ADDRESS ON ANTHROPOLOGY. 883 



have little respect for most things else, and by no means too much 

 for themselves, speak still with something like appreciation of the 

 work done in those regions by the London Missionary Society; 

 and we here shall value highly any papers which we may be 

 favoured with from men who have had such long and such favour- 

 able opportunities for forming opinions on matters which touch 

 at once our national and our scientific responsibilities. 



What question can be of closer concernment than that of the 

 possibility of rescuing the inhabitants of Polynesia from that 

 gradual sliding into extinction which some writers appear to ac- 

 quiesce in as the natural fate of such races ? As a text for our 

 discussions upon this subject, I will here quote to the Department 

 a passage from the continuation of Waitz's * Anthropologic ' by 

 Dr. Gerland — the author, be it remembered, of a special Mono- 

 graph upon the Causes of the Decrease and Dying-out of Native 

 Races, which appeared in 1868 (* Ueber das Aussterben der Natur- 

 volker,' Leipzig), and has been often referred to by writers on an- 

 thropology since that year, and is referred to by himself in the 

 passage I now lay before you. It runs thus (^ Anthropologic der 

 Naturvolker,' von Dr. Theodor Waitz, fortgesetzt von Dr. Georg 

 Gerland, 1872, vol. ii. pp. 512, 513): — 



' The decrease of the Polynesian populations is not now going on 

 as fast as it was in the first half of the century; it has in some 

 localities entirely ceased, whilst in others the indigeneous popula- 

 tion is actually on the increase ^. From this it is clear that the 

 causes for that disappearance of the native races which we discussed 

 at length in the little book above referred to, are now less or no 

 longer operative. For, on the one hand, the natives have adapted 

 themselves more to the influences of civilisation ; they are not so 

 amenable as they were at first to the action of diseases, although 

 we still from time to time have instances to the contrary at the 



^ See 'Times' of Saturday, August 21, 1875, p. 6, where the Natal correspondent, 

 writing of the Caffres, tells us, 'we shall have to begin civilising the natives some day. 

 We had better have begun with them ten years ago at 200,000 strong, than now at 

 350,000 ; but we had better begin with them now at 350,000 than ten yeare hence 

 when they may number half-a-miUion,' Since writing as above I have received 

 through my friend the Rev. W. Wyatt Gill a long extract from a paper written in 

 1861, by the Rev. A. W. Murray. This paper fully confirms Gerland's more recent 

 views as to the prospects of the native races. Mr. Murray, having spent forty years 

 in Polynesia, has the best possible right to be heard upon it. 



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