influence of environment cannot
be shown to exist, the presumption must always be in favor of historical
connection. There has been a time of isolation during which the principal
traits of diverse cultures developed according to the previous culture
and the environment of the tribes. But the stages of culture representing
this period have been covered with so much that is new and that is due
to contact with foreign tribes that they cannot be discovered without the
most painstaking isolation of foreign elements.
The immediate results of the historical method are,
therefore, histories of the cultures of diverse tribes which have been
the subject of
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study. I fully agree with those anthropologists who claim that this is
not the ultimate aim of our science, because the general laws, although
implied in such a description, cannot be clearly formulated nor their relative
value appreciated without a thorough comparison of the manner in which
they become manifest in different cultures. But I insist that the application
of this method is the indispensable condition of sound progress. The psychological
problem is contained in the results of the historical inquiry. When we
have cleared up the history of a single culture and understand the effects
of environment and the psychological conditions that are reflected in it
we have made a step forward, as we can then investigate in how far the
same causes or other causes were at work in the development of other cultures.
Thus by comparing histories of growth general laws may be found. This method
is much safer than the comparative method, as it is usually practiced,
because instead of a hypothesis on the mode of development actual history
forms the basis of our deductions.
The historical inquiry must be considered the critical
test that science must require before admitting facts as evidence. By its
means the comparability of the collected material must be tested, and uniformity
of processes must be demanded as proof of comparability. Furthermore, when
historical connection between two phenomena can be proved, they must not
be admitted as independent evidence.
In a few cases the immediate results of this method
are of so wide a scope that they rank with the best results that can be
attained by comparative studies. Some phenomena have so immense a distribution
that the discovery of their occurrence over very large continuous areas
proves at once that certain phases of the culture in these areas have sprung
from one source. Thus are illuminated vast portions of the early history
of mankind. When Edward S. Morse showed that certain methods of arrow release
are peculiar to whole continents it became clear at once that the common
practice found over a vast area must have had a common origin. When the
Polynesians employ a method of fire making consisting in rubbing a stick
along a groove, while almost all other peoples use the fire drill, it shows
their art of fire making has a single origin. When we notice that the ordeal
is found all over Africa in certain peculiar forms, while in those parts
of the inhabited world that are remote from Africa it is found not at all
or in rudimentary forms only, it shows that the idea as practiced in Africa
had one single origin.
The great and important function of the historical
method of an-
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thropology is thus seen to lie in its ability to discover the processes
which in definite cases led to the development of certain customs. If anthropology
desires to establish the laws governing the growth of culture it must not
confine itself to comparing the results of the growth alone, but whenever
such is feasible it must compare the processes of growth, and these can
be discovered by means of studies of the cultures of small geographical
areas.
Thus we have seen that the comparative method can
hope to reach the results for which it is striving only when it bases its
investigations on the historical results of researches which are devoted
to laying clear the complex relations of each individual culture. The comparative
method and the historical method if I may use these terms, have been struggling
for supremacy for a long time, but we hope that each will soon find its
appropriate place and function. The historical method has reached a sounder
basis by abandoning the misleading principle of assuming connections wherever
similarities of culture were found. The comparative method, notwithstanding
all that has been said and written in its praise, has been remarkably barren
of definite results, and I believe it will not become fruitful until we
renounce the vain endeavor to construct a uniform systematic history of
the evolution of culture, and until we begin to make our comparisons on
the broader and sounder basis which I ventured to outline. Up to this time
we have too much reveled in more or less ingenious vagaries. The solid
work is still all before us.
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