14 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



of the Department of Embryology and issued during the year as 

 pubHcation No. 272 of the Institution's series (quarto, pp. v+ 

 554, with a portrait of Mall) . It contains twenty distinct papers 

 from as many different authors, whose common aim has been to 

 furnish at once a fitting testimonial to their inspiring leader and 

 an exemplification of the high standards he attained in all his 

 work. 



Early in the history of the Institution a multitude of proposals 

 more or less, but mostly less, definite for work in the inclusive 

 domain of anthropology were entertained. Indeed, the number, 

 the importance, and the great prospective costs of such proposals 

 were soon seen, by those obliged to consider the limitations 

 involved, to be hopelessly beyond the capacities of the Institu- 

 tion's income. But quite apart from tliis insuperable obstacle in 

 the way of speedy and effective entrance into that domain, there 

 were, and are, two other obstacles hardly less insurmountable. 

 These are, first, a lack of a consensus of opinion as to the content 

 of anthropology, and, secondly, a prevalent inability to relieve 

 ourselves of prepossessions in approaching this science. Herein 

 is found an explanation of the fact that the highly objective 

 physical sciences have advanced much more rapidly and securely 

 than the highly subjective humanistic sciences, as well as an 

 explanation of the fact that it was ten times as easy, say, to 

 establish the Mount Wilson Observatory as it would be to set up 

 a department devoted to anthropology in the comprehensive 

 sense of the term. Thus far it must be said that even in America, 

 where so much has been done during the past half -century to give 

 definiteness to the word, anthropology is commonly confounded 

 with one of its subdivisions, namely, archeology; wliile the latter 

 in turn, until recently, has been usually restricted to the antiqui- 

 ties of the peoples who have dwelt about the shores of the 

 Mediterranean Sea. 



Nevertheless, in spite of the obstacles referred to, and in spite 

 of the great excess in this, as in other domains, of opportunities 

 over capacities of available means, much work has been accom- 

 plished by the Institution in the large group of apparently 

 diverse though intrinsically related fields now designated as 

 component parts of anthropology. Nearly a hundred volumes 



