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INTRODUCTION 
BALDWIN SPENCER AS ANTHROPOLOGIST 
By SIR JAMES FRAZER 
T HE early life of Spencer may be said to have been a 
fortunate, though necessarily undesigned, preparation 
for the great work which he accomplished in the maturity of 
his powers. His training in biology and zoology familiarized 
him with the conception of physical evolution in the animal 
and human species, and at Oxford the teaching of Tylor, 
the true founder of anthropology in England, initiated him 
in the elements of mental and social evolution in the history 
of man. Thus, when the happy circumstance of a call to 
Melbourne led Spencer to settle in Australia, he was well 
prepared to grasp the significance of the primitive, or rather 
archaic, forms of plant, animal, and human life, which the 
immemorial seclusion of that continent from the rest of the 
world has preserved as in a museum to satisfy the curiosity 
of later ages concerning the development of life on our 
planet. In his new home Spencer’s attention was naturally 
drawn at first to those early forms of animal life which it 
was his special duty, as Professor of Zoology at Melbourne 
University, to investigate. But, later on, his fortunate attach¬ 
ment to the Horn Expedition led him to make the acquain¬ 
tance of the Arunta, the great aboriginal tribe in the very 
heart of Australia, who, dwelling in the most isolated region 
of the most isolated continent, have survived to our time as 
if on purpose to hold up to us a mirror of the life of man as 
it was in ages long before the dawn of history. To have 
discovered the picture, or rather the long series of pictures, 
in the mirror and revealed it to science is the outstanding 
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