826 EEPOKT— 1888. 



for missing links, and to avoid sophisms and the supposition of laws and tendencies 

 •which have no existence in reality. 



To ascertain the true causes for all the phenomena of human life is the main 

 ohject of anthropological research, and it is ohvious that this is better done in those 

 branches in which the continuity is best preserved. 



In the study of natural history, existing animals are regarded as present phases 

 in the development of species, and their value to the biological student depends, not 

 so much on their being of the highest organism, as on the palseontological sequence 

 by which their history is capable of being established. In the same way existing 

 laws, institutions, and arts, wherever they are found in their respective stages of 



fierfection, are to be regarded simply as existing strata in the development of human 

 ife, and their value from an anthropological point of view depends on the facilities 

 they afford for studying their history. 



If I am right in this view of the matter, it is evident that the arts of life are of 

 paramount importance, because they admit of being arranged in cases by means of 

 antiquities in the order in which they actually occurred, and by that means they 

 serve to illustrate the development of other branches which cannot be so arranged, 

 and the continuity of which is therefore not open to visual demonstration for the 

 benefit of the unlearned. 



It is now considerably over thirty j^ears since I first began to pay attention to this 

 subject. Having been employed in experimenting with new inventions in firearms, 

 submitted to H.M. Government m 1852-3, I drew up in 1858 a paper which was 

 published in the ' United Service Journal,' showing the continuity observable in 

 the various ideas submitted for adoption in the army at that time. 



Later, in 1867-8 and 9, 1 published three papers, which, in order to adapt them 

 to the institution at which they were read, I called 'Lectures on Primitive Warfare,' 

 but which, in reality, were treatises on the development of primitive weapons, in 

 which it was shown how the earliest weapons of savages arose from the selection 

 of natural forms of sticks and stones, and were developed gradually into the forms 

 in which they are now used. I also traced the development of the forms of 

 implements ot the bronze age and *heir transition into those of the iron age. These 

 papers were followed by others on the same subject read at the Royal Institution 

 and elsewhere, relating to the development of special branches, such as Early Modes 

 of Navigation, Forms of Ornament, Primitive Locks and Keys, the Distribution of 

 the Bow, and its development into what I termed the composite bow in Asia 

 and America, and other subjects. 



MeanwhUe I liad formed a museum in which the objects to which the papers 

 related were arranged in developmental order. This was exhibited by the Science 

 and Art Department at Bethnal Green from 1874 to 1878, and at South Kensington 

 from that date to 1885 ; and a catalogue raisunne was published by the Department, 

 which went through two editions. After that, wishing to find a permanent home 

 for it, where it would increase and multiply, I presented it to the University of 

 Oxford, the University having granted 10,000/. to build a museum to contain it. It 

 is there known as the ' Pitt-Rivers Collection,' and is arranged in the same order 

 as at South Kensington. Professor Moseley has devoted much attention to the 

 removal and re-arrangement of it up to the time of his I'eceut, but I trust only 

 temporary illness, which has been so great a loss to the University, and which has 

 been felt by no one connected with it more than by myself ; for whilst his great 

 experience as a traveller and anthropologist enabled him to improve and add to it, 

 he has at the same time always shown every disposition to do justice to the 

 original collection. Since Professor Moseley's illness it has been in the charge of 

 Mr. H. Balfour, who I am sure will follow in the steps of his predecessor and 

 former chief, and will do his best to enlarge and improve it. He has already added 

 a new series in relation to the ornamentation of arrow-stems, which has been 

 published by the Anthropological Institute. It appears, however, desirable that 

 the same system should be established in other places, and with that view I have 

 for some time past been collecting the materials lor a new museum, which, if I 

 live long enough to complete it, I shall probably plant elsewhere. 



Before presenting the collection to Oxford I had offered it to the Government, 



