Abstract

Examining the life and work of Adolf Bastian from a dilettante point of view does justice to this important personality of German 19th century ethnology only if a very differentiating approach takes into consideration all the aspects of his work. Bastian, a medical doctor trained in the humanistic tradition, acquired a universal knowledge during his studies. In 1869, he made ethnology into an independent science in Germany, and in the following decades, established it through extensive organisational measures. Bastian worked as a professional in ethnological research. The influence of his theory, the Lehre vom Elementar und Völkergedanken, reaches up into the 20th century although it did bear epigonous and time‐related traits. Bastian broadens the ethnological field of research into a universal‐historical reflection. He postulates a strictly empirical method and was one of the few that opposed the encroachment of evolutionism on the human sciences in Germany in the 19th century. In the face of these merits Bastian is to be considered a “true scientist” in the history of the sciences who, nevertheless, shows serious flaws in several areas of his work, flaws that are of an amateurish nature. Especially deplorable are his very unsystematic way of working and the stylistic excesses in his writings. Most of his large ethnographic collections of materials cannot be used in continued scientific work. A fact that has caused a lot of critizism and, considering Bastian's decades of intensive research, represents a great loss to ethnology.