NOTE. (See p. 181.)

DISCUSSION IN THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

Ir will be observed that portions of the forgoing paper, On the various Theories of Man's Past and Present Condition, are inclosed within brackets. I beg leave to explain that the other portions of the paper were read by me before Section E of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Nottingham, on the 25th of August, 1866; on which occasion the passages bracketed were omitted.

I may observe that it is not unusual to read papers before the British Association which have been previously read in scientific societies, provided they have not been published previously; and, having taken with me to Nottingham a single copy of this paper, in proof, I showed it to Mr. Crawfurd, the president of the Ethnological Society, and one of the vice-presidents of the Section, stating briefly its purport, and said that I should be glad to read it if approved. He at once most frankly took charge of the paper, to lay it before the committee of the Section in the usual manner; and he afterwards told me it would be read, but would require (as I quite expected) to be cut down considerably, in order to bring it within the limit of time that alone could be spared for a single paper among so many others. I therefore bracketed-off such passages as were least essential to my main thesis, and especially those, it will be seen, that relate to the cognate discussion which had taken place in the same Section, at Birmingham, in 1865, and was continued in the Ethnological Journal shortly afterwards. I was also, I regret, obliged to omit the concluding portion of my paper, relating to the advancement of mankind and the progress of civilization, through the influence of Christianity; as, to have touched upon that, would have opened up quite another branch of the same large question. But I beg to say, that the decision as to what I should omit, as well as what I should read, was left entirely to myself—not even a hint of any kind whatever having been given to me on the subject. I say this in justice to the committee of Section E, which was most ably and courteously presided over by Sir Charles Nicholson; and I do so more especially, in order to remove certain misapprehensions which appear to have been entertained in some portions of the press, as to the reading of this paper before the British Association-partly attributable, no doubt, to the remarks which Professor Huxley was pleased to make, on being invited to discuss it by the president.

I may observe, for the information of those who are unacquainted with the doings of what has been called "our great scientific congress," that the meetings in Section E, combining Geography and Ethnology, are usually by far the most numerously attended, and that that Section has consequently always the largest room assigned to it for its meetings. This was the case at Nottingham; and I confess that, for various reasons, I felt a desire to be

able to bring forward some of the arguments I had so recently urged in the Victoria Institute, against the notion that the primitive man could possibly have been a speechless savage, before the largest possible audience that could be hoped for in the Sections of the British Association. I may also add that, while no discussion follows the introductory Address delivered by the president of the Association or the evening Lectures that are given every year, all the papers read in the several Sections are open to discussion, and are usually discussed, although unfortunately there is no systematic or official report of the discussions that take place. The newspapers to a certain extent supply this defect; but it will be obvious that, when so much has to be recorded, their reports, as a rule, must be very imperfect.

I have much pleasure in stating that when my paper was read at Nottingham, it was as well received by the audience generally, as it had been previously when read in the Victoria Institute.

I shall now give some account of the discussion that followed, partly taken from the newspaper reports (in which case I shall employ quotationmarks), and otherwise upon my own responsibility as to accuracy. Professor Huxley's observations I am glad to be able to give, I think very nearly verbatim, from the Nottingham Daily Guardian, viz. :——

"Professor HUXLEY, who was invited by the president to offer some remarks on the paper which had just been read, said :-I should be delighted in my private capacity to obey any of your behests, but, on the present occasion, I am unfortunately not in my primitive or personal insignificance, but the representative of a department of the Association, and one of the officers of the Association charged with the administration of a Section. It has, in the wisdom of the council of the Association, been thought proper that a department should be instituted in Section D, of which I have the honour to be the head. It is called the Department of Anthropology; and if I have any comprehension of scientific method or arrangement, the paper we have just heard read is purely an anthropological paper, and can only be competently discussed by those persons who are familiar with all the sciences necessary for the student of anthropology. Under these circumstances, therefore, I should, by beginning to discuss this paper, admit the propriety of its being read here, and that in my official capacity I cannot do. I may, perhaps, be allowed to remark that in our department we have a wholesome practice called 'referring a paper.' When a paper is sent to us we 'refer' it, in order to ascertain whether it contains anything new, anything true, or anything worth discussing; in a word, whether the paper should be read or whether it should not. But though I think this is a paper for our section, I do not pledge myself that it would have passed the particular ordeal which I have described. (Laughter.)"

Mr. NASH, as secretary of the Ethnological Society, and one of the secretaries of Section E, "protested against the views of Professor Huxley, and defended the reading of the paper in this section, inasmuch as it is not only a Geographical, but an Ethnological Section ;" and he added that the Ethnological Society had never admitted that their science precluded them from the consideration of all the facts that bear upon man's past and present condition, such as those which had been brought forward in this paper.

Sir JOHN LUBBOCK said, he must also differ from his friend Professor Huxley; but with reference to the ingenious paper which had been read, "he objected to the term 'religious theory,' because it implied that all other theories must be anti-religious. Now, for his part (without professing to be more orthodox than he was), he believed that religion and science were not opposed one to the other. He did not think Mr. Reddie really comprehended the Darwinian theory. He was an humble disciple of Mr. Darwin's, and he ventured to claim for that gentleman's theory, that it was the only one which accounted in any way for the origin of man; for all the other theories were, in his judgment, no theories at all, but simply confessions of ignorance, and did not convey those definite ideas to the mind which were conveyed by the theory of Mr. Darwin."

"Mr. CRAWFURD was of opinion that the terms 'anthropology' and 'ethnology' were synonymous, or nearly so. For his own part he could not believe one word of Darwin's theory. He was sorry for that, because it was believed in by so many men of eminence. It was a surprising thing to him that men of talent should nail themselves to such a belief. (Hear, hear.) Man, it was said, was derived from a monkey. From what monkey? (Laughter.) There were two hundred or three hundred kinds of monkeys, and the biggest monkey, viz., the gorilla, was the biggest brute. (Laughter.) Then there were monkeys with tails and monkeys without tails, but curiously enough those which had no tails, and were consequently the most like man, were the stupidest of all. (Laughter.) People were at a loss to know how the universe was created, and that, no doubt, was a difficult subject. Mr. Reddie, however, seemed to invert the order of nature, for all the history of man showed that he was progressive. Our ancestors were barbarians, and it was the same with every other race."

Mr. CARTER BLAKE said he should wish to be informed what traditions among savages Mr. Reddie referred to, as relating to their previous higher condition; and where such traditions are to be found recorded.

Mr. FELLOWS also briefly addressed the meeting, but his observations were of a general kind (not, however, adverse to the paper), and I regret they have not been reported, so far as I am aware.

In reply to Professor Huxley's remarks, so far as they related to the propriety of my paper being read in Section E, I contented myself-as Professor Huxley had then left the room-with referring to the complete answer he had received from Mr. Nash. His observations were, besides, rather a reflection upon the Committee of the Section, and it is not for me to say whether they were in the best taste or not. They were received with " laughter," no doubt, but also with adverse murmurs in the Section. For myself, I was not placed on the committee till after my paper had been accepted, but I am not aware that Professor Huxley had any grounds whatever for affecting to suppose that my paper had not been "referred" (as I do know that other papers were), in Section E, before being read. Anyhow, the paper, upon being read, was extremely well received, and was also more fully reported in the newspapers, with one or two exceptions, than perhaps any other ordinary paper read at the meetings. As it is now printed and published along with Professor Huxley's remarks as to its character, the public generally will be able to form their own judgment of it, and will further know (if I gather the Professor's

meaning aright), that had it gone before his Section he would have endeavoured to suppress it. I am glad that in Section E, a more liberal spirit was exhibited and my paper allowed to be read. I do not deny that it might quite properly be called an "Anthropological Paper," though now (knowing what its probable fate would have been), I am very glad I had declined to offer it to the Anthropological Department of Section D. There are, however, special reasons for saying that the paper was most properly read in Section E. In the first place, it will be observed, that the physiologists and naturalists being at issue about Darwinism, the arguments advanced in the paper are chiefly based upon historical and ethnological evidences. At the very next meeting of the same Section a most interesting account was given by Mr. Thomson of the recent discoveries in Cambodia (in Siam), of the ruins of magnificent and gigantic temples, so far beyond the capabilities of the present inhabitants or their immediate forefathers for many generations to accomplish, that their tradition is that these ancient buildings must have been constructed by a superior race of beings altogether, or "the gods." Of their great antiquity there can be no doubt; the style of architecture is intermediate between that of Egypt and Greece; and there is now a dense forest interposed between the buildings and the rocks whence the stone used in their construction is supposed to have been procured. Dr. Mann, also, on the same day and in the same Section, narrated his experiences relating to the attempts which have been made to educate and civilize the Kaffirs and Zulus; and on the following day Sir Samuel Baker recounted some of his recent most interesting adventures among the negroes of the White Nile Basin, and especially discussed their savage condition, and their tendency to continue savage and degenerate. The only instance which he mentioned of anything somewhat better to be found among them, he attributed to the influence of the Arabs with whom they had had communications. Professor Huxley was present, too, when that paper was read, and he even spoke upon it; though I cannot say he discussed it, for he only referred to one or two of the facts mentioned by Sir Samuel Baker, which did not bear upon "the question of questions for mankind." Having referred in my paper (p. 195) to Sir Samuel Baker's statements made in the Ethnological Society, merely as I had seen them reported in the newspapers, it was a great gratification to me to hear them myself, repeated in the crowded meeting in Section E, where my own paper had been previously read, and to hear not a word from him that was not entirely confirmatory of the views which I had expressed. The account of the ruins of Cambodia was also a fresh illustration in support of one branch of my arguments; and I think, now, it will be seen that it was most fitting that arguments based upon our knowledge of such archæological and ethnological facts should have been advanced in the same section of the British Association, where fresh evidence and additional facts of the very same kind are constantly brought forward.

To revert to the discussion upon my paper. I scarcely required to answer Sir John Lubbock's objection to the term "religious theory," as it had met

with a pretty general expression of dissent in the meeting. If people would only consider, that for thousan is of years no one ever thought that anything like development," or Darwinism, was taught in Gemma they mali srely refrain from the vain endeavour to import that meaning now into the old Mosaic narrative,-into the language of a book to quote Mr. Warington's words written in plain and simple style, which has been in the hands of theologians complete for nigh 18 years, and co which they have bestowed unremitting study; where no new facts can ever be rising up to disconcert past conclusions; and where, therefore, if anywhere, maninity would seem to be inevitable, and diversity of spizio met izesplable and criminal”

As regards the charge of not understanding Darwin's Inplied by citing Professor Carl Vogt, wha, as a pèrsiblągist, is just as emitent on the Continent as Professor Huxley is in England, and whi, as a Darwinian, difers te taily from the latter. I was somewhat surprised that a debater so clear-headed and courteous as Sir John Lubbock, så all have cared to repeat what is now a mere hackneyed charge against all who oppose Darwinia When the Darwinians are themselves agreed about the theory it might be time enough to expect objectors to understand it." But Sir Jika Lalbock surely overlooks the drift of my argument altogether, when he makes that reply, even were he right in his assertion. My main argument in the present paper, he might see, does not require me to understand Darwin' It is a reductio ad abourhum, assuming the possibility of the theory, and not questioning in detail its processes. Of course, I do not believe that even a matkey, and still less a man, could be developed in the Darwinian way. But grawing that we have got the imaginary speechless na. or the real "kw-caste savage" to begin with, then, I say, you cannot even then, with such a beginning, get the world as it is, or arrive at the civilized man. All our experience is against this. All the facts we know are contrary to it; and, if so, it is not possibly true, and it is irrational to believe it. It is not only not science," but it is contrary to all we really do know. I have no doubt that Darwinism can be and will be if it has not already been refuted at other stages. I do not think it has established even a single step of its almost infinite assumptions. But be that as it may,—and raising no primary objections—I have maintained that it must stop at man; because, as I have proved, civilization has not, and cannot be, developed out of savagery. Everybody knows that it is only when Darwinism comes to be applied to man, that its conclusions ostensibly clash with "time-honoured traditions," and what Professor Huxley calls "stronglyrooted prejudices." I have therefore met it at that point.

With respect to Mr. Crawfurd's observations, I am bound to notice, that besides what he is above reported to have said, he also disclaimed being a polygenist very much to my surprise, though it will be seen he still thinks mankind have advanced from an originally savage condition. But his reference to our ancestors having been barbarians, is nothing against my argument. I have not denied the possibility of a rise from a " barbarous" to a "civilized” condition, using the words strictly, but a rise from utter "savagery." But

* Journal of Transactions of the Victoria Institute, vol. i., p. 101.