Two Converging Lines of Influence in Cultural Evolutionary Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID2446407
AuthorsMorris E Opler (Cornell University, corresponding author)
Year1962
Volume64
Issue3
Pages524-547
Publication date1962-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1525/aa.1962.64.3.02a00050
OpenAlexW2014466562
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited12

carriers.The dependence of science and technology on the conservation and communication of knowledge-on the development of common labels and vocabularies-dramatized the role of the symbol in culture building and stimulated the study of the relationship between language and culture.The success in probing the secrets of nature-the development through scientific research of marvels that overshadow even those pictured in Holy Writfostered an impatience with revelation and a generous optimism concerning what could be accomplished in man's interests through the application of science, conceived in practical form as the control and utilization of energy for human purposes.All of these tendencies and convictions are present in the writings of Ostwald and many of his contemporaries.Moreover, although Ostwald, as a chemist, translated the doctrines of the time into terms of energy, the tenets which have been summarized and which he held can be discerned just as readily in the work of the anthropologists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Whether or not they were evolutionists, a large number of American anthropologists, including Lewis H. Morgan, John W. Powell, Clark Wissler, and Franz Boas, saw in man's growing rationality and application of knowledge to his problems the prospects of a happier and more abundant future.Lewis Morgan envisaged "experience, intelligence and knowledge" ushering in "democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education (1877: 561-62).Powell was optimistic enough to predict a stage of Enlightenment that would follow mere Civilization (Hallowell 1960: 5 5 ) .Wissler saw mechanization, spurred by reflective thought and rationalization, as the glory of Western Civilization and the promise of things to come.Religious faith, in his view, was no longer one of the very significant factors in the western world; dependence on education and science had supplanted reliance on traditional beliefs (1923:5-10, 187-88, 32629, 361-64).We can turn as well to Franz Boas for echoes of scientism of this general order.The message of the 12th chapter of The Mind of Primitive Mun is that the transition from primitive life to civilization is essentially the substitution of actions performed as means to a rational end for behavior carried out in response to emotional associations.Thus impersonal control or science gradually displaces warm belief (1938: 239-42, 24&52).Nor do we have to search far to find indications in American anthropology of other elements of the idea cluster we are concerned with. A. L. Kroeber's delineation of the cultural realm and the relation of tools and symbols to its emergence is too well known to labor (1952:22-51).Robert Lowie, who, like Ostwald, was much influenced by Ernst Mach and who contributed the article on Mach to the 1924 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana, describes in an autobiographical note his "earlier anticlericalism" and that of his "elders and contemporaries" in the scientific world (Du Bois 1960:lO).Much more could be said about the manner in which American anthropologists reflected and shared the scientific postulates which grew up in the 19th century, but we are concerned at the moment with the particular organization of these ideas which Ost wald achieved. A merican A nthropologist[64, 1962I n the first place Ostwald emphasized the importance of the kind of usable energy being considered and the relation of this to the storing-up process, i.e., to the amount likely to remain available.On this point he writes:. . .as we have already learned, chemical energy is permanent, while radiant energy is an extremely transitory form of energy, that is, it changes very readily.The very fact that, owing to the change from day to night, the supply of radiant energy periodically ceases, makes the storingup of energy for the night necessary to the existence of a form dependent upon it.Thus, we recognize in the photochemical processes, that is, in the transformation of radiant energy into chemical energy, the foundation of life on earth (Ostwald 1910:169).In another place, with greater stress on its meaning for culture, he phrases the matter thus:We know that we all live by virtue of the free energy that streams from the sun to the earth like a broad and powerful flood, available in an infinitesimal portion for affecting human beings; and that we, who live on the shores of this flood, can draw off a part of this mighty river by dams and machines, and can take possession of it for our purposes.This takes place in the first instance through agriculture and the (still somewhat primitive) cattle breeding by which the chemical energy collected by the plants from the sun's rays can be assigned to the service of man, and changed into the form of nourishment for his various kinds of aims (1913:30).Ostwald is very explicit also about the dependence of progress or evolution, both biological and cultural, upon the efficiency with which the various forms of energy are utilized.In respect to this he declares

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