Anthropology and modern life / by Franz Boas.

  • Franz Boas
Date:
[1929]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anthropology and modern life / by Franz Boas. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    differences are liable to be overlaid and over- shadowed by environmental influences. Under these conditions it is well-nigh impos- sible to determine with certainty the hereditary traits in mental behavior. In a well-integrated so- ciety we find people of most diverse descent who all react so much in the same way that it is im- possible to tell from their reactions alone to what race they belong. Individual differences and those belonging to family lines occur in such a society, but among healthy individuals these are so slightly correlated to bodily form that an identification of an individual on the basis of his functions as be- longing to a family or race of definite hereditary functional qualities is also impossible. In this case, even more than in that of anatomi- cal form, the range of variation of hereditary lines constituting a “race” is so wide that the same types of lines may be found in different races. While so far as anatomical form is concerned Negroes and Whites have racially hereditary traits, this is not true of function. The mental life of each of the individuals constituting these races is so varied that from its expression alone an individual can- not be assigned to the one or the other. It is true that in regard to a few races, like the Bushmen of South Africa, we have no evidence in regard to this point, and we may suspend judgment, although
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