ANTIQUITY OF MAN.* 



By John Evans, F. B. S. 



In the year 1870, I had the houor of presiding over what was then 

 the Department of Ethnology in the Biological Section of the British 

 Association at its meeting in Liverpool. Since that time 20 years have 

 elapsed, during the greater portion of which period the subjects in 

 which we are principally interested have been discussed in a depart- 

 ment of anthropology forming part of the organization of the Biolog- 

 ical Section, although since 1883 there has been a new section of the 

 association, that of anthropology, which has thus been placed upon 

 the same level as the various other sciences represented in this great 

 parliament of knowledge. This gradual advance in its position among 

 other branches of science proves, at all events, that whatever may 

 have been our actual increase in knowledge, anthropology has gained 

 and not lost in i)ublic estimation; and the interest in all that relates to 

 the history, physical characteristics, and progress of the human race 

 is even more lively and more universal than it was 20 years ago. Dur- 

 ing those years much study has been devoted to anthropological ques- 

 tions by able investigators, both in England and abroad, and there is 

 at the present time hardly any civilized country in the world in which 

 there has not been founded, under some form or another, an anthropo- 

 logical society, the publications of which are yearly adding a greater 

 or less quota to our knowledge. The subjects embraced in these studies 

 are too numerous and too vast for me to attempt even in a cursory man- 

 ner to point out in what special departments the principal advances 

 have been made, or to what extent views that were held as well estab- 

 lished 20 years ago have had either to be modified in order to place 

 them on a surer foundation, or have had to be absolutely abandoned. 

 Nor could I undertake to enumerate all the new lines of investigation 

 which the ingenuity of students has laid open, or the different ways in 

 which investigations that at first sight might appear more curious than 

 useful have eventually been found to have a direct bearing upon the 

 ordinary afi'airs of human life, and their results to be susceptible of 



•Presidential address before the Autliropological Section of the British Association 

 Adv. Sci. nieetinjr at Leeds, September, 1890. (From Nature, September 18, 1890, 

 vol. XLll, pp. 507-510.) 



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