200 Kansas Academy of Science. 



colonies, and it. had begun to occupy the attention of the French 

 government. The London society, to influence France favor- 

 ably toward abolition, sent some of its members over to Paris 

 to establish a society for the agitation of the question of the 

 emancipation of the negroes in the French colonies. Although 

 not successful in this, their efforts were not without fruits for 

 the benefit of science, for M. Milne Edwards and his friends 

 resolved to found a scientific organization, and thus brought 

 into existence the celebrated Ethnological Society of Paris, 

 which was authorized by the minister of public instruction 

 August 20, 1839. Since the failure of the Society of the Ob- 

 servers of Men, anthropology had made marked progress, and 

 possessed a large mass of material. Museums of craniology, 

 archeology, ethnology, etc., had been formed ; valuable publica- 

 tions had appeared; numbers of savants devoted their atten- 

 tion to the science ; and, taken altogether, anthropology needed 

 only organization and a home, and this the first ethnological so- 

 ciety gave. It began under favorable conditions and ac?om- 

 plished much; its work was good and its publications were 

 valuable additions to the literature of the science." 



It was followed by the Ethnological Society of London in 

 1'844, and a few years later by one in New York. The Pa- 

 risian society was in the lead, but its field was too narrow, for 

 it studied only racial distinctions and excluded the important 

 basis of anatomy and physiology," so that it was not strictly 

 and comprehensively anthropological in its work. "The so- 

 ciety was like a ship without ballast, when deprived of the 

 invaluable guidance of natural science, and sailed well enough, 

 perhaps, in calm seas, but was not prepared for storms, if any 

 should arise. Unfortunately one did arise when the society 

 began to be agitated by the question of slavery. The first thing 

 was to determine the distinctive characteristics of the white 

 and black races. But it was in vain that the naturalists and 

 anatomists, too few in number, tried to confine the discussions 

 within the limits of natural history. The friends and foes of 

 emancipation looked at it as a question of social politics and 

 dragged the society after them into the passionate arena." 

 The polygenists declared for the independent origin of each 

 race, the natural inferiority of the black race and its conse- 

 quent destiny to be the slave of the superior or white races; 

 while the monogenists declared for the unity of origin of the 

 whole human race and a community of destiny, the consequent 



