Section H.— ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 President of the Section. — E. B. Beabrook, C.B., F.S.A. 



The President delivered the following Address on Friday, September 9 : — 



I AM very sensible of the honour of being- President of this Section at a Bristol 

 meeting. Bristol, from its association with the memory of J. C. Prichard, may 

 be regarded as the very birthplace of British Anthropology. 



In submitting to the Section some observations on the past progress and the 

 present position of the Anthropological Sciences, I use the plural term, which 

 is generally adopted by our French colleagues, in order to remind you that 

 Anthfopology is in fact a group of sciences. There is what in France is called 

 pure anthropology or anthropology proper, but which we prefer to call physical 



• anthropology — the science of the physical characters of man, including anthropo- 

 metry and craniology, and mainly based upon anatomy and physiology. There 

 is comparative anthropology, which deals with the zoological position of mankind. 

 There is prehistoric archaeology, which covers a wide range of inquiry into man's 

 early works, and has to seek the aid of the geologist and the metallurgist. There 

 is psychology, which comprehends the whole operations of his mental faculties. 

 There is linguistics, which traces the history of human language. There is folk- 

 lore, which investigates man's traditions, customs, and beliefs. There are ethno- 

 graphy, which describes the races of mankind, and ethnology, which difierentiates 

 between them, both closely connected with geographical science. There is 

 sociology, which applies the learning accumulated in all the other branches of 

 anthropology to man's relation to his fellows, and requires the co-operation of the 



■ statistician and the economist. How can any single person master in its entirety a 

 group of sciences which covers so wide a held, and requires in its students such 

 various faculties and qualifications ? Here, if anywhere, we must be content to 



. divide our labours. The grandeur and comprehensiveness of the subject are among 

 its attractions. The old saying, ' I am a man, and therefore I think nothing 



■ human to be foreign to me,' e.'cpresses the ground upon which the antbropo- 



• logical sciences claim from us a special attention. 



I may illustrate wbat I have said as to the varied endowments of anthro- 

 pologists by a reference to the names of four distinguished men who have occupied 

 in previous years the place which it falls to my lot to fill to-day — most unworthily, 

 as I cannot but acknowledge, when I think of their pre-eminent qualifications. 

 When the Association last met at Bristol, in 1875, Anthropology was not a Section, 



