126 Dr Hodgkin on the Progress of Ethnology. 



From this very circumstance, Ethnology may appear to be 

 more exclusively within the province of the medical man and 

 the linguist than is altogether desirable for the interests of 

 the study, which really comes within the scope of "every well- 

 informed man, and more especially of every traveller. 



The conclusion which we may be warranted in drawing 

 from the preceding rapid sketch of the progress of Ethnology 

 seems to be, that this science is in a very similar state to that 

 of Geology, when, after having been the subject of the various 

 theories of Whiston, Liebnitz, and Buffon, it commenced 

 the foundations of its solid superstructure in a rational appeal 

 to facts extensively observed, carefully recorded, and brought 

 to the test of repeated investigation. 



Whilst both theorists and exact observers were advancing 

 speculations and producing facts, there existed another class 

 highly estimable for the purity of their intentions and the 

 sincerity of their piety, who imagined that the labours of the 

 geologists were adverse to the interests of religion, and fa- 

 vourable to the attacks of the sceptic. So with respect to 

 Ethnology, the attempt to define the divisions of man, as 

 marked by his visible physical characters, has been dreaded as 

 a refutation of the Scriptural account of the unity of our 

 species. 



I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing my firm 

 persuasion, that religion has nothing to fear from the strictest 

 scrutiny of the characters and history of the varieties of man- 

 kind, or from the geological study of the globe on which they 

 are placed. 



But, in Ethnography at least, we must be content to pursue 

 the train of facts such as we find them ; and when a break 

 interrupts our progress, be very careful not to connect de- 

 tached portions, until we are satisfied that they really belong 

 to each other. 



But what are the points which Ethnology may, at present, 

 assume as fixed, at least until some new conflicting evidence 

 has been brought against them '? and what are the collateral 

 studies by which its progress is to be assisted % 



In the first place, we may assume that man, as a genus as 

 well as species, is one of the most recent of animals. The Pa- 

 liosomatologist has not only failed to discover any traces of his 



