612 iiErouT— 1880. 



No ftnthropolofrist Las laboured more persistently in eiidoa\ ourino^ to evoke 

 order out of this Keltic cliaos than the late Paul Broca. . . . Permit a momentary 

 pause at the mention of one who has so recently and so unexpectedly been lost to 

 science. By Broca's death anthropology has suffered a loss which is literally- 

 irreparable, and it would ill become us who are assembled in this department to 

 mention his name at such a time without a passiug expression of emotion and a 

 tribute of respect. Let me remind you that it was Broca who not only founded, 

 but untiringly sustained that brilliant school of Parisian autbropologist«, who have 

 done so much within the last twenty years to advance the Science of Man. From 

 the SocifStd d'Anthropologie there sprang, a few years ago, the Ecole d'Anthro- 

 pologie, an institution officially recognised by tlie State for the cultivation of 

 anthropological studies. It was in the laboratory of this school, with its admir- 

 ably arranged museum, and its convenient lecture theatre, that Broca, surrounded 

 by his pupils, pursued his labours in so devoted a spirit as at last to over-reach the 

 limits of his strength. Unsparing of himself in work, an eloquent speaker and a 

 powerful writer, at once an anatomist, a scholar, and a mathematician — Broca, 

 exercised a singular fascination over the younger men who gathered around him, 

 and thus the work which he initiated will not be allowed to perish. Fortimately, 

 he secured in Dr. Topinard a colleague who fully caught the spirit of the master; 

 but still the master's loss can only be expressed by the one word which I employed 

 before — ii-reparable ! 



What, let us ask, was the opinion of this distinguished anthropologist on the 

 Keltic question ? ' Professor Broca always held that the name of Kelt should be 

 strictly limited to the Kelt of positive history — to the people, or rather confedera- 

 tion of peoples, actually seen by Ctesar in Keltic Gaul — and, of course, to their 

 descendants in the same area. Every schoolboy is fiimiliar with the epitome of 

 Gaulish ethnologj' given by Julius in his opening chapter. Nothing can be clearer 

 than his description of the tripartite division of Gaul, and of the separation be- 

 tween the three peoples who inhabited the country — the Belgre, the Aquitaui, and 

 the Celtae. Of these three peoples the most important were those Avhom the 

 Romans called Galli, but who called themselves, as the historian tells us, Celfce. 

 The country occupied by the Keltic population stretched from the Alps to the 

 Atlantic in one direction, and from the Seine to the Garonne iu another ; but it is 

 difficult to find any direct evidence that the Kelts of this area ever crossed into 

 Britain. Broca refused to apply the name of Kelt to the old inhabitants of Belgic 

 traul, and as a matter of course he denied it to any of the inhabitants of the 

 British Isles. AVritiug as late as 1877, in full view of all the arguments which 

 had been adduced against his opinions, he still said : ' Je continue a soutenir, 

 jusqu'a preuve du contraire, ce que j'ai avanc(5 il y a douze ans, dans notre 

 premiere discussion sur les Celtes, savoir, qu'il n'existe aucune preuve, qu'on ait 

 constats dans les Iles-Britanniques I'existence d'un peuple portant le nom de 

 Oeltes.'^ 



Nevertheless, in discussing the Keltic question with ]M. Henri Martin, he 

 admitted the convenience, almost the propriety, of referring to all who spoke Keltic 

 languages as Keltic peoples, though of course he would "not hear of their being 

 called Kelts. ' On peut tres-bien les nommer les peuples celtiques. Mais il est 

 entierement faux de les appeler les Celtes, comme on le fait si souvent.' ' As to 

 the eminent historian himself, I need hardly say that M. Martin adheres to the 

 popular use of the word Kelt, and even goes so far as to speak of the county in 

 which we are now assembled as ' le Glamorgan, le pays aujourdhui le plus celtique 

 de I'Europe.' * 



' The following arc Broca's principal contributions to this vexed question : — 

 'Qu'est-ce que les Celtes ? ' Bulletins dc la Socicti cVAnthropoloqic de Paris, t. v. p. 

 457 ; ' Le Nom des Celtes,' ihid. 2 ser. t. ix. p. 662 ; ' Sur les Textes relatifs aux Celtes 

 dans le Grande- Bretagne,' ihid. 2 ser. t. xii. p. 509 ; ' La Eace Celtique, ancienne et 

 moderne,' Eevne d'Anthropologie, t. ii. p. 578 ; and ' Recherches sur I'Ethnologie de 

 la France,' Mem dc la Soc. Anthrojf., t. i. p. 1. 



* Bulletins de la Suciete d'Anthropologie de Paris, 2 s6r. t. xii. 1878, p. 511. 



' lUd. t. ix. 1 874, p. 662. * Tbid. t. xii. p. 486. 



