INTRODUCTION. 3 



one ; but others make of it a question of principle, as in the 

 time of Galileo, when it was a matter of overturning the ideas 

 of the old world, supported by a testimony which was not 

 allowed to be doubted. So the struggle is a sharp one ;* it is 

 felt that it refers almost to a dogma, and not merely to an 

 accessory fact. Science clashes there with religion, as is the 

 case with geology, and as formerly with astronomy ; but in no 

 way is the shock so violent, in no way can its consequences be 

 as great. Anthropology, more than any other science, ought 

 to produce immense result s.f Who does not see that the 

 abyss becomes every day deeper under the belief of the past, 

 and that science, at a given moment, will become the founda- 

 tion of more perfect morality ? 



This antagonism is the first difficulty which we find at the 

 threshold of anthropology. We should have wished to have 

 entered upon our subject without being obliged, not absolutely 

 to discuss it, but merely to show the disputed point in the 

 question. Unfortunately, the example has been given us ; we 

 must follow it. Two schools are to be found in anthropology ; 

 one called that of the Polygenists, the other that of the Mono- 

 genists,{ two words which came from America, and which we 

 receive because they have the great advantage of being clear 

 and precise, determining, by the opposing point of their doc- 

 trines, two distinct schools, the one recognising but one family 

 in the human race, of which some members have alone pre- 

 served the primitive type altered everywhere else ; the other 

 school recognising no direct relationship among the races of 

 mankind. The Polygenistic school is comparatively modern ; 

 the founders of anthropology the Blumenbachs and the 

 Prichards belonged to the other. Now, if they took their stand 

 on an entirely philosophic or experimental point of view, we 



* It is only necessary, in order to be sure of this fact, to glance over the 

 Bulletins de la Socie'te' d Anthropologie, the creation of which is due above all 

 to the indefatigable zeal of a partisan of the doctrines which we defend to 

 M. P. Broca. 



f Anthropology is not the only branch in modern science which opens new 

 paths to the human mind: see Michelet, L'Insecte, p. 106; see also Bourdet, 

 Traite d'education positive, 1863. 



J This name has been definitely adopted in France in preference to that 

 of " Unitarians" (Unitaires), used by M. de Gobineau. 



B2 



