The basis of social relations : a study in ethnic psychology / by Daniel G. Brinton ; edited by Livingston Farrand.

  • Daniel Garrison Brinton
Date:
1902
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The basis of social relations : a study in ethnic psychology / by Daniel G. Brinton ; edited by Livingston Farrand. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    false and the other true, their psychic values are indefinitely apart. We perceive, therefore, that in psychology gen¬ erally, and especially in ethnic psychology, where we deal with aggregates, we must draw a fundamental distinction between those agents which act quan¬ titatively on the psychical life, that is, modify it by measurable forces, and those which act qualitatively, that is, by altering the contents and direction of the psyche itself. The former belong properly to “natural history,” and can be measured and estimated just to the ex¬ tent that we have instruments of precision for the purpose; the latter wholly elude any such attempts, and must be appraised by the results they have historically achieved, that is, by arts, events, or institutions. The recognition of these two factors of human development, radically distinct yet inseparably as¬ sociated, has led me to adopt the division into two parts of the present work. The first is the “ nat¬ ural,” the second, the “ cultural,” history of the ethnic mind.1 Note that I say ethnic mind. For let it be said here, as well as repeated later, that there is no such 1 [The author had apparently decided to reverse this order of treatment after writing the above. The “ natural history of the ethnic mind” forms the second part of the work.—Editor.]