SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 25, 1891. 



ANTHROPOLOGY PAST AND PRESENT. 



It was forty-four years ago that for the first and for the last 

 time I was able to take an active part in the meetings of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Science. It was at 

 Oxford, in 1847, when I read a paper on the " Relations of Ben- 

 gali to the Aryan and Aborigiaal Languages of India," which re- 

 ceived the honor of being published in full in the " Transactions " of 

 the association for that year. I have often regretted that absence 

 from England and pressure of work have prevented me year after 

 year from participating in the meetings of the association. But, 

 being a citizen of two countries, — of Germany by birth, of Eng- 

 land by adoption,— my long vacations have generally drawn me 

 away to the Continent, so that, to my great regret, I found myself 

 precluded from sharing either in your labors or in your delightful 

 social gatherings. 



I wonder whether any of those who were present at that bril- 

 liant meeting at Oxford in 1847 are present here to-day. I almost 

 doubt it. Our president then was Sir Robert Inglis, who will 

 always be known in the annals of English history as having been 

 preferred to Sir Robert Peel as member of Parliament for the Uni- 

 versity of Oxford. Among other celebrities of the day I remem- 

 ber Sir Roderick Murchison, Sir David Brewster, Dean Buckland, 

 Sir Charles Lyell, Professor Sedgwick, Professor Owen, and many 

 more — a galaxy of stars, all set or setting. Young Mr. Ruskin 

 acted as secretary to the geological section. Our section was then 

 not even recognized as yet as a section. We ranked as a sub-sec- 

 tion only of Section D, Zoology and Botany. We remained in 

 that subordinate position till 1851, when we became Section E, 

 under the name of Geography and Ethnology. From 1869, how- 

 ever. Ethnology seems almost to have disappeared again, being 

 absorbed in Geography, and it was not till the year 1884 that 

 we emerged once more as what we are to-day, Section H, or An- 

 thropology. 



In the year 1847 our sub-section was presided over by Professor 

 Wilson, the famous Sanscrit scholar. The most active debaters, so 

 far as I remember, were Dr. Prichard, Dr. Latham, and Mr. Craw- 

 furd, well known then under the name of the Objector-General. 

 I was invited to join the meeting by Bunsen, then Prussian Min- 

 ister in London, who also brought with him his friend Dr. Karl 

 Meyer, the Celtic scholar. Prince Albert was present at our de- 

 bates, so was Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte. Our ethnological 

 sub-section was then most popular, and attracted very large audi- 

 ences. 



When looking once more through the debates carried on in our 

 section in 1847, I was very much surprised when I saw how very 

 like the questions which occupy us to-day are to those which we 

 discussed in 1847. I do not mean to say that there has been no 

 advance in our science. Far from it. The advance of linguistic, 

 ethnological, anthropological, and biological studies, all of which 

 claim a hearing in our section, has been most rapid. Still that ad- 

 vance has been steady and sustained ; there has been no cataclysm, 

 no deluge, no break in the advancement of our science, and noth- 

 ing seems to me to prove its healthy growth more clearly than this 

 uninterrupted continuity, which united the past with the present, 

 and will, I hope, unite the present with the future. 



No paper is in that respect more interesting to read than the 

 address which Bunsen prepared for the meeting in 1847, and which 

 you will find in the " Transactions " of that year. Its title is ' ' On 

 the Results of the recent Egyptian Researches in reference to Asiatic 



1 Address before tlie section of Anthropology of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science, at Cardiff, August, 1891, by Professor F. Max 

 Muller, president of the section (Nature, Sept. 3). 



and African Ethnology, and the Classification of Languages." But 

 you will find it a great deal more than what this title would lead 

 you to expect. 



There are passages in it which are truly prophetic, and which 

 show that, if prophecy is possible anywhere, it is possible, nay, it 

 ought to be possible, in the temple of science, and under the in- 

 spiring influence of knowledge and love of truth. 



Allow me to dwell for a little while on this remarkable paper. 

 It is true, we have travelled so fast that Bunsen seems almost to 

 belong to ancient history. This very year is the hundredth anni- 

 versary of his birth, and this very day the centenary of his birth 

 is being celebrated in several towns of Germany. In England also 

 his memory should not be forgotten. No one, not being an Eng- 

 lishman by birth, could, I believe, have loved this country more 

 warmly, and could have worked more heartily than Bunsen did 

 to bring about that friendship between England and Germany 

 which must forever remain the corner-stone of the j)eace of Europe, 

 and the sine qua non of that advancement of science to which our 

 association is devoted. His house in Carlton Terrace was a true 

 international academy, open to all who had something to say , 

 something worth listening to, a kind of sanctuary against vulgarity 

 in high places, a neutral ground where the best representatives of 

 all countries were welcome and felt at home. But this also be- 

 longs to Ancient history. And yet, when we read Bunsen's paper, 

 delivered in 1847, it does not read like ancient history. It deals 

 with the problems which are still in the foreground, and if it 

 could be delivered again to-day by that genial representative of 

 German learning, it would rouse the same interest, provoke the 

 same applause, and possibly the same opposition also, which it 

 roused nearly half a century ago. Let me give you a few instances 

 of what I mean. 



We must remember that Darwin's "Origin of Species" was 

 published in 1859, his "Descent of Man" in 1871. But herein 

 the year 1847 one of the burning questions which Bunsen discusses 

 is the question of the possible descent of man from some unknown 

 animal. He traces the history of that question back to Frederick 

 the Great, and quotes his memorable answer to D'AIembert. 

 Frederick the Great, you know, was not disturbed by any qualms 

 of orthodoxy. "In my kingdom," he used to say, "everybody 

 may save his soul according to his own fashion." But when 

 D'AIembert wished him to make what he called the salto mortale 

 from monkey to man, Frederick the Great protested. He saw 

 what many have seen since, that there is no possible transition 

 from reasonlessness to reason, and that with all the likeness of 

 their bodily organs there is a barrier which no animal can clear, 

 or which, at all events, no animal has as yet cleared. And what 

 does Bunsen himself consider the real barrier between man and 

 beast? "It is language," he says, " which is unattainable, or, at 

 least, unattained, by any animal except man." In answer to the 

 argument that, given only a sufficient number of years, a transi- 

 tion by imperceptible degrees from animal cries to articulate lan- 

 guage is at least conceivable, he says: "Those who hold that 

 opinion have never been able to show the possibility of the first 

 step. They attempt to veil their inability by the easy but fruitless 

 assumption of an infinite space of time, destined to explain the 

 gradual development of animals into men ; as if millions of years 

 could supply the want of the agency necessary for the first move- 

 ment, for the first step, in the line of progress. No numbers can 

 effect a logical impossibility. How, indeed, could reason spring 

 out of a state which is destitute of reason? How can speech, the 

 expression of thought, develop itself, in a year, or in millions of 

 years, out of articulate sounds, which express feelings of pleasure, 

 pain, and appetite ? " 



He then appeals to Wilhelm von Humboldt, whom he truly calls 

 the greatest and most acute anatomist of almost all human speech. 



