On Limitations to the Use of Some Anthropologic Data | Page 7

but a system of tenure in common by gentes or tribes is developed into a system of tenure in severalty. Evolution in society has not been from militancy to industrialism, but from organization based on kinship to organization based on property, and alongside of the specializations of the industries of peace the arts of war have been specialized.
So, one by one, the theories of metaphysical writers on sociology are overthrown, and the facts of history are taking their place, and the philosophy of history is being erected out of materials accumulating by objective studies of mankind
PSYCHOLOGY.
Psychology has hitherto been chiefly in the hands of subjective philosophers and is the last branch of anthropology to be treated by scientific methods. But of late years sundry important labors have been performed with the end in view to give this department of philosophy a basis of objective facts; especially the organ of the mind has been studied and the mental operations of animals have been compared with those of men, and in various other ways the subject is receiving scientific attention.
The new psychology in process of construction will have a threefold basis: A physical basis on phenomena presented by the organ of the mind as shown in man and the lower animals; a linguistic basis as presented in the phenomena of language, which is the instrument of mind; a functional basis as exhibited in operations of the mind.
The phenomena of the third class may be arranged in three subclasses. First, the operations of mind exhibited in individuals in various stages of growth, various degrees of culture, and in various conditions, normal and abnormal; second, the operations of mind as exhibited in technology, arts, and industries; third, the operations of mind as exhibited in philosophy; and these are the explanations given of the phenomena of the universe. On such a basis a scientific psychology must be erected.
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As methods of study are discovered, a vast field opens to the American scholar. Now, as at all times in the history of civilization, there has been no lack of interest in this subject, and no lack of speculative writers; but there is a great want of trained observers and acute investigators.
If we lay aside the mass of worthless matter which has been published, and consider only the material used by the most careful writers, we find on every hand that conclusions are vitiated by a multitude of errors of fact of a character the most simple. Yesterday I read an article on the "Growth of Sculpture," by Grant Allen, that was charming; yet, therein I found this statement:
So far as I know, the Polynesians and many other savages have not progressed beyond the full-face stage of human portraiture above described. Next in rank comes the drawing of a profile, as we find it among the Eskimos and the bushmen. Our own children soon attain to this level, which is one degree higher than that of the full face, as it implies a special point of view, suppresses half the features, and is not diagrammatic or symbolical of all the separate parts. Negroes and North American Indians cannot understand profile; they ask what has become of the other eye.
Perhaps Mr. Allen derives his idea of the inability of the Indians to understand profiles from a statement of Catlin, which I have seen used for this and other purposes by different anthropologists until it seems to have become a favorite fact.
Turning to Catlin's Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, (vol. 2, page 2) we find him saying:
After I had painted these, and many more whom I have not time at present to name, I painted the portrait of a celebrated warrior of the Sioux, by the name of Mah-to-chee-ga (the Little Bear), who was unfortunately slain in a few moments after the picture was done by one of his own tribe; and which was very near costing me my life, for having painted a side view of his face, leaving one-half of it out of the picture, which had been the cause of the affray; and, supposed by the whole tribe to have been intentionally left out by me, as "good for nothing." This was the last picture that I painted amongst the Sioux, and the last, undoubtedly, that I shall ever paint in that place. So tremendous and so alarming was the excitement about it that my brushes were instantly put away, and I embarked the next day on the steamer for the sources of the Missouri, and was glad to get underweigh.
Subsequently, Mr. Catlin elaborates this incident into the "Story of the Dog" (vol. 2, page 188 et seq).
Now, whatsoever of truth or of fancy there may be in this story, it cannot be used