LEIPSTC MUSEUM OF ETHNOLOGY. 301 



phenomena aTid accessaries of liiinian life. We can only attempt sucli 

 a classificatiou as will render accessible and useful that wbicb is at hand, 

 for the purpose of showing the present condition of our knowledge as 

 well as our deficiencies ; and also in what directions further research 

 should be made. The advantage of such an exhibition to the education 

 of youtli and to the improvement of scientific observation and taste 

 among the masses of our intelligent countrymen is incalculable. 



Having spoken of the relation which the study of man bears to aux- 

 iliary sciences, we come to inquire more particularly into these studies, 

 and also briefly whether they are sufficiently advanced to be helpful in 

 working out the truth respecting liumanity in general. 



So complex is the nature of man that a number of sciences are 

 confined to it alone, viz, anatomy and physiology, with the kindred 

 sciences of pathology and medicine, or the sciences of the human body; 

 psychology, subdivided into branches specially devoted to conscience, 

 reason, and volition, and linguistics, or the sciences of the human sonl; 

 sociology, ethnology, history par excellence, and the philosophy of his- 

 tory, which may be called the sciences of man's social nature; to which 

 may be added anthropology, or the science of the human species m 

 relation to other organic beings. Each of these has had a deeply inter* 

 esting and important record. Each has passed through exceedingly 

 diversified experiences in order to be a competent witness of facts neces- 

 sary to the general result. While accumulating material for their own 

 completiou, they have, designedly and undesignedly, reached conclusions 

 of universal significance. 



Among the nations of antiquity, the Greeks were the first to pay any 

 attention to anatomy. Is it not astonishing that the inspection of the 

 carcases and entrails of thousands on thousands of human and animal 

 sacrifices never suggested to the enlightened priests of Egypt, Syria, and 

 the Tigro-Euphrates nations, the simplest truths on this subject "? Even 

 the Greeks themselves studied the human body more for the purposes 

 of medical practice than for the classification of the facts about it. 

 Their analyses of the races of men were based on the hair, the color of the 

 skin, or some other mere superficial character. Aristotle knew scarcely 

 anything about the human skeleton. Hippocrates had a better undei- 

 standing of osteology, although his knowledge of anatomy was meager 

 enough. The Alexandrian school, basing their knowledge on experience, 

 deserve credit for pursuing a method which yielded little to them indeed, 

 but rich results to those who followed up their investigations. The names 

 of Erasistratus of Ceos, Herophilus of Ohalcedon, and Celsus shine out 

 among these early investigators. The line of the celebrated physicians 

 of antiquity closes with Galen, (born at Pergamos, A. D. 130,) whose decis- 

 ions upon many important points of human structure were for fifteen 

 centuries the dicta of the doctors. W^e grope in vaiu amid the dark- 

 ness of the middle ages for evidences of advance in the knowledge of 

 general anatomy, or anatomy of the species. Notwithstanding Eoger 



