The ethnology of London / by J.B. Budgett.

  • Budgett, J. B. (John Season Burgess)
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ethnology of London / by J.B. Budgett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/48 (page 6)
    Here at once we have a field before us, in which the most zealous student of nature may expend all his energy, in seeking for physiological and material facts ; where the deepest thinker and profoundest meta¬ physician may follow out the deductions of his own imperfect reason, till he himself is lost in the maze he has created. It is not, therefore, my intention to present a per¬ plexing assemblage of figures, or to quote a learned array of the opinions of others ; but rather to confine myself to a plain and popular view of man in his social and physical aspect,—as he is to be found in our great cities, especially in London,—such an aspect, indeed, that any man of common sense, who will use his eyes and his legs, may, if not ‘‘ run and read,’' at least walk and see for himself. The Physical Condition. Concerning the physical condition of man, there can be no doubt that it undergoes a vast change, according to the circumstances in which he is placed. Not only is he subject to sanitary and unhealthy in¬ fluences, but also to social and moral; and these re-act on each other reciprocally, as the mind does upon the body. Yet, beyond this, there is a condition which is strictly animal—showing that our physical qualities, good or bad, are to a very great extent perpetuated^ whether we will or not.