TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 145 



tingliani in 1866, it may not be out of place to say a few words on the object to be 

 fullilled by this department, on the place which it occupies as a subdivision of the 

 Biological Section, and on the part which it may play in the proceedings of a body 

 like the British Association for the Advancement of Science. First, what sigTiifica- 

 tion is attached by men of science in these days to this term Anthropology ? The dis- 

 tinguished traveller and naturalist, Mr. A. II. Wallace, who was the first occupant 

 of the chair which I have now the honour to fill, in his introductory addi'ess to the 

 Department at the Nottingham Meeting, defined anthropology as " the science which 

 contemplates man under all his varied aspects (as an animal and as a moral and 

 intellectual being), in his relations to lower organisms, to his fellow-men, and to 

 the universe." It is obvious that a science thus defined is most comprehensive in 

 its scope, that it embraces the nature and constitution of man, physically, psychi- 

 cally, and morally ; the differences and resemblances between man and other or- 

 ganisms ; his habits and language ; his history, past, present, and future. 



But, we may ask, has the term anthropology always had so wide and compre- 

 hensive a meaning as many men of science now attach to it ? A brief glance at 

 the history of the term will show us that this has by no means been the case, and 

 that the term has had a variable and progressive signification. With it, therefore, 

 as with so many other terms employed in science and philosophy, it will be needful 

 to ascertain to what school of thought a writer belonged before we can feel assured 

 of the exact signification he attached to it. So far as I have been able to ascertain, 

 the tenu, imder the form oi anthropologos, first appeared in literatru'e in the Ethics 

 of Aristotle. It occiu's in a passage where Aristotle is drawing a picture of a lofty- 

 minded man — "One who wUl not compete for the common objects of ambition, 

 who wUl only attempt great and important matters — who will live for his friend 

 alone, will bear no malice, will be no gossip (ouk anthropologos), will not be anxious 

 about trifles, and will care more to possess that which is fine than that which 

 is productive." (Grant's 'Aristotle, 2nd ed. vol. ii. p. 77.) In this passage, Aris- 

 totle, who had in all probability coined the term for the particular occasion, em- 

 ploys it in the sense of a talker about himself and others — a mere gossip. With 

 Iiim it had a purely personal signification, and was used to express a single phase 

 in the character of an individual man, and not as a term applicable to mankind in 

 general. We have no knowledge, indeed, that the " science of man " had any place 

 assigned to it in the philosophical systems either of Aristotle or any other Greek 

 philosopher. For though Aristotle himself, in a higher degree than any of his 

 compatriots, had taken a far-sweeping survey of science and fihilosophy, and had 

 acquu'ed an accuracy of conception of man's moral and psychical characteristics 

 such as may fairly be put on a par with the results of modern investigation, yet 

 his knowledge of man's physical natm-e was crude and inexact. It is undoubtedly 

 true that he both observed, and recorded observations, on various points in human 

 and comparative anatomy and physiology, but these observations, owing to the 

 imperfection of the method pursued, were wanting in precision. Hence, not only 

 with Ai-istotle and his contemporaries, but so long as the Aristotelian method of 

 inquiry held firm sway over the minds of men, an inexactness and want of precision 

 in observation prevailed, which rendered it impossible to found a true science of 

 anthropology. Nothing, indeed, is more remarkable in the contrast between 

 the ancients and moderns than the comparative weakness of the former in the 

 sciences based on observation, experiment, and collected facts ; and in consequence 

 of the greater superiority of the latter in these methods of inquiiy, a division and 

 subdivision of the sciences has taken place in modern times, such as would not have 

 been even dreamed of by the ancient Greeks. 



Early in the sixteenth century, when men began to emancipate themselves from 

 the influence so long exercised by the school of Aristotle, the term appearedagain in 

 literature under the form Antlu-opologemi, a purely anatomical work bearing that title 

 having been published in 1501 (Bendyshe's 'History of Anthropology,' p. 352); and 

 so late as the year 1784, Professor J. W. Baumer published at Frankfort a treatise 

 on human anatomy and physiology, with the title of " Anthropologia Anatomico- 

 Physica." By these writers, therefore, the word anthropology was limited to the 

 physical aspect only of man's nature. By another school of thinkers and writers the 

 tenn was employed to express, not the physical, but the moral and psychical aspects 



1871. " 10 



