The Method and Theory of Ethnology: an Essay in Criticism

Abstract

ETHNOLOGY is defined by Dr. Paul Radin as the description of aboriginal culture, and the object of this essay iti ethnological criticism is to show how far the various schools of thought fail to attain the object of the study. The ‘evolutionary’ school, of which Tylor is regarded as the founder and the chief exponent, as might be expected, is sharply criticised for various reasons, of which the principal is that it regarded the study of primitive peoples as an evolution of culture and also looked upon its material as representing a phase anterior to that of civilised man of to-day. Hence the theory of survivals; Other schools, the ‘diffusionists’, the ‘functionalists’, and in America the followers of Prof. Boas, are alike criticised from the point of view of the author that ethnology is a purely historical science, and that as such it must treat each phase and manifestation of culture as individual.