ANTHROPOLOGY. 
289 
The foregoing, if I may be allowed the term, may be 
taken as an epitome or definition of the science of Anthro¬ 
pology, and will serve as a fitting introduction to a few 
remarks on that subject, to the study of which in all its 
features Anthropology devotes itself, viz., man. At the very 
outset it will be asked “ What is man ? Define this being or 
animal called Man.” He has been styled “ An Intelligence 
assisted by organs.” Such was the definition of a very pro¬ 
found thinker, Cardinal de Bonald, and this would be a very 
exact definition could it be exclusively applied to man, 
since it reflects his great characteristic feature, intelligence ; 
but animals may be regarded as “ Intelligences assisted by 
oryans ,”—they, too, possess an intelligence which prompts 
them in their necessities, but although man is an animal 
covered by an envelope which is common to all mammalia, 
yet he is superior to, and far surpasses, the lower creatures in 
intelligence and perfection of bodily formation. Figuier, 
a naturalist of the French school, defines man as “An 
organised intelligent being endowed with the faculty of 
abstraction” (“Human Race,” p. 1); and another writer* 
styles him the noblest of all earthly creatures, standing 
related on the one hand through his body to the world 
of matter, on the other through his mind to the world of 
spirit, or nether world ; at the verge of the animal 
kingdom most remote from its point of contact with 
the kingdom of organic (?) life, yet an inhabitant of such 
other kingdom of pure intelligence. The above may be 
accepted as the most perfect definition of man, but as such 
are merely expressions of theory, and on that account liable 
to rejection, a perfectly accurate definition cannot be given, 
since that would presuppose a perfect knowledge, of which 
our understanding on this question of man is incapable. 
The origin of man, or the genesis of species, so far as it 
relates to man, becomes then one of the most interesting 
points which can entertain our powers of observation and 
investigation. Opposing scientific views and religious beliefs, 
and the conceptions of opposite philosophers, by a continual 
and increasing conflict, tend to evolve a comprehensive view 
of the origin of species, which will eventually harmonise 
them with one another ; and when this comes to be finally 
established it will be one of the greatest benefits which can 
possibly be bestowed, as diverting the energy so often 
expended in useless controversy into a profitable and reci¬ 
procal channel, of mutual beuefit to all. In the theory of the 
* “Man,” in Encyclopaedia Brit. 
