Anthropology / by Paul Topinard ; translated from the French.

  • Topinard, Paul, 1830-1911
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anthropology / by Paul Topinard ; translated from the French. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    It was made use of in 1826 in the “Atlas Geographique ” of M. Balbi, and was ratified under the influence of what was sub¬ sequently termed linguistics. Wiseman, in 1836, defined it as “the classification of races by the comparative study of languages M. Broca, as simply the description of each nation in particular. The word “ ethnology ” had its origin in the title of the Society of Ethnology of Paris, in 1839. It embraces, as set forth in the statutes of that society, “ the physical organisation, the intellectual and moral character, the language, and historical traditions which serve to distinguish races.” It is used in the same sense in England by Prichard, Lubbock, Logan, Brace, &c. In 1866, M. Broca ex¬ tended its meaning as follows : “ The particular description and designation of these races, the study of their resemblances and dis¬ similarities as regards physical constitution, as well as intellectual and social condition. The inquiry into their actual affinities, their distribution in the present and in the past, their history, their more or less probable, more or less doubtful relationship, and their re¬ spective position in the human series. Such is the purpose of that division of anthropology which we designate by the name of ethnology; the sources whence it gathers its inquiries are numerous, it borrows from ethnography, or a description of peoples. . . . ” * Ethnology. M. Littr4 confines the term “ ethnology ” to its etymological mean¬ ing. “ Ethnology,” he says, “ treats of the origin and distribution of peoples, and ethnography of their description. According to M. Erederic Muller, anthropology has reference to the study of races, ethnology to that of peoples. Latham had already described ethnology as the speculative, and ethnography as the descriptive part of the science of peoples. Eor ourselves, we regard anthropology and ethnology as two different aspects of the study of Man; two distinct sciences, each * Lecture by James Hunt at the Anthropological Society of London, January 3, 1865; Article, “ Anthropologie,” in the “ Dictionnaire Eucycl. des Sciences Medicales,” by M. Paul Broca, vol. v. Paris, 1866.