their cradle. All these were entirely new questions and new problems, which until then had not been put to science; and these multiplied and unlimited investigations, which require the simultaneous concurrence of zoology, anatomy, physiology, philology, and palæontology, must converge to constitute the science of man, or anthropology.

Such is the mission bequeathed by the eighteenth century to our own. But who, sixty years ago, would have tried to carry out this programme would have spent his life in useless efforts. The hour had not yet arrived; before grouping the sciences they must have been acquired; and some of those tributary to anthropology were not sufficiently advanced to furnish it with a fulcrum. Comparative philology just made its débût; archæology had as yet not extended its domain beyond the limits of Western Europe; and palæontology and geology, these twin sisters, were as yet scarcely able to walk. All the ages which preceded the historical period were thus inaccessible to the student, and classical history itself, which criticism had not yet purged, nor a free examination emancipated from the theological yoke,—this history itself confined the past of humanity within a factitious frame, in a restrictive chronology; a modern bed of Procrustes, in which the most important facts regarding the life of primitive peoples could only be admitted, shortened and mutilated.

To found anthropology upon its veritable basis was then impossible, and we cannot but admire the prodigious intellectual movement which within half a century has prepared the soil upon which we now build. Never had human knowledge grown so much within so short a period. At no time had the spirit of inquiry displayed itself with such might, in every direction. The impassible Egyptian sphynx has revealed his mysteries; the antiquities of America, these patents of nobility of a world which we cannot any more call new, have displayed before our eyes unexpected marvels; and Nineveh and Babylon, exhumed from their coffins, now speak again. The superficial strata of our planet, perseveringly interrogated, have opened like the pages of a book, where the three kingdoms of nature have their archives, where every species before disappearing left its mark; where man himself, so late in coming, has yet left the proofs of his antique existence; and the pages of this immense book tell the history of innumerable beings, which from epoch to epoch, like the runners in the circus, successively transmitted to each other the torch of life

"Et, quasi cursores, vitai lampada tradunt." (Lucr. ii, 79.) Whilst archæologists and palæontologists reanimated the material

remains of the past, other scholars ascended the chain of centuries by a different road; they resuscitated the dead languages, and recovered in these immaterial organisms, in these fossils of human thought, the pre-historic annals of the peoples; the proofs of their forgotten migrations, of their unknown filiations, the débris of their first creeds, and the impress of the various phases of their intellectual, industrial, and social evolution.

In this incomparable half century, which has seen so many discoveries, which has explained so many enigmas, which has transmitted to us precious documents, as to the past of humanity; the study of human races has become enriched with an enormous mass of facts. Africa, always inhospitable, has ceased to be impenetrable; the Australian continent has been explored; European ships carry our seamen or missionaries, and our philosophers to every coast.

Nearly all the peoples on the globe have been observed, described, represented in pictures, studied in their manners, industry, language, religion, and traditions; our museums have received their remains; and casts, skulls, and skeletons, brought from all parts of the globe, have rendered the study of the most distant races accessible to the sedentary philosopher.

Each has in his own way profited by this rich harvest. Some, the pure naturalists, exclusively occupied with the zoological question, have tried to correct and complete the classification of human races; others, still more special, have concentrated their attention on craniology, and have made this science, founded by Blumenbach and Camper, the basis of anthropological studies. Others, finally, ignoring the proceedings of natural history and anatomy, have subordinated the physical characters of races, and have given the preference to the characters drawn from comparative philology. These isolated researches in the various branches of the science of man, have, no doubt, been fruitful. Many particular questions have been better fathomed by being treated exclusively, and the number of demonstrated facts was considerably increased thereby; but this was not sufficient for the formation of a fascicle of methodically connected branches, which alone in the present day can constitute a science. The various branches of anthropology were already in existence, but anthropology itself, towards which they were to converge, did not yet exist, and to give it organization and life, more was required than individual efforts. Where was the mind universal enough to embrace so many branches of knowledge, and capable of co-ordinating them? The combined genius of Aristotle, Haller, and Humboldt, would not have

sufficed. That vivifying principle of our epoch, even more fertile in the field of intelligence than in that of material progress, association alone, can attain this object, and it is for this purpose, gentlemen, that the Anthropological Society has been formed.

We cannot, certainly, flatter ourselves to have been the first who perceived the necessity of uniting into a single bundle all the branches of anthropology, nor of having first attempted it. Many others before us have traced out such a programme with varied success. M. Boudin, our last year's president, in his inaugural address, acquainted you with the manifesto of the "Society of the observers of Man,” which was founded in Paris at the beginning of this century, upon principles differing but little from ours, but which, as it was before its time, could not definitively be constituted.

In England, the learned Prichard, that indefatigable inquirer whose glory nearly equals that of Blumenbach, devoted his long life and his eminent faculties to the composition and publication of a great, and still unrivalled work, in which natural history, ethnography, and philology mutually support each other. In France, the illustrious William Edwards, who opened a new path by studying for the first time the physiological characters of human races considered in their relation to history, founded in 1839-a memorable date-a society whose name and remembrance will not perish-" the Ethnological Society." To study at the same time "the organization of human races, their intellectual and moral character, their languages and historical traditions, so as to constitute upon these veritable bases the science of ethnology," was the object of this society which prospered for several years, and whose remarkable labours have exercised so striking an influence on the evolution of anthropology. Foreign philosophers soon became anxious to follow our example. The Ethnological Society of London, and the Ethnological Society of New York, were organized on the same plan, in the same spirit, and on the same programme as that of Paris.

But this programme, gentlemen, was not yet complete; it was that of ethnology or the science of human races, and not that of anthropology or the science of man. To describe and classify the actual races, to point out their analogies and differences, to study their aptitudes and manners, to determine their filiation by blood and language, is no doubt to run over much ground in the field of anthropology; but there remain higher and more general questions. All the human races, in spite of their diversity, form a great whole, a great harmonic group, and it is important to examine the group in its en

semble, to determine its position in the series of beings, its relations with other groups of nature, its common characters, whether in the anatomical and physiological, or in the intellectual order. It is not less necessary to study the laws which preside in maintaining or changing these characters, to appreciate the action of external conditions, the changes of climate, the phenomena of hereditary transmission, and the extreme influences of consanguinity and ethnic intermixtures; these are great and manifold questions within the sphere of natural history and general biology. Finally, in a more elevated sphere, and without venturing to attain the regions which conceal the problem of origin (a fascinating and, perhaps, insoluble problem), our science eagerly searches for the first traces of man's appearance on the earth, it studies the most ancient remains of his industry, and gradually descending from incalculably remote, epochs towards the historical period, it follows humanity in its slow evolution, in the successive stages of its progress, in its inventions, in its struggles with the organic world, and its conquests over nature.

Ethnology, is then, only a part of the science of man; the other part is "general anthropology," which has occupied so large a place in your labours. It is by this, gentlemen, that our society is distinguished from those which preceded it, and it is for this reason that it has adopted the name of the Anthropological Society. Here again, the example set by France was not long in being followed by foreign philosophers. It is scarcely four years that we have entered this path, and already have we seen arise in Germany, the Anthropological Congress, founded by Professors Wagner and de Baer; in England there was, a few months since, founded the Anthropological Society of London, under the presidency of our eminent colleague Dr. James Hunt. And I entertain the conviction that the successors of Morton will find it necessary to organize in the United States an Anthropological Society, as soon as the civil war which desolates their country shall cease. Henceforth general anthropology and ethnology form but one science, the most noble of all sciences, since it has for its object humanity, considered not only in itself but in its relations to the rest

of nature.

I thought it my duty, gentlemen, to cast a rapid glance on the principal phases through which the science of man has passed up to our time and to point out the mode in which you have conceived it, in order better to show the impulse you have given to it. I wished first to expose the object and the plan of your labours; for the success of an undertaking depends above all on the solidity of its foundations.

But it no less depends on the perseverance and activity of those who devote themselves to the task; I shall, therefore, endeavour to show how you have acquitted yourselves of the mission imposed upon you.

You will not, gentlemen, expect from me even a summary analysis of all the memoirs, communications, and discussions which have occupied your meetings. You have discussed so many facts, that I should tax your patience to present to you a resumé of the collective labours which already fill a volume of Mémoires and more than three volumes of Bulletins. I was, therefore, obliged to confine myself to select among the subjects of your researches some few which by their novelty or importance appeared to me to have particularly excited your attention. You must have given me too many proofs of your indulgence to induce me to make such a selection, upon which I should never have ventured, if I had not found it materially impossible to submit to you a complete review of all that you have done during the past four years. Some other time, when the periodical return of our solemn meetings may restrict the report to one year, I might be able to strike the balance of your labours in a more equitable manner.

In order to put something like order in my exposition, I purpose first to examine the facts relative to ethnology properly so called, and to reserve for the end those which concern general anthropology. But it would be vain if I were to endeavour establishing an absolute separation between these two great branches of our science; for many complex questions pertain to both. It will, therefore, frequently happen, that I shall have to transgress the line of demarcation which I have just traced.

I. ETHNOLOGY.-Ethnology, or the science of human races, comprises the study of their distinctive characters and of their classification, their languages, their manners, creeds, industry and arts, and the part they play in history. There are none of these subjects upon which you have not thrown some light by your discussions and researches. You have brought to bear upon them the contingent of your special knowledge, some as naturalists or anatomists, others as philosophers, archæologists, or linguists.

The illustrious savant who two years since occupied this chair as president, and whose death has left such a gap in our ranks, Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, has presented us with a memoir "on anthropological classification, and the principal types of mankind”—a masterly work, in which he sums up the results of thirty years' researches. Having passed in review the classifications of his predecessors, and the principles upon which they were founded, and having shown that