H.— ANTHROPOLOGY 151 



vitiated from the outset by its propagandist bias or basis. Personal 

 vanity, envy, hatred, and maUce, the desire to please great persons, the 

 fear of offending dangerous powers — these and a thousand other motives 

 enter in to deform the truth. Just as only a childish intelligence supposes 

 that what is printed has any value merely because it is printed, so only a 

 very purblind historian can maintain that a document has any scientific 

 value merely because it is written. And if anyone feels disposed to 

 challenge this statement, I will only ask him to remember his experiences 

 between 1914 and 1919 if he took any part in the Great War. Without 

 troubling about the deliberate and obvious propaganda, intended to deceive 

 ourselves or the enemy for some immediate purpose, let him reflect on 

 the character of the ordinary current documents whether of civilian or 

 of military origin. Would he consider that they were scientifically 

 accurate ? A slight but amusing illustration of my point may be drawn 

 from the ration strength of a battalion. Of course everyone, from the 

 commanding officer to the youngest private, was closely and personally 

 interested in overestimating the figure so as to deceive, with the most 

 laudable object of self-preservation, the officers who provided supplies. 

 And yet a very eminent historian once indignantly asked if I would not 

 unquestioningly accept the stated ration strength of a force, if a Latin 

 author had been so thoughtful as to record it. 



Now contrast with the lying or tendencious documents issued in 

 this and in much more serious cases by battalions and brigades the com- 

 plete objectivity of my ' dumb documents,' for instance the cap badges 

 and regimental insignia found on the field of battle. These are perfectly 

 trustworthy evidence, equally useful to an intelligence officer during 

 the war or to an archaeologist years after. 



Passing from this recent material to that which has survived from 

 ancient days, is it not evident that even the strongest motives of family 

 pride can never induce a pre-Chellean flint to falsify its genealogy ? 

 Again, the Hermes of Praxiteles will never open his mouth to tell us 

 whether he is an original or a Roman copy. In brief, to leave a subject 

 which it is tempting to expand at greater length, archaeology is not pre- 

 cluded by its material from being just as scientific as history. Neither 

 the one nor the other can claim to be rigorously exact, each is in much 

 the same degree liable to misinterpret its data ; but I claim that at least 

 the data of archaeology have never been falsified from the start. The 

 historian has perhaps one advantage, in having at his command certain 

 fundamental documents which are supposed to be unimpeachable, such 

 as charters, treaties, statutes, and — in very late times — textual reports 

 of trials and speeches. Even these, however, find a fairly close analogy 

 in the stratified deposits which the geologist guarantees to archaeology 

 and in the intact tombs which contain inscribed objects. 



It must not, of course, be supposed that there is any disparagement to 

 history in the emphasis which I have laid upon its subjective character. 

 The ideals of history are far greater than its mere skeletal form, the bare 

 record of events and dates, though it is principally this skeletal form 

 which is valuable to archaeology. The position of history is unique ; 

 it appears to oscillate between science and art, but at its best and truest 



