A REMARKABLE ANTICIPATION OF MODERN 

 VIEWS ON EVOLUTION. 



THE great pioneer of modern anthropological and 

 ethnological research — James Covvles Prichard, was 

 born at Ross, in Herefordshire, iith February, 1786. 

 The following brief account of his life is taken from Pro- 

 fessor E. B. Tylor's article in the Encyclopccdia Britannica 

 {1885, vol. xix., pp. 722, ']2^). Prichard was brought up 

 as a member of the Society of Friends, to which body his 

 parents belonged. He joined the medical profession, taking 

 his Doctor's degree at Edinburgh, " afterwards reading for a 

 year at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence, joining the 

 Church of England, he migrated to St. John's College, 

 Oxford, afterwards entering as a gentleman commoner at 

 Trinity College, Oxford, but seeking no degree in either 

 University, In 18 10 he settled at Bristol as a physician." 

 Among his many great achievements in anthropology was 

 the proof " that the Celtic nations are allied by language with 

 the Slavonian, German, and Pelasgian (Greek and Latin), 

 thus forming a fourth European branch of the i\siatic stock 

 (which would now be called Indo-European or Aryan) ". 

 His treatise on the subject, entitled ''Eastern Origin of the 

 Celtic Nations^'' appeared in 1831. "It is remarkable that 

 the essay by Adolphe Pictet, Dc P Affinite des Langiies 

 Celtiques avec le Sanscrit, which was crowned by the 

 French Academy and made its author's reputation, should 

 have been published in 1837 in evident ignorance of the 

 earlier and in some respects stricter investigations of 

 Prichard." 



Although Prichard's memory is much honoured, it 

 appears that in one important respect he has not hitherto 

 received his due. My friend Professor Meldola lately 

 drew my attention to a section of the second volume of 

 Researches into the Physical History of Mankind {2Vidi edition, 

 1826) which, as he pointed out, anticipated in the clearest 

 manner the arguments which have been recently advanced 



