[Illustration:
E. B. TYLOR.
]
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HISTORY OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
BY
+ALFRED C. HADDON+,
M.A., Sc.D., F.R.S., Fellow of Christ’s College,
University Reader in Ethnology, Cambridge,
WITH THE HELP OF
+A. HINGSTON QUIGGIN+,
M.A., formerly of Newnham College, Cambridge
LONDON:
WATTS & CO.,
JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Printed in Great Britain
by Watts & Co.,Johnson’s Court,
Fleet Street, London, E.C.4
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
-------
It is with great diffidence that we offer this little book to the
public, it being, so far as we are aware, the first attempt at a history
of Anthropology. A book of small size which deals with so vast a
subject, comprising, as it does, so many different studies, cannot
satisfy the specialists in the several departments. In many branches the
investigations are so recent that they can hardly be said to have a
history, and in some cases their originators are still alive. Doubtless
many will criticise the amount of space allocated to certain authors,
and wonder why others have been omitted or have received but scanty
recognition. All we can say in extenuation for our selection is that the
task has been by no means an easy one, and we have partly been guided by
the fact that our readers will mainly be of British nationality. It has
been impossible to mention all of the more important of living workers,
whether investigators, collectors, or systematisers; but this is not due
to any lack of appreciation of their labours. In most cases references
are given in the text; a few supplemental works will be found in the
Bibliography at the end of the book. The two dates which follow a name
refer to the years of the individual’s birth and death; a single date
refers to the date of publication of the book or memoir.
We hope we have in all cases referred to the authors to whom we are
indebted for information; and for personal assistance we desire to thank
Dr. C. S. Myers, of Gonville and Caius College; Mr. E. E. Sikes, Tutor
of St. John’s College, Cambridge; and Mr. Edward Clodd.
A. C. H.
_October, 1910._
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CONTENTS
-------
PREFACE v
INTRODUCTION 1-5
_PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY._
CHAPTER I
THE PIONEERS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 6-27
Definition of the word “Anthropology.” Fundamental conceptions. Race
discrimination: in Bushman paintings, in the art of ancient Egypt,
Assyria, etc., in Vedic literature. Hippocrates. Aristotle. Vesalius.
Spigel. Tyson. Pygmies. Linnæus. Buffon. Blumenbach. Monsters and Wild
Men.
CHAPTER II.
THE SYSTEMATISERS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 28-49
Craniology: Blumenbach, the founder of Craniology. Camper and the facial
angel. Various early craniologists. Retzius and the Cephalic Index.
Grattan. Broca. Topinard. De Quatrefages. Virchow. Sergi. Hagen’s and
Macalister’s criticisms of craniometry. Anthropometry: White and others.
Measurements and observations of living populations: Beddoe. Virchow.
Methods of dealing with anthropometrical data: Indices. Averages.
Seriations. Curves. Mathematical treatment: Quetelet. Galton. Karl
Pearson. Scientific and practical value of anthropometry: In the origin
and differentiation of man. Racial history. Heredity. Galton.
Miscegenation. The effect of the environment. Test of physical fitness.
Identification of criminals. Bertillon. Galton.
CHAPTER III.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONTROVERSIES 50-69
Origin of man. Polygenism and Monogenism. Lawrence. Lord Monboddo.
Lamarck. Cuvier. Étienne Saint-Hilaire. Robert Chambers: _Vestiges of
Creation_. Herbert Spencer. Darwin: _Origin of Species_. The negro’s
place in nature. James Hunt.
CHAPTER IV.
THE UNFOLDING OF THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN 70-78
Fossil man. Cannstadt, Neanderthal, Spy, and other finds. _Homo
Heidelbergensis, Homo primigenius, Pithecanthropus erectus._
CHAPTER V.
COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY 79-87
Phrenology. Psychical research. Methods and aims of Psychology. Ethnical
psychology. Bastian. Folk psychology. Experimental psychology. Eugenics.
CHAPTER VI.
THE CLASSIFICATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF MAN 88-98
Race description and classification. Bernier. Linnæus. Blumenbach. Other
classifications. Pruner Bey. Bory de S. Vincent. Isidore Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire. Haeckel. Broca and Topinard. Flower. Deniker. Keane.
Man’s place in nature. Huxley. Vogt.
_CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY._
CHAPTER VII.
ETHNOLOGY: ITS SCOPE AND SOURCES 99-110
Definition. Sources. Herodotus. Lucretius. Strabo. Travellers.
Missionaries. Systematic works on Ethnology. Prichard. Other
generalisations. Ethnology and the Classics. Ethnology and Political
Science.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HISTORY OF ARCHÆOLOGICAL DISCOVERY 111-125
Prehistoric man. Flint implements. Denmark. Caves: Oreston. Kirkdale.
Liège. Kent’s Cavern. Lake dwellings. Irish crannogs. Swiss pile
dwellings. Brixham Cave. Boucher de Perthes. Subsequent progress of
Archæology. France. Britain. Germany, etc. Tertiary man. Eoliths.
CHAPTER IX.
TECHNOLOGY 126-127
Pitt-Rivers. Otis T. Mason. H. Balfour. H. Colley March. Stolpe.
CHAPTER X.
SOCIOLOGY AND RELIGION 128-143
Comparative Ethnology. Tylor. Avebury. Sociology. Comte. Buckle. Herbert
Spencer. Bachofen, Morgan, McLennan, and others. Magic and Religion.
Anthropology and Religion. Folklore. Comparative Religion.
CHAPTER XI.
LINGUISTICS 144-148
The Aryan controversy. Language and Race.
CHAPTER XII.
CULTURAL CLASSIFICATION AND THE INFLUENCE OF 149-152
ENVIRONMENT
Gallatin. Wilhelm von Humboldt. Hippocrates. Buffon. Alexander von
Humboldt, Ritter, and Waitz. Buckle. Ratzel. Reclus. Le Play.
RETROSPECT 153
BIBLIOGRAPHY 155
INDEX OF AUTHORS 157
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
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PAGE
E. B. TYLOR _Frontispiece_
BUSHMEN RAIDING KAFIR CATTLE 9
RACE PORTRAITURE OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS 10
J. F. BLUMENBACH 24
UPPER AND SIDE VIEWS OF SKULLS 29
PAUL BROCA 36
SKULL OF THE FOSSIL MAN OF LA 74
CHAPELLE-AUX-SAINTS
P. W. A. BASTIAN 83
J. C. PRICHARD 105
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION
IN his address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association
in 1892 Professor Alexander Macalister made use of a little allegory to
illustrate the growth and progress of Anthropology.
“On an irregular and unfenced patch of waste land,” he said, “situated
on the outskirts of a small town in which I spent part of my boyhood,
there stood a notice-board bearing the inscription, ‘A Free Coup,’
which, when translated into the language of the Southron, conveyed the
intimation, ‘Rubbish may be shot here.’ This place, with its ragged
mounds of unconsidered trifles, the refuse of the surrounding
households, was the favourite playground of the children of the
neighbourhood, who found a treasury of toys in the broken tiles and
oyster-shells, the crockery and cabbage-stalks, which were liberally
scattered round.... Passing by this place ten years later, I found that
its aspect had changed; terraces of small houses had sprung up,
mushroom-like, on the unsavoury foundation of heterogeneous refuse.
Still more recently I notice that these in their turn have been swept
away; and now a large factory, wherein some of the most ingenious
productions of human skill are constructed, occupies the site of the
original waste.”
Here we may recognise the three stages in the progress of the science of
Anthropology.
First, a heap of heterogeneous facts and fancies, the leavings of the
historian, of the adventurer, of the missionary—the favourite playground
of _dilettanti_ of various degrees of seriousness. Next we see order
arising out of chaos, and the building-up of a number of
superstructures, bearing the signs of transitoriness and imperfection,
finally to be replaced by the solid fabric of a coherent whole.
* * * * *
In this little book some of the earlier builders on the scrap-heap will
be noted—the Greek philosopher, Aristotle; the Belgian anatomist,
Vesalius; the Englishmen, Tyson and Prichard; the Swede, Linnaeus; the
Frenchman, Buffon; and the German, Blumenbach. These laid the
foundations of the science, and each is claimed as the true founder of
Anthropology. After these the workers become more numerous and more
specialised, and they will be dealt with under the separate headings of
the various branches of the subject in which they laboured, rather than
in a continuous chronological order.
“Meddling with questions of merit or priority is a thorny business at
the best of times,” as Huxley said; and completeness is not here aimed
at. Mention can be made only of those whose work notably contributed to,
or illustrates, the historical growth of the science.
It may be objected that too much attention has been given to the
arm-chair workers, and too little to the labourers in the field. This is
true, especially in the section on Ethnology; but it is necessitated by
the compass of the volume. We attempt a brief sketch of the wood, and
cannot stop to describe the individual trees that compose it. Detailed
investigations, however valuable, have to be merged into
generalisations; and generalisations proceed mainly from the arm-chairs.
Professor Michael Foster somewhere remarked that “hypothesis is the salt
of science.” The main difficulty with which observers in the field have
to contend is that, as a rule, they can see only what they look for.
When an investigator has left his field and is working up his results at
home, he only too frequently finds that he has omitted to look for
certain customs or beliefs, whose occurrence in other places he had
either over-looked or forgotten. This is the justification for the
questionnaires. It is one of the most important functions of
stay-at-home synthetic students laboriously to cull data from the vast
literature of anthropology, travel, and ancient and modern history, and
to weld them into coherent hypotheses. The student at home in this way
suggests fresh inquiries to the field ethnologist, and a richer harvest
is the result. The most valuable generalisations are made, however, when
the observer is at the same time a generaliser; but “doubtless,” as
Maharbal said to Hannibal after the battle of Cannae, “the gods have not
bestowed everything on the same man. You, Hannibal, know how to conquer;
but you do not know how to use your victory.”
The vastness of the anthropological sciences and the nebulous character
of their demarcation from other sciences render their definition or
classification a peculiarly difficult matter. Even at the present day
students are not agreed upon the exact terminology and limitations of
the various branches of their subject; but, after all, these are little
more than academic discussions, since investigations go on irrespective
of boundary lines. Those who are really worried about this
“terminological inexactitude” are the cataloguers and librarians, who
frequently are at a loss where to place items in their catalogues or
books on their shelves. It was mainly from this point of view that
Dieserud was constrained to write his _Science of Anthropology: Its
Scope and Content_.[1] This useful little book deals very fully in
historical order with the questions referred to above, and it may be
recommended to those who are interested in these somewhat profitless
discussions.
Footnote 1:
This is the title on the back of the book. Its designation on the
title-page is given correctly in the Bibliography.
For the convenience of those who require landmarks we here give the
scheme that is roughly followed in this book, which is based upon the
classification recently proposed by the Board of Studies in Anthropology
of the University of London as a guide for the study and teaching of
Anthropology:—
_A._—PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY (Anthropography, Anthropology of some
writers)
(_a_) _Zoological_ (somatology, including craniology, etc.).—Man’s
place in Nature as evidenced by the study of comparative
anatomy and physiology, more especially of the
Anthropoidea.
(_b_) _Palæontological._—The antiquity of man as evidenced by fossil
and semi-fossilised remains, including the geological
evidence.
(_c_) _Physiological and Psychological._—The comparative study of the
bodily functions and mental processes.
(_d_) _Ethnological._—The comparative study of the physical characters
which distinguish the various races and sub-races of man.
Classification of the human race in accordance with
physical and psychical characters. Geographical
distribution of the varieties of mankind. The influence
of environment on physique.
_B._—CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY (Ethnology of some writers).
(_a_) _Archæological._—The antiquity of man as revealed by the
earliest remains of his handiwork. The prehistoric
periods; their characteristics, sequence, and duration.
The survival of early conditions of culture in later
times (Folklore).
(_b_) _Technological._—The comparative study of arts and industries;
their origin, development, and geographical distribution.
(_c_) _Sociological._—The comparative study of social phenomena and
organisation. Birth, education, marriage, and death
customs and systems. Social and religious associations.
Government and laws. Moral ideas and codes. Magical and
religious ideas and practices.
(_d_) _Linguistic._—The comparative study of language.
(_e_) _Ethnological._—The comparative study and classification of
peoples based upon cultural conditions and
characteristics. The influence of environment upon
culture.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER I.
THE PIONEERS OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
[Sidenote: =Definition of the word “Anthropology.”=]
ARISTOTLE, “the father of them that know,” as Dante called him, is
credited with having coined the word “anthropologist”; but he did not
employ it in a very complimentary sense. Describing a lofty-minded man
in his _Ethics_, he terms him ουκ ανθρωπολογος—not a gossip, not a
talker about himself. But the word does not seem to have supplied a
permanent want in the Greek world, and we meet it next in a Latin form
in the sixteenth century. _Anthropologium_ was then used in a restricted
sense, relating to man’s bodily structure; and the first work in which
it occurs is generally stated to be Magnus Hundt’s _Anthropologium de
hominis dignitate_, which appeared in 1501, and dealt in a general way
with human anatomy and physiology.
The first appearance of the word in English was probably in the
seventeenth century, when an anonymous book was published bearing the
title _Anthropologie Abstracted; or, The idea of Humane nature reflected
in briefe Philosophicall and anatomical collections_ (1655). The author
defines his subject thus:—
Anthropologie, or the history of human nature, is, in the vulgar
(yet just) impression, distinguished into two volumes: the first
entitled _Psychologie_, the nature of the rational soule
discoursed; the other anatomie, or the fabrick or structure of
the body of man revealed in dissection ... of the former we
shall in a distracted rehersall, deliver our collections.[2]
Footnote 2:
See Bendyshe, p. 356.
The meaning of the word was scarcely clear in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, when we find, in the _British Encyclopædia_ of 1822,
the following definitions, “A discourse upon human nature,” and “Among
Divines, that manner of expression by which the inspired writers
attribute human parts and passions to God.”
Concerning the present use of the term “Anthropology,” few will take
exception to the definition given by Topinard in his _l’Anthropologie_
(1876): “Anthropology is the branch of natural history which treats of
man and the races of man.” It may be yet more succinctly described as
“the science of man,” which comprises two main divisions—the one which
deals with the natural man (ανθρωπος, or _homo_); the other which is
concerned with man in relation to his fellows, or, in other words, with
social man (εθνορ, or _socius_). At the end of the Introduction we give
the classification which we propose to adopt. It should, however, be
stated that, whereas in this country we employ the term “Anthropology”
to cover the whole subject, it is common on the Continent to restrict
the term to what we designate as “Physical Anthropology,”
“Anthropography,” or “Somatology.”
[Sidenote: =Fundamental Conceptions.=]
The beginnings of anthropology may probably be traced to what Professor
Giddings (1896) has termed the “consciousness of kind,” but what Dr.
McDougall (1898) has more definitely recognised as showing the
gregarious impulse. He says (pp. 299-300):—
The gregarious impulse of any animal receives satisfaction only
through the presence of animals similar to itself, and the
closer the similarity the greater is the satisfaction.... Just
so, in any human being the instinct operates most powerfully in
relation to, and receives the highest degree of satisfaction
from the presence of, the human beings who most closely resemble
that individual, those who behave in like manner and respond to
the same situations with similar emotions.
[Illustration:
_Andree, Parallelen. N. r. Tafel. III._
BUSHMEN RAIDING KAFIR CATTLE.
(_After R. Andree._)
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
RACE PORTRAITURE OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS
on the tombs of the Kings at Biban-el-Molouk (XVIIIth-XXIst Dynasty).
]
[Sidenote: =Race Discrimination.=]
The recognition of degrees of likeness implies the recognition of
unlikeness. This may be termed the stage of race discrimination. Ancient
literature and the pictorial art of certain uncivilised peoples abound
in examples of race discrimination. The crude representations of human
beings discovered in caves in France and elsewhere were probably
intended to portray the people themselves, who lived in the palæolithic
period. These drawings or carvings, like those of most modern savages,
exhibit much greater skill in delineating animals than human beings;
consequently it is dangerous to rely on them as representing the
physical characteristics of the then existing populations. Very
different is the famous Bushman pictograph of a fight between Bushmen
and Kafirs. Here relative size, the difference in colour, and the
employment of different implements of war by these two races, are
strikingly exemplified; but as a general rule the Bushmen themselves
exaggerate certain features and minimise others—for example, the head is
invariably too small and featureless.
In Egypt there is an immense amount of pictorial and sculptured material
for ethnological study, covering a range of many centuries. Over three
thousand years ago the artists—“untrained but not unobservant
ethnologists”[3]—decorated the walls of royal tombs with representations
of the four races of mankind, among whom the Egyptians of the nineteenth
dynasty supposed the world to be partitioned—(1) The Egyptians, whom
they painted red; (2) the Asiatics or Semites, yellow; (3) the Southerns
or Negroes, black; and (4) the Westerns or Northerners, white, with blue
eyes and fair beards. Each type is clearly differentiated by peculiar
dress and characteristic features. In addition to these four types,
other human varieties were delineated by the Ancient Egyptians, most of
which can be identified. “On the Egyptian monuments we not only find
very typical portraits, but also an attempt at classification; for the
Egyptians were a scientific people, with a knowledge of medicine, and
also skilled mathematicians; therefore their primitive anthropology is
not unexpected.”[4] This facility for race discrimination was still
earlier exhibited in the prehistoric or early historic slate palettes of
Egypt.
Footnote 3:
D. Randall-Maciver and A. Wilkin, _Libyan Notes_, 1901, p. 1.
Footnote 4:
_Man_, viii., 1908, p. 129.
Belonging to the fifth century B.C. are the realistic portraiture
figurines in pottery discovered by Professor Flinders Petrie at
Memphis,[5] “which clearly are copied from various races which were
welded together by the Persians, and who all met in the foreign
settlement at Memphis.” Professor Petrie identifies Sumerians or
Accadians, the old Turanian people who started civilisation in
Babylonia. “Their heads are identified by closely similar portraits
carved in stone about 3000 B.C., and found in Mesopotamia.” Persians,
Scythians, Mongols, and even Indians, are also recognised by him; but
some of the latter are dated by him at about 200 B.C.
Footnote 5:
Poole, _l.c._
Assyrian monuments are less explicit in this respect.
The Assyrians themselves are shown to have been of a very pure
type of Semites; but in the Babylonians there is a sign of
Cushite blood.... There is one portrait of an Elamite (Cushite)
king on a vase found at Susa; he is painted black, and thus
belongs to the Cushite race. The Ethiopian type can be clearly
seen in the reliefs depicting the Assyrian wars with the kings
of Ethiopia; but it is hard to discriminate Arabs and Jews from
Assyrians; in fact, it is only in the time of good art that
distinctions are traceable.[6]
Footnote 6:
H. H. Risley, _The Tribes and Castes of Bengal: Ethnographic
Glossary_, i., 1892, p. xxxviii.
Rock carvings in Persia, Scythian coins, and numerous other monuments
and remains from other countries and belonging to diverse ages,
illustrate that the head-form, features, character of the hair and mode
of wearing it, ornaments, dress, and weapons, were all recognised as
means of discriminating between different peoples from the earliest
times.
Ancient literature, of which one example must suffice, tells the same
tale:—
The sense of differences of colour, which, for all our talk of
common humanity, still plays a great and, politically, often an
inconvenient part in the history of the world, finds forcible
expression in the Vedic descriptions of the people whom the
Aryans found in possession of the plains of India. In a
well-known passage the god Indra is praised for having protected
the Aryan colour, and the word meaning colour (_varna_) is used
down to the present day as the equivalent of caste, more
especially with reference to the castes believed to be of Aryan
descent.[7]
Footnote 7:
_Report Brit. Assoc._, 1881, p. 683.
The word “caste” is of Portuguese origin. In the 179th hymn of the first
Mandala of the Rig-Veda, as Dr. Gerson da Cunha points out,[8] the word
_varna_ is used in the dual number, _ubhau varnau_, “two colours,” white
of the Aryans and black of the Dasyus—that is, of the “Dravidian”
aborigines, who are elsewhere called “black-skinned,” “unholy,”
“excommunicated.” Other texts dwell on their low stature, coarse
features, and their voracious appetite. The Rig-Veda employs the word
_anâsa_—“noseless”—to characterise the Dasyus and Daityas, which
designations mean “thieves” or “demons.” It is hardly an exaggeration to
say that from these sources there might be compiled a fairly accurate
anthropological definition of the jungle tribes of to-day.
Footnote 8:
“Presidential Address: The Nasal Index in Biological Anthropology,”
_Journ. Anth. Soc. of Bombay_, 1892, p. 542.
Thus were the foundations of descriptive anthropology unconsciously
laid.
In our own day racial characters are seized upon in the same manner, and
racial antipathy adds fuel to its own fire in regarding traits which
differ from those of the speaker or writer as being ugly, objectionable,
or of low type. “The study of race,” said the late Sir William Flower
(1831-1899), “is at a low ebb indeed when we hear the same contemptuous
epithet of ‘nigger’ applied indiscriminately by the English abroad to
the blacks of the West Coast of Africa, to Kafirs of Natal, the Lascars
of Bombay, the Hindoos of Calcutta, the aborigines of Australia, and
even the Maories of New Zealand.”[9] The Englishman who contemns as a
“nigger” any dark-skinned native has not advanced in race discrimination
beyond his remote kinsman who crossed into the valley of the Indus some
four thousand years ago.
Footnote 9:
_Report Brit. Assoc._, 1881, p. 683.
[Sidenote: =Hippocrates.=]
Hippocrates (460-357 B.C.), “the Father of Physic,” was certainly a
pioneer in physical anthropology. He says: “I will pass over the smaller
differences among nations, but will now treat of such as are great
either from nature or custom; and, first, concerning the macrocephali.
There is no other race of men which have heads in the least resembling
theirs.” He believed that this elongated conformation of the head was
originally produced artificially; but subsequently it was inherited, or,
as he puts it: “Thus, at first usage operated, so that this constitution
was the result of force; but in the course of time it was formed
naturally, so that usage had nothing to do with it”—a view adopted many
centuries later by Buffon and others.
[Sidenote: =Aristotle.=]
Not only was Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) the first authority to make use of
the word “anthropology,”[10] but he may also be described as an
anthropologist. Material had been collected by travellers, such as
Hanno, the Carthaginian, who encountered gorillas in Africa; by
historians, such as Herodotus (who was also a traveller); and by
doctors, such as Hippocrates. Aristotle was indebted to some extent to
all of these; but his vast works in natural history were based mainly on
what he considered of primary importance—facts of actual personal
knowledge derived from personal observation. On this account alone his
writings deserved the place which they held for many centuries.
Footnote 10:
Cf. p. 6.
Thus, undisturbed by the dogmas of religion or philosophy, he placed man
naturally among the animals (being thus, as Topinard remarks, about
twenty centuries ahead of humanity), but distinguished from them by
certain features—by the relative size of the brain, by two-leggedness,
by mental characters, etc. Some writers regard it as improbable that
either Hippocrates or Aristotle had ever dissected the human body, but
it is also possible to hold an opposite view. Even Galen (c. 130 A.D.),
whose anatomy held the field for more than a thousand years, had to base
his conclusions on the bodies of animals, notably on those of monkeys;
and, although he did not conceal the fact, it was not until the time of
Vesalius that the discrepancy between simian and human anatomy was
discovered.
[Sidenote: =Vesalius.=]
Vesalius (1513-1564) is the next great name in the history of physical
anthropology. He was Professor of Anatomy at Padua, Bologna, and Pisa,
and physician to Charles V. and Philip II. His work marks a revolution
in anatomical science; for not only did he overthrow the doctrines which
had been accepted for fourteen centuries, demonstrating that to a great
extent Galen had studied the anatomy of the ape rather than that of man,
but, by his own deductions from direct observation and original
research, he established a fresh and unassailable foundation for future
investigation. His services to anatomy have been compared to those of
Galileo and Copernicus in the field of astronomy. His fate was not
unlike that of many other daring pioneers of the Middle Ages. He was
accused of having dissected a man while yet alive, and was dragged by
his enemies before the Inquisition and condemned to death. By the
intercession of the king his sentence was commuted into a pilgrimage to
the Holy Sepulchre; but on his return journey he was shipwrecked and
drowned off the island of Zante.
Cunningham, in his Presidential Address to the Royal Anthropological
Institute, 1908, refers to the work of Vesalius, whom he describes as
one of the most remarkable figures in the sixteenth century. He adds:—
It is interesting to note in passing that certain racial
distinctions did not escape the eye of Vesalius. “It appears,”
he remarks, “that most nations have something peculiar in the
shape of the head. The crania of the Genoese, and, still more
remarkable, those of the Greeks and Turks, are globular in form.
This shape, which they esteem elegant and well adapted to their
practice of enveloping the head in the folds of their turbans,
is often produced by the midwives at the solicitation of the
mother.” He further observes “that the Germans had generally a
flattened occiput and broad head, because the children are
always laid on their backs in the cradles; and that the Belgians
have a more oblong form, because the children are allowed to
sleep on their sides.”
We know that more or less continuous pressure is exerted on the pliable
heads of infants to produce admired shapes, but the theory was carried
rather too far when adduced, some centuries later, to account for the
facial features of negroes. Lawrence, in his _Lectures on Comparative
Anatomy_, attributed the flat noses and thick lips of the negro to the
method of carrying babies in Africa. The negro mothers, while at work,
carry their infants on their backs, and “in the violent motions required
for their hard labour, as in beating or pounding millet, the face of the
child is said to be constantly thumping against the back of the mother.”
By this rude treatment the face of the negro child was supposed to be
moulded into shape; but, as Cunningham points out, no attempt was made
to explain how the process of bumping produced exactly opposite results
in the case of the nose and lips—reducing the prominence of the former
and increasing the projection of the latter.
[Sidenote: =Spigel.=]
“The invention of the ‘lineæ cephalometricæ’ of Spigel, who died in the
early part of the seventeenth century, may perhaps be regarded as
constituting the earliest scientific attempt at cranial measurement.” He
drew four lines in certain directions, and a skull in which these lines
were equal to each other he regarded as regularly proportioned.
“Although these lines are evidently not sufficient for the comparative
ethnography of the present day, yet it is interesting to observe that,
in ascending the zoological scale, these lines approximate equality just
in proportion as the head measured approaches the human form.”[11]
Footnote 11:
J. Aitken Meigs, _North American Med.-Chir. Rev._, 1861, p. 840.
[Sidenote: =Tyson.=]
Johann Sperling, author of a _Physica anthropologia_ (1668), and Samuel
Haworth, who wrote _Anthropologia; or A philosophical discourse
concerning man_ (1680), also belong to the seventeenth century. But more
important is the work of Edward Tyson, a Cambridge man, who took his
degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1678. He was a Fellow, and later Censor,
of the College of Physicians, Fellow of the Royal Society, and writer of
numerous papers on anatomy. His fame rests mainly on the work which laid
the foundations of comparative morphology, _Orang-Outang, sive Homo
Sylvestris: or The Anatomy of a Pygmie compared with that of a Monkey,
an Ape, and a Man_ (1699). This was the first attempt to deal with the
anatomy of any of the anthropoid apes, and shows very conspicuous
ability on the part of the author. He compared the structure of man with
that of the monkeys, and came to the conclusion that the pygmy formed a
kind of intermediate animal between the two. The pygmy was, as a matter
of fact, a chimpanzee, and its skeleton, which was thus early recognised
as the “missing link,” is still to be seen in the Natural History Museum
(British Museum) at South Kensington. Tyson added to his work on the
_Anatomy of the Pygmie, A Philological Essay, Concerning the Pygmies,
the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the Ancients. Wherein it
will appear that they are all either Apes or Monkeys, and not Men as
formerly pretended._ The purpose of the _Essay_ may be expressed in his
own words:—
If therefore I can make out ... that there were such _Animals_
as _Pygmies_; and that they were not a _Race_ of _Men_, but
_Apes_; and can discover the _Authors_, who have forged all, or
most of the idle Stories concerning them; and shew how the Cheat
in after Ages has been carried on, by embalming the Bodies of
_Apes_, then exposing them for the _Men_ of the Country, from
whence they brought them: If I can do this, I shall think my
time not wholly lost, nor the trouble altogether useless, that I
have had in this Enquiry.
[Sidenote: =The Pygmies.=]
This was the first attempt to explain in a rational fashion the
innumerable tales found in all parts of the world about the existence of
pygmy races, ape-men or men-apes. Tyson’s hypothesis was that all these
legends were based on imperfect observations of apes, and he was
followed by Buffon and others. It may be well here briefly to note the
researches which have led in late years to the opposite
conclusion—_i.e._, that the tales relate to a dwarf race of men formerly
very widely spread over the globe.
This theory is mainly associated with the name of de Quatrefages
(1810-1892). In the Introduction to his book on the pygmies he says:
“For a long time past the small black races have attracted my attention
and my interest in a special manner.” His earliest investigations of the
subject were published in 1862, and continued until 1887. Analysing the
evidence, he shows that the two localities where the ancients appear to
place their pygmies (the interior of Africa and the southern-most parts
of Asia), together with the characters assigned to them, indicate an
actual knowledge of the two groups of small people (Negrilloes and
Negritoes), who are still to be found in those regions. Professor J.
Kollmann, of Basel, in his _Pygmäen in Europa_ (1894), argues for the
existence of a European pygmy race in Neolithic times from some remains
found at Schaffhausen, and the wide prevalence of short statures among
many peoples in Europe, especially in the south. Mr. David MacRitchie
attributes not only legends of pygmies, but fairy-tales in general, to
this prehistoric dwarf race. President Windle sums up the question
thus:—
It is possible with more or less accuracy and certainty to
identify most of those races which, described by the older
writers, had been rejected by their successors. Time has brought
their revenge to Aristotle and Pliny by showing that they were
right, where Tyson, and even Buffon, were wrong. (P. liii.)
In the time of Aristotle Man took his place naturally at the head of the
other animals, being distinguished from the brutes by certain
characters. But the influence of religion and of philosophy did not long
permit of this association. Man came to be regarded as the _chef
d’œuvre_ of creation, a thing apart, a position aptly described in the
words of Saint Paul (marginal version) “for a little while inferior to
the angels.”
In the eighteenth century came a startling change. Man was wrenched from
this detached and isolated attitude, and linked on once more to the
beasts of the field. This was the work of Linnæus.
[Sidenote: =Linnæus.=]
The year 1707 is memorable in the history of Anthropology as the date of
the birth of two of its greatest men, Linnæus[12] (1707-1778) and Buffon
(1707-1788). Both devoted long lives to science, and both produced
monumental works of permanent value; but it would be hard to find two
contemporary figures engaged in the same pursuit whose lives presented a
greater contrast.
Footnote 12:
By a patent of nobility conferred in 1757 Linnæus became Karl von
Linné.
Linnæus was the son of a poor pastor, and his mother was the daughter of
the former pastor of the same small Swedish parish. At the early age of
four young Karl is said to have taken an interest in botany, and to have
begun to ask questions that his father could not answer. Either to
escape this interrogation, or for wiser motives, the father made it a
rule never to answer the same question twice, and to this early
discipline Linnæus used to trace his tenacious memory. The boy was
intended for the ministry, and was early sent to school; but, as he
devoted all his time to botany, his progress in theology was _nil_, and
when, after two years, his father visited the school, and learnt of the
disappointing result of all the pinching and saving which had gone to
provide for the son’s education, he resolved to apprentice him to a
tailor or shoemaker in hopes of obtaining a better return for his
outlay. Fortunately a friend intervened, and gave the boy board and
lodging, besides private tuition, while he finished his gymnasium
course. His work as a student seems to have failed to satisfy his
instructors, for when he proceeded to the University of Lund it was with
the enigmatic testimonial to the effect that “some shrubs in a garden
may disappoint the cares of the gardener, but if transplanted into
different soil may prosper.”
When barely twenty-two he left Lund for Upsala, taking with him his
entire fortune of £8, and, being inexperienced and unknown, soon found
himself in desperate straits. He was rescued by the generosity of Dr.
Celsius, a professor of theology, but student of botany, who, impressed
with Karl’s collections and enthusiasm, offered him board and lodging,
and obtained for him some private pupils. The hardships of his life were
not yet over, but gradually his work obtained recognition, abroad sooner
than at home, and he could have lived at his ease in England or the
Netherlands; only (as he expressed it), “his Sara was in Sweden,” and he
returned to his native land to scrape together sufficient means to marry
her.
[Sidenote: =Buffon.=]
From the beginning Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, was marked
out for a different life. His father was a Burgundian Councillor, and
his mother, besides being an heiress, was a woman of unusual ability. He
was originally destined for the law, but his tastes always inclined
towards science, and he soon found occasion to follow them.
He made the acquaintance of a young Englishman of rank and of his tutor,
who was a man of science, and with them he travelled on the continent.
About the same time Linnæus was also travelling, but in a different
fashion. He set out to make explorations in Lapland, then very little
known, carrying his luggage on his back, and covered nearly 5,000 miles
at a cost of about £25. During his travels he kept a diary[13] of his
observations, which contains not only botanical but also ethnological
information of great value.
Footnote 13:
See _Globus_, “Linné als Ethnologe,” xci., 1907.
While Linnæus was living from hand to mouth, depending for his food on
chance generosity, and mending his boots with folded paper, Buffon was
living the gay life of the young men of his age and rank, and we hear of
him being forced to flee to Paris to escape the results of wounding an
Englishman in a gaming quarrel. (Linnæus was also guilty of drawing his
sword in anger, but the provocation was different. During his absence
from Upsala a rival had, by private influence, contrived to get a
prohibition put on all private lecturing in the University, and he
returned to find all his means of livelihood suddenly cut off.)
Nevertheless Buffon’s life of pleasure did not occupy all his energies.
He possessed, as Voltaire said, “_l’âme d’un sage dans le corps d’un
athlête_,” and while in Paris he wrote and translated various scientific
works, was elected a member of the Academy of Science, and in 1739 was
appointed keeper of the _Jardin du Roi_ and of the Royal Museum.
The permanent value to Anthropology of the work of these two men lies in
the fact that they both “saw life steadily, and saw it whole.” But they
produced results not only distinct, but, in some respects, antagonistic.
Buffon, as Topinard says, did not classify, he described; and the value
of his work has been very differently appraised. Cuvier had small
opinion of it. Camper and Saint-Hilaire considered the author the
greatest naturalist of modern times, the French Aristotle. Topinard
(1885, p. 33) thus describes the opinion of the public: “Le public, lui,
n’hésita pas; dans _l’Histoire naturelle des animaux_ il sentit un
souffle nouveau, vit un pressentiment de l’avenir. La libre pensée était
dans l’air, 89 approchait; l’œuvre de Buffon, comme l’Encyclopédie,
Voltaire, Rousseau et Bougainville, contribua à la Révolution
française.”
The genius of Linnæus lay in classification. Order and method were with
him a passion. In his _Systema Naturæ_ he fixed the place of Man in
Nature, arranging _Homo sapiens_ as a distinct species in the order
_Primates_,[14] together with the apes, the lemurs, and the bats. He
went further and classified the varieties of man, distinguishing them by
skin colour and other characters into four groups—a classification which
holds an honourable place at the present day.
Footnote 14:
The tenth edition, 1758, is the first in which the order _Primates_
occurs. Earlier editions have the order _Anthropomorpha_. See
Bendyshe, p. 424.
All this was abominable in the eyes of Buffon. “Une vérité humiliante
pour l’homme, c’est qu’il doit se ranger lui-même dans la classe des
animaux”; and in another place he exclaims: “Les genres, les ordres, les
classes, n’existent que dans notre imagination.... Ce ne sont que des
idées de convention.... Il n’y a que des individus!” And again: “La
nature ne connait pas nos definitions; elle n’a jamais rangé ses
ouvrages par tas, ni les êtres par genres.”
Nevertheless both rendered incalculable service to the science. Linnæus
“found biology a chaos and left it a cosmos.” “L’anthropologie,” says
Flourens, “surgit d’une grande pensée de Buffon; jusqu-là l’homme
n’avait été étudié que comme individu, Buffon est le premier qui l’ait
envisagé comme espèce.”
But Buffon was no believer in the permanent stability of species.
“Nature is far from subjecting herself to final causes in the formation
of her creatures.” He went so far as to make a carefully veiled hint
(the Sorbonne having eyes on him) of a possible common ancestor for
horse and ass, and of ape and man. At least, he says, so one should
infer from their general resemblance; but, since the Bible affirms the
contrary, “of course the thing cannot be.”[15] In 1751 the old
naturalist was constrained by the Sorbonne to recant his geological
heresies in these words: “I declare that I had no intention to
contradict the text of Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein
related about the Creation, both as to order of time and matter of
fact.”
Footnote 15:
Quoted from Clodd’s _Pioneers of Evolution_, 1897, p. 101.
[Illustration:
J. F. BLUMENBACH
]
[Sidenote: =Blumenbach.=]
It was fortunate for the nascent science that the next great name on its
roll was that of a man of very wide reading, endowed with remarkable
reasoning powers, and with an exceptional perspicuity for sifting out
the true from the false.
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840) was Professor in the Faculty of
Medicine at Göttingen, and early turned his attention to the special
study of man. He was the first to place anthropology on a rational
basis, and in his _De generis humani varietate nativa_ (1775-1795) laid
the foundations of race classification based on measurement. He noted
the variations in the shape of the skull and of the face, and may
therefore be regarded as the founder of craniology (see below, p. 28).
Besides the services rendered by Blumenbach to the science of
anthropology in classification and in laying the foundations of
craniology, there was a third field in which his work was perhaps even
more valuable to his contemporaries.
[Sidenote: =Monsters.=]
Every successive age is astonished at the credulity of its predecessor;
but when we remember the grave difficulties which beset the explorer in
the eighteenth century, and the wild “travellers’ tales” which it was
impossible either to verify or to disprove, it is easy to sympathise
with the credence given to the beliefs in “Anthropophagi, and men whose
heads do grow beneath their shoulders.” Tyson, in his _Philological
Essay_, gives a list, chiefly derived from classical writers, of the
“monstrous Productions,” belief in which had not altogether died out in
the seventeenth century. In fact, it was not long before Tyson’s time
that a distinguished naturalist had given a serious description of the
mermen who lived in the sea and had their hinder parts covered with
scales.[16] Tyson’s account of “Monstrous sorts of Men” is taken mainly
from Strabo:—
Footnote 16:
v. Cunningham, p. 24.
Such are the _Amukteres_ or _Arrhines_, that want Noses, and
have only two holes above their Mouth; they eat all things, but
they must be raw; they are short lived; the upper part of their
Mouths is very prominent. The _Enotokeitai_, whose Ears reach
down to their Heels, on which they lye and sleep. The _Astomoi_,
that have no Mouths—a civil sort of People, that dwell about the
Head of the _Ganges_; and live upon smelling to boil’d Meats and
the Odours of Fruits and Flowers; they can bear no ill scent,
and therefore can’t live in a Camp. The _Monommatoi_ or
_Monophthalmoi_, that have but one Eye, and that in the middle
of their Foreheads: they have Dogs’ Ears; their Hair stands on
end, but smooth on the Breasts. The _Sternophthalmoi_, that have
Eyes in their Breasts. The _Panai sphenokephaloi_ with Heads
like Wedges. The _Makrokephaloi_, with great Heads. The
_Huperboreoi_, who live a Thousand years. The _Okupodes_, so
swift that they will out-run a Horse. The _Opisthodaktuloi_,
that go with their Heels forward, and their Toes backwards. The
_Makroskeleis_, the _Steganopodes_, the _Monoskeleis_, who have
one Leg, but will jump a great way, and are call’d _Sciapodes_,
because when they lye on their Backs, with this Leg they can
keep the Sun from their bodies.
[Sidenote: =Wild Men.=]
Linnæus did not include these in his _Homo Monstrosus_; but various
questionable creatures are inserted by his pupil Hoppius in the treatise
_Anthropomorpha of Linnæus_, read in 1760.[17] Such were the _Satyr_ of
Vulpius, who, “when it went to bed, put its head on the pillow, and
covered its shoulders with the counterpane, and lay quite quiet like a
respectable woman”; _Lucifer_ (_Homo caudatus_), the “dreadful foul
animals—running about like cats,” who rowed in boats, attacked and
killed a boatload of adventurers, cooking and eating their bodies; and
the _Troglodyta_ (_Homo nocturnus_), who in the East Indies “are caught
and made use of in houses as servants to do the lighter domestic work—as
to carry water, lay the table, and take away the plates.” But all these
were classed among the _Simiæ_. Within the species _Homo sapiens_
Linnæus included wild or natural man, _Homo sapiens ferus_, whose
existence was widely believed in at the time. The most authentic case
was that of “Wild Peter,” the naked brown boy discovered in 1724 in
Hanover. He could not speak, and showed savage and brutish habits and
only a feeble degree of intelligence. He was sent to London, and, under
the charge of Dr. Arbuthnot, became a noted personage, and the subject
of keen discussion among philosophers and naturalists. One of his
admirers, more enthusiastic than the others, declared that his discovery
was more important than that of Uranus, or the discovery of thirty
thousand new stars.
Footnote 17:
Bendyshe, p. 447.
Blumenbach alone, apparently, took the trouble to investigate the origin
of Wild Peter, and in the article he wrote on the subject disposed for
all time of the belief in the existence of “natural man.” He pointed out
that when Peter was first met he wore fastened round his neck the torn
fragments of a shirt, and that the whiteness of his thighs, as compared
with the brown of his legs, showed that he had been wearing breeches and
no stockings. He finally proved that Peter was the dumb child of a
widower, who had been thrust out of his home by a new step-mother.[18]
Footnote 18:
Cunningham, pp. 24-5.
------------------------------------------------------------------------