Spencer's happier lot to be accepted and developed mainly according to the more positive of his enunciations, and in support of the validity of human reason; and thus, as an unconscious herald of the dawn, he may come hereafter to occupy an important position among the supporters of true Philosophy. PREHISTORIC AND SAVAGE MAN.1 THAT \HAT 'the proper study of mankind is man'! is a truth which is brought home to us with peculiar force by the circumstances of our own time. For what is the main end of all our pursuit of knowledge but to obtain sure rules to guide our conduct; and what knowledge can be so efficient for this purpose as a correct appreciation of man's true place in nature, the objects of his legitimate hope or prudent dread, and the laws which govern human progress and human retrogression? But some of my hearers may perhaps object that a knowledge of the civilised world and of the epochs reckoned as 'historical' are all that we practically require, and that a consideration of prehistoric relics and of the barbarous customs of existing savages (however curious or interesting), can but be of small if of any real utility to us. Such objectors must be little familiar with the course of recent speculative thought, or they can but very inadequately appreciate its far-reaching consequences. I have myself no hesitation in saying that in our own day Anthropology—the science of man-is the most practically important of all the sciences, and that now, far more forcibly than in the days of Terence, one should say 'Homo sum, et nihil humanum a me alienum puto.' Moreover, such objectors cannot have reflected that nothing is well known to us unless we know, not only what 1 An address delivered at the opening of the Loan Exhibition of Prehistoric Antiquities and Ethnography, etc., Liverpool. it is, but how it becomes what it is, and what are its essential powers and capacities. No plant is well known to us unless we know not only its foliage and flower but its very germ, the modes and conditions of its development, the good effects which cultivation may produce, and the deformities and diseases which adverse circumstances may occasion. Applying this consideration to ourselves, the great importance of the sciences which this exhibition is intended to illustrate becomes manifest. And now let me congratulate you on the exhibition itself -on the happy results obtained by those gentlemen to whose exertions our presence here is due. In the rooms opposite to us are specimens of human industry from the most diverse races and the most varied climes, illustrating the different degrees of more or less striking imperfection in which our fellow-men now exist. We have specimens of their pottery, their textile fabrics, their musical instruments, their weapons, and the objects of their worship or superstitious reverence-specimens collected, some from races still numerous, but others specially interesting as belonging to tribes rapidly diminishing in number and destined too soon to be lost to us for ever. Moreover, besides these illustrations of the world as it is, you have also a most valuable collection of objects which may carry us back in imagination to an epoch so distant that of its antiquity we have as yet no approximatively accurate measures in years. This fine collection, the greatest and best, I believe, which has ever been made in this country out of London, is a just subject of congratulation, and I regret that the modesty of the gentlemen who have exerted themselves to get it together forbids me to mention their names. There is one name, however, which I will mention, the name of a venerable gentleman whose public spirit is well known and universally esteemed in Liverpool. I mean Mr. Mayer, to whose zeal and liberality this city owes so many of the antiquities of which it is possessed. Amongst the gentlemen who have kindly lent valuable objects for exhibition I may mention Mr. W. J. A. Grant, to whom we are indebted for Eskimo articles-objects of especial value and interest, as I shall have occasion to mention shortly. To Dr. J. L. Palmer we are also indebted for similar contributions, and for some rare sketches from that wonderful Easter Island, the mysteries of which he is perhaps better qualified by his knowledge to explain than any one else. Mr. Henry C. Stephens has also contributed some very remarkable fetish figures from New Zealand. To the Rev. W. G. Lawes, missionary in New Guinea, our thanks are especially due. Also several of the Liverpool West African merchants have contributed a large group of West Coast objects. Time does not permit me to enumerate all the kind lenders, but the names of all are given in our catalogue. And now, after these preliminary remarks on the collection itself, I will venture to direct the attention of my hearers to certain facts and theories a knowledge of which is necessary for its profitable examination and study. No doubt a large number of my hearers, perhaps the majority of those present, are already well acquainted with them, but I feel I have no right to suppose that such is the case universally, and I therefore crave the indulgence of one portion of my audience while, for the sake of the other, I briefly state a few very elementary facts and generally admitted views. As I have already indicated, this exhibition illustrates on the one hand the more or less ancient condition of at least a considerable portion of mankind, while on the other it tends to make known the state in which other portions exist to-day. It illustrates, that is to say, the sciences of Prehistoric Archæology, Ethnography, and Ethnology. The science of Prehistoric Archæology is eminently a science of the latter half of the nineteenth century. Its birth may be dated from the year 1847, when M. Boucher de Perthes published1 his description of flint implements found in the gravel in the valley of the Somme near Abbeville. Anticipations of such a discovery had however existed, and attention had before several times been drawn to evidences of great human antiquity-evidences which had, however, been persistently disregarded owing to the strength of the prejudice which existed in favour of the belief that man had inhabited the earth but for a very few thousand years. Indeed, even at the commencement of the present century, Mr. John Frere communicated to the Society of Antiquaries 2 a clear description of flint tools (like those since found near Amiens) which were discovered in Suffolk. Much later, in the year 1832, human relics were discovered by the Rev. Mr. M'Enery in Kent's Hole, near Torquay, and by Dr. Schmerling in caverns near Liége. Nevertheless, before the eventful discovery of M. Boucher de Perthes, these and all other attempts to force on reluctant hearers, man's claim to a yet unaccepted antiquity were alike fruitless. As soon, however, as that discovery had obtained a serious and more or less unprejudiced attention to the subject, fresh evidence was rapidly accumulated from very varied sources. Not only from caves and gravel beds, but from the remains of ancient lake dwellings in Switzerland, from shell mounds and refuse heaps in the Danish islands; and not from Europe alone but also from Asia (including India and Japan), and from the Americas,-from all sides,overwhelming evidence forced the most incredulous to yield assent to the widespread existence of the remains of Prehistoric Man. 1 In the first volume of his Antiquités Celtiques. |