TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 827 



intermixed with and influenced by foreign elements. I rouglily put together a few 

 dozen test words, &c. which we found very efficacious in India. Take EngUsh, too ; 

 the origin of the race is found in the lower and monosyllabic words, though the 

 majority of the English words in a dictionary are Latin and French. 



There is another race-guide which requires much care and some scientific 

 accuracy, though not of what we should call a properly anthropometric character 

 — I mean laws, customs, and habits. Like language these too may be varied by 

 foreign influences, but I incline to think that they are more important for our 

 purposes than has always been recognised, and are at least as persistent as, 

 perhaps more persistent than, language. At any rate, they are certainly most 

 important as affecting the modern history and cultivation of man ; and while 

 some laws and customs require scientific study, many habits and practices are on the 

 surface, and open to the observation of every intelligent observer. I might class food 

 and drink among such habits, as being those which bear most directly of all on 

 physical development. For instance, one scarcely realises till one goes to China 

 how important is the cow as pre-eminently an Aryan animal, the early sacredness 

 of which was formded upon uses almost ignored by other gi-eat races such as the 

 Chinese. The Chinese, again, who will not touch milk, and reject some other food 

 which we think among the best (pheasants, for instance), make constant and large 

 use of food which we reject, such as puppies and rats. It is most interesting to 

 inquire whether there is any foundation for either class of prejudices. 



Among other habits and institutions well worthy of observation I might cite 

 marriage and the family, descent through the female or through the male, the 

 forms of small self-governing communities, and the tenure of land. Animals of 

 nearly allied species seem to be divided by curiously sharp lines into polygamous 

 and monogamous races. It is hard to understand why hares should be strictly 

 monogamous, rabbits polygamous, partridges monogamous, pheasants polygamous, 

 geese monogamous, ducks polygamous. We have yet to discover to which class 

 man belonged before laws divided the race into two opposite camps in this matter. 

 When we come to institutions and land tenure we approach the region of politics, 

 but for my part I must at once say that, if we avoid mere party in politics, we 

 anthropologists are called on to perform most important functions in the social 

 politics of the day. What can be more important than to ascertain the effect, on 

 the race, of modern urban life, of the increased use of meat, of the diminished use 

 of milk, of the enormously increased consuaaption of tea, of the more constant 

 use of the eyes and the brain, viewing these subjects in then- broad general results, 

 rather than from a merely medical point of view ? 



My view of the good work that may be done by the more popular methods in 

 anthropology may be somewhat consoling to our countrymen generally, for they 

 seem as a whole to be too busy for much science, and to be deficient in it. I see 

 it was stated that we have to get anthropometric instruments from abroad. But 

 on the other hand our opportunities for observation far outrival all others. In our 

 vast empire we have every race and every shade, every stage of progress, from 

 the lowest to the highest; every institution and every method of living. As 

 rulers, as explorers, as merchants, as employers of labour, as colonists, we come 

 into the nearest contact, and have the most intimate relations with almost every 

 people and every tribe on the face of the earth. We are indeed a people who, if 

 we make but the most moderate use of opportunities, may bring together such a 

 mass of knowledge of mankind as to leave nothing wanting. Surely then in this 

 country anthropology is no mean subject. 



Both in regard to the greatness of our dominion, the vastness of the population, 

 and its infinite variety, India is by far the greatest of our fields, as it is that in 

 which we have the most complete and efifective official machinery. India is 

 remarkable not only for its many countries, climates, and races, but also for the 

 division of the populations into what one may call horizontal strata. There, under 

 the caste system, eveiy rank, occupation, and profession represents in some sort a 

 race, and that in enormous variety. "^'Tiatever infiltration of blood there may be, 

 every caste in India is at least as much a peculiar and separate race as were till 

 lately Jews or gipsies in our own countiy, and more so. Every one of them 



