590 THr: "nation "as an element in anthropology. 



Each is eiiually iu error. No correct and comprehensive idea can be 

 formed of the varions elements wliich liave rendered man what he is, 

 or iiuy race or stock of men what it is, nnless all these phenomena 

 receive dne consideration, and the various agencies which intinence 

 them are weighed with impartial fairness. The historian must become 

 an anatomist, the anatomist a linguist, if he Avould reach positive results 

 in this study. 



You observe that the i>rogramme of this congress includes physical 

 anthropology, arclnieology, ethnology, folk-lore, it3ligions, and linguis- 

 tics. It would be an epoch in the history of the science, a notable 

 era in its development, if the labors we are about to enter upon should 

 lastingly impress on all who pursue this branch that every one of these 

 departments is equally important, that not'one of them can be neglected 

 or o\erlooke(l, that the richest iu result.'' is slill hut 2)rimi<s inter })ares^ 

 a brother among brethren. 



To illustrate how closely the multitudinous intluences which they 

 rcjuesent are woven together, and how eacdi bears ui)on the whole 

 nature of man, I shall consider with brevity in what manner that entity 

 which we call a "• nation '' api)ears as an eltMiient in anthropology. I 

 have been i)artly, though by no means wholly, led to make this selec- 

 tion l)ecause this particular question has been much misunderstood in 

 some (juarters and its bearings misconceived. As late as at the con- 

 gress at ^Moscow last year, a distinguished writer in our branch of 

 science said, ''Nationality has nothing to do with anthropology. It is 

 a product of history and concerns liistory only." 



So far from this being correct, I shall endeavor to show that nation- 

 ality has ever been and is to-day an agent more powerful in modifying 

 both the physical and the psychical elements of man than either race, 

 climate, religion, or culture; and therefore that it must constantly 

 occupy the attention of the anthropologist, whether his researches are 

 in the purely physical or in the intellectual fields. 



1 desire to emphasize the fact that the anthropologist will never 

 fully comprehend the science which he professes to follow, will never 

 attain the preception of its whole significance, if he omits from its 

 study, as not pertaining strictly to it, any infiuence whatever which 

 bears upon and modifies in any direction the evolution of the human 

 species. This the nation does with a directness and a potency which 

 can not be misunderstood or called in question. 



Let us inquire what it is we mean by the expression "a people" or 

 "a nation," when we use these terms as synonymous. I can find no 

 more i)rofound and true definition than that given by the most philo- 

 sophic English poet of this century, Robert Browning, in these words: 



"A people is but the attempt of many 

 To rise to the completer life of one." 



The incompleteness and im]»erfectness of the life of the isolated 

 individual, and his conscious or unconscious aspirations for completion 



