TRANSACTIONS 01? THE SECTIONS. 153 



The ComjMrative Longevity of Animals of different Species and of Man, and 

 the probable Causes tvhich mainly conduce to promote this difference. By 

 George Haeeis, F.S.A. 



The Adantean Mace of Western Europe. By J. W. Jackson. 



On the Anthropology of Auguste Comie. By J. Kaines, M.A.I. 4'c. 

 The sources of this paper are to be found in the chapters on " Biology " and 

 "Fetichisui" of INI. Comte's ' Philosophie Positive' and in the tliird chapter of the 

 'Politique Positive.' The paper itself aimed to show that the differences between 

 man and the rest of the animal iiiugdoni were not so great as they are usually 

 represented ; nor, in fact, were they so numerous as their resemblances. Treating 

 man as the head of the zoological series, it argued that his dominion over animals 

 was from primitive times, and is now a moral dominion rather than intellectual. 

 Man, he went on to saj^, was the first of animals — not the last of angels. Zoology 

 knew nothing of angels. "What differences existed between man and animals were 

 of degree rather than quality. Both knew want, suffering, and sorrow ; both had 

 intellect and moral sense ; both were educable by love, both had their likes and 

 dislikes, both had to struggle for existence, both were interested by the same 

 sights. What was new, struck both and perplexed both alike. Both exhibited 

 faithfulness, reverence, love, pity, and remorse. There was not wanting evidence 

 that both passed through the same intellectual and moral developments. Seeing, 

 then, that the animals had so much in common, what had led man to separate himself 

 from the animals, to exalt himself above them ? — the possession of reason, while 

 the animals had instinct only, some persons might say. But a little reflection 

 would show that man was almost as much a creature of instinct as the other animals. 

 A soimd biological philosophy made no difference between man and the other ani- 

 mals; on the contraiy, it sought to trace his genesis from inferior organisms. 

 Several species of animals had undoubtedly the speculative faculty, which led to 

 a kind of fetichism. The difference was that man had raised himself out of this 

 limited darkness, which the brutes had not yet, except a few select animals in 

 which a beginning to polytheism might be observed, obtained, no doubt, by asso- 

 ciation with man. If, for instance, we exhibited a watch to a child or a savage 

 on the one hand, and to a dog and a monkey on the other, there would be no great 

 difference in their way of regarding the new object further than their form of 

 expression. The author went on to complain that hitherto psychology had limited 

 itself to the study of man alone, and even his nature had been regarded only from 

 its intellectual side. The psychology of animals had yet to be studied, and that 

 with a desire only to arrive at truth. In concluding, the author lurged that it 

 was only in so far as all external nature was used by man for moral ends that it 

 was rightly used, and that the intellect found its true work in directing his affective 

 nature to moral purposes and relations. 



The Lapps. By Dr. R. King. 



The Laplander offers himself for our inspection as the only European who in 

 any way represents the Circumpolar tribes. The exact position of the Lapps in 

 classification is still an open question. Professor Agassiz classifies them with the 

 Esquimaux and Samoiedes. Dr. Prichard, relying upon philological evidence (a 

 very unsafe guide when taken alone), maintains that the Lapps are Finns who have 

 acquired Mongolian features from a long residence in Northern Europe, but ac- 

 cording to Arthur de Capel Brookes, who passed a winter amongst them, the Lap- 

 lander and Finn have scarcely a single trait in common. The general physiog- 

 nomy of the one is totally unlike that of the other; and no one who has ever seen 

 the two could mistake a Finlander for a Laplander. A critical examination of 

 three Laplander crania and two casts, contained in the collection of Dr. Morton, 

 and a comparison of these with a number of Finnic skulls, convince the author 



