Miscellaneous Papers. 205 



popular interest in physics is passing and anthropology is 

 coming to the fore to occupy the arena' for the next era. There 

 is undoubtedly an increasing scientific and popular interest in 

 all branches of anthropology, as is indicated by the increased 

 number of books and magazines and popular magazine and 

 newspaper articles appearing on the subject,' the increasing 

 number of visitors to this department in the museums, and 

 the greater number of public and private collections that have 

 a real scientific value. It is to be noted also that the science is 

 being taught more in our colleges, which are establishing 

 special chairs that are devoted to the science, the classes of 

 which are well attended. The value of anthropology to the 

 general purposes of life is thus coming to be recognized and 

 it is at last coming into its own. 



Anthropology is said to be the newest of the sciences, as 

 astronomy is the oldest, and it is not a little curious that the 

 oldest of the sciences, that deals with the things furthest away 

 from us, should be the most exact of the sciences, while an- 

 thropology, the newest of the sciences, that deals with the 

 things of ourselves, should be the most inexact. In fact, an- 

 thropology is yet in its infancy — a sturdy infant, it is true, 

 but still young when compared with other and more exact 

 sciences. We know less of our own species than we do of most 

 animals, but the deficiency is being very rapidly remedied by 

 the tremendously rapid accumulation of data that characterizes 

 our day. 



It is only since the establishment of evolution as a philo- 

 sophical principle that anthropology has had a scientific basis. 

 It is only since its liberation from the thralldom of teleological 

 and prejudiced theories that it has been able to advance as a 

 science. Anthropology, more than any other science, has been 

 hampered and handicapped in its growth by superstition and 

 prejudice. It has but just stepped out from the darkness in 

 which it has lain for centuries and is yet bewildered and 

 blinded by the fierce light that is thrown upon it by modern 

 research. Data and material are accumulating so rapidly and 

 in such quantities that it is yet quite impossible to classify it 

 and formulate even the beginning of a philosophy, such as our 

 sister sciences have accomplished. The elucidation of the great 

 problems of the science that bear upon the past and future 

 of our species seems further away to-day than it did fifty years 

 ago, when the facts bearing upon them were within easy com- 



