A7ig. 15, 1872] 



NA TURE 



323 



SECTION D 



SUB-SECTION ANTHROPOLOGY 



Opening Address by the President, Colonel A. 

 Lane Fox 



Aiter some opening remark s, the author said : — "As one 

 of tho?e who for some years past have taken part in those 

 practical measures which have been as yet only partially and 

 feebly instrumental in promotirf; the union of the anthropo- 

 loijical sciences, it occurs to roe that the presert occasion maybe 

 a fitting one for expressing some of the views which have sug.- 

 gested themselves to me in the c( urse of my experience whilst so 

 engaged. I propose, therefore, after considering briefly the 

 existing phases of one or two of the more important questions 

 ■with which anthropology has to deal, and saying a few words on 

 the relative value of certain classes of evidence, to speak of the 

 anomalies and raisadjustments in what may be called the 

 machinery of anthropological science, deffcts in the existing 

 constitution of some of the societies which either are or ought to 

 be included amongst the branches of our great subject. In the 

 remarks which I shall offer upon this subject it is not my wish 

 that any undue weight should attach to the particular suggestions 

 which I may be called upon to make as in any way emanating 

 from this chair. My object is rather to draw the attention of 

 anthropologists to the urgent necessity which exists for better 

 organisat'on than to propound any particular schemes of my own ; 

 indeed, so rapidly do our views change in the infancy of a science 

 that I should be sorry to bind myself over to accept many of my 

 own opinions a couple of years hence, for there is, perhaps, no 

 branch of study to which we may more truly apply the dictum of 

 Faraday that "the only man who ought really to be looked upon 

 as contemptible is the man whose ideas are not in a constant 

 state of transition." 



Amongst the questions w-hich anthropology has to deal with, 

 that of the descent of man has been so elaborately treated, and 

 at the .'ante time popularised by Mr. Darwin, that it would be 

 serving no useful purpose were I to allude to any of the argu- 

 ments on which he has based his belief in the unbroken con- 

 tinuity of man's development from the lower forms of life. Nor 

 is it necessary for one to discuss the question of the vionogmcsis or 

 folygencsis of man. On this subject also Mr. Darwin has shown 

 how unlikely it is that races so closely resembling each other, 

 both physically and mentally, and interbreeding as they in- 

 variably do, should on the theory of development have originated 

 independently in different localities. Neither are w'e now, I 

 think, in a position to doubt that civilisalron has been gradually 

 and progressively developed, and that a very extended, though 

 not by any means uniform, period of growth must have elapsed 

 before we could arrive at the high state of culture which we now 

 enjoy. The arguments of our sectional president. Sir John 

 Lubbock, on this subject may, I think, be accepted generally as 

 those of the best exponent of these views in our own time ; such 

 was the opinion, as we leant from various authorities, that was 

 held by most of the ancient authors, and it tallies in all respects 

 with the phenomena of progress row observable in the world 

 around us, or which have been recorded in history. 



How far the first beings worthy of being called men may have 

 possessed superior organic psychical powers to their predecessors, 

 and whether the superior functions of the human mind were 

 developed slowly or rapidly is a point on which it is more diffi- 

 cult to form an opinion. In contrasting the psychical differences 

 between man and the lower animals, it is so invariably the prac- 

 tice, and indeed so impossible to avoid including in our estimate 

 of the human intellect all that conscious education and uncon- 

 scious infantile culture has added to the powers of the mind, 

 that unless we were able to try the exjieriment of the Egyptian 

 king, and send children to be brought up ^vith animals apart 

 fFom all intercourse with the human race, we could not p'ace 

 OUTSL-!ves in a position to compare truly the iinrate capacities of 

 the two, or to form any just estimate of the difficulties which 

 primaeval man, evetr supposing him to have possessed mental 

 powers equal to our own, must have encotmtered in the first 

 stages of human culture. It has been shown by Prof. Huxley 

 and others that there is really no cerebral barrier between men 

 and animals, nor does it appear beyond the pale of possibility 

 that a slight increase in the vividness or permanence of the im- 

 pressions of external objects upon the mind over that possessed 

 by the brutes, might, by markiirg more clearly the sequence of 

 event.s, be sufficient to imitate that faculty for improvement which 

 is the special characteristic of man. 



Be that as it may, there is, I believe, nothing in the constitu- 

 tion of our own minds which can lead us to doubt that the pro- 

 gress of our first parents must have been extremely slow, or that 

 the slight improvement observable in the implements of the 

 ner lithic over those of the pa'.-eo'ithic age, d'd actually corre- 

 spond to the continuous progression of human culture during 

 enormous periods of time. 



Now, if it is true that during the countless ages included in 

 the palceolithic and neolithic periods, which we know to have 

 been marked by great geological changes, by the union and 

 separation of great continents, by great changes of climates, and 

 by the migration of various classes of fauna into distant parts 

 of the earth, the progress of mankind was as slow and gradual 

 as we are warranted in supposing it to have been by the relics 

 which have been left us, considering how short the period of 

 history during which the rapid development of civilisation has 

 taken place is, in comparison with the long periods of time of 

 which we have been speaking, and that progress is always ad- 

 vancing at a rapidly increasing ratio, we need find no difficulty 

 in supposing that where savages are now found iir the employ- 

 ment of implements corresponding to those of the neolithic age, 

 they present us with fairly correct pictures of neolithic culture, 

 being really in point of time only a little behind us in the race 

 of improvement. It is reasonable also to suppose that the use 

 of such tools by savages, and the culture associated with them, 

 w.as also like that of our neolithic parents inherited from lower 

 conditions of life, and that being slow and continuous, it was 

 sufficiently sl.nble to enable us to trace connections between 

 people in the same stage now widely separated, and belwetii 

 them and our own neolithic ancestors. 



The most remarkable analogies are in reality found to exist 

 between races in the same condition of progress, and it is to the 

 study of these analogies, with the view of ascertaining their 

 causes and histories, that the attention of anthropologists has of 

 late been especially drawn, and on this subject I propose to make 

 a few observations. 



There are two ways in which it has been attempted to acccunt 

 for those .analogous coincidences, one by the hypothesis of iir- 

 heritance to which I have already referred, the other by the view 

 of the independent origin of culture in distant centres, assimi- 

 lated in consequence of the similitude of the condition under 

 which it arose. It is said that the wants of m.an being iden'ical, 

 and the means of supplying those wants by extern.il n.ature being 

 .alike, like causes would produce like effects in many cases. 

 There can be little doubt that many remarkable analogies have 

 arisen in this manner, especially amongst the very variable myths, 

 customs, religions, and even languages of .savage races, and that 

 it would be dangerous to assume connection to have existed ex- 

 cept in cases where a continuous distribution of like arts can be 

 traced. On the other hand, we should commit a grave error if 

 we were to assume the hypothesis of independent origin, because 

 no connection is found to exist at the present time, for we ate as 

 yet almost entirely ignorant of the .archa-ology of savage and t 31 - 

 barous races. It is but fifteen years since we began to study ihc 

 prehistoric arch.-eology of our own race, which has already carried 

 us so far on the road towards connecting us with sav.ages ; and 

 can we say what further connections may be brought to light 

 when the river drifts of such rivers as the Niger or the Amazons 

 come to be studied. Nor can it fairly be said that the w-ants (.f 

 mankind are alike in all cases ; for if we adopt the principle of 

 evolution, it is evident that the wants of man must haveyancd m 

 each successive stage of progress, diminished culture being asso- 

 ciated with reduced wants, thus carrying us back to a conditirn 

 of man, in which, being analogous to the brutes, he could scaictly 

 be said to h.ave any warts at all of an intellecti;al or progressive 

 character. 



It would be an error to apply either of these priirciples exclu- 

 sively to the interpretation of the phenomena of civilisation. In 

 considering the origin of species, we are under the necessity of 

 allying ourselves either on the side of the iiwuogcnis/s or that of 

 the folvgttthls, but in speaking of the origin of culture, both 

 principles may be, and undoubtedly are, applicable ; there is in 

 fact no royal road to knowledge on this sul ject by the applicatif n 

 of general principles ; the hi.'toiy of each art, custom, or insti- 

 tution, must be dilligently worked out by itself, availing eiir- 

 selves of the clue afforded by race as only the most piobable 

 channel of communication and development. We may be ceriam 

 however that in all cases culture was continuously and slowly 

 developed. ... 



There is but ene existing race the habits of which are snffi- 



