TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H. 823 



has once been gained it is almost as common to find a man dispute an account 

 against liis own interest as for himself, and scarcely ever is any attempt made at 

 false statements or impositions. Such is the healthy response to straightforward 

 dealing with them. 



It is therefore in encouraging a healthy growth of all that is worthy and good 

 in the existing systems of lower civilisation, in repressing all mere imitations and 

 senseless copying, and in proceeding on a rigorously just yet genial course of con- 

 duct, that the safe and true line lies for intercourse with inferior or different 

 civilisations. 



And, lastly, the question comes home to ns, In what way is this practical 

 anthropology to he fostered ? It is so essentially important to us as a race that 

 we should take good care that it is understood. Whether it be a question of 

 interference with the customs of higher races, as the Hindu, or of lower savages, 

 as the Australian, momentous questions may often depend on public opinion 

 amongst a mass of people in England who have no conception at present of the 

 race with whom they are dealing. And still more needful is it for those who take 

 part abroad in the governing of otber races to have a wide view of the character 

 of various civilisations. Until the present generation there have been two great 

 educative influences on the view of life taken by Englishmen, the Old Testament 

 and the Classics. So long as a boy had his ideas formed in contact with Oriental 

 polygamy and Greek polytheism, he was not in danger of undue narrowness in 

 dealing with the Muslim or the Hindu ; but with the pressure of modern require- 

 ments both of these e.xcellent views of other civilisations are being crowded out, 

 and we meet men now to whom the Avorld's history began when they were born. 

 There is great danger in such ignorance. All the painful and laborious experi- 

 ments in social and political problems during past ages are ignored, rash trials are 

 made on lines which have been repeatedly proved to be impossible, and real 

 advance in any direction is thwarted by useless repetitions of the well-known 

 failures of the past. 



It is the business of anthropology to step in, and make a knowledge of other 

 civilisations a part of all decent education. In this direction our science has a 

 most important held before it, at least as valuable as geography or history, and 

 far more practical in developing ideas than many of the smatterings now taught. 

 To present a view of another civilisation, we require to give an insight into the 

 way of looking at the world, the modes of thought, the aims in life, the checks 

 and counter-checks on the weaknesses of man, and the construction of society and 

 of government, in each case. The origin and utility of the various customs and 

 habits need to be pointed out, and in what way they are reasonable and needful 

 to the well-being of the community. And above all, we ought to impress on every 

 boy that this civilisation in which he grows is only one of innumerable experi- 

 ments in life that have been tried ; that it is by no means the only successful one, 

 or perhaps not the most successful, that there has been ; that there are many other 

 solutions of the problems of community and culture which are as good as our own, 

 and that no one solution will fit a difl'erent race, climate, or set of conditions. 



How such a sense of proportion in the world is to be attained, and what course 

 of instruction will eradicate political fanaticism, and plant a reasonable tolerance 

 of other forms of civilisation, is the problem before us as practical anthropologists. 

 The highest form of this perception of other existence is reached in the best history — 

 writing or fiction, which enables the reader to strip himself for the time of his 

 prejudices and views of life, and reclothe the naked soul with an entirely different 

 personality and environment. Very few writers, and those only in rare instances, 

 can reach this level ; it needs consummate knowledge, skill, sympathy, and abandon 

 in the writer, and if without these, it is neither accurate nor inspiring. The safer 

 course is to carefully select from the best literature of a civilisation, and explain 

 and illustrate this so as to leave no feature of it outside of the reason and feelings 

 of the reader. Here we run against the special bigotry of the purely classical 

 scholar, who looks on ancient literature as a peculiar preserve solely belonging to 

 those who will labour to read it in its original dress. No one limits an acquaint- 

 ance with Hebrew, Egyptian, or Arabic authors to those who can deal with those 



