ANTHROPOLOGY. 



THROUGH there is nothing more hackneyed 

 1 than Pope's dictum, that 'the proper study 

 of mankind is man;' there is no study we have, 

 from a scientific point of view, more habitually 

 neglected. The moral nature and constitution of 

 man, his hopes, aspirations, passions, and ever- 

 varying humours, have been the subjects of much 

 speculation on the part of metaphysicians and 

 poets ; but, till very lately, the study of man in all 

 his relations ' the proper study of mankind 

 never had cast on it the dry white light of posi- 

 tive science, which can alone illuminate the mys- 

 teries of Nature. So little did we know that was 

 worth knowing about this subject, that till very 

 lately a controversy raged in this country, not as 

 to what the 'science of mankind' taught us, but 

 as to what it should be called. The terms 

 'Ethnology' and 'Physical History of Mankind 

 were in general use when we were content to 

 take our notions on the subject from no other 

 work than that of Dr Prichard. Now, however, 

 the term Ethnology is seldom used as a general 

 name for the whole subject, owing to the new 

 school protesting against the science being viti- 

 ated at the outset by having a name applied 

 to it that homologated a hotly disputed theory. 

 Ethnology and Ethnography were terms of too 

 limited meaning for a science that professes 

 to study the phenomena of the human group, in 

 its tout ensemble, however well they might fit a 

 science which limited itself to the bare description 

 and classification of races. Ethnology as the 

 science of races is only a branch of the great 

 science that investigates all the phenomena pre- 

 sented by man as an inhabitant of the globe. 

 Many authorities, too, protested that there were 

 no such things in nature as the ' races of man ; 

 so a new term was introduced, viz. anthropology, 

 which is not only of wider meaning than ethnology, 

 but, being of neutral significance, traverses no- 

 body's pet theories, and so gives offence to none. 

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It is derived from the Greek anthropos, man, and 

 logos, a discourse. 



Anthropology is the natural history of man, the 

 words 'natural history' being used in their real 

 meaning, to signify not merely the study of the phy- 

 sique, and the dry descriptive classification of the 

 members of a zoological group, but also the study 

 of whatever of their mental nature finds expres- 

 sion in the phenomena of their physical organisa- 

 tion, and how that and their general environment 

 act and react on each other. The most recent 

 and logical division of the science is as follows : 



(l.) Zoological Anthropology, discussing man's 

 relations to the brute creation. (2.) Descriptive 

 Anthropology, or ethnology proper, describing 

 the divisions and subdivisions of mankind. (3.) 

 General Anthropology, or, as M. Paul Broca, in 

 his recent article on the subject in the Nouveau 

 Diet. Encycloptdique des Sciences Me"dicales, puts 

 it, the ' biology of the human race,' which borrows 

 and collates from all sciences facts and phenomena 

 usually investigated in men as individuals, but 

 which relate to groups and numbers of men ; com- 

 paring these with other facts (got in the same way) 

 relating to other groups of human individuals. 

 For example, the study and bare description of a 

 single skull belonging to any race, is human 

 anatomy; but the study and description of a 

 series of skulls belonging to that race, and of 

 their peculiarities, compared with groups of skulls 

 belonging to other races, is not part of human 

 anatomy, but of general anthropology. 



METHODS AND TERMINOLOGY. 

 The methods of investigation are identical 

 with those of other natural sciences, save when 

 modified by the distinctive peculiarity of anthro- 

 pology, viz. that its facts refer not to individuals, 

 but to groups of individuals. Investigation by 

 measurements is one of the most valuable 



