NATURAL HISTORY OF MAN. 467 



understanding of the questions which lie at the bottom of 

 the whole questions well worthy, nevertheless, of all the 

 learning and ingenuity given to their solution. 



Whatever may be the causes, certain it is that the physical 

 history of Man has only recently taken its place as a definite 

 branch of science. The ancient philosophers dealt with it 

 loosely and erroneously. Their limited knowledge of the 

 surface of the earth their ignorance of whole existing races 

 of mankind the prejudices of their mythology and their 

 imperfect understanding of scientific evidence (the preference 

 of the Soga to the eirumjfjirf) these difficulties, which in their 

 totality even the genius of Aristotle could not surmount, will 

 readily explain the fact we have stated. Passing over the earlier 

 researches of Camper and others, we may affirm that the 

 true foundation of the science was that laid by Blumenbach 

 of Grottingen, whose long life of honourable labour closed not 

 many years ago. His celebrated collection of skulls (which 

 we have ourselves examined under his guidance), obtained 

 by unwearied perseverance from every part of the globe, 

 suggested new relations and more exact enquiries in prose- 

 cution of one branch of the subject. The researches and 

 writings of Cuvier, Humboldt, Lawrence, Owen, Tiedemann, 

 Budolfi, and other physiologists, while differing in certain 

 conclusions, have continually enlarged the scope of the 

 science and concentrated the results obtained by travellers 

 and naturalists ; thus augmenting the means upon which 

 the removal of these differences and the certainty of all con- 

 clusions must eventually depend. Philology, meanwhile, 

 has come largely in aid of the enquiry, and the study and 

 classification of languages, indicated more remotely by 

 Scaliger, Bacon, and Leibnitz, has grown into a vast body of 

 authentic knowledge, ministering through new and unex- 

 pected relations to the history of the races and communities 

 of mankind. The names of Adelung, Schlegel, Kemusat, 





