124 Dr Hodgkin on the Progress of Ethnology. 



bear to the geographical distribution of the human race, has 

 probably concurred with Blumenbach's priority as an author, 

 in causing his divisions to be more generally followed than 

 those of any other writer on this subject ; yet more extensive 

 and more accurate research has exhibited the difficulty, I 

 might say the impossibility, of reducing all the varieties of 

 man with which we are already acquainted to his five grand 

 divisions. Herder says that there are not four or five but 

 many more varieties which may be recognised ; and our 

 countryman Dr Prichard, although admiring and following 

 in the steps of Blumenbach, and adopting the five varieties 

 which he has recognised, has found it necessary to subdivide 

 and add. It has been by no means the major part of Dr 

 Prichard's labour to establish the principal divisions in the 

 varieties of man, which, as he has shewn, are not actually 

 separated from each other by strong lines of demarcation. 

 He has descended into details and pursued the investigation 

 of the subordinate groups, both as respects their actual con- 

 dition as described by most recent observers, and also their 

 characters as noticed in former periods, whenever he has been 

 able to obtain the descriptions of earlier writers. Though we 

 cannot but admire and value such a work, which nothing but ex- 

 traordinary ability and industry could have produced, it will 

 readily be understood, that, as respects many, if not all of the 

 subordinate groups, much must remain to be done, not merely 

 in the collection of new facts, which continued observation 

 and research may bring to light ; but also in the verification 

 of statements already made by observers, or writers of differ- 

 ent degrees of credibility, of which the compiler could not al- 

 ways have the means of judging. The work of Dr Prichard 

 has greatly advanced ethnological knowledge, and has brought 

 the science to that state in which the united exertions of a 

 community of enquirers becomes essential, and, as might 

 reasonably be expected, it exhibits the necessity for those re- 

 touches which it has prepared the way for future labourers to 

 make. 



The merit of bringing about this kind of co-operation, 

 which may be regarded as an epoch in the history of this 

 science, belongs to the late Dr Edwards, whose attention ap- 



