Why Men Behave Like Apes and Vice Versa

Abstract

THE present eclipse of anthropology as an active science, while no doubt partly a result of the War, is very largely an outcome of the growth of nationalist doctrines in Europe during the past decade. Ever since the rise of Hitler, reputable anthropologists have been abandoning orderly scientific work in order to devote more and more of their energies to refuting a priori doctrines of race-for example, those which form part of the foundation of Nazi political philosophy. The immediate result has been the transformation of the international anthropological scene into one camp of propagandists which supports such doctrines, and another the main purpose of which is to expose their lack of scientific basis. A more serious consequence of the politico-racial 'red herring' is that human biology, which may be conceived as the discipline the responsibility of which is to co-ordinate studies of the biological history and relationships of different peoples, as well as studies of their genetic make-up and behaviour, has been largely side-tracked into unprofitable polemics. These fields of inquiry will have to be explored again if there is to be any sustained rational approach to the wider social problems, not least of which are the Colonial problems, which must be faced at the end of the War. That they will emerge in full vigour is certain, not only because of necessity, but also because of the enthusiastic faith shown in this field of correlated studies by a small band of devoted anthropologists and social biologists. Why Men Behave Like Apes and Vice Versa Or Body and Behavior. By Earnest Albert Hooton. Pp. xxv + 234 + 22 plates. (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press ; London: Oxford University Press, 1941.) 18s. 6d. net.