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A M E R I C A N ANTHROPOLOGIST

[N. S.,

27, 1925

I should be hard pressed if I had to define civilization, but whatever i t is, it began to grow when protoplasm began to live. Nature evolving eyes and Man inventing eyeglasses are equally natural. True, we can distinguish eyes from organisms and from bony sockets, and eyeglasses from the man who wears them or the man who makes them, but eyes, sockets, and eyeglasses are not to be understood apart from Man. To seek for causes of the negros lips and shiftless disposition is t o lose sight of the negro. T o try to separate the negro from his environment is to deprive the negro of life and environment of a living organism. Anthropology will be on its way toward a science when it begins to grasp the principle of the fundamental unity of biologic and social problems, and the common biologic background of Man and his works. It will prove itself a valuable science when i t boldly tackles the problem of the nature of Man and his works as one problem and does not hesitate to attempt a re-synthesis of Man from such analyses as may be made by other sciences. There is room for a n aggressive, enlightened science of Man. I n all this I am not aware that I have said anything with which the author of Anthropology would disagree. I have merely tried to give expression to a long-felt conviction that it is time anthropologists recast their program, reformulate their problems, and enlarge their vision. It is not enough to describe physical types and trace the growth and dissemination of culture. Anthropology can be satisfied with nothing less than a whole man. T o that science Kroebers book is a welcome contribution; and, personally, I a m grateful. Especially when I think of the advance i t marks over my student days, when I spent eight weeks assorting a tray of potsherds, and a friend of mine, as graduate student in the University of Chicago, was being assigned the next eight pages of de Quatrefages for his next lesson. GEORGE DORSEY. A.
Monotheism among Primitive Peoples. PAUL RADIN. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1924. 69 pp. 1 s. This paper, originally presented as one of the Arthur Davis Memorial Lectures, expresses an extremely interesting suggestion, to wit, that monotheistic conceptions are rooted not in a distinctive form of civilization but in a peculiar type of temperament. Since

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this type is everywhere likely to occur with a certain frequency, we must therefore expect to find monotheism-not necessarily, of course, as on obligatory faith-at every cultural level. This anti-unilinear position is certainly in harmony with modern anthropological thought, and it is particularly gratifying to find Doctor Radin basing his argument on the phenomenon of individual variability. What I feel bound to question, however, is his definition of the type that evolves monotheistic ideals. According t o the author, it is the eminently devout-as opposed to the intermittently religious -temperament that must be credited with monotheism. Since he himself, however, takes pains (p. IS) to characterize the craving for a co-ordination of experience and the ethical impulse as essentially non-religious, it would seem that the philosophical rather than the religious temperament (as defined by the author) evolves monotheistic conceptions. I t would be interesting to examine a fuller development of Doctor Radins thesis, which might clarify this patent contradiction. ROBERT LOWIE H.
Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte. Herausgegeben von MAX EBERT. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter and Co., 1924 and 1925.

At the time of writing three volumes of this remarkable work have reached the American Anthropologist. It is being issued in installments of approximately one hundred pages and a t the subscription price of 6 mk. each. I n the Preface Professor Ebert (Konigsberg) outlines the scheme of his project. The primary object of the undertaking is to provide a n authoritative survey of European prehistory, together with that of the Near Orient. While archaeological data and problems are stressed, philology, physical anthropology, and sociology are by no means slighted. The inclusion of certain topics naturally depended upon other than strictly logical considerations. Thus India has been reluctantly excluded from discussion because of the fragmentary state of our knowledge. China and Eastern Asia generally lay outside the scope of the enterprise, but Siberia is included; and while the archaeology of the New World, except for a general article, falls outside the limits set b y the editor, the sociological essays take full cognizance of American data. T h e list of collaborators is an impressive one, comprising Scandinavian, Finnish, Spanish, and Italian, as well as German and Austrian