September i, 1904] 



NATUJiE 



443 



Although in certain instances savage tribes or races show 

 obvious signs of having degenerated to some extent from 

 conditions of a higher culturedom, this cannot be regarded 

 as the general rule, and we must always bear in mind the 

 seemingly paradoxical truth that degradation in the culture 

 of the lower races is often, if not usually, the direct result 

 of contact with peoples in a far higher state of civilisation. 



There can, I think, be little doubt that Colonel Lane Fox 

 was well justified in urging the view that most savage 

 races are in large measure strictly primitive, survivals from 

 early conditions, the development of their ideas having from 

 various causes remained practically stationary during a very 

 considerable period of time. In the lower, though not 

 degenerate, races signs of this are not wanting, and while 

 few, possibly none, can be said to be absolutely in a con- 

 dition of arrested development, their normal progress is at 

 a slow, in most cases at a very slow, rate. 



Perhaps the best example of a truly primitive race exist- 

 ing in recent times, of which we have any knowledge, was 

 afforded by the native inhabitants of Tasmania. This race 

 was still existing fifty years ago, and a few pure-blooded 

 survivors remained as late as about the year 1870, when the 

 race became extinct, the benign civilising influence of 

 enlightened Europeans having wiped this extremely interest- 

 ing people off the face of the earth. The Australians, 

 whom Colonel Lane Fox referred to as being " the lowest 

 amongst the existing races of the world of whom we have 

 any accurate knowledge," are very far in advance of the 

 Tasmanians, whose lowly state of culture conformed 

 thoroughly with the characteristics of a truly primitive 

 race, a survival not only from the Stone Age in general, but 

 from almost the earliest beginnings of the Stone Age, The 

 difference between the culture of the Tasmanians and that 

 of the Australians was far greater than that which exists 

 between man of the " River Drift " period and his Neolithic 

 successors. The objects of every-day use were but slight 

 modifications of forms suggested by Nature, involving the 

 exercise of merely the simplest mental processes. The stone 

 implements were of the rudest manufacture, far inferior in 

 workmanship to those made by Paleolithic man ; they were 

 never ground or polished, never even fitted with handles, 

 but were merely grasped in the hand. The varieties of im- 

 plements were very few in number, each, no doubt, serving a 

 number of purposes, the function varying with the require- 

 ments of the moment. They had no bows or other appli- 

 ances for accelerating the flight of missiles, no pottery, no 

 permanent dwellings ; nor is there any evidence of a previous 

 knowledge of such products of higher culture. They seem 

 to represent a race which was isolated very early from 

 contact with higher races ; in fact, before they had developed 

 more than the merest rudiments of culture — a race con- 

 tinuing to live under the most primitive conditions, from 

 which they were never destined to emerge. 



Between the Tasmanians, representing in their very low 

 culture the one extreme, and the most civilised peoples at 

 the other e.xtreine, lie races exhibiting in a general way 

 intermediate conditions of advancement or retardation. If 

 we are justified, as I think we are, in regarding the various 

 grades of culture observable among the more lowly of the 

 still existing races of man as representing to a considerable 

 extent those vanished cultures which in their succession 

 formed the different stages by which civilisation emerged 

 gradually from a low state, it surely becomes a very 

 important duty for us to study with energ-v these living 

 illustrations of early human history in order that the 

 archaiological record may be supplemented and rendered 

 more complete. The material for this study is vanishing 

 so fast with the spread of civilisation that opportunities 

 lost now will never be regained, and already even it is 

 practically impossible to find native tribes which are wholly 

 uncontaminated with the products, good or bad, of higher 

 1 ultures. 



The arts of living races help to elucidate what is obscure 

 in those of prehistoric times by the process of reasoning 

 from the known to the unknown. It is the work of the 

 zoologist which enables the palaeontologist to reconstruct 

 the forms of extinct animals from such fragmentary remains 

 as have been preserved, and it is largely from the results 

 of a comparative study of living forms and their habitats 

 that he is able, in his descriptions, to equip the reconstructed 

 types of a past fauna with environments suited to their 



NO. 18 1 8, VOL. 70] 



structure, and to render more complete the picture of their 

 mode of life. 



In like manner, the work of the ethnologist can throw 

 light upon the researches of the archajologist ; through it 

 broken sequences may be repaired, at least suggestively, 

 and the interpretation of the true nature and use of objects 

 of antiquity may frequently be rendered more sure. Colonel 

 Lane Fox strongly advocated the application of the reason- 

 ing methods of biology to the study of the origin, phylogeny, 

 and etionomics of the arts of mankind, and his own collec- 

 tion demonstrated th'at the products of human intelligence 

 can conveniently be classified into families, genera, species, 

 and varieties, and must be so grouped if their affinities and 

 development are to be investigated. 



It must not be supposed — although some people, through 

 misapprehension of his methods, jumped at this erroneous 

 conclusion— that he was unaware of the danger of possibly 

 mistaking mere accidental resemblances for morphological 

 affinities, and that he assumed that because two objects, 

 perhaps from widely separated regions, appeared more or 

 less identical in form, and possibly in use, they were 

 necessarily to be considered as members of one phylogenetic 

 group. On the contrary, in the grouping of his specimens 

 according to their form and function, he was anxious to 

 assist as far as possible in throwing light upon the question 

 of the monogenesis or polygenesis of certain arts and appli- 

 ances, and to discover whether they are exotic or indigenous 

 in the regions in which they are now found, and. in fact, 

 to distinguish between mere analogies and true homologies. 

 If we accept the theory of the monogenesis of the human 

 race, as most of us undoubtedly do, we must be prepared 

 to admit that there prevails a condition of unity in the 

 tendencies of the human mind to respond in a similar manner 

 to similar stimuli. Like conditions beget like results ; and 

 thus instances of independent invention of similar objects 

 are liable to arise. For this very reason, however, the arts 

 and customs belonging to even . widely separated peoples 

 may, though apparently unrelated, help to elucidate some 

 of the points in each other's history which remain obscure 

 through lack of the evidence required to establish local 

 continuity. 



I think, moreover, that it will generally be allowed that 

 cases of " independent invention " of similar forms should 

 be considered to have established their claim to be regarded 

 as such only after exhaustive inquiry has been made into 

 the possibilities of the resemblances being due to actual 

 relationship. There is the alternative method of assuming 

 that, because two like objects are widely separated 

 geographically, and because a line of connection is not 

 immediately obvious, therefore the resemblance existing 

 between them is fortuitous, or merely the natural result 

 of similar forms having been produced to meet similar needs. 

 Premature conclusions in matters of this kind, though 

 temptingly easy to form, are not in the true scientific spirit, 

 and act as a check upon careful research, which, by investi- 

 gating the case in its various possible aspects, is able either 

 to prove or disprove what otherwise would be merely a 

 hasty assumption. The association of similar forms into 

 the same series has therefore a double significance. On 

 the one hand, the sequence of related forms is brought out, 

 and their geographical distribution illustrated, throwing 

 light, not only upon the evolution of types, but also upon 

 the interchange of ideas by transference from one people 

 to another, and even upon the migration of races. On 

 the other hand, instances in which two or more peoples 

 have arrived independently at similar results are brought 

 prominently forward, not merely as interesting coincidences, 

 but also as evidence pointing to the phylogenetic unity of 

 the human species, as exemplified by the tendency of human 

 intelligence to evolve independently identical ideas where 

 the conditions are theinselves identical. Polygenesis in his 

 inventions may probably be regarded as testimony in favour 

 of the monogenesis of Man. 



I have endeavoured in this .\ddress to dwell upon some 

 of the main principles laid down by Colonel Lane Fox as a 

 result of his special researches in the field of Ethnology, 

 and my object has been twofold. First, to bear witness to 

 the very great importance of his contribution to the scientific 

 study of the arts of mankind and the development of culture 

 in general, and to remind students of .\nthropology of the 

 debt which we owe to him, not onlv for the results of his 



