EDITOR'S TABLE. 



123 



of folklore, inasmuch as " the stories, 

 the superstitions, the beliefs, and 

 customs which prevail among the 

 unlettered, the isolated, and the 

 young, are nothing else than sur- 

 vivals of the mythologies, the legal 

 usages, and the sacred rites of earlier 

 generations. ... It is surprising," 

 he adds, " to observe how much of 

 the past we have been able to con- 

 struct from this humble and long- 

 neglected material." 



The zeal of the learned doctor 

 seems almost to assume a slight 

 character of ferocity when he goes 

 on to declare: "The generations of 

 the past escape our personal inves- 

 tigation, but not our pursuit. We 

 rifle their graves, measure their 

 skulls, and analyze their bones; we 

 carry to our museums the utensils 

 and weapons, the gods and jewels, 

 which sad and loving hands laid be 

 side them; we dig up the founda- 

 tions of their houses, and cart off the 

 monuments which proud kings set 

 up. Nothing is sacred to us; and 

 yet nothing to us is vile or worth- 

 less." If the doctor had wished to 

 quote Horace, he might have said 

 very appositely " omne sacrum ra- 

 piente dextrd"-, but we should be 

 loath to take him at his word that 

 to the anthropologist nothing is sa- 

 cred. We believe, on the contrary, 

 that to the true anthropologist the 

 cause of humanity is very sacred; 

 and that it is because an exhaustive 

 knowledge of what man has been 

 and is will, as he considers, greatly 

 advance human well-being, by plac- 

 ing our systems of instruction and 

 all our social arrangements on a 

 more scientific basis, that, in his con- 

 suming desire for knowledge, he is 

 prepared even for spoliation. 



One of the most important branch- 

 es or subdivisions of anthropology is 

 ethnology. Its mission, Dr. Brinton 

 says, is "to define the universal in 

 humanity." It aims to define "the 



influences which the geographical 

 and other environment exercises on 

 the individual, the social group, and 

 the race ; and conversely how much 

 in each remains unaltered by these 

 external forces. " Like political econ- 

 omy, according to its orthodox pro- 

 fessors at least, it has nothing to do 

 with what Ought to be ; its sole con- 

 cern is with what is. Ethnology, 

 the doctor asserts with some empha- 

 sis, lends no countenance to any 

 absolute doctrine of evolution. He 

 considers that, " taken at its real 

 value, as the provisional and partial 

 result of our observations," that doc- 

 trine is a useful guide, but that, 

 " swallowed with unquestioning faith 

 as a final law of the universe," it is 

 no better than the narrowest tradi- 

 tional dogma. At this point we may 

 venture to suggest that the learned 

 doctor is waxing wroth with an 

 imaginary foe, or, if not with an 

 imaginary one, at least with one 

 hardly worthy of his ire. Idle talk 

 about evolution can no more be pre- 

 vented than idle talk about any 

 other subject, say electricity for ex- 

 ample, which some persons believe 

 to be a device, invented probably by 

 Mr. Edison, for getting something 

 out of nothing. No one whose opin- 

 ion is worth discussing regards evo- 

 lution otherwise than as a name for 

 the process by which such advance- 

 ment as the world has hitherto made 

 has been won, and on which we may 

 reasonably depend for further prog- 

 ress in the future, Nature as yet hav- 

 ing given no sign that her powers 

 are exhausted or on the point of ex- 

 haustion. " The development of hu- 

 manity as a whole," says Dr. Brin- 

 ton, " has arisen from the differences 

 of its component parts, its races, na- 

 tions, tribes. Their specific peculiar- 

 ities have brought about the strug- 

 gles which, in the main, have result- 

 ed in an advance." Even so, we 

 may hope that in the future, in spite 



