1866.] Annual Retrospect. 145 
as we are, can find for having extended our conquests far and wide, 
is that it enables our civilizing influence to be felt in savage lands, 
and our cultivating care in waste places; and it cannot be too 
strongly urged upon our Government that their first duty abroad 
is to turn to good account all the products of nature, and to give 
employment to the intelligent pioneers of ever'y branch of science. 
Much good has been rendered to Zoological science by Mr. H. B. 
Tristram, who has made an extensive collection of animals in Pales- 
tine, which have afforded work for some of our leading zoologists 
at home; indeed, it seems surprising that the fauna of a country 
rendered so interesting by tradition should have been so little known 
in Great Britain. 
And now the mention of Zoology and tradition will, no doubt, 
have suggested to many of our readers that delicate problem, the 
Origin of Species, and consequently the Origin of Man. Although to 
the unscientific world it may appear that the whole question slum- 
bers, this is far from being the case. Day by day new evidence is 
adduced either for or against the theory of natural selection and the 
transmutation of species; and surely, but silently, a revolution is 
taking place in the method of recording natural history. 
That silence we shall not at present attempt to break ; for it is 
as essential to the progress of knowledge and to the attamment of 
truth as are the hidden processes which are going on in the secret 
places of nature, or in the closed workshops of art, before the new 
life can be revealed, or the finished work exhibited. But we teel 
bound to say a few words concerning some of the means now 
adopted to attempt the elucidation of the most interesting and 
difficult problem of the day—namely, the origin and development of 
man. We have at the present time in London two competing 
societies, publishing two competing journals, both of which, under 
different titles—the ‘ Ethnological’ and the ‘ Anthropological ’— 
profess themselves anxious to throw light upon this obscure 
and warmly-debated subject. A glance at the proceedings of 
these two societies would lead the unprejudiced observer to form 
rather a humble estimate of the efforts of science in this di- 
rection, for it is hardly possible to be present at their meetings, 
or to peruse a Number of the respective journals, without at once 
perceiving that one of the most serious and important scientific 
VOL. II. L 
