8 INTRODUCTION. 



reverenced by the religions of antiquity. Physiology, rendered 

 so clear by vivisection, knows no pity ; mankind feels it, but 

 the physiologist shuts up all knowledge of it from himself; it 

 is momentarily destroyed, since it would injure any inquiry 

 into the laws of life. 



It must be owned that the science which engages our atten- 

 tion has not been able entirely to disembarrass itself among us 

 of that which we may call moral propriety * It has a powerful 

 influence on certain minds, sometimes unwittingly, sometimes 

 of their free will.f 



We have ourselves heard eminent professors make a noble 

 appeal to the fraternity which ought to exist among men, 

 plead in their chairs the cause of inferior races, and proclaim 

 the equality of the African people with ourselves. Such noble 

 theories were received as they ought to be, with the most 

 ardent applause. There remains only to inquire if this is 

 truly philosophical progress, and if kindness, pity, or com- 

 passion, have any value in the great balance of facts. 



It was time, indeed, that a new method an independent 

 one should see the light in anthropology, as "it has already 

 done in astronomy, as it also has begun to do in geology. It 

 was time to return to the human mind its wings. Facts, 

 reasonings supported by facts, are the sole basis of every solid 

 work of every certainty in scientific matters ; it is the only 

 method which can lead us by a slow path, perhaps, but a 

 sure one to the solution of the most difficult and the most 

 obscure problems. We do not except that of the origin of 

 man. 



We do not pretend to be first in the path which we here 

 point out, but we wish to express our regret at not having 

 seen it openly enough followed by all those who are worthy to 

 enter it. As for ourselves, what we have desired in this essay 

 is, first, to hold ourselves apart from all extra-scientific data 

 from all sentimental science; we have desired to treat 

 some anthropological questions as they would have done at 



* See, for example, Pucheran, Considerations Anatomiques sur les Formes 

 de la tete osseuse. Paris, 1841 (Thesis). 



f M. de Serree, in his Lectures on Anthropology, at the Jardin des Plantes. 



