der 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 representative.

I am aware that I am here in opposition to the popular as well as the
scientific view. No commonplace is better received than that, "Eternal
progress is the law of nature;" 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 Oxford, in a late lecture states that: "The
development of society is like that of individual;"[8-1] and Prof.
Fellows, of the University of Chicago, advances the same opinion in the
words, "Humanity as a whole developes[TN-2] like a child."[8-2]

The error of this view was clearly pointed out some years ago by Dr.
Tobler.[8-3] There has been no growth of humanity 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 Universe. He seeks the sufficient
reason for known facts, and 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 explanation 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 politikon_, as Aristotle called him, living in society,
and owing to society all those