12 CEYLON BRANCH ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



Coffers on the other, examples respectively of the different 

 forms to which the oval has diverged, and which now ap- 

 pear constituting varieties of the human race, no less ob- 

 vious and greater in importance than the distinctions arising 

 from difference of language : — which distinctions, namely, 

 the distinctions arising from difference of language, and 

 difference in the form of the cranium coincide in a manner 

 with the two great distinguishing attributes of man, reason 

 and speech. So that here we have a seemingly exhaust- 

 less supply of subjects open to the observers of character, 

 national and individual; and for investigations into the 

 sources of character. Perhaps some member of the Soci- 

 ety, phrenologically disposed, will enrich our museum some 

 day with a series of skulls, showing the several forms oc- 

 curring in the island, as they pass from the oval to the two 

 extremes. Such a collection would be of value in many 

 respects, and if to every several skull there were subjoined 

 a note of the colour of the skin, it would also I think read 

 a lesson of rebuke to those who will talk of "the dark ra- 

 ces" as a phrenological or pscychological distinction. The 

 brain may be the seat and organ of the mind, and the skull 

 may be the measure of the brain, — but the colour of the 

 skin is coincident with neither : 



Black hair, black eyes, and dark complexion 



Cannot forfeit nature's claim : 

 Skins may differ, but affection 



Dwells in white and black the same. 



The influx of people which prevailed from the earliest 

 period still continues to pour down upon the island, but with 

 this difference that the tide of population now spreads over 

 the land not to lay it waste, but, under the direction of 

 British industry, to bring out its capabilities. In former 

 times, every new band of comers was an army of invasion. 

 Now under British supremacy there is immigration without 

 conquest ; and conquest involves neither extermination, nor 

 slavery, nor a compulsory change of faith, but a common 

 patriotism, and that all should feel it to be at once their in- 

 terest and their duty to co-operate together in maintaining 

 the common fabric of which they are all members. 



And so, of the present Society, let it be distinguished 

 by individual exertion and mutual regard. 



