METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. 213 



possess a history. But on taking a broad survey of 

 the world, it is astonishing how few nations present 

 either condition. Eespecting five-sixths of the per- 

 sistent modifications of mankind, history and 

 archaeology are absolutely silent. For half the rest, 

 they might as well be silent for anything that is to 

 be made of their testimony. And, finally, when 

 the question arises as to what was the condition of 

 mankind more than a paltry two or three thou- 

 sand years ago, history and archaeology are, for the 

 most part, mere dumb dogs. What light does 

 either of these branches of knowledge throw on the 

 past of the man of the New World, if we except the 

 Central Americans and the Peruvians; on that of 

 the Africans, save those of the Valley of the Nile 

 and a fringe of the Mediterranean; on that of all 

 the Polynesian, Australian, and central Asiatic 

 peoples, the former of whom probably, and the last 

 certainly, were, at the dawn of history, substan- 

 tially what they are now? While thankfully ac- 

 cepting what history has to give him, therefore, 

 the ethnologist must not look for too much from 

 her. 



Is more to be expected from inquiries into the 

 customs and handicrafts of man? It is to be feared 

 not. In reasoning from identity of custom to iden- 

 tity of stock the difficulty always obtrudes itself, 

 that the minds of men being everywhere similar, 

 differing in quality and quantity but not in kind 

 of faculty, like circumstances must tend to produce 



