August 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



245 



om- institutions seem to think that every 

 man is competent to be an anthropologist 

 and archseologist ; and let a plausible ex- 

 plorer present himself, the last question 

 put to him will be, whether he has any fit- 

 ness for the job. 



Hence our museums are crammed with 

 doubtful specimens, vaguely located, and 

 our volumes of travel with incomplete or 

 wholly incorrect statements, worse than 

 purelj^ fictitious ones, because we know them 

 to be the fruit of honest intentions, and 

 therefore give them credit. 



But, you will naturally ask, to what end 

 this accumulating and collecting, this filling 

 of museums with the art-products of sav- 

 ages and the ghastly contents of charnel 

 houses? Why write down their stupid 

 stories and make notes of their obscene 

 rites ? When it shall be done, or as good 

 as done, what use can be made of them be- 

 yond satisfying a profitless curiosity ? 



This leads me to explain another branch 

 of anthropology to which I have not yet 

 alluded, one which introduces us to other 

 aims of this science, quite distinct from 

 those I have mentioned. That branch is 

 Ethnology. 



Ethnology in its true sense represents the 

 application of the principles of inductive 

 philosophy to the products of man's facul- 

 ties. You are aware that that philosophy 

 proceeds from observed facts alone ; it dis- 

 cards all preconceived opinions concerning 

 these facts ; it renounces all allegiance to 

 dogma, or doctrine or intuition ; in short, to 

 every form of statement that is not capable 

 of verification. Its method of procedure is 

 by comparison, that is, by the logical equa- 

 tions of similarity and diversity, of identity 

 and difference ; and on these it bases those 

 generalizations which range the isolated fact 

 under the general law, of which it is at once 

 the exponent and the proof. 



By such comparisons, ethnology aims to 

 define in clear terms the influence which 



the geographical and other environment ex- 

 ercises on the individual, the social group 

 and the race ; and, conversely, how much 

 in each remains unaltered by the external 

 forces, and what residual elements are left, 

 defiant of surroundings, whollj^' personal, 

 purely human. Thus, rising to wider and 

 wider circles of observation and generaliza- 

 tion, it will be able at last to oiier a conclu- 

 sive and exhaustive connotation of what 

 man is — a necessary preliminary, mark you, 

 to that other qn.estion, so often and so igno- 

 rantly answered in the past, as to what he 

 should be. 



Ethnology, however, does not and should 

 not concern itself with this latter inquiry. 

 Its own field is broad enough, and the har- 

 vest ofiered is rich enough. Its materials 

 are drawn from the whole of history and 

 from pre-history. Those writers who limit 

 its scope to the explanation of the phenom- 

 ena of primitive social life only have so 

 done because these phenomena are simpler 

 in such conditions, not that the methods of 

 ethnology are applicable only to such. On 

 the contrary, they are not merely suitable, 

 they are necessary to all the facts of his- 

 tory, if we would learn their true meaning 

 and import. The time will come, and that 

 soon, when sound historians will adopt as 

 their gu^ide the principles and methods of 

 ethnologic science, because by these alone 

 can they assign to the isolated fact its right 

 place in the vast structure of human devel- 

 opment. 



In the past, histories have told of little 

 but of kings and their wars ; some writers 

 of recent date have remembered there is 

 such a thing as the People, and have es- 

 sayed to present its humble annals ; but 

 how few have even attempted to avail them- 

 selves of the myriad side-lights which eth- 

 nology can throw on the motives and the 

 manners of a people, its impulses and ac- 

 quisitions ? 



It is the constant aim of ethnology to 



