It was not so, as anthropologists knew from sad experience. Suppose a
traveler came to a camp where he saw thousands of men and women
dancing round the image of a young bull. Suppose that the dancers were
all stark naked, that after a time they began to fight, and that at
the end of their orgies there were three thousand corpses lying about
weltering in their blood. Would not a casual traveler have described
such savages as worse than the negroes of Dahomey? Yet these savages
were really the Jews, the chosen people of God. The image was the
golden calf, the priest was Aaron, and the chief who ordered the
massacre was Moses. We might read the 32d chapter of Exodus in a very
different sense. A traveler who could have conversed with Aaron and
Moses might have understood the causes of the revolt and the necessity
of the massacre. But without this power of interrogation and mutual
explanation, no travelers, however graphic and amusing their stories
might be, could be trusted; no statements of theirs could be used by
the anthropologist for truly scientific purposes. If anthropology was
to maintain its high position as a real science, its alliance with
linguistic studies could not be too close. Its weakest points had
always been those where it trusted to the statements of authorities
ignorant of language and of the science of language. Its greatest
triumphs had been achieved by men such as Dr. Hahn, Bishops Callaway
and Colenso, Dr. W. Gill and last, not least, Mr. Man, who had
combined the minute accuracy of the scholar with the comprehensive
grasp of the anthropologist, and were thus enabled to use the key of
language to unlock the perplexities of savage customs, savage laws and
legends, and, particularly, of savage religions and mythologies. If
this alliance between anthropology and philology became real, then,
and then only, might we hope to see Bunsen's prophecy fulfilled, that
anthropology would become the highest branch of that science for which
the British Association was instituted.
* * * * *