EVOLUTIONISM I N CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY:

A REJOINDER
B y LESLIE A. WHITE

ROFESSOR LOWIES recent article in the American Anthropologist,

Evolution in Cultural Anthropology: A Reply to Leslie White, was
written to clarify the issues involved in three essays of mine, also published
in this Journal.2 I am not sure, however, that these issues have been clarified.
On the contrary, I feel that a t certain points Dr. Lowie has confused rather
than clarified the matters in question. I should like, therefore, to make a few
additional remarks.
First of all, I wish to say that the idea of accusing Professor Lowie of plagiarism has never entered my mind. I merely pointed out, in the instance cited
by him, that Morgan had preceded Lowie in suggesting that animals may have
been brought under domestication originally for non-utilitarian reasons. But
this is not plagiarism; many modern ideas of today can be found in the writings of Aristotle. I am sorry that Lowie received any other impression.
Let us turn now to some of the issues t ha t he has selected for particular
criticism.

EVALUATION OF MORGAN

I am of course well aware of the complimentary remarks addressed to Morgan by the English anthropologists Haddon and Rivers, by the Indian student
Mitra, and by his American teacher, Clark Wissler. But I am also aware of the
fact that many prominent anthropologists, particularly those of the Boas
group, have ignored, belittled, and misrepresented Morgan by turn. I believe
I have amply demonstrated this fact in my articles. I may, however, add
another interesting sidelight t o which I have not previously called attention.
Professor Lowie cites Radcliffe-Browns complimentary allusion to Morgans
Systems. He does not point out, however, that in the bibliography of RadcliffeBrowns long article, The Social Organization of Australian tribe^,"^ which
contains 188 references to 101 titles by 52 authors, Morgans name does not
appear even once, despite the fact that he was one of the first, if not the first,
anthropologist of any stature t o write on the subject of Australian social org a n i ~ a t i o n .As
~ a matter of fact, it would be little exaggeration to say that
Morgan, with the aid of his proteges, Lorimer Fison and A. W. Howitt, whom
he taught and guided through a decade of correspondence, founded the science
of Australian ethnology. Yet Radcliffe-Brown mentions Morgan in the text of
this article only t o oppose him.
One recalls a l s v d e s p i t e some kind words in later years-Lowies early
3

Lowie, 1946a.
2 White, 1943, 1944, 1945.
Ocrania, Vol. I, Nos. 1 4 inc., 1930-31.
4 Morgan, 1872; 1877, Part 11, Chap. I; 1880.

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characterization of Morgan as the typical example of the comprehensive and

weak mind (esprit a m p l e et faible) in Duhems classification of intellects.6
And even now, when Lowie cites gems illustrative of Morgans narrowmindedness,6 he is not wholly fair. For example, he quotes Morgan t o the
effect that certain frescoes by Michael Angelo are substantially absurd. But
he fails t o tell us why Morgan thought so: When M. A. thought he could picture the last judgment on three thousand square feet of plaster wall, and make
it expressive of anything but his own folly, he deceived himself.7
I have never maintained, or even intimated, that Morgan was perfect. I
have never denied that he committed errors and had shortcomings. To defend
him against unjust accusations, as I have done, is not to declare him to be
without flaw or blemish. Lowie says that he would like t o see some realization
on Whites part that sporadic impatience with Morgan may have an objective
basis. I believe I have given such indication. A few years ago, I went t o considerable length to demonstrate that the position Morgan took regarding the
degree of development of Aztec society was untenable.* Morgan insisted that
Aztec society was democratic, that no American Indian group had developed
beyond the societas. I was able to show, in a closely reasoned and amply documented argument, that Morgan and Bandelier were wrong on the basis of data
that they themselves supplied and used. I do not believe that this argument could
have been worked out by one held in the grip of the obsessive power of fanaticism. Dr. Lowie may have forgotten this demonstration of my ability t o take
a critical attitude toward Morgan, although he reviewed the work for American
Antiquity and, I may add, he found my critique admirably balanced and
~onvin~ing.~
T o summarize this point: Morgan has been alternately ignored, belittled
and misrepresented-sometimes grossly so. I have tried to defend him against
these injustices. To Lowie my attitude seems to be one of fanaticism and blind
hero-worship; to me it is merely a sense of justice and fair play. I have never
claimed perfection for Morgan. On the contrary, I have demonstrated my
ability t o regard him critically. If I have not compiled an inventory of his
shortcomings, it is because (1) others have done-and overdone-this; and
(2) because a great figure in science should be judged by the characteristics
which set him apart from and ahead of his contemporaries, not by the errors
and shortcomings which he shares with them.
MORGAN A N D THE DARWINIANS

I t seems to me that Dr. Lowie has confused the issue that I raised in
Morgans Attitude Toward Religion and Science. The issue, as I see it, is
Lowie, 1915, p. 330.
Id., 1946a, p. 225.
White (Ed.), 1937, p. 285.
*White (Ed.), 1940, Vol. I, pp. 27-46.
Lowie, 1941, p. 196.

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[N. s., 49, 1947

this: After the publication of The Origin of Species a controversy arose in

Europe and America. I t was a struggle between the Christian theological conception of man and the conception held by science. I argued that if you were
i n this controversy you were on one side or the other; you were either for religion
or you were for science. Proceeding from this premise, I called attention to the
charge, made by several anthropologists, that Morgan never gave allegiance to
Darwinism because he was never able to free himself from his orthodox religious
beliefs. I demonstrated that this charge is a false one. I proved, in fact, that the
exact opposite was the case: that Morgan was on Darwins side und not on the
side of the theologians. This was the point a t issue.
Incidentally, since Lowie has counted fifteen citations to himself in one of
my articles, may I point out that he is not mentioned in Morgans Attitude
Toward Religion and Science as one of the parties to this particular misrepresentation of Morgan. He has, however, made his contribution: he speaks of
Morgan as a bourgeois lawyer who never severed his connections with Christian orthodoxy,lO-and this in one of his most recent writings, not something
published in 1920 or before.
It is important to note that Dr. Lowie does not now challenge the thesis of my
essay on Morgans Attitude Toward Religion and Science. He makes no
attempt t o rehabilitate the caricature of Morgan, the conservative Biblicist
(Linton) who rejected the theory of organic evolution (Radcliffe-Brown),
who nowhere in his books uses the word evolution (Stern), who never
severed his connections with Christian orthodoxy (Lowie). Instead, he makes
quite a show of pointing out (1) that there were in Morgans day distinguished
men of science who were also deeply religious and (2) that Darwin was criticized by men of science. These claims may of course be admitted. There were
religious men who made contributions to science, as Lowie maintains, and
there were scientists who were devout. But they were not involved in the
Darwin vs. Theology controversy-at least I know of no one who defended the
helief of divine creation and a t the same time espoused the cause of Darwin.
That is what I meant when I said if you were for Theology you were against
Science.I believe that meaning was fairly clear from thecontext. It could hardly be claimed that Professor Lowie has clarified the issue here; he seems rather
t o have confused it with a diversionary attack. I submit that my thesis still
stands: Morgan was no friend of theological orthodoxy; he was a staunch
champion of Darwinism in particular and of science in general.
ARE THE BOASIANS ANTI-EVOLUTIONISTS?

Professor Lowie tries t o make it appear t hat Boas and his students attacked not [cultural] evolution, but Morgans and other writers evolutionary
10

Zd, 1937, p. 54.

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schemes. I am afraid he will have a hard time convincing many of his readers
that this is the case. T o be sure, many students in recent decades have declared
that they were not opposed to evolution but to unilinear evolution. But they
either do not specify what they mean by unilinear or they define it in such
a way as to exclude such men as Tylor and Morgan from its adherents-if any.
If the Boasians were not opposed to cultural evolutionism as such but
merely t o particular formulations of this concept, how would Lowie account
for the statement that one of his admirers made in an enthusiastic review of
one of his (Lowies) own books:
The theory of cultural evolution [is] to my mind the most inane, sterile, and
pernicious theory ever conceived in the history of science. (Laufer)l*
How would he explain Sapirs assertion that evolutionism as an interpretative
principle of culture is merely a Passing phase i n the history of thought?13 (All
emphases in this paragraph are mine.) Or the same authors thesis that there
are distinct types of social organization . . . as well as interestingly convergent forms that could not, however, be explained by any formula of evolutionary theory?14How explain Benedicts assertion that anthropological data are
best studied without the complications of any attempted evolutionary arrangement; that the idea of evolution has to be laid aside in the study of
culture?16Or Bunzels discussion of the fallacy inherent in all evolutionary
arguments?16 Or Sterns contention that cultures . . . are too complex and
. . .too variable to fit into any definite social evolutionary ~ c h e m e ? Accord~
ing to Sapir, Lowie believes that . . . there are no valid evolutionary schemes
that may guide us in the history of human society.18 Sapir concurs in this
view. In his article, Boas and American Ethnologists, Williams hails Boas
for founding a school and leading it in a whole-hearted attack upon the theory
of cultural evolution for more than a quarter of a century.lQ Paul Radin
makes i t very clear t h a t i t was not merely Morgans and other writers
evolutionary schemes that the Boasians objected to. He writes: if Boas and
his school rejected the developmental schemes of Tylor and Morgan this must,
i n no sense, be ascribed to the inadequacies and crudities of those schemes, but
rather to the fact dhey rejected all developmental sequences. . . . [To the theory
l1 Id., 1946a, p. 227. In a subsequent communication (Lowie, 1946b), he has declared flatly
that the Boas school was not opposed to evolution but only to a vapid evolutionary metaphysics
that has nothing to do with science.
le Laufer, 1918, p. 90. Lowie points out that Laufer was not trained by Boas. He was, however, at one with the Boas school on many points, especially those of anti-evolutionism and
hostility toward creative imagination.
13 Sapir, 1920a, p. 378.
l4 Id., 1927, p. 100.
Benedict, 1931, pp. 809-810.
l8 Bunzel, 1938, p. 578.
Stern, 1931, p. 135.
l 8 Sapir, 1920b, p. 4.6.
Williams, 1936, pp. 199-200.

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[N.s . , 49, 1947

of evolution] Boas always took a prevailingly antagonistic position20 (italics

mine). And, finally, one of Boas leading disciples has only recently gladly reaffirmed his belief in the anti-evolutionary tradition.21 Thus, the testimony
and evidence indicate definitely that Boas and his students were opposed to the
theory of cultural evolution itself, and not merely to certain specific formulations of this theory. They have, in short, shown little hospitality for that
great principle which every scholar must lay firm hold of if he intends to
understand either the world he lives in or the, history of the past. ( T y 1 0 r ) ~ ~
Furthermore, we might ask, if it were only particular formulations of evolutionist theory that the Boasians objected to and not the basic concept itself,
why did they not develop more adequate statements? When men of science
grappled with the theory of evolution in biology in the early days they did SO to
correct it, to improve and develop it. What have the Boasians done to develop
an adequate form of evolutionist theory to take the place of the early and
relatively crude presentations?
As for the term anti-evolutionist, let me hasten to say that it is not an
epithet of my own invention. I t is a term that the late Alexander Goldenweiser-whom Lowie has called the philosopher of American a n t h r o p o l ~ g y ~ ~
-used a great deal to characterize the philosophic outlook of the Boas school.24
Another student of Boas, Paul Radin, also has used it more than once in the
same sense.26
Professor Lowie seems to have difficulty in understanding my phrase reactionary philosophy of anti-evolution. He says it naturally suggests the
degeneration theories . . . of de Maistre.26I cannot see how anything I have
ever said could suggest such a conclusion. I believe I have made myself fairly
clear. I n 1938 I spoke plainly of anti-evolutionists of the twentieth century
who opposed the cultural evolutionists of the latter half of the nineteenth.27
A year later, in A Problem in Kinship Terminology, I expressed the same
view.28It is stated plainly again in Energy and the Evolution of Culture29
(1943), and again in Diffusion vs. Evolution30 (1945). In each instance it is
made explicit and clear that the anti-evolutionists are anthropologists of the
twentieth century who opposed the theory of culiural evolution as developed
in the latter half of the nineteenth century. By reactionary, I meant opposing,
reacting against, a theory-one of the most fundamental and fruitful theories
in all fields of science, physical, biological, and cultural-in such a way as to
Radin, 1939, p. 303.
Herskovits, 1941, p. 273. Herskovits has also purged his vocabulary of the evolutionist
term preliterate and uses %on-literate instead.
Tylor, 1881, p. 20.
$3 Lowie, 1922, p. 235.
l4
Goldenweiser, 1914, p. 412; 1925a, pp. 221,226,227; 1925b, p. 19.
l6
Radin, 1932, p. 8; 1933, p. 4.
2e Lowie, 19468, pp. 226, 231.
White, 1938, pp. 386-387. Professor Lowie, in a letter to me, commented on this very point.
White, 1939, pp. 571-572.
so White, 1945, p. 354.
29 White, 1943, p. 355.
$0

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oppose progress in the philosophy of science. Sapir recognized the direction, if

not the significance, of the anti-evolutionist efforts of the Boasians when, in
reviewing Lowies Primitive Society, he said :al
Anthropology . . . is now elaborately backwatering. It is itself rapidly drifting
to the anti-evolutionary, historical method.
Whether one calls it reactionary or backwatering makes little difference.
In either case, we find an attempt t o run counter t o the stream of thought in
science and philosophy.
DIFFUSION VS. EVOLUTION

I appear to have failed to make myself understood to Lowie in my essay

on this subject, for he still seems to think that the evolutionist must take the
facts of diffusion into account. As I have pointed out before, Tylor and Kroeber have sketched the evolution of writing without reference to diffusion.
Einstein and Infeld have given us a treatise on The Evolution o j Physics without a concern for diffusion. Could we not work out the evolution-the temporal
functional sequence of forms-of
mathematics, Gothic architecture, Greek
drama, currency, clans, cartels, the locomotive, parliamentary government,
relativity, radar, symphonies, metallurgy, the piano, or culture as a whole,
without regard for diffusion? Do we not, as a matter of fact, actually have such
studies, in anthropological literature or elsewhere? That valid studies of this
sort have been and can be made seems so obvious that it is rather hard to see
why Professor Lowie is unwilling t o accept the principle upon which these
studies rest.32Yet he insists on bringing diffusion into the picture and maintains that diffusion negates the possibility of proving e v ~ l u t i o n . He
~ ~seems
unable t o see that the development of a trait or complex and its dijusion to other
regions are two quite different processes, and that far from opposing each
other, they may work together in perfect harmony: a style of pottery decoration, a type of loom, a form of writing, currency, etc., is developed in one
region and spreads to others. The collaboration of the evolutionary and difiusionist processes in culture is exemplified throughout the writings of Morgan
and Tylor. We find contemporary recognition of this fact well set forth in a
recent work by Ralph L i n t ~ n : ~ ~
Diffusion has made a double contribution to the advance of mankind. I t has
stimulated the growth of culture as a whole and at the same time has enriched the
content of individual cultures. . . . I t has helped to accelerate the evolution of culture
as a whole by removing the necessity for every society to perfect every step in an
inventive series for itself (emphasis mine).
st Sapir, 1920c, p. 533.

In one of his most recent works, Lowie speaks of the evolution of the plow from the hoe
without reference to diffusion. Lowie, 1940, p. 28.
ss Lowie, 1946a, p. 230.
34 Linton, 1936a, p. 324.

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49, 1947

Dr. Lowie makes a good point when he shows that Morgan did infer tribal
history from his evolutionist formulas, and he is fully justified in calling this
history veritable pseudo-history. But this does not prove that the formulas
are invalid. It merely demonstrates that an evolutionist is capable of misusing
them as well as a n anti-evolutionist. The evolutionists formulas were devised
to show how one cultural form grows out of another-as exemplified, e.g., by
Kroebers seven stages in the development of weaving.36 They were not designed to reconstruct tribal history, and if they are so employed, an error has
been committed regardless of whether the author of the mistake is an evolutionist or an opponent of this theory. But, let it be emphasized, a formula is
not invalidated merely because someone makes improper use of it. When employed for the purpose for which they were designed, evolutionist formulas can
be illuminating and fruitful.
TH E ORIGIN OF EVOLUTIONIST FORMULAS

Professor Lowie makes the point that I have nowhere explained how evolutionist formulas are ultimately derived.36 H e asks if they are empirical
inductions or a priori constructs. Since his article was written another essay
of mine, Kroebers Configurations of Culture Growth37has been published,
in which I have something t o say on the subject. I have tried to show that
many of the great organizing and vitalizing principles of science are not the
products of induction. To quote Einstein again:38
There is no inductive method which could lead to the fundamental concepts
of physics. Failure to understand this fact constituted the basic philosophic error of
so many investigators of the nineteenth century. . . . We now realize with special
clarity, how much in error are those theorists who believe that theory comes inductively from experience . . .

What Einstein says here of physics will of course apply to science in general
and to ethnology.
The Boas school has long proceeded from the premise t h a t if you marshal
enough facts something constructive will come out of them. As Radin has put
it:39
The essence of his [Boas] method was. . . to gather facts, and ever more
facts . . . and permit them to speak for themselves . . . .
Unfortunately, facts do not speak for themselves; they require imaginative
intellects to speak for them. Facts as facts lie inert and meaningless until they
are quickened into life and meaning by the creative power of i n t e l l i g e n ~ e . ~ ~
Kroeber, 1923, pp. 360-361.
Lowie, 1946a, p. 231.
Jg Radin, 1939, p. 301.
white, 1946.
38 Einstein, 1936, pp. 360,365, 366.
40 As a distinguished protege of Morgan, Adolph F. Bandelier once put it: Lines of thought
are superior, in the end, to lines of fact, because fact is dead without the constant action of
thought upon it. See White (Ed.), 1940, Vol. 11,p. 207.
36

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An anthropologist trained by Boas was not in a very favorable position to

appreciate the creative imagination. On the contrary he would be inclined to
regard it as objectionable and unscientific. Students of Boas like to point to
his merciless logic, his scientific rigor, his acidly critical faculty on the
one hand, and his abhorrence of generali~ations~l
and systems, his impatience with theory, in short, with a creative, synthesizing intelligence on the
other. They learned to scoff a t the evolutionists. Sapir called them closet
philosopher^."^^ He declared that the old classical anthropology, still current,
is not a science but a pseudo-science like medieval alchemy.43To Goldenweiser
the field of cultural evolutionist theory was but a happy hunting ground for
the exercise of the creative i m a g i n a t i ~ n evolutionist
;~~
theory a substitute
for critical t h o ~ g h t . ~ 6
Hostility t o reflective thought, creative imagination and theory became
traditional among the Boasians. Radin speaks of an exaggerated distrust of
theories of whatever descri~tion,4~
in the United States. Rivers, too, comments upon the anti-theoretical basis of American ethn~ logy. ~The
Boasian
attitude was forthrightly stated by Laufer in these words:48
I must confess that I am in a state of mind where I would no longer give a dime
to anyone for a new theory, but I am always enthusiastic about new facts. . .
(emphasis mine).
This confession, which might strike a physicist or other man of science as
incredible, was inspired by Lowies book, Are W e Civilized? The aversion for
theory became so pronounced among American anthropologists that to suggest that something is theoretical, says Kluckhohn, is to suggest that it is
slightly i n d e~e n t . 4~
The consequences of this anti-imaginative, anti-theoretical outlook were
much what one might expect: a mass of facts that did not mean much or make
much sense. Kroeber has called the fruit of this philosophy and method rather
sterile.sO I n 1921 (a year after Lowies Primitive Society appeared), Goldenweiser noted that the critical ethnologist has developed a certain timidity
[sic]in dealing with ideas, and warned that in the absence of constructive
ideas . . . method and criticism are doomed to sterility.61 It would be difficult,
I venture t o say, to find another chapter in the history of science in which an
aggressive hostility t o theory, the very breath of life of science, has been carried
as far as it has by the Boas group.
(1 The late Elsie Clews Parsons has noted that Dr. Lowie is ruthless of formulas. Parsons,
1920, p. 245.
48 Sapir, 1920b, p. 46.
Sapir, 1920a, p. 377.
44 Goldenweiser, 1921, p. 55. It is significant to note that Goldenweiser equates creative
imagination with the evolutionists. This, to a Boasian, put creative imagination in its place!
(6 Id., 1924, p. 433.
4 Rivers, 1911, p. 491.
46 Kadin, 1933, p. 253.
Laufer, 1930, p. 162.
Kluckhohn, 1939, p. 333.
so Kroeber, 1920, p. 380.
61 Goldenweiser, 1921, p. 65.

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1947

To return to the source and derivation of evolutionist formulas: When

Lowie demands to know if they are empirical inductions he is faintly reminiscent of opponents of Darwin who, like Bryan, demanded to know if anyone
had ever seen one species change into another, an ape into a man. But we have
already dealt with empiricism and induction. We shall add only that without
creative imagination there is no science; with it, theories and formulas will be
forthcoming. They are, as Einstein aptly puts it, free inventions of the human
intellect.62 Darwin did not come by his formulas by empirical induction,
by piling up fact upon fact. He created them, as he himself tells us,63by synthesizing an idea expounded by Malthus with ideas from other sources.
CATHOLIC ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND EVOLUTION

Lowie assures us that anthropological theory is not really as dark as I have

painted it, that amongst the dark clouds of reactionary philosophy there are
many silver linings of evolutionism. He finds that the Catholic priests, Schmidt
and Koppers, are really evolutionists a t heart, and the former, according to
Lowie, even [accepts] the term ev0lution.~4
Schmidt makes a distinction between evolution and evolutiolzism, one which
I confess is not too clear to me. But if he accepts the term evolution, he is
unalterably opposed to evolutionism. Neither do I want to be a bedfellow
of a qualified evolutionism or some kind of Neo-evolutionism, he declares.6s
And it is true, of course, that Schmidt speaks of evolutionary stages, etc., just
as Lowie has spoken of the stage preceding the evolution of the sib,60the
independent evolution of this f e a t ~ r e , ~and
in one of his most recent works,
in a paragraph headed Evolution, of a germ of further development .68
(Germs of development is, of course, a phrase much used by Morgan in
Ancient Society.) But it takes more than occasional recognition of the evolutionist process to make an evolutionist.
Professor Lowies attempt t o present Catholic priests as evolutionists is of
considerable interest, especially in the light of the following points: 1. The
Catholic priests cited by Lowie as well as many others are on record as unequivocably opposed to evolutionist theory in the science of culture; 2. Boas
and his school have been highly praised by a prominent Jesu*itanthropologist
for their staunch opposition to evolutionism; and, 3. Lowie himself is cited
repeatedly by Jesuit anthropologists for his fight against evolutionist theory
in general and his assaults upon Morgan in particular.
We have just seen that Father Schmidt says flatly that he will have nothing
to do with evolutionism, even in qualified form. Sylvester A. Sieber, S.V.D.,
Einstein, 1934, p. 33.
53 Darwin, 1896, Vol. I, p. 68.
Lowie, 1946a, p. 232; see also, pp. 226221; Lowie, 1946b, p. 240.
66 Schmidt, 1939, p. xxvi.
Lowie, 1919, p. 32.
n Lowie, 1917, p. 142.
li8 Lowie, 1940, p. 98.
5*

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anthropologist, and Franz H. Mueller, M.C.S., Dr. rer. pol., sociologist, state
that their book, The Social Lije of Primitive Man, published under an archbishops imprimatur, endeavors to prove how inadequate the evolutionist
interpretation
They also discuss Morgans evolutionist vagaries, his
purblindness, his ridiculous interpretations,aO etc.
Father Albert Muntsch, S. J. devotes his Evolution and Culture to showing
that the picture drawn by the evolutionary delirium [sic]is false.6l He points
to the utter defeat of the evolutionary view of the development of culture
in his Cultural Anthropology.s2
Introductory Sociology, by Albert Muntsch, S.J., and Henry S. Spalding,
S.J.,63contains considerable discussion of anthropological theory, They attack
the theory of cultural evolution a t the very outset. Chapter I is based on the
fact that the scientific and unprejudiced study of the history of culture cannot
accept the theory of cultural e v o l ~ t i o n . Chapter
~~
I1 is entitled Evolutionary Theories of Culture Opposed by Facts. In their Introduction they list
seven outstanding features of their book, the first of which is:
(1) It rejects the evolutionary theory of culture and establishes the family
and State on the solid ground of Christian ethics.&

A t the risk of again being accused of melodrama I will say that Lewis
H. Morgan comes fairly close to being the villain of Muntsch and Spaldings
story and Robert H. Lowie is equally close to the role of hero. I n addition to
opposing Morgans vagaries and his far-fetched and unproved lines of human progress, the authors oppose him on a number of specific points:
promiscuity, primitive communism, etc. But his [Morgans] work was a mere
hypothesis which proved to be false, as was shown with admirable clearness
and conviction by Robert H. Lowie.66The authors point out that Fr. Koppers and Dr. Lowie have arrived independently a t important conclusions which
have shaken the foundations of all strictly evolutionary explanations of social
progre~s.~
Since Dr. Lowie has counted the number of times I have cited him
in one of my articles, he may be interested to learn that his name appears on
the first page of Chapter 1 of Introductory Sociology and some 24 times thereafter up to page 60. Father Schmidts name appears 13, Fr. Koppers 17 times
in the same space. He is cited or quoted 33 times in Muntschs tiny volume of
95 pages for his service in the cause of anti-evolutionism.
Father Joseph J. Williams, S.J., Ph.D., Professor of Cultural Anthropology,
Boston College Graduate School, and sometime President of the Jesuit Anthropological Association, has published a very interesting article, Boas and
6@

6*

Sieber and Mueller, 1941, p. 10.

60 I d . , pp. 37, 28.
Muntsch, 1923, p. 31.
62 Muntsch, 1936, p. 11.

Muntsch and Spalding, 1928.

Id., p. xiv.
Id., p . 98.

Id., p. 7.
Id., p. 15.

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American Ethnologists, in Thought, a Jesuit review.ss The gist of the article

is praise of Boas and his disciples for having fought the theory of cultural evolution with vigor, persistence, and success. Boas completely revolutionized
the trend of scientific thought among American ethnologists, says Williams.
Early American ethnology had been strongly evolutionist in outlook and this
continued until Professor Boas of Columbia in turn invoked ethnology for the
precise purpose of testing and confounding the very theories advanced by the
evolutionary school. . . . It is precisely the extraordinary influence of this quiet
unobtrusive scholar that interests us at present, especially as it has manifested
itself in suppressing the classical theory of evolution among practically the entire
group of leading American ethnologists. . . . Directly in consequence of Doctor
Boas personal leadership, evolution, especially in its classical form, has steadily
fallen into disfavor among American ethnologists . . . . I t was reserved to Professor
Franz Boas to become the founder of the American school that was destined to
open up a new era in cultural anthropology, undermining at the very start the
entire system of evolution of culture.69
I n view of these statements, it does not appear that Dr. Lowies attempt
to present the Catholic priests as evolutionists is an adequate portrayal of their
views.
EVOLUTIONISM IS SECURE

Dr. Lowie assures us that evolution as a scientific doctrine , . , is secure.

I, too, feel that it is, or will be, in the long run. I have repeatedly emphasized
its importance in all fields of science and have pointed out that cultural anthropology and orthodox theology are about the only places of hospitality and refuge for a philosophy of anti-evolutionism a t the present time. I believe, however, as I have said before, that this era of reaction will come to an end some
day, and that cultural anthropology will again become not only hospitable to,
blit employ with skill and vigor, this basic concept of all science.
But if evolutionism is secure, it is so in spite of the Boasians rather than
because of anything they have done t o aid it. According to their own statements, the record of their achievements, and the testimony of others, the Boas
school has fought the theory of cultural evolution with vigor, tenacity, and
success for decades. Evolutionism in ethnology has been pronounced dead
by numerous
Actually, however, the question must still be regarded as a living one, Father Williams shrewdly observes, and it is likely
to continue so for some time t o come, despite the fact that at least i n this field of
science, due t o the initiative and indefatigable egort of Dr. Boas, the theory of evolution is steadily losing ground? (emphasis mine).
O8
70

Williams, 1936.
OQ Id., Passinz.
See Linton, 1936b, p. 316; Hooton, 1937, p. 221; Radin, 1933, p. 4; Schmidt, 1939, p. 36.
Williams, 1936, p. 196.

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EVOLUTIONISM I N C U L T U R A L ANTHROPOLOGY

41 1

Yet, Lowie advises me to relax. With evolutionism steadily losing

ground, thanks to the indefatigable efforts of the Boasians and their clerical
comrades in arms, with disciples of Boas gladly reaffirming their faith in the
teachings of the master, those who wish to see ethnology make full use of one
of its most powerful tools will be ill-advised to relax their efforts-for the
present, at least. I would not agree, however, with Father Williams prediction
of a decade ago. I do not believe that evolutionism is steadily losing ground
a t the present time. On the contrary, the letters that I have received in response to my articles, especially from the younger anthropologists, lead me to
believe that there is some dissatisfaction with the Boasian point of view and a
considerable interest in evolutionism.
UNIVERSITY
OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR
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(See WHITE, Ed.), 1940.

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1920a Review of R. H. Lowie, Primitive Society (The Freeman, 1: 377-379).

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SCHMIDT, WILHELM

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and

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1938
1939
1943
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1946

Science Is Sciencing (The Philosophy of Science, 5: 369-389).

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