The Mind of Primitive Man by Franz Boas — Read

I MAY now be allowed to pass once more briefly over the whole ground that we have covered. First of all, we tried to understand the reasons for our belief in the existence of gifted races and of others less favorably endowed, and found that it was based essentially on the assumption that higher achievement is necessarily associated with higher mental faculty, and that therefore the features of those races that in our judgment have accomplished most are characteristics of mental superiority. We subjected these assumptions to a critical study, and discovered little evidence to support them. So many other causes were found to influence the progress of civilization, accelerating or retarding it, and similar processes were active in so many different races, that, on the whole, hereditary traits, more particularly hereditary higher gifts, were at best a possible, but not a necessary, element determining the degree of advancement of a race.

The second part of the fundamental assumption seemed even less likely. Hardly any evidence could be adduced to show that the anatomical characteristics of the races possessing the highest civilization were phylogenetically more advanced than those on lower grades of culture. The various races differ in this respect; the specifically human characteristics being most highly developed, some in one race, some in another. Furthermore, it appeared that a direct relation between physical habitus and mental endowment does not exist.