LECTURE I. ' 



cerning- the relations of the races of mankind to each other, 

 their intermixture, their descent and propagation, their relation 

 to other creatures, especially to the higher mammals; and 

 also, the changes which air, chmate, and mode of life, have pro- 

 duced in man in his struggle for existence. 



It is clear that the difficulties attending an investigation of 

 this kind are very great, so that in spite of all efforts we are 

 only on the threshold of our inquiry, Man is scattered all 

 over the globe, and everywhere, even in the remotest regions, 

 numerous intermixtures have taken place, by which the pos- 

 sibly original purity has been more or less impaired. More- 

 over, a science, if it is to draw unimpeachable inferences, re- 

 quires fundamental principles mathematically certain, and these 

 can, in this our field, be but very slowly obtained. Direct inves- 

 tigation can only be applied to individuals. If we have to deter- 

 mine the characteristics of a tribe, a people, a race, a species, we 

 can only ascertain them by taking the mean of numerous observa- 

 tions and measurements of individuals. We all know that the 

 characteristic peculiarities of a people, the Germans and French, 

 for instance, cannot be determined from a superficial acquaint- 

 ance with single individuals at a table d'hote, but that a long 

 intercourse with all the various classes of a nation is requisite 

 for the formation of a proper estimate. And yet here we have 

 only an individual perception of peculiarities for which there is 

 no certain standard, the estimate of which frequently depends 

 on the disposition of the observer. But when, as in our case, 

 we have to do with physical peculiarities, actual measurement 

 comes into play, and it alone can lead to useful results. The 

 first step is to examine the whole physical conformation, espe- 

 cially the most characteristic parts ; head, skull, brain, hand, 

 and foot : not in a few, but in a great many individuals, and in this 

 way to eliminate individual peculiarities, and give prominence to 

 such as are common to the great majority. Now, anyone who 

 knows the difficulties we meet with in this respect, even in our 

 civilised countries, where the materials are at hand, will readily 

 conceive that they are increased when such inquiries are to be 

 carried on in distant regions among savage nations. Quetelet, 

 the eminent director of the Brussels Observatory, has been occu- 



