ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS. 377 



nion of every order, from the artisan to the artist, bring' tosfetlicr and arrans^e 

 materials of all kinds — stones hewed or scnlptnred, esoticlnarbles, g-ranite, wood, 

 metals. To the apparent eonfnsioii of the first stag'e succeed, after a while, 

 order and harmony ; nor is it necessary to wait till the structure is finished to 

 discover the ]dan and purpose of the architect. It is in like manner that the 

 collective work of our S(tciety is developed; the architect here is an impersonal 

 l)ein<^, it is the society itself; and all we who respectively represent the numerous 

 sciences summoned to its aid are the workmen,* whose zeal it stimulates and 

 whose labors it turns to account. 



But the vast variety of subjects which enter into our programme has given 

 birth to prepossessions which manifest themselves at recarring intervals. The 

 necessity of drawing anthropological indications from all s(furces has been con- 

 tested by no one ; but it has been asked to what point and within what limits 

 the sciences which group themselves around anthropology should be placed 

 under contribution? Our distinguished colleague, M. Charles Rochet, who first 

 suggested this question, has long studied human types under the artistic point of 

 view. His attention has been particularly directed to the characters of Greek 

 and Roman heads — characters which he has chiefly determined from antique 

 sculjjtures, without neglecting, however, the testimony of numismatic or ceramic 

 art. But at the moment of communicating to us the results of his curious obser- 

 vations, he has hesitated ; he lias felt a doubt whether researches of this kind, 

 based on facts which pertain principally to the domain of art, ought to figure in 

 the compass of anthropological investigations, and he has invited the society to 

 state in a general manner the nature of the relations which it regards as estab- 

 lished between anthropology properly so called and the conceptions which the 

 latter borrows from different branches of human knowledge. The scruples of 

 our colleague were exaggerated, and the interest with which you have listened 

 since then to his memoir on the t^'pe of the Roman head must have satisfied him 

 that they were so. But the general question which he had proi)ounded retains 

 all its imjiortance, and merits your attention the more inasmuch as it was recently 

 reproduced when M. Camus communicated to us the learned researches of M. 

 Fetis on musical systems considered as an ethnological character, 



The history of the arts, no more than that of languages, of religions, of letters, 

 or political societies, no more than the sciences callecl biological, no more than 

 zoology, palaeontology, and geology, forms any part of the programme of anthro- 

 pology. A memoir ex professo on painting or on music would be as little in 

 place here as a comnnmication on the structure of the bones, or a dissertation on 

 the use of the subjunctive. Anatomy, however, furnishes us the best distinctive 

 characters of the himian races, and we are obliged incessantly to invoke its aid. 

 when we would establish a parallel between the human grou}) and that of the 

 anthrf)pomorj)hous apes. Nor is linguistics less indispensable when we design 

 to study the filiation of nations and races. Little does it import to us that such 

 a race of sheep furnishes an abundant fleece, that such another affords less avooI 

 and produces more flesh j but when the history of these races, of their origin, of 

 their crossings, of their degree of stability, supplies us with ideas more or less 

 precise on the general question of the race or species, anthrojiology avails itself 

 with eagerness of these facts, which are capable of contributing to the solution 

 of some of its gravest problems. It is thus that we have often seen our learned 

 colleague, M. iSanson, bring his vast knowledge in zootechny to bear, and never 

 without efi'ect, upon our discussions. We could not advance a single ste}) in the 

 study of the })rehistorie races if arclurology had not first furnished the elements 

 for tlie distinction of epochs — if it did not indicate to us the relative dates of th(i 

 inhumations from which we derive the bones submitted to our observation; yet 

 it is evident that the laljors proper to pure archaMdogy would divert us from our 

 object. This has been perfectly comprehended by those of our colleagues who, 

 without ceasing to be numbered among our most zealous and active members, 



