428 



NATURE 



[September 3, 1891 



vainly beseeching the Sultan to reopen the old trade route 

 through the Red Sea. The dominion of the sea had passed 

 from Italy to Spain and Portugal, and passed later on to the 

 Dutch and English. But mark how the great geographical 

 discoveries of that age affected the relative geographical 

 position of England ! England no longer lay on the 

 skirts of the habitable world, it had become its very 

 centre. And this natural advantage was enhanced by the 

 colonial policies of Spain and Portugal, who exhausted 

 their strength in a task far beyond their powers, took possession 

 of tropical countries only, and abandoned to England the less 

 attractive but in reality far more valuable regions of North 

 America. England was thus enabled to become the founder of 

 real colonies, the mother of nations : and her language, customs, 

 and political institutions found a home in a new world. 



And now, when the old highway through the Red Sea has 

 been reopened, when the wealth flowing through the Canal of 

 Suez is beginning to revivify the commerce of Italy, England 

 may comfort herself with the thought that in her own colonies 

 and in the States which have sprung up across the Atlantic she 

 may find ample compensation for any possible loss that may 

 accrue to her through geographical advantages being once more 

 allowed to have full play. 



I am afraid I have unduly tried your patience. I believe you 

 will agree with me that no single individual can be expected to 

 master all those departments which are embraced within the 

 wide field of geography. Even the matermind of a Humboldt 

 fell short of this, and facts have accumulated since his time at 

 an appalling rale. All that can be expected of our modern 

 geographer is that he should command a comprehensive general 

 view of his field, and that he should devote his energies and 

 capacities to th« thorough cultivation of one or more depart- 

 ments that lie within it. 



SECTION H. 



Anthropology. 



Opening Address by Prof. F. Max Muller, President 



OF THE Section, 



It was forty-four years ago that for the first and for the last 

 time I was able to take an active part in the meetings of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science. It was at 

 Oxfjrd, in 1847, when I read a paper on the " Relation of Ben- 

 gali to the Aryan and Aboriginal Languages of India," which 

 received the honour of being published in full in the Transac- 

 tions of the Association for that year. I have often regretted 

 that absence from England and pressure of work have prevented 

 me year after year from participating in the meetings gf the Asso- 

 ciation. But, being a citizen of two countries — of Germany by 

 birth, of England by adoption — my long vacations have gener- 

 ally drawn me away to the Continent, so that to my great regret 

 I found myself precluded from sharing either in your labours or 

 in your delightful social gatherings. 



1 wonder whether any of those who were present at that bril- 

 liant meeting at Oxford in 1847 are present here to-day. I almost 

 doubt it. Our President then was Sir Robert Inglis, who will 

 always be known in the annals of English history as having 

 been preferred to Sir Robert Peel as Member of Parliament for 

 the University of Oxford. Among other celebrities of the day 

 I remember Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir David Brewster, Dean 

 Buckland, Sir Charles Lyell, Prof. Sedgwick, Prof Owen, and 

 many more — a galaxy of stars, all set or setting. Young 

 Mr. Ruskin acted as Secretary to the Geological Section. Our 

 Section was then not even recognized as yet as a Section. We 

 ranked as a sub-Section only of Section D, Zoology and Boiatiy. 

 We remained in that subordinate position till 1851, when we 

 became Section E, under the na ne of Geography and Ethnology. 

 From 1869, however, Ethnology seems almost to have dis- 

 appeared again, being absorbed in Geography, and it was not 

 till the year 1884 that we emerged once more as what we are 

 to-day. Section H, or Anthropology. 



In the year 1847 our sub-Section was presided over by Prof. 

 Wilson, the famous Sanskrit scholar. The most active debaters, 

 so far as I remember, were Dr. Prichard, Dr. Latham, and Mr. 

 Crawfurd, well known then under the name of the Objector- 

 General. I was invited to join the meeting by Bunsen, then 

 Prussian Minister in London, who also brought with him his 

 friend Dr. Karl Meyer, the Celiic scholar. Prince Albert was 



NO. II 40, VOL. 44] 



present at our debates, so was Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. 

 Our Ethnological sub-Section was then most popular, and 

 attracted very large audiences. 



When looking once more through the debates carried on in 

 our Section in 1847, I was very much surprised when I saw how 

 very like the questions which occupy us to-day are to those 

 which we discussed in 1847. I do not mean to say that there 

 has been no advance in our science. Far from it. The advance 

 of linguistic, ethnological, anthropological, and biological 

 studies, all of which claim a hearing in our Section, has been 

 most rapid. Still that advance has been steady and sustained ; 

 there has been no cataclysm, no deluge, no break in the ad- 

 vancement of our science, and nothing seems to me to prove its 

 healthy growth more clearly than this uninterrupted continuity, 

 which unites the past with the present, and will, I hope, unite 

 the present with the future. 



No paper is in that respect more interesting to read than the 

 address which Bunsen prepared for the meeting in 1847, and 

 which you will find in the Transactions of that year. Its 

 title is "On the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in 

 reference to Asiatic and African Ethnology, and the Classifica- 

 tion of Languages." But you will find in it a great deal more 

 than what this title would lead you to expect. 



There are passages in it which are truly prophetic, and which 

 show that, if prophecy is possible anywhere, it is possible, nay, 

 it ought to be possible, in the temple of Science, and under the 

 inspiring influence of knowledge and love of truth. 



Allow me to dwell for a little while on this remarkable paper. 

 It is true, we have travelled so fast that Bunsen seems almost to 

 belong to ancient history. This very year is the hundredth an- 

 niversary of his birth, and this very day the centenary of his 

 birih is being celebrated in several towns of Germany. In Eng- 

 land also his memory should not be forgotten. No one, not 

 being an Englishman by birth, could, I believe, have loved this 

 country more warmly, and could have worked more heartily 

 than Bunsen did to bring about that friendship between Eng- 

 land and Germany which must for ever remain the corner-stone 

 of the peace of Europe, and the sine qua non of that advance- 

 ment of science to which our Association is devoted. His 

 house in Carlton Terrace was a true international academy, 

 open to all who had something to say, something worth listen- 

 ing to, a kind of sanctuary against vulgarity in high places, a 

 neutral ground where the best representatives of all countries 

 were welcome and felt at home. But this also belongs to 

 ancient history. And yet, when we read Bunsen's paper, de- 

 livered in 1847, it does not read like ancient history. It deals 

 with the problems which are still in the foreground, and if it 

 could be delivered again to-day by that genial representative of 

 German learning, it would rouse the same interest, provoke the 

 same applause, and possibly the same opposition also, which it 

 roused nearly half a century ago. Let me give you a few in- 

 stances of what I mean. 



We must remember that Darwin's "Origin of Species" was 

 published in 1859, his " Descent of Man " in 1871. But here in 

 the year 1847 one of the burning questions which Bunsen dis- 

 cusses is the question of the possible descent of man from some 

 unknown animal. He traces the history of that question back 

 to Frederick the Great, and quotes his memorable answer to 

 D'Alembert. Frederick the Great, you know, was noC dis- 

 turbed by any qualms of orthodoxy. "In my kingdom," he used 

 to say, "everybody may save his soul according to his own 

 fashion." But when D'Alembert wished him to make what he 

 called the salto mortale from monkey to man, Frederick the 

 Great protested. He saw what many have seen since, that there 

 is no possible transition from reasonlessness to reason, and that 

 with all the likeness of their bodily organs there is a barrier 

 which no animal can clear, or which, at all events, no animal has 

 as yet cleared. And what does Bunsen himself consider the 

 real barrier between man and beast ? " It is language," he says, 

 " which is unattainable, or, at least, unattained, by any animal 

 except man." In answer to the argument that, given only a 

 sufficient number of years, a transition by imperceptible degrees 

 from animal cries to articulate language is at least conceivable, 

 he says : — " Those who hold that opinion have never been able to 

 show the possibility of the first step. They attempt to veil their 

 inability by the easy but fruitless assumption of an infinite space 

 of time, destined to explain the gradual development of animals 

 into men ; as if millions of years could supply the want of the 

 agent necessary for the first movement, for the first step, in the 

 line of progress ! No numbers can effect a logical impossibility. 



