20 REPORT — 189o. 



Anthrojwlogy. 



The impulse given by Darwin has been fruitful in leading others to 

 consider whether the same principle of evolution may not have governed 

 the moral as well as tiie material progress of the human race. Mr. Kidd 

 tells us that nature as interpreted by the struggle for life contains no 

 sanction for the moral progress of the individual, and points out that if 

 each of us were allowed by the conditions of life to follow his own inclina- 

 tion, the average of each generation would distinctly deteriorate from that 

 of the preceding one ; but because the law of life is ceaseless and inevit- 

 able struggle and competition, ceaseless and inevitable selection and re- 

 jection, the result is necessarily ceaseless and inevitable progress. Evolu- 

 tion, as Sir William Flower said, is the message which biology has sent 

 to help us on with some of the problems of human life, and Francis 

 Galton urges that man, the foremost outcome of the awful mystery of 

 evolution, should realise that he has the power of shaping the course of 

 future humanity by using his intelligence to discover and expedite the 

 changes which are necessary to adapt circumstances to man, and man to 

 circumstances. 



In considering the evolution of the human race, the science of pre- 

 ventive medicine may afford us some indication of the direction in which to 

 seek for social improvement. One of the early steps towards establish- 

 ing that science upon a secure basis was taken in 1835 by the British 

 Association, who urged upon the Government the necessity of establishing 

 legisters of mortality showing the causes of death ' on one uniform plan in 

 all parts of the King's dominions, as the only means by which general laws 

 touching the influence of causes of disease and death could be satisfactorily 

 deduced.' The general registration of births and deaths was commenced 

 in 1838. But a mere record of death and its proximate cause is insuffi- 

 cient. Pi-eventive medicine requires a knowledge of the details of the 

 ]-revious conditions of life and of occupation. Moreover, death is not 

 <;ur only or most dangerous enemy, and the main object of preventive 

 medicine is to ward off disease. Disease of body lowers our useful energy. 

 Disease of body or of mind may stamp its curse on succeeding generations. 

 The anthropometric laboratory affords to the student of anthropo- 

 logy a means of analysing the causes of weakness, not only in bodily, 

 but also in mental life. 



Mental actions are indicated by movements and their results. Such 

 signs are capable of record, and modern physiology has shown that bodily 

 movements correspond to action in nerve-centres, as surely as the motions 

 of the telegraph-indicator express the movements of the operator's hands 

 in the distant ofiBce. 



Thus there is a relation between a defective status in brain power and 

 defects in the proportioning of the body. Defects in physiognomical 

 details, too finely graded to be measured with instruments, may be 

 appreciated with accuracy by the senses of the observer j and the records 



