42 SATUllDAY LFX'TURES. 



ing and the restraining. We see it in the sea and the shore, 

 the breath of the glass-blower and the mould in which the 

 bottle is formed, the vitality and the favorable or unfavora- 

 ble location of the plant, the habitat and the vigor of ani- 

 mal species, and finally in the races of men and their 

 inorganic and organic surroundings. The anthropologist 

 has no more difficult problem before him than to ascertain 

 the influence of climate, outlook, food, and social environ- 

 ment, to produce varieties in man, to set in motion that 

 great current called "the migration of nations," and to 

 bring about from nothing, all that constitutes the various 

 civilizations of the world. Inasmuch as the poorest far- 

 mers buy the least productive lands, the sterile districts of a 

 county even will be less cultured than the most fertile ; and 

 living upon such ground soon reacts upon the people, only 

 to increase their poverty and to decrease their vitality. 

 How much more, then, may we expect to find the abject 

 races of man living in the suburbs of the world, where 

 squalor is engendered by the surroundings, until there is 

 a harmony or ec[uilibrium between the unpropitious skies 

 and their wretchedness. On the other hand, the contact, 

 the rivalries, and even the bloody wars of favored races have 

 awakened an emulation productive only of good. 



It is the business of the anthropologist to trace out these 

 subtle causes and influences which advance or retard civili- 

 zation, which have covered the earth here with prosperity, 

 there with melancholy ruins. So far from being beneath 

 the consideration of the highest and most gifted intellects, 

 this and not petty expedients should be the subject of serious 

 inquiry by the statesman, the political economist, and the 

 philanthropist. 



My task is nearly finished. My object has been to define 

 a science in which there is no priesthood and laity, no sacred 

 language ; but one in which you are all both the investiga- 

 tor and the investigated, — the judge, the jury, and the pris- 

 oner at the bar. I have endeavored to portray in outline 

 the work of the anthropologist, so that you may intelligently 

 follow my successors who will treat of special themes. 



