272 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



At that time there was no anthropological department. That study 

 had not yet differentiated itself from zoology, or anatomy, or physiology 

 so as to claim for itself a distinct place. Moreover, without reverting 

 needlessly to the remarks which I placed before you some time ago, it 

 was a very volcanic subject, and people rather liked to leave it alone. 

 It was not until a long time subsequently that the present organization 

 of this section of the Association was brought about; but it is a curious 

 fact that although truly anthropological subjects were at the time 

 brought before the geographical section — with the proper subject of 

 which they had nothing whatever to do — I find, that even then, more 

 than half of the papers that were brought before that section were, 

 more or less distinctly, of an anthropological cast. It is very curious 

 to observe what that cast was. We had systems of language — we 

 had descriptions of savage races — we had the great question, as it then 

 was thought, of the unity or multiplicity of the human species. These 

 were just touched upon, but there was not an allusion in the whole 

 of the proceedings of the Association, at that time, to those questions 

 which are now to be regarded as the burning questions of anthropology. 

 The whole tendency in the present direction was given by the publica- 

 tion of a single book, and that not a very large one — namely, 'The 

 Origin of Species.' It was only subsequent to the publication of the 

 ideas contained in that book that one of the most powerful instruments 

 for the advance of anthropological knowledge — namely, the Anthropo- 

 logical Society of Paris — was founded. Afterwards the Anthropo- 

 logical Institute of this country and the great Anthropological Society 

 of Berlin came into existence, until it may be said that, at the present 

 time, there is not a branch of science which is represented by a 

 larger or more active body of workers than the science of anthropology. . 

 But the whole of these workers are engaged, more or less intentionally, 

 in providing the data for attacking the ultimate great problem, whether 

 the ideas which Darwin has put forward in regard to the animal world 

 are capable of being applied in the same sense and to the same extent 

 to man. 



That question, I need not say, is not answered. It is a vast and 

 difficult question, and one for which a complete answer may possibly be 

 looked for in the next century; but the method of inquiry is under- 

 stood, and the mode in which the materials bearing on that inquiry 

 are now being accumulated, the processes by which results are now 

 obtained, and the observation of new phenomena lead to the belief that 

 the problem also, some day or other, will be solved. In what sense 

 I can not tell you. I have my own notion about it, but the question for 

 the future is the attainment, by scientific processes and methods, of 

 the solution of that question. If you ask me what has been done within 

 the last twenty-one years towards this object, or rather towards clear- 



