114 SATURDAY LECTURES. 



of the Paris Society of Anthropology, about twenty-five 

 years ago, and its fitness for the purpose was so manifest 

 that it lias superseded to a great extent the narrower titles 

 of ethnology and archaeology. At the present day there are 

 Societies of Anthropologj^ in nearly all the capital cities of 

 the world. They were all founded, more or less, upon the 

 model of the Paris society, which is acknowledged as the 

 parent from which this flourishing progeny has sprung. 



It will be more convenient for our purpose to begin with 

 a description of these associations as they now exist, and 

 then, in a brief biography of the eminent Frenchman who 

 founded the Paris society, show you in what manner the 

 science of anthropology received its- birth and baptism. 



The fir.st French Society which made the study of man- 

 kind the especial object of its enquiries, was founded in 

 Paris in the year 1800, and was known as La societe des 

 observateurs de Vliomme — the Society of Observers of Man. 

 From their programme, and from the meagre reports of 

 their transactions which appeared from time to time in the 

 Magasin encydopedique, it is evident that the natural history 

 of man chiefl}^ occupied their attention. In 1803, this 

 association was united with The Philanthropic Society {La 

 societe philanthropique) and lost its scientific identity. In 

 1838, there was founded in London, under the presidency of 

 Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, the leader of the party advo- 

 cating the abolition of slavery in British dominions, a Societ}- 

 for the Protection of the Aborigines. The object of this 

 association was political and not scientific, but one of its 

 members, a Mr. Hodgkin, visited Paris a year later for the 

 purpose of establishing a French society on the same basis, 

 and came into communication with many eminent men, 

 among whom was the celebrated naturalist, William 

 Edwards. The attempt to found a French abolition societ}' 

 failed, but the interest excited in the cognate subject of race 

 led Edwards and his friends to establish the Ethnological 

 Society of Paris, (a,) whose existence was officially authorized 

 by the Minister of the Interior, in August, 1839. This 

 society published two volumes of memoirs, and one, of its 



