RACE AND CIVILIZATION. 1 



By Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, D. C. L., LL. D. 



Iu a subject as yet so unmapped as anthropology there is more room 

 for considering different r^oints of view than in a thoroughly organized 

 and limited science. The future structure of this science depends 

 largely on the apprehension of many different modes of treating it. 

 The time has not yet come when it can be handled as a whole, and 

 therefore at present we may frankly consider various questions from an 

 individual standpoint, without in the least implying that other considera- 

 tions should be taken into account. It is only by the free statement, 

 however one-sided, of the various separate views of the many subjects 

 involved in such a science that any comprehensive scheme of its 

 organization can ever be built up. In remarking, therefore, on some 

 branches at present I shall not attempt a judicial impersonality, but 

 rather try to express some views which have not yet been brought into 

 ordinary currency. 



Elaborate definitions of anthropology have been formulated, but such 

 are only too liable to require constant.revision as fresh fields of research 

 are added to the domain. In any new country it is far safer to define 

 its limits than to describe all that it includes, and all that can yet be 

 done in anthropology is to lay down the "sphere of influence,' 7 and 

 having secured the boundaries, then develop the resources at leisure. 

 The principle bordering subjects are zoology, metaphysics, economics, 

 literature, and history. So far as these refer to other species, as well 

 as to man, or to individuals rather than to the whole race, they stand 

 apart as subjects; but their relation to the human species as such is 

 essentially a part of anthropology. We must be prepared, therefore, to 

 take anthropology more as a study of man in relation to various and 

 often independent subjects than as an organic and self-contained 

 science. Human nature is greater than all formulas; and we may as 

 soon hope to contact its study into a logical structure, as to construct 

 an algebraical equation for predicting its course of thought. 



'Address by Prof. W. M. Flinders Petrie, D. C. L., LL. D., president of the section 

 of anthropology, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, at Ipswich, 1895. Reprinted from the Report of the British Association for 

 1895, pp. 816-824. 



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