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Surely passion has enough fields for exhibition without being introduced into scientific discussion. If we believed this was a personal question, we should do all we could to expose the originator. But it is a matter of fact, opinion, and meaning of words. We hope that the Anthropological Society will appoint an independent (?) committee to report on the real facts of the case, and do their best to put a stop to this unfortunate dispute. But let these quarrels be a warning to all young men. Let them all know that there must be the same honesty in scientific discussions as in any other affairs of life. The scientific man cannot serve two masters. Nor is science in any way advanced by such attempts. On the contrary, a false statement of facts may retard the progress of science for years. What time has not been wasted respecting this dispute! Professor Owen is charged with stating that which he knows to be false. No doubt this is a serious charge: and were it possible for Professor Huxley to demonstrate its truth, we should neither attempt to justify or extenuate it. We take no part either on one side or the other in this dispute; but are bound to give our opinion that at the present time the evidence is chiefly on the side of Professor Huxley respecting the question of facts, unless Professor Owen can show that the meaning of his words has been misinterpreted.

An interesting chapter follows "On some Fossil Remains of Man," principally relating to the Engis and Neanderthal skulls, taken chiefly from Schmerling and Schaaffhausen. This chapter throws very little light on man's place in nature, and there is nothing in these skulls which may not now be found amongst existing savage races.

Professor Huxley makes the following very sensible remark respecting the present state of craniometry in this country.

"Until human crania have been largely worked out in a manner similar to that here suggested-until it shall be an opprobrium to an ethnological collection to possess a single skull which is not bisected longitudinally-until the angles and measurements here mentioned, together with a number of others of which I cannot speak in this place, are determined, and tabulated with reference to the basicranial axis as unity, for large numbers of skulls of the different races of Mankind, I do not think we shall have any very safe basis for that ethnological craniology which aspires to give the anatomical characters of the crania of the different Races of Mankind."

The author is not content with making these observations, but must go on to make the following dangerous generalization.

"At present I believe that the general outlines of what may be safely said upon that subject may be summed up in a very few words.

Draw a line on a globe from the Gold Coast in Western Africa to the steppes of Tartary. At the southern and western end of that line there live the most dolichocephalic, prognathous, curly-haired, darkskinned of men-the true Negroes. At the northern and eastern end of the same line there live the most brachycephalic, orthognathous, straight-haired, yellow-skinned of men-the Tartars and Calmucks. The two ends of this imaginary line are indeed, so to speak, ethnological antipodes. A line drawn at right angles, or nearly so, to this polar line through Europe and Southern Asia to Hindostan, would give us a sort of equator, around which round-headed, oval-headed, and oblong-headed, prognathous and orthognathous, fair and dark races, but none possessing the excessively marked characters of Calmuck or Negro-group themselves.

"It is worthy of notice that the regions of the antipodal races are antipodal in climate, the greatest contrast the world affords, perhaps, being that between the damp, hot, steaming, alluvial coast plains of the West Coast of Africa and the arid, elevated steppes and plateaux of Central Asia, bitterly cold in winter, and as far from the sea as any part of the world can be.

"From Central Asia eastward to the Pacific Islands and subcontinents on the one hand, and to America on the other, brachycephaly and orthognathism gradually diminish, and are replaced by dolichocephaly and prognathism, less, however, on the American Continent (throughout the whole length of which a rounded type of skull prevails largely, but not exclusively) than in the Pacific region, where, at length, on the Australian Continent and in the adjacent islands, the oblong skull, the projecting jaws, und the dark skin reappear; with so much departure, in other respects, from the Negro type, that ethnologists assign to these people the special title of 'Negritoes.""

Professor Huxley concludes the work by asking three questions, which time alone can answer.

"Where, then, must we look for primæval Man? Was the oldest Homo sapiens pliocene or miocene, or yet more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an Ape more anthropoid, or a Man more pithecoid, than any yet known, await the researches of some unborn paleontologist?"

Such, then, are specimens of the contents of a book which is destined to exercise no small amount of influence on the popular mind. It is not every man who is both able and willing to write on such a subject in such a way that the public shall be both interested and enlightened. Perhaps, however, the day is not come for a scientific work on such a subject. Therefore, the book is very properly called "evidence" as to man's place in nature, and, as such, it is a most valuable compilation. There is much, however, omitted which might have been introduced. This will all come in good time. Like all Professor Huxley's writings, it is clear in style, and decided

in expression. We have not dwelt on the most important point, the arguments from the facts adduced; but these will be ample food for discussion at some future day. Professor Huxley shares the weakness of his opponents in wishing to make some rigid distinction between man and animals. The other day, at Cambridge, he spoke of the "mental and moral gulf;" now he believes with Cuvier that the distinction is "articulate speech." We fear that Professor Huxley will have to yield this too as easily—if, indeed, not more easily than his opponents will have to give up the structural difference. Making the distinction to be "articulate speech," is a sort of "refuge for the destitute," a bone thrown to a savage dog. Professor Huxley seems to have had his conscience pricked when he wrote, "the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man," for he adds in parenthesis, "whether it be absolutely peculiar to man or not." We should like to know what is the difference between the "distinctive" character and the "grand distinctive" character? and how articulate speech can be a distinctive character at all, if it is not absolutely peculiar to man?

Would it not be better to assert at once that "written language" is the "grand distinctive character"? The only misfortune for such an hypothesis is the fact that some races of man have no written language. We have no hesitation in asserting that Professor Owen's "posterior third lobe," "posterior cornu," and "hippocampus minor," are as "grand distinctive characters" of man as Professor Huxley's "articulate speech." We would advise Professor Huxley to be cautious not to say anything more about the "grand distinctive character," because there really is no such thing: no amount of difference in degree ever amounting to the same thing as a difference in kind.

118

ETHNOLOGY AND PHRENOLOGY.*

THE natural history of man has, of late years, excited a more than usual interest, which has drawn numerous inquirers into the field of investigation, who, stimulated with vivid enthusiasm, are prosecuting observation with unwearied zeal, and daily adding to our stock of facts in this important and elevated department of science. No question can be clearer than that man's physical, moral, and intellectual nature is the loftiest and most important subject on which human intellect can be exercised, next to Deity. On our knowledge of this great point depends everything excellent in our laws, government, and social institutions; and, from our ignorance of it, proceed all errors and defects in them. Every advancement in this science, therefore, increases our power of promoting social good, and of remedying social evil. The world is full of wrong and evil, in reality, because man's nature is but little understood, and his history but imperfectly known; much of what is written, and called history, being nothing else than gossip and fable occasionally garnished with florid phrases and pompous eulogies.

The science of man, then, is but at its rudimentary stage, and no great social improvement can be expected till it has made further progress. Race is a term which is found at present in every mouth. No term is more frequently employed by the public speaker, journalist, or historian; but, unhappily, none more frequently abused. Indeed, at the very root of the inquiry, the question occurs, what is man? Is he of one species, or of several? Or does mankind consist of several permanent varieties individually modified by climate, diet, education, and other influences, but never radically altered; one variety never being converted into the other by any known causes; each remaining the same in essential characteristics for thousands of years? Or are all varieties of the human race to be accounted for by the influence of climate, laws, institutions, and education?

These are most important questions; for, according as the one or the other is true, must the laws and institutions, by which mankind are governed, be constituted, if their prosperity and happiness be the object sought. If mankind be one race, the varieties of which are

* Ethnology and Phrenology as an Aid to the Historian. By J. W. Jackson. London: Trübner & Co., 60, Paternoster Row. Edinburgh: Maclachlan & Stewart.

the result of circumstances, it is perfectly evident that there is but one perfect system for the government and social improvement of all nations, and that those which have not come up to this system can be brought to it by enlightenment and training; but if they consist of several races radically distinct, it is sufficiently certain that the prosperity and advancement of each depend on political and social institutions peculiarly adapted to its essential character.

The latter question, that men consist of several distinct races, may be said to be almost inductively established. When this, therefore, is the case, it is altogether absurd any longer to suppose that all these races are to be successfully ruled and developed by similar political and social institutions; for it is clear that in order that a government may be successful with one race, it must be suited to its peculiar character, and when suitable to this character, it is unsuitable to all others which are different from it. The object, then, of every person who would wish to enlighten himself on this interesting branch of knowledge, or who would wish to extend and advance the science for the purpose of rendering it practically useful, is to prosecute the study of the peculiar character of each individual race in order to ascertain its distinctive features, its moral tendencies, and its intellectual capacity.

Although numerous, interesting, and important facts have been collected in connection with this elevated department of knowledge, which throw much light upon it, and which form a basis for curious, pleasing, and entertaining speculation; yet these are by far too few to enable profound scientific thinkers to arrive at satisfactory conclusions, or to construct theories that could be accepted as reliable science by the practical world.

At present numerous inquirers are in the field, and observations on the mental and physical characteristics of different races are carried on with wonderful vigour. Facts are being collected in all quarters of the globe; while the support which these are supposed to give to the various theories, in the meantime afloat in the scientific world, is contested by the opposite theorists with vehemence and pertinacity. Still, it may be said that fully too great stress is laid on facts and observations; while speculation, to any extent beyond these, is, upon the whole, very much discouraged, and, usually, treated with disdain. No doubt, wild and reckless theorising does much damage to the true progress of science, by diverting the mind from the proper channel of truth, and leading it into that of whim and reverie. However, it is not theory, or hypothesis, that does so much injury; but, rather, the

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