146 Annual Retrospect. | Jan, 
questions of the day is being treated, to speak mildly, in a sen~ 
sational rather than a rational and legitimate manner. Whichever 
way we turn, we are met by personal recrimination, bad puns, 
exhibitions of vanity, and anything but the evidences that man is 
a reflecting, reasoning creature. We are not going to condemn 
utterly either the Anthropological or the Ethnological Society. To 
judge from the account given in the ‘ Ethnological Journal’ of the 
establishment of the ‘ Anthropological, we feel convinced, although 
the writer of the article thinks otherwise, that a new society was to 
some extent a necessity of the “situation ;” but when we turn to the 
‘ Anthropological Journal, or consider the mode in which its officers 
seek to attract public attention, we find with regret that the need 
has not been supplied in a manner worthy of this great nation. Just 
imagine two large societies, reckoning amongst their members some 
of the leading investigators of the day, established for the purpose 
of elucidating their own human nature and the history of their race, 
calling each other names, and squabbling like a couple of school- 
boys whether this or that one has a right to say aloud the lesson 
which both are just beginning to learn ! 
There is ample room for both societies to investigate the origin 
and nature of man, and other germane subjects, and we should not 
be surprised to see established, before long, a third society, which 
would certainly succeed if it sought to combine the modest, 
moderate, and self-sacrificing men of both parties. 
What appears to us to be needed for the elucidation of the 
subject, is not a medley of desultory papers on the negro, cannibalism, 
anthropology, philology, and so forth, but a well-devised pro- 
gramme or scheme, somewhat of the nature of a commission, which 
shall bring together all relevant facts; sift and prune, suggest and 
search; until we shall have presented to us,an uncoloured and accu- 
rate, though it may be at present an imperfect outline of the rise, 
development, and present condition of the human race throughout 
the world. There are men of science living who are well qualified 
to co-operate in such a labour, but for the reasons already assigned, 
they hold aloof from the controversy, and are content to wait for 
the return of calm judgment and courtesy into the councils of 
anthropological or ethnological science. 
A new year now dawns upon us, a year that may be barren of 
