Introduction to the Science of Sociology

(3) Lowell, A. Lawrence. Governments and Parties in Continental Europe. 2 vols. Boston, 1896.

(4) Merriam, C. E. The American Party System. In press.

(5) Haynes, Frederick E. Third Party Movements since the Civil War, with Special Reference to Iowa. A study in social politics. Iowa City, 1916.

(6) Ray, P. O. An Introduction to Political Parties and Practical Politics. New York, 1913.

(7) Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth. 2 vols. New rev. ed. New York, 1911.

(8) Hadley, Arthur T. Undercurrents in American Politics. Being the Ford Lectures, delivered at Oxford University, and the Barbour-Page Lectures, delivered at the University of Virginia in the spring of 1914. New Haven, 1915.

(9) Lowell, A. Lawrence. Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1901. 2 vols. "The Influence of Party upon Legislation in England and America" (with four diagrams), I, 319-542. Washington, 1902.

(10) Beard, Charles A. Economic Origins of Jeffersonian Democracy. New York, 1915.

(11) Morgan, W. T. English Political Parties and Leaders in the Reign of Queen Anne, 1702-1710. New Haven, 1920.

(12) Michels, Robert. Political Parties. A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul. New York, 1915.

(13) Haines, Lynn. Your Congress. An interpretation of the political and parliamentary influences that dominate law-making in America. Washington, D.C., 1915.

(14) Hichborn, Franklin. Story of the Session of the California Legislature. San Francisco, 1909, 1911, 1913, 1915.

(15) Myers, Gustavus. The History of Tammany Hall. 2d ed. rev. and enl. New York, 1917.

(16) Roosevelt, Theodore. An Autobiography. New York, 1913.

(17) Platt, Thomas C. Autobiography. Compiled and edited by Louis J. Lang. New York, 1910.

(18) Older, Fremont. My Own Story. San Francisco, 1919.

(19) Orth, Samuel P. The Boss and the Machine. A chronicle of the politicians and party organization. New Haven, 1919.

(20) Riordon, William L. Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. A series of very plain talks on very practical politics, delivered by ex-Senator George Washington Plunkitt, the Tammany philosopher, from his rostrum—the New York County Court House boot-black stand. New York, 1905.

E. Nationalities

(1) Oakesmith, John. Race and Nationality. An inquiry into the origin and growth of patriotism. New York, 1919.

(2) Lillehei, Ingebrigt. "Landsmaal and the Language Movement in Norway," Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XIII (1914), 60-87.

(3) Morris, Lloyd R. The Celtic Dawn. A survey of the renascence in Ireland, 1889-1916. New York, 1917.

(4) Keith, Arthur. Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View. London, 1919.

(5) Barnes, Harry E. "Nationality and Historiography" in the article "History, Its Rise and Development," Encyclopedia Americana, XIV, 234-43.

(6) Fisher, H. A. "French Nationalism," Hibbert Journal, XV (1916-17), 217-29.

(7) Ellis, H. "The Psychology of the English," Edinburgh Review, CCXXIII (April, 1916), 223-43.

(8) Bevan, Edwyn R. Indian Nationalism. An independent estimate. London, 1913.

(9) Le Bon, Gustave. The Psychology of Peoples. London, 1898.

(10) Francke, K. "The Study of National Culture," Atlantic Monthly, XCIX (1907), 409-16.

(11) Auerbach, Bertrand. Les races et nationalités en Autriche-Hongrie. Deuxième édition revisée. Paris, 1917.

(12) Butler, Ralph. The New Eastern Europe. London, 1919.

(13) Kerlin, Robert T. The Voice of the Negro 1919. New York, 1920. [A compilation from the colored press of America for the four months immediately succeeding the Washington riots.]

(14) Boas, F. "Nationalism," Dial, LXVI (March 8, 1919), 232-37.

(15) Buck, Carl D. "Language and the Sentiment of Nationality," The American Political Science Review, X (1916), 44-69.

(16) McLaren, A. D. "National Hate," Hibbert Journal, XV (1916-17), 407-18.

(17) Miller, Herbert A. "The Rising National Individualism," Publications of the American Sociological Society, VIII (1913), 49-65.

(18) Zimmern, Alfred E. Nationality and Government. With other wartime essays. London and New York, 1918.

(19) Small, Albion W. "Bonds of Nationality," American Journal of Sociology, XX (1915-16), 629-83.

(20) Faber, Geoffrey. "The War and Personality in Nations," Fortnightly Review, CIII (1915), 538-46. Also in Living Age, CCLXXXV (1915), 265-72.

TOPICS FOR WRITTEN THEMES

1. The History of Conflict as a Sociological Concept

2. Types of Conflict: War, the Duello, Litigation, Gambling, the Feud, Discussion, etc.

3. Conflict Groups: Gangs, Labor Organizations, Sects, Parties, Nationalities, etc.

4. Mental Conflicts and the Development of Personality

5. Sex Differences in Conflict

6. Subtler Forms of Conflict: Rivalry, Emulation, Jealousy, Aversion, etc.

7. Personal Rivalry in Polite Society

8. Conflict and Social Status

9. The Strike as an Expression of the Wish for Recognition

10. Popular Justice: the History of the Molly Maguires, of the Night Riders, etc.

11. The Sociology of Race Prejudice

12. Race Riots in the North and the South

13. War as an Action Pattern, Biological or Social?

14. War as a Form of Relaxation

15. The Great War Interpreted by Personal Documents

16. Conflict and Social Organization

17. Conflict and Social Progress

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. How do you differentiate between competition and conflict?

2. Is conflict always conscious?

3. How do you explain the emotional interest in conflict?

4. In your opinion, are the sexes in about the same degree interested in conflict?

5. In what way do you understand Simmel to relate conflict to social process?

6. What are the interrelations of war and social contacts?

7. "Without aversion life in a great city would have no thinkable form." Explain.

8. "It is advantageous to hate the opponent with whom one is struggling." Explain.

9. Give illustrations of feuds not mentioned by Simmel.

10. How do you distinguish between feuds and litigation?

11. What examples occur to you of conflicts of impersonal ideals?

12. What are the psychological causes of war?

13. "We may see in war the preliminary process of rejuvenescence." Explain.

14. Has war been essential to the process of social adjustment? Is it still essential?

15. What do you understand by war as a form of relaxation?

16. How do you interpret Professor James's reaction to the Chautauqua?

17. What is the rôle of conflict in recreation?

18. Is it possible to provide psychic equivalents for war?

19. What application of the sociological theory of the relation of ideals to instinct would you make to war?

20. How do you distinguish rivalry from competition and conflict?

21. What bearing have the facts of animal rivalry upon an understanding of rivalry in human society?

22. What are the different devices by which the group achieves and maintains solidarity? How many of these were characteristic of the war-time situation?

23. In what way is group rivalry related to the development of personality?

24. How does rivalry contribute to social organization?

25. What do you understand by Giddings' distinction between cultural conflicts and "logical duels"?

26. Have you reason for thinking that culture conflict will play a lesser rôle in the future than in the past?

27. To what extent was the world-war a culture conflict?

28. Under what circumstances do social contacts make (a) for conflict, and (b) for co-operation?

29. What has been the effect of the extension of communication upon the relations of nations? Elaborate.

30. What do you understand by race prejudice as a "more or less instinctive defense-reaction"?

31. To what extent is race prejudice based upon race competition?

32. Do you believe that it is possible to remove the causes of race prejudice?

33. In what ways does race conflict make for race consciousness?

34. What are the different elements or forces in the interaction of races making for race conflict and race consciousness?

35. Is a heightening of race consciousness of value or of disadvantage to a racial group?

36. How do you explain the present tendency of the Negro to substitute the copying of colored models for the imitation of white models?

37. "In the South, the races seem to be tending in the direction of a bi-racial organization of society, in which the Negro is gradually gaining a limited autonomy." Interpret.

38. "All racial problems are distinctly problems of racial distribution." Explain with reference to relative proportion of Negroes, Chinese, and Japanese in certain sections of the United States.

39. Why have few or no race riots occurred in the South?

40. Under what circumstances have race riots occurred in the North?

CHAPTER X

ACCOMMODATION

I. INTRODUCTION

1. Adaptation and Accommodation

The term adaptation came into vogue with Darwin's theory of the origin of the species by natural selection. This theory was based upon the observation that no two members of a biological species or of a family are ever exactly alike. Everywhere there is variation and individuality. Darwin's theory assumed this variation and explained the species as the result of natural selection. The individuals best fitted to live under the conditions of life which the environment offered, survived and produced the existing species. The others perished and the species which they represented disappeared. The differences in the species were explained as the result of the accumulation and perpetuation of the individual variations which had "survival value." Adaptations were the variations which had been in this way selected and transmitted.

The term accommodation is a kindred concept with a slightly different meaning. The distinction is that adaptation is applied to organic modifications which are transmitted biologically; while accommodation is used with reference to changes in habit, which are transmitted, or may be transmitted, sociologically, that is, in the form of social tradition. The term first used in this sense by Baldwin is defined in the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology.

In view of modern biological theory and discussion, two modes of adaptation should be distinguished: (a) adaptation through variation [hereditary]; (b) adaptation through modification [acquired]. For the functional adjustment of the individual to its environment [(b) above] J. Mark Baldwin has suggested the term "accommodation," recommending that adaptation be confined to the structural adjustments which are congenital and heredity [(a) above]. The term "accommodation" applies to any acquired alteration of function resulting in better adjustment to environment and to the functional changes which are thus effected.[221]

The term accommodation, while it has a limited field of application in biology, has a wide and varied use in sociology. All the social heritages, traditions, sentiments, culture, technique, are accommodations—that is, acquired adjustments that are socially and not biologically transmitted. They are not a part of the racial inheritance of the individual, but are acquired by the person in social experience. The two conceptions are further distinguished in this, that adaptation is an effect of competition, while accommodation, or more properly social accommodation, is the result of conflict.

The outcome of the adaptations and accommodations, which the struggle for existence enforces, is a state of relative equilibrium among the competing species and individual members of these species. The equilibrium which is established by adaptation is biological, which means that, in so far as it is permanent and fixed in the race or the species, it will be transmitted by biological inheritance.

The equilibrium based on accommodation, however, is not biological; it is economic and social and is transmitted, if at all, by tradition. The nature of the economic equilibrium which results from competition has been fully described in chapter viii. The plant community is this equilibrium in its absolute form.

In animal and human societies the community has, so to speak, become incorporated in the individual members of the group. The individuals are adapted to a specific type of communal life, and these adaptations, in animal as distinguished from human societies, are represented in the division of labor between the sexes, in the instincts which secure the protection and welfare of the young, in the so-called gregarious instinct, and all these represent traits that are transmitted biologically. But human societies, although providing for the expression of original tendencies, are organized about tradition, mores, collective representations, in short, consensus. And consensus represents, not biological adaptations, but social accommodations.

Social organization, with the exception of the order based on competition and adaptation, is essentially an accommodation of differences through conflicts. This fact explains why diverse-mindedness rather than like-mindedness is characteristic of human as distinguished from animal society. Professor Cooley's statement of this point is clear:

The distinction between accommodation and adaptation is illustrated in the difference between domestication and taming. Through domestication and breeding man has modified the original inheritable traits of plants and animals. He has changed the character of the species. Through taming, individuals of species naturally in conflict with man have become accommodated to him. Eugenics may be regarded as a program of biological adaptation of the human race in conscious realization of social ideals. Education, on the other hand, represents a program of accommodation or an organization, modification, and culture of original traits.

Every society represents an organization of elements more or less antagonistic to each other but united for the moment, at least, by an arrangement which defines the reciprocal relations and respective spheres of action of each. This accommodation, this modus vivendi, may be relatively permanent as in a society constituted by castes, or quite transitory as in societies made up of open classes. In either case, the accommodation, while it is maintained, secures for the individual or for the group a recognized status.

Accommodation is the natural issue of conflicts. In an accommodation the antagonism of the hostile elements is, for the time being, regulated, and conflict disappears as overt action, although it remains latent as a potential force. With a change in the situation, the adjustment that had hitherto successfully held in control the antagonistic forces fails. There is confusion and unrest which may issue in open conflict. Conflict, whether a war or a strike or a mere exchange of polite innuendoes, invariably issues in a new accommodation or social order, which in general involves a changed status in the relations among the participants. It is only with assimilation that this antagonism, latent in the organization of individuals or groups, is likely to be wholly dissolved.

2. Classification of the Materials

The selections on accommodation in the materials are organized under the following heads: (a) forms of accommodation; (b) subordination and superordination; (c) conflict and accommodation; and (d) competition, status, and social solidarity.

a) Forms of accommodation.—There are many forms of accommodation. One of the most subtle is that which in human geography is called acclimatization, "accommodation to new climatic conditions." Recent studies like those of Huntington in his "Climate and Civilization" have emphasized the effects of climate upon human behavior. The selection upon acclimatization by Brinton states the problems involved in the adjustment of racial groups to different climatic environments. The answers which he gives to the questions raised are not to be regarded as conclusive but only as representative of one school of investigators and as contested by other authorities in this field.

Naturalization, which in its original sense means the process by which a person is made "natural," that is, familiar and at home in a strange social milieu, is a term used in America to describe the legal process by which a foreigner acquires the rights of citizenship. Naturalization, as a social process, is naturally something more fundamental than the legal ceremony of naturalization. It includes accommodation to the folkways, the mores, the conventions, and the social ritual (Sittlichkeit). It assumes also participation, to a certain extent at least, in the memories, the tradition, and the culture of a new social group. The proverb "In Rome do as the Romans do" is a basic principle of naturalization. The cosmopolitan is the person who readily accommodates himself to the codes of conduct of new social milieus.[223]

The difficulty of social accommodation to a new social milieu is not always fully appreciated. The literature on homesickness and nostalgia indicates the emotional dependence of the person upon familiar associations and upon early intimate personal relations. Leaving home for the first time, the intense lonesomeness of the rural lad in the crowds of the city, the perplexity of the immigrant in the confusing maze of strange, and to him inexplicable, customs are common enough instances of the personal and social barriers to naturalization. But the obstacles to most social adjustments for a person in a new social world are even more baffling because of their subtle and intangible nature.

Just as in biology balance represents "a state of relatively good adjustment due to structural adaptation of the organism as a whole" so accommodation, when applied to groups rather than individuals, signifies their satisfactory co-ordination from the standpoint of the inclusive social organization.

Historically, the organization of the more inclusive society—i.e., states, confederations, empires, social and political units composed of groups accommodated but not fully assimilated—presents four typical constellations of the component group. Primitive society was an organization of kinship groups. Ancient society was composed of masters and slaves, with some special form of accommodation for the freeman and the stranger, who was not a citizen, to be sure, but was not a slave either.

Medieval society rested upon a system of class, approaching castes in the distances it enforced. In all these different situations competition took place only between individuals of the same status.

In contrast with this, modern society is made up of economic and social classes with freedom of economic competition and freedom in passage, therefore, from one class to the other.

b) Subordination and superordination.—Accommodation, in the area of personal relations, tends to take the form of subordination and superordination. Even where accommodation has been imposed, as in the case of slavery, by force, the personal relations of master and slave are invariably supported by appropriate attitudes and sentiments. The selection "Excerpts from the Journal of a West India Slave Owner" is a convincing exhibit of the way in which attitudes of superordination and subordination may find expression in the sentiments of a conscientious and self-complacent paternalism on the part of the master and of an ingratiating and reverential loyalty on the part of the slave. In a like manner the selection from the "Memories of an Old Servant" indicates the natural way in which sentiments of subordination which have grown up in conformity with an accepted situation eventually become the basis of a life-philosophy of the person.

Slavery and caste are manifestly forms of accommodation. The facts of subordination are quite as real, though not as obvious, in other phases of social life. The peculiar intimacy which exists, for example, between lovers, between husband and wife, or between physician and patient, involves relations of subordination and superordination, though not recognized as such. The personal domination which a coach exercises over the members of a ball team, a minister over his congregation, the political leader over his party followers are instances of the same phenomena.

Simmel in his interesting discussion of the subject points out the fact that the relations of subordination and superordination are reciprocal. In order to impose his will upon his slaves it was necessary for the master to retain their respect. No one had a keener appreciation of the aristocracy nor a greater scorn for the "poor white" than the Negro slaves in the South before the war.

The leader of the gang, although he seems to have decisions absolutely in his hand, has a sense of the attitudes of his followers. So the successful political leader, who sometimes appears to be taking risks in his advocacy of new issues, keeps "his ear close to the grass roots of public opinion."

In the selection upon "The Psychology of Subordination and Superordination" Münsterberg interprets suggestion, imitation, and sympathy in terms of domination and submission. Personal influence, prestige, and authority, in whatever form they find expression, are based, to a greater or less extent, on the subtle influences of suggestion.

The natural affections are social bonds which not infrequently assume the form of bondage. Many a mother has been reduced to a condition of abject subjection through her affection for a son or a daughter. The same thing is notoriously true of the relations between the sexes. It is in social complexes of this sort, rather than in the formal procedures of governments, that we must look for the fundamental mechanism of social control.

The conflicts and accommodations of persons with persons and of groups with groups have their prototypes in the conflicts and accommodations of the wishes of the person. The conflicts and accommodations in the mental life of the person have received the name in psychoanalysis of sublimation. The sublimation of a wish means its expression in a form which represents an accommodation with another conflicting wish which had repressed the original response of the first wish. The progressive organization of personality depends upon the successful functioning of this process of sublimation. The wishes of the person at birth are inchoate; with mental development these wishes come into conflict with each other and with the enveloping social milieu. Adolescence is peculiarly the period of "storm and stress." Youth lives in a maze of mental conflicts, of insurgent and aspiring wishes. Conversion is the sudden mutation of life-attitudes through a reorganization or transformation of the wishes.

c) Conflict and accommodation.—The intrinsic relation between conflict and accommodation is stated in the materials by Simmel in his analysis of war and peace and the problems of compromise. "The situations existing in time of peace are precisely the conditions out of which war emerges." War, on the other hand, brings about the adjustments in the relations of competing and conflict groups which make peace possible. The problem, therefore, must find a solution in some method by which the conflicts which are latent in, or develop out of, the conditions of peace may be adjusted without a resort to war. In so far as war is an effect of the mere inhibitions which the conditions of peace impose, substitutes for war must provide, as William James has suggested, for the expression of the expanding energies of individuals and nations in ways that will contribute to the welfare of the community and eventually of mankind as a whole. The intention is to make life more interesting and at the same time more secure.

The difficulty is that the devices which render life more secure frequently make it less interesting and harder to bear. Competition, the struggle for existence and for, what is often more important than mere existence, namely, status, may become so bitter that peace is unendurable.

More than that, under the condition of peace, peoples whose life-habits and traditions have been formed upon a basis of war frequently multiply under conditions of peace to such an extent as to make an ultimate war inevitable. The natives of South Africa, since the tribal wars have ceased, have so increased in numbers as to be an increasing menace to the white population. Any amelioration of the condition of mankind that tends to disturb the racial equilibrium is likely to disturb the peace of nations. When representatives of the Rockefeller Medical Foundation proposed to introduce a rational system of medicine in China, certain of the wise men of that country, it is reported, shook their heads dubiously over the consequences that were likely to follow any large decrease in the death-rate, seeing that China was already overpopulated.

In the same way education, which is now in a way to become a heritage of all mankind, rather than the privilege of so-called superior peoples, undoubtedly has had the effect of greatly increasing the mobility and restlessness of the world's population. In so far as this is true, it has made the problem of maintaining peace more difficult and dangerous.

On the other hand, education and the extension of intelligence undoubtedly increase the possibility of compromise and conciliation which, as Simmel points out, represent ways in which peace may be restored and maintained other than by complete victory and subjugation of the conquered people. It is considerations of this kind that have led men like von Moltke to say that "universal peace is a dream and not even a happy one," and has led other men like Carnegie to build peace palaces in which the nations of the world might settle their differences by compromise and according to law.

d) Competition, status, and social solidarity.—Under the title "Competition, Status, and Social Solidarity" selections are introduced in the materials which emphasize the relation of competition to accommodation. Up to this point in the materials only the relations of conflict to accommodation have been considered. Status has been described as an effect of conflict. But it is clear that economic competition frequently becomes conscious and so passes over into some of the milder forms of conflict. Aside from this it is evident that competition in so far as it determines the vocation of the individual, determines indirectly also his status, since it determines the class of which he is destined to be a member. In the same way competition is indirectly responsible for the organization of society in so far as it determines the character of the accommodations and understandings which are likely to exist between conflict groups. Social types as well as status are indirectly determined by competition, since most of them are vocational. The social types of the modern city, as indicated by the selection on "Personal Competition and the Evolution of Individual Types," are an outcome of the division of labor. Durkheim points out that the division of labor in multiplying the vocations has increased and not diminished the unity of society. The interdependence of differentiated individuals and groups has made possible a social solidarity that otherwise would not exist.

II. MATERIALS

A. FORMS OF ACCOMMODATION

1. Acclimatization[224]

The most important ethnic question in connection with climate is that of the possibility of a race adapting itself to climatic conditions widely different from those to which it has been accustomed. This is the question of acclimatization.

Its bearings on ethnic psychology can be made at once evident by posing a few practical inquiries: Can the English people flourish in India? Will the French colonize successfully the Sudan? Have the Europeans lost or gained in power by their migration to the United States? Can the white or any other race ultimately become the sole residents of the globe?

It will be seen that on the answers to such questions depends the destiny of races and the consequences to the species of the facilities of transportation offered by modern inventions. The subject has therefore received the careful study of medical geographers and statisticians.

I can give but a brief statement of their conclusions. They are to the effect, first, that when the migration takes place along approximately the same isothermal lines, the changes in the system are slight; but as the mean annual temperature rises, the body becomes increasingly unable to resist its deleterious action until a difference of 18° F. is reached, at which continued existence of the more northern races becomes impossible. They suffer from a chemical change in the condition of the blood cells, leading to anemia in the individual and to extinction of the lineage in the third generation.

This is the general law of the relation to race and climate. Like most laws it has its exceptions, depending on special conditions. A stock which has long been accustomed to change of climate adapts itself to any with greater facility. This explains the singular readiness of the Jews to settle and flourish in all zones. For a similar reason a people who at home are accustomed to a climate of wide and sudden changes, like that of the eastern United States, supports others with less loss of power than the average.

A locality may be extremely hot but unusually free from other malefic influences, being dry with regular and moderate winds, and well drained, such as certain areas between the Red Sea and the Nile, which are also quite salubrious.

Finally, certain individuals and certain families, owing to some fortunate power of resistance which we cannot explain, acclimate successfully where their companions perish. Most of the instances of alleged successful acclimatization of Europeans in the tropics are due to such exceptions, the far greater number of the victims being left out of the count.

If these alleged successful cases, or that of the Jews or Arabs, be closely examined, it will almost surely be discovered that another physiological element has been active in bringing about acclimatization, and that is the mingling of blood with the native race. In the American tropics the Spaniards have survived for four centuries; but how many of the Ladinos can truthfully claim an unmixed descent? In Guatemala, for example, says a close observer, not any. The Jews of the Malabar coast have actually become black, and so has also in Africa many an Arab claiming direct descent from the Prophet himself.

But along with this process of adaptation by amalgamation comes unquestionably a lowering of the mental vitality of the higher race. That is the price it has to pay for the privilege of survival under the new conditions. But, in conformity to the principles already laid down as accepted by all anthropologists, such a lowering must correspond to a degeneration in the highest grades of structure, the brain cells.

We are forced, therefore, to reach the decision that the human species attains its highest development only under moderate conditions of heat, such as prevail in the temperate zones (an annual mean of 8°-12° C.); and the more startling conclusion that the races now native to the polar and tropical areas are distinctly pathological, are types of degeneracy, having forfeited their highest physiological elements in order to purchase immunity from the unfavorable climatic conditions to which they are subject. We must agree with a French writer, that "man is not cosmopolitan," and if he insists on becoming a "citizen of the world" he is taxed heavily in his best estate for his presumption.

The inferences in racial psychology which follow this opinion are too evident to require detailed mention. Natural selection has fitted the Eskimo and the Sudanese for their respective abodes, but it has been by the process of regressive evolution; progressive evolution in man has confined itself to less extreme climatic areas.

The facts of acclimatization stand in close connection with another doctrine in anthropology which is interesting for my theme, that of "ethno-geographic provinces." Alexander von Humboldt seems to have been the first to give expression to this system of human grouping, and it has been diligently cultivated by his disciple, Professor Bastian. It rests upon the application to the human species of two general principles recognized as true in zoölogy and botany. The one is that every organism is directly dependent on its environment (the milieu), action and reaction going on constantly between them; the other is, that no two faunal or floral regions are of equal rank in their capacity for the development of a given type of organism.

The features which distinguish one ethno-geographic province from another are chiefly, according to Bastian, meteorological, and they permit, he claims, a much closer division of human groups than the general continental areas which give us an African, a European, and an American subspecies.

It is possible that more extended researches may enable ethnographers to map out, in this sense, the distribution of our species; but the secular alterations in meteorologic conditions, combined with the migratory habits of most early communities, must greatly interfere with a rigid application of these principles in ethnography.

The historic theory of "centres of civilisation" is allied to that of ethno-geographic provinces. The stock examples of such are familiar. The Babylonian plain, the valley of the Nile, in America the plateaus of Mexico and of Tiahuanuco are constantly quoted as such. The geographic advantages these situations offered—a fertile soil, protection from enemies, domesticable plants, and a moderate climate—are offered as reasons why an advanced culture rapidly developed in them, and from them extended over adjacent regions.

Without denying the advantages of such surroundings, the most recent researches in both hemispheres tend to reduce materially their influence. The cultures in question did not begin at one point and radiate from it, but arose simultaneously over wide areas, in different linguistic stocks, with slight connections; and only later, and secondarily, was it successfully concentrated by some one tribe—by the agency, it is now believed, of cognatic rather than geographic aids.

Assyriologists no longer believe that Sumerian culture originated in the delta of the Euphrates, and Egyptologists look for the sources of the civilization of the Nile Valley among the Libyans; while in the New World not one but seven stocks partook of the Aztec learning, and half a dozen contributed to that of the Incas. The prehistoric culture of Europe was not one of Carthaginians or Phoenicians, but was self-developed.

2. Slavery Defined[225]

In most branches of knowledge the phenomena the man of science has to deal with have their technical names, and, when using a scientific term, he need not have regard to the meaning this term conveys in ordinary language; he knows he will not be misunderstood by his fellow-scientists. For instance, the Germans call a whale Wallfisch, and the English speak of shellfish; but a zoölogist, using the word fish, need not fear that any competent person will think he means whales or shellfish.

In ethnology the state of things is quite different. There are a few scientific names bearing a definite meaning, such as the terms "animism" and "survival," happily introduced by Professor Tylor. But most phenomena belonging to our science have not yet been investigated, so it is no wonder that different writers (sometimes even the same writer on different pages) give different names to the same phenomenon, whereas, on the other hand, sometimes the same term (e.g., matriarchate) is applied to widely different phenomena. As for the subject we are about to treat of, we shall presently see that several writers have given a definition of slavery; but no one has taken the trouble to inquire whether his definition can be of any practical use in social science. Therefore, we shall try to give a good definition and justify it.

But we may not content ourselves with this; we must also pay attention to the meaning of the term "slavery" as commonly employed. There are two reasons for this. First, we must always rely upon the statements of ethnographers. If an ethnographer states that some savage tribe carries on slavery, without defining in what this "slavery" consists, we have to ask: What may our informant have meant? And as he is likely to have used the word in the sense generally attached to it, we have to inquire: What is the ordinary meaning of the term "slavery"?

The second reason is this. Several theoretical writers speak of slavery without defining what they mean by it; and we cannot avail ourselves of their remarks without knowing what meaning they attach to this term. And as they too may be supposed to have used it in the sense in which it is generally used, we have again to inquire: What is the meaning of the term "slavery" in ordinary language?

The general use of the word, as is so often the case, is rather inaccurate. Ingram says: