364 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol.. II., No. 32. 



have made in these millenniums? At the other end 

 of the journey we were no better than brules, and 

 now we look out upon the cosmos as something 

 reasonably comprehended. 



If 'pity for a horse o'er-driven' fills the heart of 

 the poet, with what tenderness should we look upon 

 the savage races, and remember that the whole family 

 of man has stopped, some time or other, at that way- 

 side inn! Each aberrant form, abnormality, criminal, 

 dwarf, and giant shows the by-paths of human growth 

 into which our life-stuff may have wandered. The 

 arrow is tlie parent of the cannon-ball ; the stone or 

 bone spear-point, of the bayonet; tlie flint chip, of all 

 edged tools ; the cave-man, of the French savant ; 

 the hut, of the palace ; the tattoo, of regalia ; tlie 

 gorget, of tlie crown jewels ; the quipo and picto- 

 graph, of the printed book ; promiscuous concubin- 

 age, of holy wedlock ; the hunting-party, of society ; 

 the clan, of the state ; the fetich, of the pantheon ; and 

 universal animism, of universal causation. Instead 

 of our ancestral belief in a tree with roots in the 

 earth and branches in heaven, our tree has its roots 

 in the past, and is ever putting forth leaves and 

 flowers in a brighter present. 



All sciences are retrospective. The astronomer, 

 the physicist, the biologist, find the bases of their 

 prophecies in the past history of the universe. The 

 statesman, if he be wise, will imitate ^heir example, 

 and feel secure of his legislation for the future only 

 so far as it is founded upon an intimate knowledge 

 of the past. 



The value of this study to philanthropy is easily 

 shown. Willi what admii-ation do we read of the devo- 

 tion of those missionaries who have suffered the loss 

 of all things in their propagandist zeal! Science has 

 her missionaries as well as religion, and the scientific 

 study of peoples has notably modified the methods of 

 the Christian missionary. The conviction that savage 

 races are in possession of our family records, that 

 they are our elder Icindred, wrinkled aud weather- 

 beaten mayhap, but yet worthy of our highest re- 

 spect, has revolutionized men's thoughts and feelings 

 respecting them. The Bureau of ethnology has its 

 missionaries among many of the tribes in our domain, 

 no longer bent on their destruction, but treating them 

 with the greatest consideration, in order to win tlieir 

 confidence, to get down to their level, to think their 

 thoughts, to charm from them the sibylline secrets. 

 It sounds something like the old Jesuit relations, to 

 hear of Mr. Cushing at Zuni, eating vile food, wear- 

 ing savage costume, worshipping nature-gods, subject- 

 ing himself to long fastings and vigils, committing to 

 memory dreary rituals, standing between disarmed 

 Indians and their white enemies on every hand, in 

 order to save their contributions to the early history 

 of mankind. You will recall the fact, that an honor- 

 able senator more than a year ago offered, as an ar- 

 gument against sudden disruption of tribal afiinities, 

 an elaborate scheme of the Wyandotte confederacy. 

 Max Miiller says, " He who knows little of those who 

 preceded him is likely to care little for those that 

 come after. Life would be to him a chain of sand, 

 wbile it ought to be a kind of electric chain that 



makes our hearts vibrate with the most ancient 

 thoughts of the jiast as well as the most distant hope 

 of the future." 



In the study of this anthropo-cosmos, as in other 

 studies, we are brought face to face with the inscru- 

 table. In these voyages of discovery we have no right 

 to expect that we shall ever find a passage to the ulti- 

 mate truth. As with the child, so with the man; as 

 with the individual, so with the race; as in the 

 past, so in the present and the future, — the solution of 

 one problem only prepares the way for many far more 

 complicated. With all our sciences comes the con- 

 sciousness of new ignorances. There is more known 

 to be unknown now than when wise men knew that 

 they did not understand many things well known to 

 us. So will it ever be. Just about one hundred "years 

 ago, Peter Camper's measurements of the facial angle, 

 with a few observations on height and weight, were 

 thought to he all that anthropometry could furnish 

 to the natural history of man. In 1881 Paul Broca 

 laid down fur the skull and the encephalon more than 

 one hundred and fifty measurements; and the Ger- 

 mans go beyond that. Think you, the weighing and 

 measuring will stop at these? We are just on the 

 threshold of applying experienced training and in- 

 struments of precision to the study of man. Exam- 

 ine, if you please, the circulars for information issued 

 by the old Paris ethnological society, Albert Gallatin, 

 Lepsius, Max Miiller, and the Smithsonian institu- 

 tion, with those published for the Novara expedition, 

 by the British association, Kaltbrunner, Roberts, the 

 new Paris society, or Major Powell, and you will 

 have ocular evidence of the advance of anthropology. 

 But there is no Ultima Tliule in science. No ques- 

 tion propounded to natuie will ever be answered. I 

 can imagine the night of despair that would settle 

 around any one of my hearers when he had reached 

 the consciousness of bavins gathered the whole har- 

 vest of truth. On the other hand, I am sorry to hear 

 any of our great thinkers uttering the words ii/no- 

 ramus et ir/norabiimis as a wail of despair. They 

 should be to all the sweet voice of hope. They do 

 not mean that we know nothing, or that we shall 

 ever remain totally ignorant. Fresh, vigorous, buoy- 

 ant, science feels itself to he on a pleasant journey, 

 whose destination may remain unknown, but every 

 mile of whose progress unfolds new vistas of beauty 

 and variety in nature, each transcending the other. 



I congratulate you, dear friends, that the American 

 association has delegated to you such an important 

 trust. The illustrious names to be found among our 

 members and fellows are a sufficient guaranty that 

 you have lighted your torches, and that our science 

 will not be a laggard in this grand march. Professor 

 Henry said, in 1859, "The statement cannot be too 

 often repeated, that each branch of knowledge is con- 

 nected with every other, and that no light can be 

 gained in regard to one which is not reflected upon 

 all" (Smith, rep., 1859, p. 15). We may go farther, 

 and say, that, whenever, any marked generalization is 

 made in any science, all other sciences proceed at 

 once to put themselves in line with the new order. 

 It is the duty of the anthropologists, therefore, not 



