] 96 On Elucidating the Natural History of Man 



and valuable source, whence we can procure other and not less 

 valuable applications to the science of anthropology. 



But, in truth, our reasoning demonstrates only the general 

 and absolute, and not the present and immediate possibility of 

 such applications ; and it might have happened that the present 

 state of the science, whilst it promised them for the future, de- 

 nied their present realization. Happily, however, this is not 

 altogether the case, and even now we can, by a searching exa- 

 mination of several questions, deduce corollaries, the number and 

 importance of which will necessarily increase with the future 

 progress of zoological science. Thus, to cite some examples, 

 may we not easily conceive, at least in a general way (and al- 

 ready important researches have been made by M. Dureau de 

 la Malle with this object), that the determination of the original 

 habitat of species, which are now nearly spread over the whole 

 surface of the globe, might supply views respecting the first 

 place of their domestication, and consequently throw some light 

 upon the ancient relations of different nations? And may we 

 not also perceive, that when in any way we fix the relative order 

 of the domestication of species, a task which we can now per- 

 form for several, we may then arrive at useful deductions con- 

 cerning the relative period of the civilization of different tribes ? 

 And, finally, is it not evident that the ideas promulgated by 

 different authors concerning the analogies and discrepancies, the 

 common or the different origin of certain tribes, may be con- 

 firmed or invalidated, at all events, in some cases, by the com- 

 parative study of then domestic animals, as well as by that of 

 their languages, and of their monuments of every kind. 



Such are the ideas upon which I shall be enabled to found 

 some new and useful inductions applicable to the natural history 

 of man. All of them flow, directly or indirectly, from the 

 theory of the modifying influence which is exercised by local 

 circumstances upon living beings ; a theory which is nearly 

 sterile, if it be judged by the small number of results it has 

 hitherto produced, fettered as it has been by a powerful, but 

 happily not invincible opposition ; and a theory, on the contrary, 

 which will be eminently productive, if v/e measure it with a lively 

 apprehension of all the progress which ils definite admission into 

 the science is calculated to produce. 



