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On the Relations of Ethnology to other Branches of Knowledge, 

 By J. C. PmcHARD, M.D., F.R.S., Corresponding Member 

 of the Institute of France, &c. &e. &c. Communicated by 

 the Ethnological Society.* 



The anniversary address delivered at the last meeting of this 

 Society by our late excellent President Sir Charles Malcolm, 

 gave so lucid and extensive a survey of the recent progress 

 of Ethnology, that I should find little to offer on the present 

 occasion, were I to follow the same path. The achievements 

 of one year, taken by themselves, would appear fragmentary, 

 and without results. It has, however, occurred to me, that 

 there is a different course by which I may hope to fulfil the 

 task allotted to me more to the satisfaction of the Society. 

 The idea has been suggested to me by a proposal made lately 

 to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to 

 appoint in that Society a distinct Section for the Cultivation 

 of Ethnology, t In some parts of the Continent, and in the 

 United States of America, societies have for some time ex- 

 isted exclusively devoted to this pursuit, and supported by 

 men highly distinguished in science and literature. In the 

 meetings of the British Association alone, Ethnology claims 

 but a subordinate place in the Section of Natural History. 

 The reason assigned for this arrangement is, that the natu- 

 ral history of man is a part of the natural history of living 

 creatures, and that there is an obvious propriety in refer- 

 ring to one division, the history of all organised beings, 

 namely, of all those beings which exist in successive gene- 

 rations, destined one after another to rise, flourish, and 

 decay — a lot to which are alike subjected the lords of the 

 creation, and the worms on which they tread — and the plants 

 and animals which they consume for their daily food. But 

 though the natural history of man may, in a technical ar- 



* Read before the Ethnological Society, June 1847. 



t This proposal was made at the meeting of the Association at York by Dr 

 King, secretary of the Ethnological and Statistical Societies. It was negatived 

 by the Committee of the Association. 



