AIMS OF THE STUDY OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 607 



from many sides, and requires for its cultivation knowledge derived 

 from sciences so diverse, and requiring such different mental attributes 

 and systems of training, as scarcely ever to be found combined in one 

 individual. This will become perfectly evident when we consider the 

 various factors or elements which constitute the differential characters 

 of the groups or races into which mankind is divided. The most im- 

 portant of these are : 



1. Structural or anatomical characters, derived from diversities of 

 stature, proportions of different parts of the body, complexion, feat- 

 ures, color and character of the hair, form of the skull and other 

 bones, and the hitherto little-studied anatomy of the nervous, muscu- 

 lar, vascular, and other systems. The modifications in these structures 

 in the different varieties of man are so slight and subtile, and so vari- 

 ously combined, that their due appreciation, and the discrimination 

 of what in them is essential or important, and what incidental or 

 merely superficial, require a long and careful training, superadded to 

 a preliminary knowledge of the general anatomy of man and the 

 higher animals. The study of physical or zoological ethnology, though 

 it lies at the basis of that of race, is thus necessarily limited to a com- 

 paratively few original investigators. 



2. The mental and moral characters by which different races are 

 distinguished are still more difficult to fathom and to describe and de- 

 fine, and, although the subject of much vague statement, as there are 

 few people who do not consider themselves competent to give an 

 opinion about them, they have hitherto been rarely approached by any 

 strictly scientific method of inquiry. 



3. Language. — The same difficulties are met with in the study of 

 language as in that of physical peculiarities, in the discrimination 

 between the fundamental and essential and the mere accidental and 

 superficial resemblances ; and in proportion as these difficulties are 

 successfully overcome will the results of the study become valuable 

 instead of misleading. Though the science of language is an essen- 

 tial part of ethnology, and one which generally absorbs almost the 

 entire energies of any one who cultivates it, its place in discriminating 

 racial affinities is unquestionably below that of physical characters. 

 Used, however, with due caution, it is a powerful aid to our investi- 

 gations, and, in the difficulties with which the subject is surrounded, 

 one which we can by no means afford to do without. 



4. The same may be said of social customs, including habitations, 

 dress, arms, food, as well as ceremonies, beliefs, and laws, in them- 

 selves fascinating subjects of study, placed here in the fourth rank, 

 not as possessing any want of interest, but as contributing compara- 

 tively little to our knowledge of the natural classification and affinities 

 of the racial divisions of man. When we see identical and most 

 strange customs, such as particular modes of mutilation of the body, 

 showing themselves among races the most diverse in character and 



