A. M. Hocart

Initial essay "Evidence in Human History" is Hocarth's investigation into the ritual origins of government--stating his rules of evidence for the project. The precepts guide Hocarth's methodology and enable us to emulate the exact sciences by skirting, in the first place, certain popular delusions about what "evidence" is. Hocart leveled this critique in 1933 against the triumphant functionalists conjoined with the intensive field workers gathering direct evidence. While disavowing the theoretical excesses of the diffusionists and dogmatisms of the cultural historians (Radcliffe-Brown), Hocart insists that "direct evidence" is not really direct at all, and many issues can only be explained with comparative circumstantial evidence. Hocart's working rule is "get down to work"--stop arguing about "methodology" and "principles of science". He demonstrates this method in this work on the development of government.

Chapter 2 is an essay on convergence--providing an explanation for similarities among customs. He demonstrates how different customs can converge into identical types even without common origin. His examples from language, architecture, and feudalism calls into question the scholars' obsession with objects of definition. He shows this for example in "clans" where distinctions between matrilineal and patrilineal are far from absolute, and are now often rejected in studies of changing systems. The Editor suggests that Hocart's method is seeing a revived application, namely in (1) the abjuration of substantive definitions, (2) the concentration on historical change, and (3) the exercise of the widest comparison.… (más)