342 



NATURE 



\Attg. 22, 1872 



fail to afford us any direct evidence of those vast ages during 

 which our species appears to have gradually taken upon itself the 

 ch-iracteriitics of humanity. Every age has, however, left us the 

 relics of its material arts, which, when studied comprehoisively 

 in connection wiih the geological record, may be taken as evidence 

 of mental development from the earliest period of time. Nor i 

 it in point of time alone, but also by reason of their stability, that 

 the material arts aff ird us the surest evidence on which to recon- 

 struct our social edifioe. The tendency to constant variation 

 within narrow limits is a psychical characteris'ic of the unculti- 

 vated man ; but the material arts are not subject to those com- 

 paratively abrupt changes to which, prior to the introduction of 

 writing, all branches of culture are liable which are dependent 

 for their transmission on the memory, and are communicated by 

 word of moulh. 



Few who have read the works of Prof. Max Mii'ler or Mr. 

 Farrarcan fail to have been struck with the value of the evidence, as 

 far as it goes ; but, on the other hand, the very short distance to 

 which It carries us back in investigating the origin of speech ; nor 

 is this surprising when it is cmsidered how cmstant must have 

 been the changes to which hmguage was subject in prehistoric 

 times. Amongst the one hundred islands occupied by the 

 Melanescan race, the Uishop of Wellington informs us there are 

 no less than two hundred languages differing from each other as 

 much as Dutch and German, and this diversity of languages and 

 dialects is confirmed by Mr. Turner in his account of his 

 nineteen years' residence in Polynesia. Amongst the Penons, 

 or savage tribes of Cambodia, Mr. Muhot speaks of the 

 great number of diilects spoken by tribes whose manners 

 and customs are the same. Amongst the Musgu of Central 

 Africa, Barth tells us that, owing to the absence of friendly in- 

 tercourse between the several tribes and families, such a number 

 of dialects had sprung up as to render communication between 

 them difficult. Upon the River Amazon Mr. Bates mentions 

 that in a single canoe he found several individuals speaking 

 languages so different as to be unintelligible to the others. In 

 a state of culture in which such diversity of tona;ues existed, 

 what could have been the chance of preserving unchanged the 

 myths, religions, and all those manifestations of intellect which 

 are dependent on tradition ? 



The greater stability of the material arts as compared with the 

 flactuati )ns in the language of a people in a state of primeval 

 savagery, is well shown by a consideration of the weapons of the 

 Australians and the names b/ which they are known in the 

 several parts of that continent. As I have already mentioned, 

 these people, from the simplicity of th?irarts, afford us the only 

 living examples of what we raiy presume to have been the 

 charac eristics of a primitive pe iple. Their weapons, respecting 

 the distribution of which we have more accurate information 

 than we have of their vocabularies, are the same throughout 

 the continent ; the shield, the throwing-stick, the spear, the 

 boomerang, and their other weapons, differ only in being 

 thicker, broader, flatter, or longer in different localiiies, but 

 whether seen on the east or the west coast, each of these classes 

 of weapons is easily recognised by its form and uses. On the 

 other hand, amongst the innumerable languages and dialects 

 spoken by these people, it would appear that almost every tribe 

 has a different name for the same weapon. 



If, then, it is evident that much of the history of our prehistoric 

 ancestors has been for ever lost to us, we may console ourselves 

 with the reflection that in their tools and weapons and other 

 relics of their material arts, the most reliable source of evidence 

 as to their intellectual condition has continued to our time. As 

 to the myths, religions, superstitions, and languages, with which 

 they were associated, we may content ourselves by devoutly 

 thanking Providence that they have not been preserved. As it 

 is, anthropological studies are said t j have their fair share in the 

 creation of lunatics, and we can easily believe that no sane intel- 

 lect would have survive I the aUempt to unravel such a complex 

 and tangled web of difficulty as the study of these subjects would 

 have presented to our minds. 



The consideration of the value of evidence naturally leads us 

 to the third part of my subject, namely, the mode of collecting 

 it and of digesting it after it has been brought together ; and as 

 this is, I believe, the most defective part of our organisation — or 

 to speak more properly, the part of our existing institutions in 

 which our want of organisation is most conspicuous — I had in- 

 tended to have spoken at greater length on this subject ; but as I 

 have already trespassed upon your time so long, I am under the 

 necessity of curtailing what I had proposed to say on the subject 



of organisation. If I am wrong, as I have heard it suggested by 

 some anthropologists, in supposing that the greatest difficulties 

 under which we labour are attributable to tlie absence of reliable 

 evidence, and if we already possess as much information about 

 savages and about prehistoric men as we require — and we have 

 nothing to do but to read the books in our libraries, and write 

 papers calculated to promote discussions, and fill journals with 

 interesting controversies and speculations — if, as I gravely heard 

 it asserted not long ago at a public meeting, it would be a pity 1 1 

 e<plore Stonehenge f^ir fear so remarkable a monument should 

 be divcsted of that mystery which has always attached to it, 

 owing to our entire ignorance as to its origin and uses, then 

 to those who entertain such views the few remarks I shall ven- 

 ture to offer on this subject must appear not only superfluous but 

 mischievous. But if, on the other hand, I am right in supposing 

 that our existing evidence is lamentably deficient, and in many 

 cases false ; that it has been collected by travellers, many of 

 whom have had but little knowledge what to look for and ob- 

 serve ; and if, this being the state of our knowledge, the evidence 

 which we desire to obtain is now rapidly disappearing from off 

 the face of the earth. The Tasmanians have been swept away 

 before we know anything about them ; the New Zealanders and 

 all the Polynesian Islanders are fast changing their habits ; and 

 it is now difficult to find a North American Indian in a state of 

 unadulterated savagery ; whilst at home our prehistoric monu- 

 ments are broken up and ploughed down day by day in tlie con- 

 struction of buildings and raiiroads ; it is evident that a set of 

 societies which provide no organisation whatever for promoting 

 exploration at home or abroad can only be regarded as fulfilling 

 very imperfectly the functions which institutions established for 

 the purpose of anthropological investigation might reasonably be 

 expected to serve. Beyond the limits of this Association, there is 

 but one society in this country which has the funds necessary 

 for promoting explorations, and that is the Geographical .Society, 

 livery expedition which goes out under the auspices of that 

 Society is necessarily brought in contact with the races inhabiting 

 the districts which are explored ; but it can hardly be expected 

 that the Geographical Society should do as much as could be 

 desired in the way of promoting anthropological investigation, as 

 long as Anthropology and Ethnology are excluded from the 

 functions of that Society. A Geographical Society should be re- 

 garded as the eyes and ears of an Anthropological Society abroad, 

 in the same way that the arch^i^ological societies should fulfil the 

 functions of eyes and ears directed to the past history of man, 

 and the most intimate alliance ought to ex st between them. A 

 step in the right direction has lately been taken, at the suggestion 

 of Mr. Clements .Markham, by the establishment of a joint com- 

 mittee of the Geographical Society and Anthropological Institute, 

 to draw up questions for travellers whom it is proposed to send 

 to the Arctic .Seas ; and this, it is to be hoped, will be the first 

 step towards a more intimate alliance in the future. As to the 

 Archaeological Societies, whose name is legion, and the functions 

 of which are necessarily anthropological in a great degree, they 

 are, as a rule, the most impotent and unprogressive bodies ; living 

 from hand to mouth, with funds barely sufficient to maintain a 

 secretary, and toproduceasmall volume of transactions annually ; 

 without the means of promoting exploration, they are dependent 

 entirely upon the casual communications of members, the sub- 

 stance of which is sometimes repeated over and over again 

 in the different societies. If we inquire what useful pur- 

 pose is S'-rved by these divisions of the metropolitan societies, 

 we are told that one is a society, another is an associa- 

 tion, and a third is an institute ; and yet it does not appear that 

 any one of these societies, associations, or institutes, perform 

 any special function which cannot equally well be served by the 

 others. They constitute divisions of persons rather than divisions 

 of subjects ; instead of promoting division of labour they serve 

 only to promote repetition of labour ; and so ill do any of them 

 answer the expectations of those who devote themselves to the 

 close study of any one branch of archceology or anthropology, 

 that it has lately become necessary to establish an additional 

 metropolitan society for promoting protohistoric archreology un- 

 der the title of the Society of Biblical Archa'ology, embracing 

 subjects which fall mainly within in the domain of anthropology. 

 Much as I should feel disposed to condemn the multiplication of 

 .societies under existing circumstances, I cannot but think that by 

 promoting the close study of a particular branch, the establish- 

 ment of this society is a step in the right direction ; and I there- 

 fore trust that it may be found to flourish at the expense of those 

 which appear to have no special function to perform. As a 



