1/2 SB31 ARKS TO THE ETHNOLOGY Of 
guage or manners are original or derivative, that nothing but a 
large accumulation of marked points of resemblance can enable 
us to draw a conclusion respecting the connection of two races; 
and this conclusion must, therefore, be postponed long beyond the 
limit at which, if we were in possession of a body of ethnological 
laws, certainty, or as much certainty as the subject admitted, would 
be attained. It is true that, as in all other sciences in which 
man’s free agency is the most important element, approximative 
rules only can, in many eases, be expected. But every well based 
approximation becomes a valuable practical principle in suggest¬ 
ing and directing enquiries, and is a stepping stone to wider and 
deeper generalizations. 
Much more lias been done to systematize the physical than the 
moral facts of Ethnography. It may indeed be doubtful whetlier ma¬ 
terials have anywhere been accumulated sufficiently full and exact 
to warrant an analysis of the latter, and whether any attempt to 
do so in a rigid manner would not lead to a stilted and dogma¬ 
tic mode of viewing a subject in itself so pre-eminently expan¬ 
sive, irrepressible and mobile. 
A review of the facts that would enter into a complete account 
©f the inhabitants of the Archipelago might, if made with a con¬ 
stant reference to the principles of human nature, enable u-s reduce 
to a distinct and palpable form our conception of the limit up to 
which separate isolated communities, left to the mere operation of 
similar external circumstances, have parallel psychological deve¬ 
lopments so long as their developments last. The correct definition 
of this limit, with such strictness as the subject admits of, must be 
Ihe basis of this department of ethnology. One of the first prob¬ 
lems therefore which is presented to us, is to shew, from the survey 
of a sufficiently extensive field, how far the common attributes of 
jnan tend to originate similar ideas, habits, and usages, and how far 
to develope these in the same mode. It is only when wc have 
determined this that we can take our stand upon its solution, and 
confidently distribute the facts observed in any region into such as 
are wholly referable to those attributes, and are to be rejected for 
comparative purposes, and such as lie beyond the limit of parallel 
developement, and are the true materials for all reconstruction of 
history from living records. It is in this field, where necessity and 
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