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Title: Essays on museums
and other subjects connected with natural history
Author: William Henry Flower
Release date: October 7, 2026 [eBook #79742]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1898
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79742
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS ***
ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS
[Illustration: colophon]
ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS
AND OTHER SUBJECTS CONNECTED
WITH NATURAL HISTORY
BY
SIR WILLIAM HENRY FLOWER, K.C.B.
D.C.L., D.Sc., LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.S., P.Z.S.
CORRESPONDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
_All rights reserved_
TO HER
WHO FOR FORTY YEARS
HAS BEEN MY NEVER-FAILING COUNSELLOR AND SUPPORT
IN ALL DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES
THIS COLLECTION OF FUGITIVE THOUGHTS
UPON SUBJECTS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED
WITH THE GREATER PART OF OUR JOINT LIFE’S WORK
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED
PREFACE
Having lately, during an enforced period of restraint from active
occupation, had leisure to look back upon the events of a somewhat busy
life, it occurred to me that besides the administration, in succession,
of two large public museums, and some original scientific investigation,
the results of which can be of interest only to the very few, there have
been occasions which have involved a contact with wider and more varied
circles.
Though the records of these occasions have doubtless been mainly of
passing or local concern, it is possible that something may be found
among them worth placing in a more accessible and permanent form than in
the scattered journals or pamphlets in which they can only be found at
present.
Such of these essays and addresses as seemed suitable for republication
in the present collection mainly group themselves under three distinct
branches of the many into which the intellectual and educational
activity of our age is manifested.
1. Those which are here placed first are, more closely than any others,
connected with the practical work of my life,--the advancement of
scientific knowledge through the development of museums. Here I cannot
refrain from expressing my deep sense of the loss this cause has
recently sustained by the premature death of Dr. Brown Goode, Director
of the United States National Museum. Fortunately for science he was
able to formulate his latest views “On the Principles of Museum
Administration” in an elaborate paper contributed to the
Newcastle-on-Tyne meeting of the “Museums Association” and published in
the report for 1895.
2. The essays on general Biological questions treat very considerably of
a subject of even wider interest,--the permanence or transmutation of
species, especially in its bearing upon the doctrine of evolution. It
might be thought that nothing more need now be said upon this subject,
but it is certain that there is still much misapprehension in relation
to it; and it may be interesting to some to know the arguments which
have been brought forward at various stages of the great controversy by
one whose scientific life began before the publication of the _Origin of
Species_, and to whom it has fallen to present the principal problems
connected with it in various aspects and to various classes of
intelligence and education. If some of the essays may not be upon the
level of our present knowledge as to facts, the principal lines of
thought which run through them are not materially changed by the
additions made to that knowledge, and so it has been thought best to
leave them as originally written, except for an occasional verbal
alteration. The dates at which they were first published should, in all
cases, be carried in mind. Sometimes a repetition of ideas or even of
verbal expressions found elsewhere may be met with, but these have been
allowed to stand, so that each essay may be complete in itself.
3. Upon the third subject, the main point of which is the advocacy of a
more systematic study of Anthropology in this country, there has been,
as it seems to me, less advance than in either of the other two; and in
putting forth its claims for greater recognition I felt for a long time
as one crying in the wilderness. I am glad, therefore, to have the
opportunity of bringing much which has been said in some of these
addresses once more before the notice of those who may have
opportunities of forwarding the work, and also acknowledging various
recent signs of progress, among which may be mentioned the
establishment of a Professorship of this subject by the University of
Oxford.
4. The short sketches of some of the personal characteristics of the
contemporary naturalists of our country who have been most prominent in
advancing the branches of science to which the essays of the first three
sections are devoted form a not unnatural sequel to them.
In conclusion, my best thanks are offered to the various institutions
and persons who have kindly given permission for the republication of
the essays, the source of which is in every case acknowledged; but I may
especially mention the Council of the Royal Society in respect to the
biographical notices from their Proceedings; the Council of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, for various addresses
published in the reports of their meetings; the Council of the Royal
Institution and of the Royal Colonial Institute, for lectures given
before them and published in their Proceedings; the proprietors of the
_North American Review_ and of _Chambers’s Journal_, for articles
contributed originally to those periodicals; and Messrs. A. and C. Black
and Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Ltd., for illustrations of the articles on
“Whales,” and on “Fashion in Deformity.”
W. H. F.
26 STANHOPE GARDENS, LONDON,
_Easter 1898_.
CONTENTS
MUSEUMS
ESSAY PAGE
1. MUSEUM ORGANISATION.--Presidential Address to the British Association
for the Advancement of Science. Newcastle-on-Tyne Meeting, 11th
September 1889 1
Choice of subject--Museums of the Ancients and of the Middle Ages--The
terms Natural History and Naturalist--Definition of a Natural
History Museum--Subdivisions of the sciences represented in
a Natural History Museum--Objects of museums--Research and
instruction--Methods of arranging specimens for study and for public
exhibition--Labels--Guide-books and catalogues--Biological problems of
the day--Evolution of organic beings--Natural Selection--Survival of the
Fittest--Difficulties arising from the imperfection of our knowledge.
2. MODERN MUSEUMS. Presidential Address to the Museums Association.
London Meeting, 3rd July 1893 30
The Museums Association--Cost of museums--Qualifications and
remuneration of curators--Museum literature--The new Museum
idea--Separation of specimens required for the advancement of science
and for general instruction--The new Natural History Museums of London,
Paris, Vienna, and Berlin--American museums--Plan for a model National
Natural History Museum.
3. LOCAL MUSEUMS. From a Letter in support of the establishment of a
County Museum for Buckinghamshire (24th November 1891), and an Address
at the opening of the Perth Museum (29th November 1895) 54
Desirability of having museums in every county to preserve tangible
records of local history, customs, and natural history--Necessity of
provision for their permanent maintenance and for paid curators--Such
museums should be formed in connection with technical schools and free
libraries, and supported from the same sources.
4. SCHOOL MUSEUMS. Suggestions for the formation and arrangement of a
Museum of Natural History in connection with a Public School. _Nature_,
26th December 1889 58
Subjects best adapted for School Museums--Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy
and Geology--What kind of specimens are desirable--Every collection or
series should be kept perfectly distinct--A permanent curator necessary.
5. BOYS’ MUSEUMS. _Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_, April
1897 63
Natural History an absorbing passion with many boys--Often a passing
phase, sometimes permanent--Natural History as a vocation--Love of
collecting--Value as a means of education--Hints to beginners in forming
museums--Personal experiences of the author.
6. THE BOOTH MUSEUM. Address at the opening of the Booth Museum,
Brighton. 3rd November 1890 70
Formation and object of the Museum--The art of Taxidermy--Observation of
bird life an unfailing source of pleasure, increasing with increase of
knowledge--Such museums promote this knowledge and add to human
happiness.
7. THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND. Presidential
Address to the Anatomical Section of the International Medical Congress.
London Meeting, 4th August 1881 74
John Hunter, the founder of the Museum--His collection purchased by
Government and placed in the custody of the Royal College of Surgeons
under certain conditions--Branches of Biology represented in the
Museum--Foundation and present condition of each section--Value of the
Museum to the surgical profession and the country--Its future
maintenance assured by the munificent bequest of Sir Erasmus Wilson.
GENERAL BIOLOGY
8. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE COURSE OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. Royal
College of Surgeons of England, 14th February 1870 97
The course intended to illustrate the Museum--John Hunter’s work as a
comparative anatomist--The Museum teaches morphology--The study of
morphology has led in succession to the ideas of (1) teleology or direct
adaptation to purpose; (2) type or common plan; (3) descent from a
common ancestor with modification, according to the great principle of
orderly evolution--Reception and gradual recognition of the last
hypothesis--Some objections to it answered--Explanation it
affords of anatomical structures, otherwise accounted for with
difficulty--Illustrations --Importance of discriminating essential or
fundamental from adaptive characters--Classification--Wider knowledge of
morphology the basis of an intelligent study of human anatomy.
9. RECENT ADVANCES IN NATURAL SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN
FAITH. Paper read at the Church Congress. Reading Meeting, 2nd October
1883 123
The doctrine of evolution as applied to the life of organic
beings--Causes which led to the old belief in the fixity of species, and
to the change of opinion upon the subject, now almost universal--Effects
of this change of opinion upon our ideas in relation to Creation and the
Origin of Man.
10. A PRACTICAL LESSON FROM BIOLOGICAL STUDIES. Reply to Working Men’s
Address to the President of the British Association. Newcastle-on-Tyne,
14th September 1889 135
The survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, one of the
main causes of progress.
11. PALÆONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF GRADUAL MODIFICATION OF ANIMAL FORMS.
Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th April
1873 138
The history of the order _Ungulata_, or hoofed animals, as traced
through the Tertiary geological period, shows, as time advanced, a
gradual differentiation from more generalised to specialised forms--The
existing species are only survivors of large numbers which lived in
former times, and are now isolated by the extinction of the intermediate
forms.
12. A CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE. Presidential Address
in the Department of Zoology and Botany. British Association, Dublin
Meeting, 15th August 1878 153
The last edition of the _Systema Naturæ_, revised by Linnæus, was
published in 1766--The first portion of the work, devoted to the class
Mammalia, examined, and the progress made in the knowledge of each order
since that time reviewed--Observations on classification and zoological
nomenclature.
13. THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. Address at the General Meeting of
the Society, held in the Zoological Gardens, in celebration of the
Fiftieth Anniversary of Her Majesty’s reign, 16th June
1887 171
Foundation and growth of the
Society--Acclimatisation--Museum--Scientific
meetings--Publications--Lectures--Menagerie--Recent improvements.
14. WHALES AND WHALE FISHERIES. Lecture at the Royal Colonial Institute,
8th January 1895 185
Fishes and whales--General characters of the latter--Sperm
whale--Whalebone whales--Mode of capture--Whale fishery of the Basques
in the Middle Ages--Greenland whale fishery--Southern whale fisheries.
15. WHALES, PAST AND PRESENT, AND THEIR PROBABLE ORIGIN. Lecture at the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th May 1883 209
Rudimentary organs giving indications of former conditions and
origin--Hair--Organs of sight and smell--Teeth--Nature and use of baleen
or whalebone--Fore-limbs--Hind Limbs--Geological history--All evidence
in favour of derivation from land animals, probably through forms
originally inhabiting fresh waters.
ANTHROPOLOGY
16. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY. British
Association, York Meeting, 1st September 1881 235
Importance of the study of race--Natural classification of man--Causes
of racial difference--Race a vague term--Craniometry --Necessity for
larger collections and more workers.
17. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY. British
Association, Oxford Meeting, 9th August 1894 249
History of the subject in England--Its scope and extent--Societies and
collections--Systematic teaching--Anthropometry--Value in
identification of individuals, especially as applied to
criminals--Finger-marks--Ethnographic survey--Anthropological notes and
queries--Our duty to posterity in collecting anthropological data.
18. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
Presidential Address at the Anniversary Meeting of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 27th January 1885 274
The three principal types of man--1. Ethiopian, Negroid, Melanian, or
black--2. Mongolian, Xanthous or yellow--3. Caucasian or
white--Characteristics of each--Subdivisions--Position of the American
and Australian races.
19. THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN. Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great
Britain, 13th April 1888 290
Ancient belief in pygmy races--Size a characteristic of race--The
smallest existing races--Andaman Islanders--Other Negrito people in the
Eastern Archipelago and Mainland--Small races of Africa--Bushmen of
South Africa--Negrillos of the forest region of Central Africa--Akkas.
20. FASHION IN DEFORMITY. As illustrated in the customs of Barbarous and
Civilised Races, 1880 315
Origin of fashion--Fashion applied to domestic animals--Fashion in
hair--Finger-nails--Tattooing--Noses--Ears--Lips--Teeth--Head--Historic
references--Fashion in hands and feet--Action of the foot in
walking--Pointed toes--High heels--Tight lacing.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
21. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF PROFESSOR ROLLESTON. _Proceedings of the
Royal Society_, 1882 357
22. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF SIR RICHARD OWEN. _Proceedings of the Royal
Society_, 1894 363
23. REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. _The North American Review_,
September 1895 381
24. EULOGIUM ON CHARLES DARWIN. Centenary Meeting of the Linnean
Society, 24th May 1888 390
MUSEUMS
I
MUSEUM ORGANISATION[1]
It is twenty-six years since this Association met in Newcastle-on-Tyne.
It had then the advantage of being presided over by one of the most
distinguished and popular of your fellow-townsmen.
Considering the age usually attained by those upon whom the honour of
the presidency falls, and the length of time which elapses before the
Association repeats its visit, it must have rarely happened that any one
who has held the office is spared, not only to be present at another
meeting in the town in which he has presided, but also to take such an
active part in securing its success, and to extend such a hospitable
welcome to his successor, as Lord Armstrong has done upon the present
occasion.
The address which was delivered at that meeting must have been full of
interest to the great majority of those present. It treated of many
subjects more or less familiar and important to the dwellers in this
part of the world, and it treated them with the hand of a master, a
combination which always secures the attention of an audience.
When it came to my knowledge that in the selection of the President for
this meeting the choice had fallen upon me, I was filled with
apprehension. There was nothing in my previous occupations or studies
from which I felt that I could evolve anything in special sympathy with
what is universally recognised as the prevailing genius of this
district. I was, however, somewhat reassured when reminded that in the
regular rotation by which the equal representation in the presidential
office of the different branches of science included in the Association
is secured, the turn had come round for some one connected with
biological subjects to occupy the chair which, during the past seven
years, has been filled with such distinction by engineers, chemists,
physicists, mathematicians, and geologists. I was also reminded that the
Association, though of necessity holding its meeting in some definite
locality, was by no means local in its character, but that its sphere
was co-extensive, not with the United Kingdom only, but with the whole
of the British Dominions, and that our proceedings are followed with
interest wherever our language is understood--I may say, throughout the
civilised world. Furthermore, although its great manufacturing
industries, the eminence of its citizens for their skill and
intelligence in the practical application of mechanical sciences, and
the interesting and important geological features of its vicinity, have
conferred such fame on Newcastle as almost to have over-shadowed its
other claims to distinction in connection with science, this
neighbourhood is also associated with Bewick, with Johnson, with Alder,
Embleton, Hutton, Atthey, Norman, the two Hancocks, the two Bradys, and
other names honoured in the annals of biology; it has long maintained a
school of medicine of great repute; and there has lately been
established here a natural history museum, which in some of its features
is a model for institutions of the kind, and which, I trust, will be a
means of encouraging in this town some of the objects the Association
was designed to promote.
There can be no doubt that among the various methods by which the aims
of the British Association (as expressed in its full title, the
_advancement of science_) may be brought about, the collection and
preservation of objects available for examination, study, and
reference--in fact, the formation of what are now called “museums”--is
one of very great practical importance; so much so, indeed, that it
seems to me one to the consideration of which it is desirable to devote
some time upon such an occasion as this. It is a subject still little
understood, though, fortunately, beginning to attract attention. It has
already been brought before the notice of the Association, both in
presidential and sectional addresses. A committee of our members is at
the present time engaged in collecting evidence upon it, and has issued
some valuable reports. During the present year an association of
curators and others interested in museums has been founded for the
purpose of interchange of ideas upon the organisation and management of
these institutions. It is a subject, moreover, if I may be allowed to
mention a personal reason for bringing it forward this evening, which
has, more than any other, occupied my time and my attention almost from
the earliest period of my recollection, and I think you will agree with
the opinion of one of my distinguished predecessors in this chair, “that
the holder of this office will generally do better by giving utterance
to what has already become part of his own thought than by gathering
matter outside of its habitual range for the special occasion. For,”
continued Mr. Spottiswoode, “the interest (if any) of an address
consists not so much in the multitude of things therein brought forward
as in the individuality of the mode in which they are treated.”
The first recorded institution which bore the name of museum, or temple
or haunt of the Muses, was that founded by Ptolemy Soter at Alexandria
about 300 B.C.; but this was not a museum in our sense of the word, but
rather, in accordance with its etymology, a place appropriated to the
cultivation of learning, or which was frequented by a society or academy
of learned men devoting themselves to philosophical studies and the
improvement of knowledge.
Although certain great monarchs, as Solomon of Jerusalem and Augustus of
Rome, displayed their taste and their magnificence by assembling
together in their palaces curious objects brought from distant parts of
the world,--although it is said that the liberality of Philip and
Alexander supplied Aristotle with abundant materials for his
researches,--of the existence of any permanent or public collections of
natural objects among the ancients there is no record. Perhaps the
nearest approach to such collections may be found in the preservation of
remarkable specimens, sometimes associated with superstitious
veneration, sometimes with strange legendary stories, in the buildings
devoted to religious worship. The skins of the gorillas brought by the
navigator Hanno from the West Coast of Africa, and hung up in the temple
at Carthage, afford a well-known instance.
With the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, the collecting
instinct, inborn in so many persons of various nations and periods of
history, but so long in complete abeyance, sprang into existence with
considerable vigour, and a museum, now meaning a collection of
miscellaneous objects, antiquities as well as natural curiosities, often
associated with a gallery of sculpture and painting, became a
fashionable appendage to the establishment of many wealthy persons of
superior culture.
All the earliest collections, comparable to what we call museums, were
formed by and maintained at the expense of private individuals;
sometimes physicians, whose studies naturally led them to a taste for
biological science; often great merchant princes, whose trading
connections afforded opportunities for bringing together things that
were considered curious from foreign lands; or ruling monarchs in their
private capacity. In every case they were maintained mainly for the
gratification of the possessor or his personal friends, and rarely, if
ever, associated with any systematic teaching or public benefit.
One of the earliest known printed catalogues of such a museum is that of
Samuel Quickelberg, a physician of Amsterdam, published in 1565 in
Munich. In the same year Conrad Gesner published a catalogue of the
collection of Johann Kentmann, a physician of Torgau in Saxony,
consisting of about 1600 objects, chiefly minerals, shells, and marine
animals. Very soon afterwards we find the Emperor Rudolph II. of Germany
busily accumulating treasures which constituted the foundations of the
present magnificent museums by which the Austrian capital is
distinguished.
In England the earliest important collectors of miscellaneous objects
were the two John Tradescants, father and son, the latter of whom
published, in 1656, a little work called _Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a
Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, neer London_. The
wonderful variety and incongruous juxtaposition of the objects
contained in this collection make the catalogue very amusing reading.
Under the first division, devoted to “Some Kindes of Birds, their Egges,
Beaks, Feathers, Clawes and Spurres,” we find “Divers sorts of Egges
from Turkie, one given for a Dragon’s Egge”; “Easter Egges of the
Patriarch of Jerusalem;” “Two Feathers of the Phœnix Tayle;” “The Claw
of the bird Rock, who, as Authors report, is able to trusse an
Elephant.” Among “whole birds” is the famous “Dodar from the Island
Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big.” This is the identical
specimen, the head and foot of which has passed through the Ashmolean
into the University Museum of Oxford; but we know not what has become of
the claw of the Rock, the Phœnix tail, and the Dragon’s egg. Time does
not allow me to mention the wonderful things which occur under the head
of “Garments, Vestures, Habits, and Ornaments,” or the “Mechanick,
Artificial Workes in Carvings, Turnings, Sowings, and Paintings,” from
Edward the Confessor’s knit gloves, and the famous “Pohatan, King of
Virginia’s habit, all embroidered with shells or Roanoke,” also still at
Oxford, and lately figured and described by Mr. E. B. Tylor, to the
“Cherry-stone, upon one side S. George and the Dragon, perfectly cut,
and on the other side 88 Emperours’ faces”; or the other “cherry-stone,
holding ten dozen of tortois-shell combs made by Edward Gibbons.” But
before leaving these private collections I cannot forbear mentioning, as
an example of the great aid they often were in advancing science, the
indebtedness of Linnæus in his early studies to the valuable zoological
museums which it was one of the ruling passions of several kings and
queens of Sweden to bring together.
Upon the association of individuals together into societies to promote
the advancement of knowledge, these bodies in their corporate capacity
frequently made the formation of a museum part of their function. The
earliest instance of this in our country was the museum of the Royal
Society in Crane Court, of which an illustrated catalogue was published
by Dr. Grew in 1681.
The idea that the maintenance of a museum was a portion of the public
duty of the State or of any municipal institution had, however, nowhere
entered into the mind of man at the beginning of the last century. Even
the great teaching bodies, the Universities, were slow in acquiring
collections; but it must be recollected that the subjects considered
most essential to the education they then professed to give were not
those which needed illustration from the objects which can be brought
together in a museum. The Italian Universities, where anatomy was taught
as a science earlier and more thoroughly than anywhere else in Europe,
soon found the desirability of keeping collections of preserved
specimens, and the art of preparing them attained a high degree of
excellence at Padua and Bologna two centuries ago. But these were
generally the private property of the professors, as were nearly all the
collections used to illustrate the teaching of anatomy and pathology in
our country within the memory of many now living.
Notwithstanding the multiplication of public museums during the present
century, and the greater resources and advantages many of these possess,
which private collectors cannot command, the spirit of accumulation in
individuals has happily not passed away, although usually directed into
rather different channels than formerly. The general museums or
miscellaneous collections of old are now left to governments and
institutions which afford greater guarantee of their permanence and
public utility, while admirable service is done to science by those
private persons with leisure and means, who, devoting themselves to some
special subject, amass the materials by which its study can be pursued
in detail either by themselves or by those they know to be qualified to
do so. Such collections, if they fulfil their most appropriate destiny,
ultimately become incorporated, by gift or purchase, in one or other of
the public museums, and then serve as permanent factors in the education
of the nation, or rather of the world.
It would be passing beyond the limits of time allotted to this address,
indeed going beyond the scope of the Association, if I were to speak of
many of the subjects which have pre-eminently exercised the faculties of
the collector and formed the materials of which museums are
constructed. The various methods by which the mind of man has been able
to reproduce the forms of natural objects or to give expression to the
images created by his own fancy, from the rudest scratchings of a savage
on a bone, or the simplest arrangement of lines employed in ornamenting
the roughest piece of pottery, up to the most lovely combinations of
form and colour hitherto attained in sculpture or in painting, or in
works in metal or in clay, depend altogether on museums for their
preservation, for our knowledge of their condition and history in the
past, and for the lessons which they can convey for the future.
Apart from the delight which the contemplation of the noblest
expressions of art must produce in all cultivated minds, apart also from
the curiosity and interest that must be excited by all the less
successfully executed attempts to produce similar results, as materials
for constructing the true history of the life of man, at different
stages of civilisation, in different circumstances of living, and in
divers regions of the earth, such collections are absolutely invaluable.
But I must pass them by in order to dwell more in detail upon those
which specially concern the advancement of the subjects which come under
the notice of this Association--museums devoted to the so-called
“natural history” sciences, although much which will be said of them
will doubtless be more or less applicable to museums in general.
The terms _natural history_ and _naturalist_ have become deeply rooted
in our language, but without any very definite conception of their
meaning or the scope of their application. Originally applied to the
study of all the phenomena of the universe which are independent of the
agency of man, natural history has gradually narrowed down in most
people’s minds, in consequence of the invention of convenient and
generally understood and accepted terms for some of its various
subdivisions, as astronomy, chemistry, geology, etc., into that portion
of the subject which treats of the history of creatures endowed with
life, for which, until lately, no special name had been invented. Even
from this limitation botany was gradually disassociating itself in many
quarters, and a “naturalist” and a “zoologist” have nearly become,
however irrationally, synonymous terms. The happy introduction and
general acceptance of the word “biology,” notwithstanding the objections
raised to its etymological signification, have reunited the study of
organisms distinguished by the possession of the living principle, and
practically eliminated the now vague and indefinite term “natural
history” from scientific terminology. As, however, it is certain to
maintain its hold in popular language, I would venture to suggest the
desirability of restoring it to its original and really definite
signification, contrasting it with the history of man and of his works,
and of the changes which have been wrought in the universe by his
intervention.
It was in this sense that, when the rapid growth of the miscellaneous
collections in the British Museum at Bloomsbury (the expansion of Sir
Hans Sloane’s accumulation in the old Manor House at Chelsea) was
thought to render a division necessary, the line of severance was
effected at the junction of what was natural and what was artificial;
the former, including the products of what are commonly called “natural”
forces, unaffected by man’s handiwork, or the impress of his mind. The
departments which took cognisance of these were termed the “Natural
History Departments,” and the new building to which they were removed
the “Natural History Museum.”
It may be worth while to spend a few moments upon the consideration of
the value of this division, as it is one which concerns the arrangement
and administration of the majority of museums.
Though there is very much to be said for it, the objection has been
raised that it cuts man himself in two. The illustrations of man’s
bodily structure are undoubtedly subjects for the zoologist. The subtle
gradations of form, proportion, and colour which distinguish the
different races of men, can only be appreciated by one with the
education of an anatomist, and whose eye has been trained to estimate
the value of such characters in discriminating the variations of animal
forms. The subjects for comparison required for this branch of research
must therefore be looked for in the zoological collections.
But the comparatively new science of “anthropology” embraces not only
man’s physical structure; it includes his mental development, his
manners, customs, traditions, and languages. The illustrations of his
works of art, domestic utensils, and weapons of war are essential parts
of its study. In fact it is impossible to say where it ends. It includes
all that man is or ever has been, all that he has ever done. No definite
line can be drawn between the rudest flint weapon and the most
exquisitely finished instrument of destruction which has ever been
turned out from the manufactory at Elswick, between the rough
representation of a mammoth, carved by one of its contemporary men on a
portion of its own tusk, and the most admirable production of a
Landseer. An anthropological collection, to be logical, must include all
that is in not only the old British Museum but the South Kensington
Museum and the National Gallery. The notion of an anthropology which
considers savages and prehistoric people as apart from the rest of
mankind may, in the limitations of human powers, have certain
conveniences, but it is utterly unscientific and loses sight of the
great value of the study in tracing the gradual growth of our existing
complex systems and customs from the primitive ways of our progenitors.
On the other hand, the division first indicated is as perfectly
definite, logical, and scientific as any such division can be. That
there are many inconveniences attending wide local disjunctions of the
collections containing subjects so distinct yet so nearly allied as
physical and psychical anthropology must be fully admitted; but these
could only have been overcome by embracing in one grand institution the
various national collections illustrating the different branches of
science and art, placed in such order and juxtaposition that their
mutual relations might be apparent, and the resources of each might be
brought to bear upon the elucidation of all the others--an ideal
institution, such as the world has not yet seen, but into which the old
British Museum might at one time have been developed.
A purely “Natural History Museum” will then embrace a collection of
objects illustrating the natural productions of the earth, and in its
widest and truest sense should include, as far as they can be
illustrated by museum specimens, all the sciences which deal with
natural phenomena. It has only been the difficulties, real or
imaginary, in illustrating them which have excluded such subjects as
astronomy, physics, chemistry, and physiology from occupying departments
in our National Natural History Museum, while allowing the introduction
of their sister sciences, mineralogy, geology, botany, and zoology.
Though the experimental sciences and those which deal with the laws
which govern the universe, rather than with the materials of which it is
composed, have not hitherto greatly called forth the collector’s
instinct, or depended upon museums for their illustration, yet the great
advantages of collections of the various instruments by means of which
these sciences are pursued, and of examples of the methods by which they
are taught, are yearly becoming more manifest. Museums of scientific
apparatus now form portions of every well-equipped educational
establishment, and under the auspices of the Science and Art Department
at South Kensington a national collection illustrating those branches of
natural history science which have escaped recognition in the British
Museum is assuming a magnitude and importance which brings the question
of properly housing and displaying it urgently to the front.
Anomalies such as these are certain to occur in the present almost
infantile though rapidly progressive state of science. It may be taken
for granted that no scientific institution of any complexity of
organisation can be, except at the moment of its birth, abreast of the
most modern views of the subject, especially in the dividing lines
between, and the proportional representation of, the various branches of
knowledge which it includes.
The necessity for subdivisions in the study of science is continually
becoming more apparent as the knowledge of the details of each subject
multiplies without corresponding increase in the power of the human mind
to grasp and deal with them, and the dividing lines not only become
sharper, but as knowledge advances they frequently require revision. It
might be supposed that such revision would adjust itself to the
direction taken by the natural development of the relations of the
different branches of science, and the truer conceptions entertained of
such relations. But this is not always so. Artificial barriers are
continually being raised to keep these dividing lines in the direction
in which they have once started. Difficulties of readjustment arise not
only from the mechanical obstacles caused by the size and arrangements
of the buildings and facilities for the allocation of various kinds of
collections, but still more from the numerous personal interests which
grow up and wind their meshes around such institutions. Professorships
and curatorships of this or that division of science are founded and
endowed, and their holders are usually tenacious either of encroachment
upon or of any wide enlargement of the boundaries of the subject they
have undertaken to teach or to illustrate; and in this way, more than
any other, passing phases of scientific knowledge have become
crystallised or fossilised in institutions where they might least have
been expected. I may instance many European universities and great
museums in which zoology and comparative anatomy are still held to be
distinct subjects taught by different professors, and where, in
consequence of the division of the collections under their charge, the
skin of an animal, illustrating its zoology, and its skeleton and teeth,
illustrating its anatomy, must be looked for in different and perhaps
remotely placed buildings.
For the perpetuation of the unfortunate separation of palæontology from
biology, which is so clearly a survival of an ancient condition of
scientific culture, and for the maintenance in its integrity of the
heterogeneous compound of sciences which we now call “geology,” the
faulty organisation of our museums is in a great measure responsible.
The more their rearrangement can be made to overstep and break down the
abrupt line of demarcation which is still almost universally drawn
between beings which live now and those which have lived in past times,
so deeply rooted in the popular mind and so hard to eradicate even from
that of the scientific student, the better it will be for the progress
of sound biological knowledge.
But it is not of the removal of such great anomalies and
inconsistencies, which, when they have once grown up, require heroic
methods to set them right, but rather of certain minor defects in the
organisation of almost all existing museums which are well within the
capacity of comparatively modest administrative means to remedy, that I
have now to speak.
That great improvements have been lately effected in many respects in
some of the museums in this country, on the Continent, and especially in
America, no one can deny. The subject, as I have already indicated, is
exciting the attention of those who have the direction of them, and even
awakening interest in the mind of the general public. It is in the hope
of in some measure helping on or guiding this movement that I have
ventured on the remarks which follow.
The first consideration in establishing a museum, large or small, either
in a town, institution, society, or school, is that it should have some
definite object or purpose to fulfil; and the next is that means should
be forthcoming not only to establish but also to maintain the museum in
a suitable manner to fulfil that purpose. Some persons are enthusiastic
enough to think that a museum is in itself so good an object that they
have only to provide a building and cases and a certain number of
specimens, no matter exactly what, to fill them, and then the thing is
done; whereas the truth is the work has only then begun. What a museum
really depends upon for its success and usefulness is not its building,
not its cases, not even its specimens, but its curator. He and his staff
are the life and soul of the institution, upon whom its whole value
depends; and yet in many--I may say most of our museums--they are the
last to be thought of. The care, the preservation, the naming of the
specimens are either left to voluntary effort--excellent often for
special collections and for a limited time, but never to be depended on
as a permanent arrangement,--or a grievously undersalaried and
consequently uneducated official is expected to keep in order, to clean,
dust, arrange, name, and display in a manner which will contribute to
the advancement of scientific knowledge, collections ranging in extent
over almost every branch of human learning, from the contents of an
ancient British barrow to the last discovered bird of paradise from New
Guinea.
Valuable specimens not unfrequently find their way into museums thus
managed. Their public-spirited owners fondly imagine that they will be
preserved and made of use to the world if once given to such an
institution. Their fate is, unfortunately, far otherwise. Dirty,
neglected, without label, their identity lost, they are often finally
devoured by insects or cleared away to make room on the crowded shelves
for the new donation of some fresh patron of the institution. It would
be far better that such museums should never be founded. They are traps
into which precious--sometimes priceless--objects fall only to be
destroyed; and, what is still worse, they bring discredit on all similar
institutions, make the very name of museum a byword and a reproach,
hindering instead of advancing the recognition of their value as agents
in the great educational movement of the age.
A museum is like a living organism--it requires continual and tender
care. It must grow, or it will perish; and the cost and labour required
to maintain it in a state of vitality is not yet by any means fully
realised or provided for, either in our great national establishments or
in our smaller local institutions.
Often as it has been said, it cannot be too often repeated that the real
objects of forming collections, of whatever kind (apart, of course, from
the mere pleasure of acquisition--sometimes the only motive of private
collectors), and which, although in very different degrees, and often
without being recognised, underlie the organisation of all museums, are
two, which are quite distinct, and sometimes even conflicting. The first
is to advance or increase the knowledge of some given subject. This is
generally the motive of the individual collector, whose experience shows
him the vast assistance in forming definite ideas in any line of
research in which he may be occupied that may be derived from having the
materials for its study at his own command, to hold and to handle, to
examine and compare, to take up and lay aside whenever the favourable
moment to do so occurs. But unless his subject is a very limited one, or
his means the reverse, he soon finds the necessity of consulting
collections based on a larger scale than his own. Very few people have
any idea of the multiplicity of specimens required for the purpose of
working out many of the simplest problems concerning the life-history of
animals or plants. The naturalist has frequently to ransack all the
museums, both public and private, of Europe and America in the endeavour
to compose a monograph of a single common genus, or even species, that
shall include all questions of its variation, changes in different
seasons and under different climates and conditions of existence, and
the distribution in space and time of all its modifications. He often
has to confess at the end that he has been baffled in his research for
want of the requisite materials for such an undertaking. Of course this
ought not to be, and the time will come when it will not be, but that
time is very far off yet.
We all know the old saying that the craving for riches grows as the
wealth itself increases. Something similar is true of scientific
collections brought together for the purpose of advancing knowledge. The
larger they are the more their deficiencies seem to become conspicuous;
the more desirous we are to fill up the gaps which provokingly interfere
with our extracting from them the complete story they have to tell.
Such collections are, however, only for the advanced student, the man
who has already become acquainted with the elements of his science and
is in a position, by his knowledge, by his training, and by his
observing and reasoning capacity, to take advantage of such material to
carry on the subject to a point beyond that at which he takes it up.
But there is another and a far larger class to whom museums are or
should be a powerful means of aid in acquiring knowledge. Among such
those who are commencing more serious studies may be included; but I
especially refer to the much more numerous class, and one which it may
be hoped will year by year bear a greater relative proportion to the
general population of the country, who, without having the time, the
opportunities, or the abilities to make a profound study of any branch
of science, yet take a general interest in its progress, and wish to
possess some knowledge of the world around them and of the principal
facts ascertained with regard to it, or at least some portions of it.
For such persons museums may be, when well organised and arranged, of
benefit to a degree that at present can scarcely be realised.
To diffuse knowledge among persons of this class is the second of the
two purposes of museums of which I have spoken.
I believe that the main cause of what may be fairly termed the failure
of the majority of museums--especially museums of natural history--to
perform the functions that might be legitimately expected of them is
that they nearly always confound together the two distinct objects which
they may fulfil, and by attempting to combine both in the same
exhibition practically accomplish neither.
In accordance with which of those two objects, which may be briefly
called _research_ and _instruction_, is the main end of the museum, so
should the whole be primarily arranged; and in accordance with the
object for which each specimen is required, so should it be treated.
The specimens kept for research, for advancement of knowledge, for
careful investigations in structure and development, or for showing the
minute distinctions which must be studied in working out the problems
connected with variations of species according to age, sex, season, or
locality; for fixing the limits of geographical distribution, or
determining the range in geological time, must be not only exceedingly
numerous (so numerous, indeed, that it is almost impossible to put a
limit on what may be required for such purposes), but they must also be
kept under such conditions as to admit of ready and close examination
and comparison.
If the whole of the specimens really required for enlarging the
boundaries of zoological or botanical science were to be displayed in
such a manner that each one could be distinctly seen by any visitor
sauntering through the public galleries of a museum, the vastness and
expense of the institution would be out of all proportion to its
utility; the specimens themselves would be quite inaccessible to the
examination of all those capable of deriving instruction from them, and,
owing to the injurious effects of continued exposure to light upon the
greater number of preserved natural objects, would ultimately lose a
large part of their permanent value. Collections of this kind must, in
fact, be treated as the books in a library, and be used only for
consultation and reference by those who are able to read and appreciate
their contents. To demand, as has been ignorantly done, that all the
specimens belonging to our national museums, for instance, should be
displayed in cases in the public galleries, would be equivalent to
asking that every book in a library, instead of being shut up and
arranged on shelves for consultation when required, should have every
single page framed and glazed and hung on the walls, so that the
humblest visitor as he passes along the galleries has only to open his
eyes and revel in the wealth of literature of all ages and all
countries, without so much as applying to a custodian to open a case.
Such an arrangement is perfectly conceivable. The idea from some points
of view is magnificent, almost sublime. But imagine the space required
for such an arrangement of the national library of books, or, indeed, of
any of the smallest local libraries; imagine the inconvenience to the
real student, the disadvantages which he would be under in reading the
pages of any work fixed in an immovable position beneath a glass case;
think of the enormous distances he would often have to traverse to
compare a reference or verify a quotation, and the idea of sublimity
soon gives place to its usual antithesis. The attempt to display every
bird, every insect, shell, or plant, which is or ought to be in any of
our great museums of reference would produce an exactly similar result.
In the arrangement of collections designed for research, which, of
course, will contain all those precious specimens called “types,” which
must be appealed to through all time to determine the species to which a
name was originally given, the principal points to be aimed at are--the
preservation of the objects from all influences deleterious to them,
especially dust, light, and damp; their absolutely correct
identification, and record of every circumstance that need be known of
their history; their classification and storage in such a manner that
each one can be found without difficulty or loss of time; and, both on
account of expense as well as convenience of access, they should be made
to occupy as small a space as is compatible with these requirements.
They should be kept in rooms provided with suitable tables and good
light for their examination, and within reach of the necessary books of
reference on the particular subjects which the specimens illustrate.
Furthermore, the rooms should be so situated that the officers of the
museum, without too great hindrance to their own work, can be at hand
for occasional assistance and supervision of the student, and if
collections of research and exhibited specimens are contained in one
building, it is obvious that the closer the contiguity in which those of
any particular group are placed the greater will be the convenience both
of students and curators, for in very few establishments will it be
possible to form each series on such a scale as to be entirely
independent of the other.
On the other hand, in a collection arranged for the instruction of the
general visitor, the conditions under which the specimens are kept
should be totally different. In the first place, their numbers must be
strictly limited, according to the nature of the subject to be
illustrated and the space available. None must be placed too high or too
low for ready examination. There must be no crowding of specimens one
behind the other, every one being perfectly and distinctly seen, and
with a clear space around it. Imagine a picture-gallery with half the
pictures on the walls partially or entirely concealed by others hung in
front of them; the idea seems preposterous, and yet this is the approved
arrangement of specimens in most public museums. If an object is worth
putting into a gallery at all, it is worth such a position as will
enable it to be seen. Every specimen exhibited should be good of its
kind, and all available skill and care should be spent upon its
preservation and rendering it capable of teaching the lesson it is
intended to convey. And here I cannot refrain from saying a word upon
the sadly-neglected art of taxidermy, which continues to fill the cases
of most of our museums with wretched and repulsive caricatures of
mammals and birds, out of all natural proportions, shrunken here and
bloated there, and in attitudes absolutely impossible for the creature
to have assumed while alive. Happily there may be seen occasionally,
especially where amateurs of artistic taste and good knowledge of
natural history have devoted themselves to the subject, examples enough
to show that an animal can be converted after death, by a proper
application of taxidermy, into a real lifelike representation of the
original, perfect in form, proportions, and attitude, and almost, if not
quite, as valuable for conveying information on these points as the
living creature itself. The fact is that taxidermy is an art resembling
that of the painter, or rather the sculptor; it requires natural genius
as well as great cultivation, and it can never be permanently improved
until we have abandoned the present conventional low standard and low
payment for “bird-stuffing,” which is utterly inadequate to induce any
man of capacity to devote himself to it as a profession.
To return from this digression, every specimen exhibited should have its
definite purpose, and no absolute duplicate should on any account be
permitted. Above all, the purpose for which each specimen is exhibited,
and the main lesson to be derived from it, must be distinctly indicated
by the labels affixed, both as headings of the various divisions of the
series, and to the individual specimens. A well-arranged educational
museum has been defined as a collection of instructive labels
illustrated by well-selected specimens.
What is, or should be, the order of events in arranging a portion of a
public museum? Not, certainly, as too often happens now, bringing a
number of specimens together almost by haphazard, and cramming them as
closely as possible in a case far too small to hold them, and with
little reference to their order or to the possibility of their being
distinctly seen. First, as I said before, you must have your curator. He
must carefully consider the object of the museum, the class and
capacities of the persons for whose instruction it is founded, and the
space available to carry out this object. He will then divide the
subject to be illustrated into groups, and consider their relative
proportions, according to which he will plan out the space. Large labels
will next be prepared for the principal headings, as the chapters of a
book, and smaller ones for the various subdivisions. Certain
propositions to be illustrated, either in the structure, classification,
geographical distribution, geological position, habits, or evolution of
the subjects dealt with, will be laid down and reduced to definite and
concise language. Lastly will come the illustrative specimens, each of
which as procured and prepared will fall into its appropriate place. As
it is not always easy to obtain these at the time that they are wanted,
gaps will often have to be left, but these, if properly utilised by
drawings or labels, may be made nearly as useful as if occupied by the
actual specimens.
A public exhibition which is intended to be instructive and interesting
must never be crowded. There is, indeed, no reason why it ever should
be. Every such exhibition, whether on a large or small scale, can only
contain a representative series of specimens, selected with a view to
the needs of the particular class of persons who are likely to visit the
gallery, and the number of specimens exhibited should be adapted to the
space available. There is, therefore, rarely any excuse for filling it
up in such a manner as to interfere with the full view of every specimen
shown. A crowded gallery, except in some very exceptional circumstances,
at once condemns the curator, as the remedy is generally in his own
hands. In order to avoid it he has nothing to do but sternly to
eliminate all the less important specimens. If any of these possess
features of historical or scientific interest demanding their permanent
preservation, they should be kept in the reserve collections; if
otherwise, they should not be kept at all.
The ideal public museums of the future will, however, require far more
exhibition space than has hitherto been allowed; for though the number
of specimens shown may be fewer than is often thought necessary now,
each will require more room if the conditions above described are
carried out, and especially if it is thought desirable to show it in
such a manner as to enable the visitor to realise something of the
wonderful complexity of the adaptations which bring each species into
harmonious relation with its surrounding conditions. Artistic
reproductions of natural environments, illustrations of protective
resemblances, or of special modes of life, all require much room for
their display. This method of exhibition, wherever faithfully carried
out, is, however, proving both instructive and attractive, and will
doubtless be greatly extended.
Guide-books and catalogues are useful adjuncts, as being adapted to
convey fuller information than labels, and as they can be taken away for
study during the intervals of visits to the museum, but they can never
supersede the use of labels. Any one who is in the habit of visiting
picture-galleries where the names of the artists and the subject are
affixed to the frame, and others in which the information has in each
case to be sought by reference to a catalogue, must appreciate the vast
superiority in comfort and time-saving of the former plan.
Acting upon such principles as these, every public gallery of a museum,
whether the splendid saloon of a national institution, or the humble
room containing the local collection of a village club, can be made a
centre of instruction, and will offer interests and attractions which
will be looked for in vain in the majority of such institutions at the
present time.
One of the best illustrations of the different treatment of collections
intended for research or advancement of knowledge, and for popular
instruction or diffusion of knowledge, is now to be seen in Kew Gardens,
where the admirably constructed and arranged herbarium answers the first
purpose, and the public museums of economic botany the second. A similar
distinction is carried out in the collections of systematic botany in
the natural history branch of the British Museum, with the additional
advantage of close contiguity; indeed, as an example of a scheme of good
museum arrangement (although not perfect yet in details) I cannot do
better than refer to the upper story of the east wing of that
institution. The same principles, little regarded in former times in
this country, and still unknown in some of the largest continental
museums, are gradually pervading every department of the institution,
which, from its national character, its metropolitan position, and
exceptional resources, ought to illustrate in perfection the ideal of a
natural-history museum. In fact, it is only in a national institution
that an exhaustive research collection in all branches of natural
history, in which the specialist of every group can find his own subject
fully illustrated, can or ought to be attempted.
As the actual comparison of specimen with specimen is the basis of
zoological and botanical research, and as work done with imperfect
materials is necessarily imperfect in itself, it is far the wisest
policy to concentrate in a few great central institutions, the number
and situation of which must be determined by the population and the
resources of the country, all the collections, especially those
containing specimens already alluded to as so dear to the systematic
naturalist, known as author’s “types,” required for original
investigations. It is far more advantageous to the investigator to go to
such a collection and take up his temporary abode there, while his
research is being carried out, with all the material required at his
hand at once, than to travel from place to place and pick up piecemeal
the information he requires, without opportunity of direct comparison of
specimens.
I do not say that collections for special study, and even original
research, should not, under particular circumstances and limitations, be
formed at museums other than central national institutions, or that
nothing should be retained in provincial museums but what is of a
directly educational or elementary nature. A local collection,
illustrating the fauna and flora of the district, should be part of
every such museum; and this may be carried to almost any amount of
detail, and therefore in many cases it would be very unadvisable to
exhibit the whole of it. A selection of the most important objects may
be shown under the conditions described above, and the remainder
carefully preserved in cabinets for the study of specialists.
It is also very desirable in all museums, in order that the exhibited
series should be as little disturbed as possible in arrangement, and be
always available for the purpose for which it is intended, that there
should be, for the use of teachers and students, a supplementary set of
common objects, which, if injured, could be easily replaced. It must not
be forgotten that the zealous investigator and the conscientious curator
are often the direst antagonists: the one endeavours to get all the
knowledge he can out of a specimen, regardless of its ultimate fate, and
even if his own eyes alone have the advantage of it; the other is
content if a limited portion only is seen, provided that can be seen by
every one both now and hereafter.
Such, then, is the primary principle which ought to underlie the
arrangement of all museums--the distinct separation of the two objects
for which collections are made; the publicly exhibited collection being
never a store-room or magazine, but only such as the ordinary visitor
can understand and profit by, and the collection for students being so
arranged as to afford every facility for examination and research. The
improvements that can be made in detail in both departments are endless,
and to enter further into their consideration would lead me far beyond
the limits of this address. Happily, as I said before, the subject is
receiving much attention.
I would willingly dwell longer upon it--indeed I feel that I have only
been able to touch slightly and superficially upon many questions of
practical interest, well worthy of more detailed consideration; but time
warns me that I must be bringing this discourse to a close, and I have
still said nothing in reference to subjects upon which you may expect
some words on this occasion. I mean those great problems concerning the
laws which regulate the evolution of organic beings, problems which
agitate the minds of all biologists of the present day, and the solution
of which is watched with keen interest by a far wider circle--a circle,
in fact, coincident with the intelligence and education of the world.
Several communications connected with these problems will be brought
before the sectional meetings during the next few days, and we shall
have the advantage of hearing them discussed by some of those who, by
virtue of their special attention to and full knowledge of these
subjects, are most competent to speak with authority. It is therefore
for me rather delicate ground to tread upon, especially at the close of
a discourse mainly devoted to another question. I will, however, briefly
point out the nature of the problems and the lines which the endeavour
to solve them will probably take, without attempting to anticipate the
details which you will doubtless hear most fully and ably stated
elsewhere.
I think I may safely premise that few, if any, original workers at any
branch of biology appear now to entertain serious doubt about the
general truth of the doctrine that all existing forms of life have been
derived from other forms by a natural process of descent with
modification, and it is generally acknowledged that to the records of
the past history of life upon the earth we must look for the actual
confirmation of the truth of a doctrine which accords so strongly with
all we know of the present history of living beings.
Professor Huxley wrote in 1875: “The only perfectly safe foundation for
the doctrine of evolution lies in the historical, or rather
archæological, evidence that particular organisms have arisen by the
gradual modification of their predecessors, which is furnished by fossil
remains. That evidence is daily increasing in amount and in weight, and
it is to be hoped that the comparisons of the actual pedigree of these
organisms with the phenomena of their development may furnish some
criterion by which the validity of phylogenic conclusions deduced from
the facts of embryology alone may be satisfactorily tested.”
Palæontology, however, as we all know, reveals her secrets with no open
hand. How can we be reminded of this more forcibly than by the discovery
announced scarcely three months ago by Professor Marsh of numerous
mammalian remains from formations of the Cretaceous period, the absence
of which had so long been a source of difficulty to all zoologists? What
vistas does this discovery open of future possibilities, and what
thorough discredit, if any were needed, does it throw on the value of
negative evidence in such matters! Bearing fully in mind the necessary
imperfection of the record we have to deal with, I think that no one
taking an impartial survey of the recent progress of palæontological
discovery can doubt that the evidence in favour of a gradual
modification of living forms is still steadily increasing. Any regular
progressive series of changes of structure coinciding with changes in
time can of course only be expected to be preserved and to come again
before our eyes under such a favourable combination of circumstances as
must be of most rare occurrence; but the links, more or less perfect, of
many such series are continually being revealed, and the discovery of a
single intermediate form is often of immense interest as indicating the
path along which the modification from one apparently distinct form to
another may have taken place.
Though palæontology may be appealed to in support of the conclusion that
modifications have taken place as time advanced, it can scarcely afford
any help in solving the more difficult problems which still remain as
to the methods by which the changes have been brought about.
Ever since the publication of what has been truly described as the
“creation of modern natural history,” Darwin’s work on the _Origin of
Species_, there has been no little controversy as to how far all the
modifications of living forms can be accounted for by the principle of
natural selection or preservation of variations best adapted for their
surrounding conditions, or whether any, and if so what, other factors
have taken part in the process of organic evolution.
It certainly cannot be said that in these later times the controversy
has ended. Indeed those who are acquainted with scientific literature
must know that notes struck at the last annual meeting of this
Association produced a series of reverberations the echoes of which have
hardly yet died away.
Within the last few months also two important works have appeared in our
country, which have placed in an accessible and popular form many of the
data upon which the most prevalent views on the subject are based.
The first is _Darwinism: an Exposition of the Theory of Natural
Selection, with some of its Applications_, by Alfred Russel Wallace. No
one could be found so competent to give such an exposition of the theory
as one who was, simultaneously with Darwin, its independent originator,
but who, by the title he has chosen, no less than by the contents of the
book, has, with rare modesty and self-abnegation, transferred to his
fellow-labourer all the merit of the discovery of what he evidently
looks upon as a principle of overwhelming importance in the economy of
nature; “supreme,” indeed, he says, “to an extent which even Darwin
himself hesitated to claim for it.”
The other work I refer to is the English translation of the remarkable
_Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems_, by Dr. August
Weismann, published at the Oxford Clarendon Press, in which is fully
discussed the very important but still open question--a question which
was brought into prominence at our meeting at Manchester two years
ago--of the transmission or non-transmission to the offspring of
characters acquired during the lifetime of the parent.
It is generally recognised that it is one of the main elements of
Darwin’s, as well as of every other theory of evolution, that there is
in every individual organic being an innate tendency to vary from the
standard of its predecessors, but that this tendency is usually kept
under the sternest control by the opposite tendency to resemble them--a
force to which the terms “heredity” and “atavism” are applied. The
causes of this initial tendency to vary, as well as those of its limits
and prevailing direction, and the circumstances which favour its
occasional bursting through the constraining principle of heredity,
offer an endless field for speculation. Though several theories of
variation have been suggested, I think that no one would venture to say
we have passed beyond the threshold of knowledge of the subject at
present.
Taking for granted, however, as we all do, that this tendency to
individual variation exists, then comes the question, What are the
agents by which, when it has asserted itself, it is controlled or
directed in such a manner as to produce the permanent or apparently
permanent modifications of organic structures which we see around us? Is
“survival of the fittest” or preservation by natural selection of those
variations best adapted for their surrounding conditions (the
essentially Darwinian or still more essentially Wallacian doctrine) the
sole or even the chief of these agents? Can isolation, or the revived
Lamarckian view of the direct action of the environment, or the effects
of use or disuse accumulating through generations, either singly or
combined, account for all? or is it necessary to invoke the aid of any
of the numerous subsidiary methods of selection which have been
suggested as factors in bringing about the great result?
Any one who has closely followed these discussions, especially those
bearing most directly upon what is generally regarded as the most
important factor of evolution--natural selection, or “survival of the
fittest”--cannot fail to have noticed the appeal constantly made to the
advantage, the utility, or otherwise of special organs or modifications
of organs or structures to their possessors. Those who have convinced
themselves of the universal application of the doctrine of natural
selection hold that every particular structure or modification of
structure must be of utility to the animal or plant in which it occurs,
or to some ancestor of that animal or plant, otherwise it could not have
come into existence; the only reservation being for cases which are
explained by the principle which Darwin called “correlation of growth.”
Thus the extreme natural selectionists and the old-fashioned school of
teleologists are so far in agreement.
On the other hand, it is held by some that numerous structures and
modifications of structures are met with in nature which are manifestly
useless; it is even confidently stated that there are many which are
positively injurious to their possessor, and therefore could not
possibly have resulted from the action of natural selection of
favourable variations. Organs or modifications when in an incipient
condition are especially quoted as bearing upon this difficulty. But
here, it seems to me, we are continually appealing to a criterion by
which to test our theories of which we know far too little, and this
(though often relied upon as the strongest) is, in reality, the weakest
point of the whole discussion.
Of the variations of the form and structure of organic bodies we are
beginning to know something. Our museums, when more complete and better
organised, will teach us much on this branch of the subject. They will
show us the infinite and wonderful and apparently capricious
modifications of form, colour, and of texture to which every most minute
portion of the organisation of the innumerable creatures which people
the earth is subject. They will show us examples of marvellously
complicated and delicate arrangements of organs and tissues in many of
what we consider as almost the lowest and most imperfectly organised
groups of beings with which we are acquainted. But as to the use of all
these structures and modifications in the economy of the creatures that
possess them, we know, I may almost say, nothing, and our museums will
never teach us these things. If time permitted I might give numerous
examples in the most familiar of all animals, whose habits and actions
are matters of daily observation, with whose life-history we are as well
acquainted almost as we are with our own, of structures the purposes of
which are still most doubtful. There are many such even in the
composition of our own bodies. How, then, can we expect to answer such
questions when they relate to animals known to us only by dead
specimens, or by the most transient glimpses of the living in a state of
nature, or when kept under the most unnatural conditions in confinement?
And yet this is actually the state of our knowledge of the vast majority
of the myriads of living beings which inhabit the earth. How can we,
with our limited powers of observation and limited capacity of
imagination, venture to pronounce an opinion as to the fitness or
unfitness for its complex surroundings of some peculiar modification of
structure found in some strange animal dredged up from the abysses of
the ocean, or which passes its life in the dim seclusion of some
tropical forest, and into the essential conditions of whose existence we
have at present no possible means of putting ourselves in any sort of
relation?
How true it is that, as Sir John Lubbock says, “we find in animals
complex organs of sense richly supplied with nerves, but the functions
of which we are as yet powerless to explain. There may be fifty other
senses as different from ours as sound is from sight; and even within
the boundaries of our own senses there may be endless sounds which we
cannot hear, and colours as different as red from green of which we have
no conception. These and a thousand other questions remain for solution.
The familiar world which surrounds us may be a totally different place
to other animals. To them it may be full of music which we cannot hear,
of colour which we cannot see, of sensations which we cannot conceive.”
The fact is that nearly all attempts to assign purposes to the varied
structures of animals are the merest guesses and assumptions. The
writers on natural history of the early part of the present century, who
“for every why must have a wherefore,” abound in these guesses, which
wider knowledge shows to be untenable. Many of the arguments for or
against natural selection, based upon the assumed utility or equally
assumed uselessness of animal and vegetable structures, have nothing
more to recommend them. In fact, to say that any part of the
organisation of an animal or plant, or any habit or instinct with which
it is endowed, is useless, or even injurious, seems to me an assumption
which, in our present state of knowledge, we are not warranted in
making. The time may come when we shall have more light, but infinite
patience and infinite labour are required before we shall be in a
position to speak dogmatically on these mysteries of nature--labour not
only in museums, laboratories, and dissecting-rooms, but in the homes
and haunts of the animals themselves, watching and noting their ways
amid their natural surroundings, by which means alone we can endeavour
to penetrate the secrets of their life-history. But until that time
comes, though we may not be quite tempted to echo the despairing cry of
the poet, “Behold, we know not anything,” a frank confession of
ignorance is the most straightforward, indeed the only honest position
we can assume when questioned on these subjects.
However much we may be convinced of the supreme value of scientific
methods of observation and of reasoning, both as mental training of the
individual and in the elucidation of truth and advancement of knowledge
generally, it is impossible to be blind to the fact that we who are
engaged with the investigation of those subjects which are commonly
accepted as belonging to the domain of physical science are
unfortunately not always, by virtue of being so occupied, possessed of
that most precious gift, “a right judgment in all things.”
No one intimately acquainted with the laborious and wavering steps of
scientific progress (I can answer at least for one branch of it) can
look upon that progress with a perfect feeling of satisfaction.
Can it be said of any of us that our observations are always accurate,
the materials on which they are based always sufficient, our reasoning
always sound, our conclusions always legitimate? Is there any subject,
however limited, of which our knowledge can be said to have reached
finality?
Or if it happens to any of us as to
A man who looks at glass
On it may stay his eye,
Or if he pleases through it pass
And then the heavens espy,
are not those heavens which are beyond the immediate objects of our
observation coloured by our prejudices, pre-possessions, emotions, or
imagination, as often as they are defined by any profound insight into
the depth of nature’s laws? In most of these questions an open mind and
a suspended judgment appear to me the true scientific position,
whichever way our inclinations may lead us.
For myself, I must own that when I endeavour to look beyond the glass,
and frame some idea of the plan upon which all the diversity in the
organic world has been brought about, I see the strongest grounds for
the belief, difficult as it sometimes is in the face of the strange,
incomprehensible, apparent defects in structure, and the far stranger,
weird ruthless savagery of habit, often brought to light by the study of
the ways of living creatures, that natural selection, or survival of the
fittest, has, among other agencies, played a most important part in the
production of the present condition of the organic world, and that it is
a universally acting and beneficent force continually tending towards
the perfection of the individual, of the race, and of the whole living
world.
I can even go farther and allow my dream still thus to run:
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill....
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy’d,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.
II
MODERN MUSEUMS[2]
The Museums Association is one of the youngest of the numerous social
organisations which it is thought expedient at the present day to
constitute, in order to give facilities for the interchange of ideas on
subjects interesting to a special group of men. It is, indeed, only in
the fourth year of its existence, and this is the first time that a
meeting has been held in London, the centre in which are gathered the
great national collections, and in which reside so considerable a number
of persons engaged in their custody. The association claims York as its
birthplace, and Liverpool, Cambridge, and Manchester have in succession
afforded it hospitality and enjoyed the advantage of its presence.
We all meet with one object in view. We are all impressed with the
value--with the necessity, I should say--of the Museum (using the word
in its widest sense, as a collection of works of art and of nature) in
the intellectual advance of mankind.
How could art make any progress, how could it even exist, if its
productions were destroyed as soon as they were created, if there were
no museums, private or public, in which they could be preserved and made
available to mankind now and hereafter? How could science be studied
without ready access to the materials upon which knowledge is built up?
In many branches of science the progress is mainly commensurate with the
abundance and accessibility of such materials.
Though the first duty of museums is, without question, to preserve the
evidence upon which the history of mankind and the knowledge of science
is based, any one acquainted with the numerous succession of essays,
addresses, lectures, and papers, which constitute the museum literature
of the last thirty years, must recognise the gradual development of the
conception that the museum of the future is to have for its complete
ideal, not only the simple preservation of the objects contained in it,
but also their arrangement in such a manner as to provide for the
instruction of those who visit it. The value of a museum will be tested
not only by its contents, but by the treatment of those contents as a
means of the advancement of knowledge. Though this is the general
consensus of opinion, as expressed in the literature just referred to,
there is naturally still much divergence as to the best methods by which
this ideal may be carried out, and there are still many practical
difficulties to be overcome before the views so ably advocated on paper
can be reduced to the test of actual performance. It is with a hope of
assisting in the solution of these difficulties that this Association
has been founded.
If in the few words with which I am expected to preface the real work of
the meeting I shall be found to dwell too exclusively upon the subject
of natural history museums, I must apologise to many friends and members
of the Association who are present. It must be distinctly understood
that under the word museum we include collections of all kinds formed
for the advancement of any branch of knowledge, except those specially
devoted to books, which already are cared for by the “Library
Association”--on the model of which ours was formed. I hope that in our
papers at this meeting and in future presidential addresses we shall
have all branches of museum work fairly represented.
It is my fate to have been born what is commonly called a “naturalist.”
I hardly remember the time when I was not a possessor of a museum, but
it always took a distinctly biological direction. Hence, although by no
means unappreciative of other branches of museum work, I shall confine
myself chiefly to that part of the subject upon which I can speak from
personal experience. Even in this branch, time will compel me to limit
myself to observations upon some of the larger questions connected with
our subject, leaving details for discussion in our subsequent meetings.
One great difference between the work of the curator of an art museum
and that of one devoted to what are called natural history subjects, is
that in the case of the former the specimens he has to preserve and
exhibit come into his hands very nearly in the condition in which they
will have to remain. A picture, a vase, a piece of old armour, or a
statue, beyond a certain amount of tender care in cleaning and
repairing, which is more or less mechanical in its nature, is ready for
its place upon the museum shelves. But this is far from being the case
with the greater number of natural objects. Not only do they require
special methods of preservation, but very often their value as museum
specimens depends entirely upon the skill, labour, patience, and
knowledge expended upon them. In specimens illustrating biological
subjects the highest powers of the museum curator are called forth. A
properly-mounted animal or a carefully-displayed anatomical preparation
is in itself a work of art, based upon a natural substratum. In few
branches of museum work has there been greater progress in late years
than in this, and few offer still further scope for development.
Partly from this cause, and partly from the fact that art has for a
longer period and to a greater degree engaged the attention of civilised
man than nature, the methods of preservation, arrangement, and
exhibition of works of art are on the whole further advanced than are
those of natural objects. But no one can deny that there is still in
many galleries devoted to the exhibition of works of art of various
kinds great room for improvement. There is generally far too great
crowding; too many objects so placed that the tallest man cannot see
them properly, even when standing on tiptoe; too many others placed so
low that they can only be examined by lying down on the floor; too many
completely spoiled by the juxtaposition of incongruous objects, or by
unsuitable settings. It is only in a very few public museums (I may
instance, as a conspicuous example, the splendid museum of antiquities
at Naples) that the immense advantage to be gained by ample space and
appropriate surroundings in aiding the formation of a just idea of the
beauty and interest of each specimen contained in it can be properly
appreciated. Correct classification, good labelling, isolation of each
object from its neighbours, the provision of a suitable background, and
above all of a position in which it can be readily and distinctly seen,
are absolute requisites in art museums as well as in those of natural
history. Nothing detracts so much from the enjoyment and advantage
derived from a visit to a museum as the overcrowding of the specimens
exhibited. The development of the new museum idea, to be spoken of later
on, will be one way by which this can be remedied in the public
galleries; but if museums are what they ought to be, and what I venture
to believe they will be in the future, the question of space on a
considerably larger scale than has hitherto been thought of will have to
be faced. This is of course mainly a matter of expense, and after all
but a small matter compared with expenditure now considered necessary in
other directions. There are persons who think the country made a
tremendous effort in building so much as is yet finished of the new
Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Road, and shake their heads at
the expenditure asked for either to complete that establishment by the
erection of the wings at the sides, or to finish the neighbouring South
Kensington Museum in such a manner as worthily to hold its collections,
both of art and science. Others would grudge the further expansion of
the magnificent series of treasures of ancient and mediæval art in the
British Museum at Bloomsbury, of which the country has such just reason
to be proud. Let such persons consider that the largest museum yet
erected, with all its internal fittings, has not cost so much as a
single fully-equipped line-of-battle ship, which in a few years may be
either at the bottom of the sea, or so obsolete in construction as to be
worth no more than the materials of which it is made. Not that I am
deprecating the building of ships necessary for our protection, but
rather wishing to show that the cost of such museums as are still
required for the proper education of the nation is not such as would
produce any sensible impression upon its financial position.
I may make a still more apposite comparison, and point to the vast sums
of money spent by this nation upon the whole subject of education now
and a few years ago. The total estimate for what is called “Class IV.,
Education, Science, and Art,” for the financial year 1883-84, amounted
to £4,748,556. In ten years it has grown to nearly double that amount,
the estimate for 1893-94 being £9,172,216, the increase being mainly due
to what is termed “Public Education.” The amount spent upon the
development of museums is comparatively insignificant. The British
Museum vote (including the library and the natural history branch) has
only increased during the same decade from £146,019 to £157,500.[3] The
cost of the various museums maintained by the Science and Art Department
shows little appreciable augmentation, except in the case of that at
Dublin, where I am glad to see £19,035 is now put down instead of the
£13,602 of the former period. Compared with the whole amount expended
upon other methods of education, national expenditure upon museums and
art galleries is at present very small.
In reference to this subject one cannot help considering how much might
have been done if only a moderate portion of that large sum of money
obtained a few years ago by the tax on brewers, and handed over to the
County Councils to spend in promoting technical education, had been used
for erecting museums, which might have taken a permanent place in the
education of the country. Every subject taught, in order to make the
teaching real and practical, should have its collection, and these
various collections might all have been associated in the county museum
under the same general management. The staff of teachers would assist in
the curatorial work, and thus a well-equipped central college for
technical education might have been formed in every county, sending out
ramifications into the various districts in which the need of special
instruction was most felt, and being also the parent of smaller branch
museums of the same kind wherever they seem required.
But it is not only in the buildings that the expense of the museums of
the future will have to be met. Another great advance must be made
before they can be placed upon a satisfactory footing, and perform the
functions that can be legitimately expected of them. This is in the
elevation of the position and acquirements of those who have the care of
them. As I have said on a previous occasion, “What a museum really
depends upon for its success and usefulness is not its building, not its
cases, not even its specimens, but its curator.”
Speaking in the presence of a number of gentlemen who are curators of
museums, do not let me be misunderstood. I do not mean that you are not
zealous in the cause and make great sacrifices for it, and do all you
can under the often difficult circumstances in which you are placed; but
what I mean is--and I am sure you will one and all agree with me when I
say it--you are not properly appreciated by the public, and the
importance and difficulties of your position are by no means
sufficiently understood.
In a civilised community the necessities of life, to say nothing of
luxuries (which we do not ask for), but the bare necessities of a man of
education and refinement, who has to associate with his equals, and
bring up his children to the life of educated and refined people,
involve a certain annual expenditure, and the means afforded by any
occupation for this necessary expenditure give a rough and ready test of
the appreciation in which such occupation is held.
Now, a curator of a museum, if he is fit for his duties, must be a man
of very considerable education as well as natural ability. If he is not
himself an expert in all the branches of human knowledge his museum
illustrates, he must be able to understand and appreciate them
sufficiently to know where and how he can supplement his own
deficiencies, so as to be able to keep every department up to the proper
level. His education, in fact, must be not dissimilar to that required
for most of the learned professions. Skill, manual dexterity, and good
taste are also most valuable. He must, in addition, if he is to be a
success in his vocation, possess various moral qualifications not found
in every professional man--punctuality, habits of business, conciliatory
manners, and, above all, indomitable and conscientious industry in the
discharge of the small and somewhat monotonous routine duties which
constitute so large a part of a curator’s life. Such being the
requirements of the profession, let us see what are the inducements
offered to men to take it up as a means of livelihood. I really am sorry
to have to speak of such a sordid subject, but I know it is one you
naturally shrink from talking of yourselves. You would be the last
people in the world to take the remedy, now so often resorted to by
other classes, into your own hands. A strike of curators is hardly to be
contemplated. Remember, also, that I am not speaking of this subject in
your interest, or the interests of any individuals. Whether any of you
personally should have your emoluments, your social position, your
opportunities for good, improved, is not now with me an object of
concern: it is in the interest of that great question, the advance of
the museum as a means of educating, cultivating, and elevating mankind,
that I am speaking--an advance that can only be effectively made when
the curatorship of a museum is looked upon as an honourable and
desirable profession for men of high intellectual acquirements.
Let me take a few examples of the inducements to enter this profession
at the present time. I have before me some recent advertisements. The
curator of the Museum of the Philosophical and Literary Society of one
of the largest and most flourishing of our manufacturing cities is
offered £125 a year for his services. In another town, smaller and less
wealthy, it is true, “a resident curator, meteorological observer, and
caretaker, is wanted for the museum and library buildings, at a salary
of £50 per annum, with rooms, coal, and gas. Applicants are to state age
and _scientific_ qualifications.”
In a recent newspaper discussion upon the establishment of a museum in
one of the midland counties, after it had been pointed out that one of
the prime necessities of such an institution was a provision for the
maintenance of a curator, a leading gentleman of the district, a zealous
and sympathetic advocate of the cause, perfectly acquiescing in this
view, suggested that £100 a year should by all means be set aside for
this purpose!
It is frequently my lot to be consulted by anxious parents of sons who
develop a taste for museum work, as to what such a taste will lead to if
cultivated. I need hardly say that, however much I may wish our ranks to
be recruited by such enthusiastic aspirants,--boys often of great
ability and promise,--I cannot conscientiously offer much encouragement.
The best I can say is, that I hope things will be better in the future
than they are at present. As far as the Metropolitan museums are
concerned there has been some improvement, and I think that indications
are not wanting that this improvement will continue and extend.
I have referred at the beginning of this address to the great amount of
recent literature upon the museum question, consisting largely of
depreciation of the old ways of arranging museums, of suggestions for
their improvement in the future, and mainly of the development of what
may be called _the new museum idea_. What this idea is was tersely
expressed nearly thirty years ago by the late Dr. John Edward Gray in
his address to the British Association at Bath (1864) as President of
Section D, when near the close of his long career as administrator of a
collection which by his exertions he had made the largest of the kind in
the world. Dr. Gray laid down the axiom that the purposes for which a
museum was established were two--“first, the diffusion of instruction
and rational amusement among the mass of the people, and, secondly, to
afford the scientific student every possible means of examining and
studying the specimens of which the museum consists.” He then continued:
“Now, it appears to me that in the desire to combine these two objects,
which are essentially distinct, the first object--namely, the general
instruction of the people--has been to a great extent lost sight of and
sacrificed to the second without any corresponding advantage to the
latter, because the system itself has been thoroughly erroneous.”
This was a remarkable admission, coming from a man who had been brought
up in, and had acted throughout the greater part of his life upon, the
old idea; but it clearly expressed what was then beginning to be felt
by many who turned their unbiassed attention to the subject, and it is
the keynote of nearly all the museum reform of recent date. During the
long discussion which followed, the new idea found powerful advocates in
Huxley, Hooker, Sclater, Wallace, and others; but Owen, whose official
position made him the chief scientific adviser in the construction of
the new National Museum of Natural History, never became reconciled to
it, and, unfortunately, threw all the weight of his great authority into
the opposite scale.
The method of application of this principle depends entirely upon the
general nature of the museum, whether that of a nation, a town, a
school, or a society or institution established to cultivate some
definite branch of knowledge. It is mainly of national museums that I am
speaking at present, and it is only in national museums that the
fulfilment of both functions in fairly equal proportions can be
expected. In almost all other museums the diffusion of knowledge, or
popular education, will be the primary function; and if the true
principles of arrangement of such museums be once grasped, this is a
function which can be carried out upon the largest or the smallest, or
any intermediate scale, according to the means of the institution and
the requirements of the locality.
The collections for the advancement of science, on the other hand, are
of value mainly in proportion to their size, and no museum at present
existing has come anywhere near what is required for the exhaustive
study of natural history. If any one were now to endeavour to write a
complete monograph of any family in the animal kingdom, he would search
in vain for materials for doing so, not only in any one museum, but in
all the museums in the world put together.
Soon after the arrival in our National History Museum of the great and
carefully selected and labelled collection of Indian birds, presented by
Mr. A. O. Hume, containing upwards of 60,000 specimens, a well-known
ornithologist commenced the volumes devoted to birds in the excellent
series of manuals on the fauna of British India, edited by Mr. Blanford.
I am told that when he began the work, he was seen sitting at his table
rubbing his hands with delight at the prospect of success in his
labours guaranteed by such an unprecedented mass of material. But after
a few weeks the scene had changed. He was pacing up and down the room,
wringing the same hands in despair at the hopelessness of solving the
tangled problems of the variation according to age, sex, season, and
locality, the geographical distribution, and the limits and relationship
of any single species, owing to the absolutely insufficient number of
properly authenticated specimens at his command. Every zoologist will
recognise this as a scarcely exaggerated description of what he meets
with at every step of his work. Except, perhaps, for some special and
limited groups, which may be taken up in private collections, a national
museum alone can possibly attempt to bring together the materials
required for such exhaustive work; but it is undoubtedly the duty of all
national museums to endeavour to do this. There should be, in every
great nation, one establishment at least where such problems may be
attacked with some prospect of success, and the only conditions upon
which collections for this purpose can be maintained are, that they
should be so arranged as to occupy the smallest possible space
compatible with their proper preservation and convenience of access,
that they should be removed from all the deteriorating influences of
light and dust, and at the same time be perfectly available for the
closest examination by all those whose knowledge is sufficient to enable
them to extract any information from them. This means that they cannot
be _exhibited_ in the ordinary sense of the word; although it must not
be supposed that they are on that account in less need of orderly and
methodical arrangement. There is certainly a danger of collections which
are not generally exhibited becoming neglected, and degenerating into
the condition of mere accumulations of rubbish. Anything of the kind is
absolutely incompatible with the true requirements of specimens kept for
research. They specially need to be arranged in an orderly and
methodical manner, and to be thoroughly well catalogued and labelled, so
that each may be found directly it is wanted, and they must be
frequently inspected to see that they are free from moth or other
deleterious influence. The object of keeping them in this condition is,
indeed, that they should be preserved and not destroyed, as ultimately
happens to so many exhibited specimens. Much curatorial ingenuity may be
exercised in the methods of stowing and arranging such specimens to the
best advantage. The conditions of access to them will be precisely those
now accorded to books or manuscripts in a library, prints and drawings
in an art museum, or the records and public documents in the Rolls
Office or Somerset House.
As the actual comparison of specimen with specimen is the basis of
zoological and botanical research, and as work done with imperfect
materials is necessarily imperfect in itself, it is far the wisest
policy to concentrate in a few great central institutions, the number
and situation of which must be determined by the population and
resources of the country, all the collections which are required for the
prosecution of original research. These are especially those containing
author’s types or the actual specimens upon which species have been
established, and which must be appealed to through all time to settle
vexed questions of nomenclature. It is far more advantageous to the
investigator to go to such a collection, and take up his temporary abode
there while his research is being carried out, with all the material at
his hand at once, than to travel from place to place and pick up
piecemeal the information he requires, without opportunity of direct
comparison of the specimens one with another.
On the other hand, in local museums such collections are not only not
required, but add greatly to the trouble and expense of the maintenance
of the institution, without any compensating advantage. Here it will be
the duty of the curator to develop the side of the museum which is
educational and attractive to the general visitor and to all who wish to
obtain that knowledge which is the ambition of many cultivated persons
to acquire without becoming specialists or experts. The study of the
methods by which such museums may be made instructive and interesting
offers an endless field for experiment and discussion, and the various
problems connected with it are treated of not only in the literature I
have referred to, but in a more practical manner in many museums in
various parts of the world.
Without pursuing this question further at the present time, I should
like to repeat, from a previous address on the same subject,[4] certain
propositions which are fundamental in the arrangement of collections of
the class of which I am now speaking.
The number of the specimens must be strictly limited, according to the
nature of the subject to be illustrated and the space available. None
must be placed either too high or too low for ready examination. There
must be no crowding of specimens one behind the other, every one being
perfectly and distinctly seen, and with a clear space around it. If an
object is worth putting into a gallery at all, it is worth such a
position as will enable it to be seen. Every specimen exhibited should
be good of its kind, and all available skill and care should be spent
upon its preservation, and rendering it capable of teaching the lesson
it is intended to convey. Every specimen should have its definite
purpose, and no absolute duplicate should on any account be admitted.
Above all, the purpose for which each specimen is exhibited, and the
main lesson to be derived from it, must be distinctly indicated by the
labels affixed, both as headings of the various divisions of the series
and to the individual specimens.
These are the principles of what may be called the New Museum idea as
applied to national museums of natural history. It is a remarkable
coincidence that since they were first enunciated, and during the time
of their discussion, but before they had met with anything like
universal acceptance, the four first nations of Europe almost
simultaneously erected in their respective capitals--London, Paris,
Vienna, and Berlin--entirely new buildings, on a costly, even palatial
scale, to receive the natural history collections, which in each case
had quite outgrown their previous insufficient accommodation. In the
construction of neither of these four edifices can the guardians of the
public purse be accused of want of liberality. Each building is a
monument in itself of the appreciation of the government of the country
of the value and interest of the natural history sciences. So far this
is most satisfactory. Now that each is more or less completed, at all
events for the present, and its contents in a fair way towards a
permanent arrangement, it may not be without interest on the present
occasion to give some comparative account of their salient features,
especially with a view to ascertain whether and to what extent their
construction and arrangement have complied with the requirements of the
modern idea of such institutions.
It may seem ungrateful to those who have so liberally responded to the
urgent representations of men of science by providing the means of
erecting these splendid buildings, to suggest that if they had all been
delayed for a few years the result might have been more satisfactory.
The effects of having been erected in what may be called a transitional
period of museum ideas is more or less evident in all, and all show
traces of compromise, or rather adaptation to new ideas of structures
avowedly designed for old ones. In none, perhaps, is this more
strikingly shown than in our own,--built, unfortunately, before any of
the others, and so without the advantages of the experience that might
have been gained from their successes or their shortcomings. Though a
building of acknowledged architectural beauty, and with some excellent
features, it cannot be taken structurally as a model museum, when the
test of adaptation to the purpose to which it is devoted is rigidly
applied. But to speak of its defects is an ungracious and uncongenial
task for me. If it were not taking me too far away from my present
subject I would rather speak of the admirable manner in which the staff
are endeavouring to carry out the new idea under somewhat
disadvantageous circumstances.
The new zoological museum in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris is a
glorification of the old idea pure and simple. It consists of one huge
hall, with galleries and some annexes, in which every specimen is
intended to be exhibited, more or less imperfectly, on alternate
periods, to students and to the general public. The building and cases
are very handsome in style, and there are endless rows of specimens of
all kinds neatly mounted in a uniform manner. There are no store-rooms,
no laboratories, no workrooms, connected with the building. These are
all in other more or less distant parts of the establishment, separated
from it in most cases by the whole breadth of the garden. Of course this
can only be looked upon as a temporary condition of affairs. Fortunately
there is still room on the site of the old museum behind the new
building, and if this is utilised by erecting upon it a commodious set
of workrooms, laboratories, rooms for reserve collections, and
administrative offices directly in connection with each other and with
the main building, which might then be emptied of a considerable portion
of its contents, an extremely good working museum may be evolved. But if
this space, as I believe was the original design, is used for the
further extension of the already disproportionately large public
galleries, the opportunity will be lost.
The new museums at Vienna, the one for natural history, the other for
art, placed one on each side of a handsome public garden in one of the
most important quarters of the city, exactly alike in size and
architectural features, are elegant buildings, and present many
excellent features of construction. The natural history museum, which
was alone finished when I visited Vienna three years ago, is a
quadrilateral structure with a central court, and consists of three
stories and a basement. Each story is divided into a number of
moderately-sized rooms, opening one into another, so that by passing
along in the same direction the visitor can make an inspection in
systematic order of all the collections arranged in each story,
returning to the point from whence he started; or, if need be, breaking
off at the middle, where a passage of communication runs across the
central court. An admirable feature in the design of this museum is,
that the public galleries of each story, lighted by windows from the
outside of the building, have on their inner side other rooms
communicating with them, and lighted from the court within, which are
devoted to the private studies of the curators and to the reserve
collections belonging to the same series as the exhibited collections in
the public galleries, with which they are in connection. Thus the
public collections, the reserve collections, and the officers in charge,
are in each section of the museum brought into close relation--a most
advantageous arrangement, and one greatly facilitating the new museum
idea. The only drawback is that these rooms, occupying the inner side of
the quadrangular range of galleries, are necessarily small, and, as the
collections grow, will be found insufficient for the purpose. This has,
in fact, already proved to be the case in several departments, and a
remedy has been found by devoting the whole upper story of the building
to the reserve collections of insects, shells, and plants, and the
working library of the institution,--an arrangement which gives
excellent accommodation for these important departments, at all events
for the present. A great difficulty will, however, arise in the future
owing to the building being externally architecturally complete and
visible on all four sides from the public grounds in which it stands; it
therefore admits of no extension, and the public galleries already
contain as many specimens as can possibly be placed in them with any
advantage. These are in most sections, especially the invertebrata,
displayed in an extremely tasteful and instructive manner, but the
series is by no means over-large for a national museum. The limitation
of space is partly due to the somewhat singular division which has been
made between the art and the natural history collections. Instead of
taking the dividing line adopted at the British Museum between specimens
in a state of nature and those fashioned by man’s hand, the pictures,
the splendid collection of European mediæval armour, the classical and
Egyptian antiquities, are treated as works of art; but the so-called
ethnological collection, containing the specimens of Mexican, Peruvian,
Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, African, and prehistoric European art,
are placed in the Natural History Museum, taking up a large portion of
the space which the curators of the zoological, mineralogical, and
geological departments hoped to have had at their disposal for the
display of their specimens. Whether room could have been found for them
in the Art Museum or not, I cannot say; but certainly their actual
position is incongruous, and it is difficult to understand why a
Peruvian mummy should find its place in a building professedly devoted
to natural history, while the preserved remains of the ancient Egyptians
are treated as works of art.
Before leaving Vienna I should like to refer to the splendid specimens
of taxidermy by the artist Hodek, the choicest examples of whose work
are contained in a special collection, occupying a small separate room,
consisting of sporting trophies of the late Crown Prince, Rudolph.
Otherwise the general level of the specimens in the galleries is in no
wise remarkable. The birds have the advantage of being mounted, not upon
turned wooden stands of uniform pattern as in Paris, but upon pieces of
natural tree branches, fixed in square or oblong oak-stands. The
exhibited specimens of vertebrate zoology include skeletons, but no
other anatomical preparations, of which there is a distinct collection
in the University Museum. The exhibited fishes and reptiles are
exceedingly well preserved and mounted in spirit. In the Mollusca,
Articulata, Echinoderms, and Corals, great care has been taken in
setting the specimens off to advantage by selecting appropriate colours
for backgrounds. Specimens in spirit are interspersed in their proper
places. All have printed labels. The cases in which they are displayed
are of oak, and of very handsome and even ornamental construction.
The arrangement of all these collections displays a most intelligent
appreciation of the needs of the ordinary visitor. Thus in the room
appropriated for the exhibition of insects there are three distinct
series--a general systematic series, a morphological series, and a very
fine special collection of the insects of the neighbourhood of Vienna.
The other rooms are arranged more or less on similar principles. The
main collection of insects is, as I have mentioned before, entirely
apart in rooms very well adapted to the purpose, in the upper floor of
the building, and kept as usual in drawers in cabinets.
The zoological portion of the new museum for “Naturkunde,” in Berlin,
situated in the Invaliden Strasse, is a remarkable illustration of the
complete revolution of ideas on museum arrangement, which took place
between its commencement and its completion. The building, entirely
designed upon the old system, came empty into the hands of the present
director, who has arranged the contents absolutely upon the new method.
It consists of a fine glass-covered hall, and three stories of
galleries, all originally intended for a uniform exhibition of all the
various groups of specimens which had accumulated in the crowded rooms
of the old museum in the University. When Dr. Möbius succeeded to the
directorate, he conceived the bold plan of limiting the public
exhibition to the ground floor, and devoting the two upper stories
entirely to the reserve or working collections. This was a step which
required some courage to take, especially as the two great staircases,
which are the principal ornamental architectural features of the
building, have by it become practically useless. Except, of course, for
certain inconveniences always resulting from adaptation of a building to
purposes not originally contemplated, especially local disjunction of
different series of the same groups, the result has been eminently
satisfactory; and if the arrangement is completed upon the lines laid
down by the Director, as explained to me on my last visit, this will be
the most practical and conveniently arranged museum of natural history
at present existing. As much attention appears to be bestowed upon
making the exhibited portion attractive and instructive, as on making
the reserve collections complete and accessible to workers. In the
former, the characteristics of the native fauna were being specially
developed. For instance, the fish collection (of which the individual
specimens are beautifully displayed in spirit, fastened on to glass
plates in flat-sided jars) consists of a general representative
systematic series, and three special faunistic collections, one of the
German freshwater fishes, one of the north and east sea fishes, and one
of the Mediterranean fishes. One room is devoted to German mammals and
birds, and the recently added specimens show indications of an
improvement in taxidermy which would have been impossible in the old
days of wholesale bird-stuffing. Excellently prepared anatomical
specimens, diagrams, explanatory labels, and maps showing geographical
distribution, are abundantly introduced among the dried specimens of
which such collections are usually composed, and a commencement has been
made of illustrations of habits and natural surroundings. On the other
hand, in marked contrast to Vienna, everything in the way of
architecture and furniture and fittings is severely plain and practical,
and a uniform drab colour is the pervading background for all kinds of
specimens. All danger from fire seems to have been most carefully
guarded against. The floors are of artificial stone, the cases, and even
the shelving, are constructed of glass and iron. Wood is almost entirely
excluded, both in the structure and fittings. The ground floor, as I
have said, is entirely devoted to the public exhibition, the first story
to the reserve collection of vertebrates, and the upper story to the
invertebrates; and the basement contains commodious rooms for unpacking,
mounting, preparing skeletons, etc. The construction of the building
allows of considerable extension backwards, whenever more space will be
needed, at small cost and with little interference with existing
arrangements. I should also mention that the zoological department of
the University, with its admirably appointed laboratories and lecture
rooms, and excellent working collections for teaching purposes, is in
immediate contact with the museum, and the two institutions, though
under different direction, are thus brought into harmonious
co-operation.
Any one who wishes to compare and contrast the two systems upon which a
national zoological museum may be arranged cannot do better than visit
Paris and Berlin at the present time. He will see excellent
illustrations of the best of both.
Of the museums of the United States of America much may be expected.
They are starting up in all directions, untrammelled by the restrictions
and traditions which envelop so many of our old institutions at home,
and many admirable essays on museum work have reached us from the other
side of the Atlantic, from which it appears that the new idea has taken
firm root there. In Mr. Brown Goode’s lecture on “The Museums of the
Future” (Report of the National Museum, 1888-89) it is said: “In the
National Museum in Washington the collections are divided into two great
classes,--the exhibition series, which constitutes the educational
portion of the museum, and is exposed to public view with all possible
accessories for public entertainment and instruction; and the study
series, which is kept in scientific laboratories, and is scarcely
examined except by professional investigators. In every properly
constructed museum the collections must, from the very beginning, divide
themselves into these two classes, and in planning for its
administration provision should be made not only for the exhibition of
objects in glass cases, but for the preservation of large collections
not available for exhibition, to be used for the studies of a very
limited number of specialists.”
The museum of comparative zoology at Harvard, founded by the late Louis
Agassiz, and now ably administered and extended by his son, Alexander
Agassiz, is a conspicuous example of the same method of construction and
arrangement. But as I can say nothing of these from personal knowledge,
I am obliged to leave out any further reference to them on the present
occasion.
From what has just been said it will be gathered that in Europe, at
least, an ideal natural history museum, perfect in original design as
well as in execution, does not exist at present. We have indeed hardly
yet come to an agreement as to the principles upon which such a building
should be constructed. But as there are countries which have still their
national museums in the future, and as those already built are
susceptible of modifications, when the right direction has been
determined on, I should be glad to take this opportunity of putting on
record what appears to me, after long reflection on the subject, the
main considerations which should not be lost sight of in such an
undertaking.
In the first place, I have endeavoured to work out in detail, in its
application to natural history, that most original and theoretically
perfect plan for a museum of exhibited objects in which there are two
main lines of interest running in different directions and intersecting
each other, which we owe to the ingenuity of General Pitt-Rivers. This
was explained in his address as President of the Anthropological Section
of the British Association at Bath in 1888, and again in a lecture given
about two years ago before the Society of Arts.[5] Upon this plan the
museum building would consist of a series of galleries in the form of
circles, one within the other, and communicating at frequent intervals.
Each circle would represent an epoch in the world’s history, commencing
in the centre and finishing at the outermost, which would be that in
which we are now living. The history of each natural group would be
traced in radiating lines, and so by passing from the centre to the
circumference, its condition of development in each period of the
world’s history could be studied. If, on the other hand, the subject for
investigation should be the general fauna or flora of any particular
epoch, it would be found in natural association by confining the
attention to the circle representing that period. By such an
arrangement, that most desirable object, the union of palæontology with
the zoology and botany of existing forms in one natural scheme, could be
perfectly carried out, as both the structural and the geological
relations of each would be preserved, and indicated by its position in
the museum. Such a building would undoubtedly offer difficulties in
practical construction; but even if these could be got over, our
extremely imperfect knowledge of the past history of animal and plant
life would make its arrangement, with all the gaps and irregularities
that would become evident, so unsatisfactory that I can scarcely hope to
see it adopted in the near future.
I have therefore brought before you a humbler plan, but one which, I
think, will be found to embody the practical principles necessary in a
working museum of almost any description, large or small.
The fundamental idea of this plan is that the whole of the building
should be divided by lines intersecting at right angles, like the warp
and the woof of a piece of canvas.
The lines in one direction (see Plan, next page) divide the different
natural sections of which the collection is composed, and which it is
convenient to keep apart; the lines crossing these separate the portions
of the collection according to the method of treatment or conservation.
Thus, the exhibited part of the whole collection will come together in a
series of rooms, occupying naturally the front of the building. The
reserve collections will occupy another, or the middle, section; and
beyond these will be the working rooms, studies, and administrative
offices, all in relations to each other, as
[Illustration]
well as to the particular part of the collection to which they belong. A
glance at the plan will show at once the great convenience of such a
system, both for the public, and still more for those who work in the
museum.
This plan, of course, contemplates a one-storied, top-lighted building,
as far as the main rooms are concerned, although the workrooms and
studies will be in two or more stories. The main rooms should all have a
good substantial gallery running round them, by means of which their
wall space is doubled. There is no question whatever that an
evenly-diffused top light is far the best for exhibition rooms. Windows
not only occupy the valuable wall space, but give all kinds of
uncomfortable cross lights, interspersed with dark intervals. On the
other hand, for doing any kind of delicate work, a good north light from
a window, as provided in the plan, is the most suitable. The convenience
of having all the studies in relation with each other, and with the
central administrative offices, while each one is also in close
contiguity with the section of the collection to which it belongs, will,
I am sure, be appreciated by all who are acquainted with the
capriciously scattered position of such rooms in most large museums,
notably in our own. Among other advantages would be the very great one,
that when the daily hour of closing the main building arrives, the
officers need no longer, as at present, be interrupted in whatever piece
of work they may have at hand, and turned out of the building, but, as
arrangements could easily be made for a separate exit, they could
continue their labours as long and as late as they find it convenient to
do so, without any fear for the safety of the general collections.
It will be observed that provision is made for a central hall, which is
always a good architectural feature at the entrance of a building, and
which in a large museum is certainly useful in providing for the
exhibition of objects of general interest not strictly coming under any
of the divisions of the subject in the galleries, or possibly for
specimens of too great a size to be conveniently exhibited elsewhere.
There is also provision in the central part of the building for the
refreshment-rooms, as well as for the library and a lecture room, the
first being an essential, and the latter a very useful adjunct to any
collection intended for popular instruction, even if no strictly
systematic teaching should be part of its programme.
I may point out, lastly, as a great advantage of this plan, that it can
be, if space is reserved or obtainable, indefinitely extended on both
sides on exactly the same system without in any way interfering with the
existing arrangements; a new section, containing exhibition and reserve
galleries and studies, can be added as required at either end, either
for the reception of new departments, or for the expansion of the old
ones. With a view to the latter it is most important that the fittings
should be as little as possible of the nature of fixtures, but should
all be so constructed as to be readily removable and interchangeable.
This is a point I would strongly impress upon all who are concerned in
fitting up museums, either large or small.
The modifications of this plan, to adapt it to the requirements of a
municipal, school, or even village museum, will consist mainly in
altering the relative proportion of the two sections of the collection.
The majority of museums in country localities require little, if
anything, beyond the exhibition series. In this the primary arrangement
to be aimed at is, first, absolutely to separate the archæological,
historical, and art portions of the collection from the natural history,
if, as will generally be the case, both are to be represented in the
museum. If possible they should be in distinct rooms. The second point
is to divide each branch into two sections: (1) a strictly limited
general or type collection, arranged upon a purely educational plan; (2)
a local collection, consisting only of objects found within a certain
well-defined radius around the museum, which should be as exhaustive as
possible. Nothing else should be attempted, and therefore reserve
collections are unnecessary. Even the insects and dried plants can be
exhibited on some such plans as those adopted for the Walsingham
collection of Lepidoptera in the Zoological Department, or the
collection of British plants in the Botanical Department of our Natural
History Museum.
I have elsewhere indicated my views as to the objects most suitable for,
and the best arrangement of them in, school museums,[6] so I need say
nothing further on the subject now. Indeed, I fear I have exhausted your
patience, so I will conclude by expressing an earnest hope that this
meeting may prove a stimulus to all of us to continue heartily and
thoroughly at our work, which I hardly need say is the only way to
ensure that general recognition of it which we all so much desire.
III
LOCAL MUSEUMS[7]
Attention has already been directed, in several letters which have
recently appeared in the newspapers, to the desirability of a central
institution in which the numerous historical documents and objects of
interest connected with the county might not only be preserved from
destruction, but also made available for study and reference. Many of
these, which may be considered trifles now, will be of great value in
after time, as illustrating the history and mode of life of generations
passed or passing away. Many customs change with great rapidity, and all
evidences of their existence disappear, or only remain in literary
allusions, often difficult to understand without actual illustrations.
Take for instance the old flint and steel and brimstone match, the
universal source of illumination in even my early days. Most living
people, accustomed to the daily use of one of the greatest triumphs of
applied science, know nothing of the difficulties their grandfathers had
to contend with in supplying this most necessary want of common life. I
doubt if many of our generation were to see the old apparatus, whether
they would know what it was for or how used, and though one must have
existed in every cottage in the county fifty years ago, it is possible
that it would be very difficult to procure one, even for a museum, at
the present time. The candle-snuffers, without which we could not exist
in my childhood, are now as extinct as the Dodo. Take again the
threshing-flail, an instrument in universal use, with little change for
thousands of years, now rapidly disappearing in many districts; or the
stocks, once such an important social institution in rural life, but of
which I know now only one in the neighbourhood of Aylesbury,--that which
still remains in the picturesque village of Dinton. Specimens of all
these, and many others which will readily suggest themselves, should be
preserved in every local museum.
Then again, the natural history, the birds, the butterflies, the wild
flowers, and the fossils and minerals of the neighbourhood, so arranged
and named that any one can identify every creature or plant he may
chance to meet with in his walk, are essential features in a local
museum.
But now let me give a necessary warning. There are museums and museums.
A good one well arranged, and well kept, clean, neat, and attractive,
may be the means of conveying instruction and giving interest and
pleasure to the lives of thousands of our fellow-creatures. But such
museums do not grow of themselves; money, time, knowledge, and loving
and sympathetic care must be expended upon them, both in their
foundation and their maintenance, and unless all these can be provided
for with tolerable certainty, it is useless to begin. Voluntary
assistance is, no doubt, often valuable. There are many splendid
examples of what it may do in country museums, but it can never be
depended on for any long continuance. Death or removals, flagging zeal,
and other causes tell severely in the long run against this resource. A
museum must have an endowment adequate to defray its expenses, and
especially to ensure the staff of intelligent, educated, and paid
curators required to maintain it in a state of efficiency. You might as
well build a church and expect it to perform the duties required of it
without a minister, or a school without a schoolmaster, or a garden
without a gardener, as to build a museum and not provide a competent
staff to take care of it.
It is not the objects placed in a museum that constitute its value, so
much as the method in which they are displayed, and the use made of them
for the purpose of instruction.
The scope of the museum should be strictly defined and limited; there
must be nothing like the general miscellaneous collection of all kinds
of “curiosities,” thrown indiscriminately together which constituted the
old-fashioned country museum. I think we are all agreed as to the local
character predominating. One section should contain antiquities and
illustrations of local manners and customs; another section local
natural history, zoology, botany, and geology. The boundaries of the
county will afford a good limit for both. Everything not occurring in a
state of nature within that boundary should be rigorously excluded. In
addition to this, it may be desirable to have a small general collection
designed and arranged specially for elementary instruction in science.
This part might be brought into connection with the technical
instruction given in the county, and will be a valuable--indeed, a
necessary adjunct to it. Every branch of such instruction should have
its special collection of objects to illustrate it; the teaching will
then be made far more real and practical than it otherwise would be.
Agricultural chemistry and geology, dairy-farming, fruit-growing, and
such like subjects, might each have its collection. And these various
collections, though kept quite distinct, in different rooms if possible,
might be all associated in the County Museum and under the same general
management. Thus some of the funds devoted by the county to the purposes
of technical education might most profitably assist in the formation and
maintenance of the County Museum; indeed, I think myself that if a
portion of this money had been in the first place directly allocated to
the endowment of a museum in each county more good would have been done
for the advancement of education than by most of the schemes at present
under discussion. At any rate, the classrooms and laboratories required
for the teaching now contemplated should be associated with the museum,
if possible under the same roof, and the staff of teachers should assist
in the curatorial work, thus forming a sort of central college in every
county for technical education, which might send out ramifications into
the various districts in which the need of special instruction was most
felt, and also might be the parent of smaller branch museums of the same
kind wherever they seem required.
This is the kind of institution which I hope will, before long, be
established in every county in the land. The marvellous spread of
state-supported and rate-supported libraries which has taken place
during the last few years appears to be only the prelude to museums
supported in the same way. The underlying idea of a library and a museum
is precisely the same. They are both instruments of intellectual
culture, the one as much as the other. We have this illustrated on a
magnificent scale in our great National Library and Museum in London.
Before long a well-arranged and well-labelled museum will be
acknowledged as a necessity in any well-considered scheme of educational
progress. The museum and library will go hand in hand as essential
complements to each other in the advancement of science and art, and
intellectual development generally. A book without illustrations is of
comparatively little value in teaching many of the most important
subjects now comprised in general education. A museum should be a book
or rather library of books, illustrated not by pictures only, but by
actual specimens of the objects spoken of. The great principle of
expending public money upon purposes of education, though a
comparatively new one, is now conceded upon all sides. The cost of
supporting really efficient museums in all our principal local centres
would be but a trifling addition to the millions spent upon other
methods (some probably of far less value) of educating and elevating the
people. But in all cases let us remember, as Professor Brown Goode, the
Director of the United States National Museum, in an admirable essay on
“The Museums of the Future,” says, “One thing should be kept prominently
in mind by any organisation which intends to found and maintain a
museum, that the work will never be finished, that when the collections
cease to grow they begin to decay. A finished museum is a dead museum,
and a dead museum is a useless museum.”
IV
SCHOOL MUSEUMS[8]
Having lately been asked by Dr. Warre, Head Master of Eton, to give him
some assistance in the fitting up, arrangement, and management of the
museum about to be inaugurated at that College, I put down some notes
which he was pleased to think might be of use in pointing out the lines
that should be followed with most advantage. As these notes are equally
applicable to other school museums, I venture to publish them for the
information of those who may be in a position to profit by them,
premising that they are mere outlines, which are susceptible of much
elaboration in detail, and of some modifications, according to special
circumstances.
The subjects best adapted for such a museum are zoology, botany,
mineralogy, and geology.
Everything in the museum should have some distinct object, coming under
one or other of the above subjects, and under one or other of the series
defined below, _and everything else should be rigorously excluded_. The
curator’s business will be quite as much to keep useless specimens out
of the museum as to acquire those that are useful.
The two series or categories under which the admissible specimens should
come are the following:--(1) Specimens illustrating the teaching of the
natural history subjects adopted in the school, arranged in the order in
which the subjects are, or ought to be, taught. (2) Some special sets of
specimens of a nature to attract boys to the study of such branches of
natural history as readily lie in the path of their ordinary life,
especially their school life, and to teach them some of the common
objects they see around them.
The specimens of the first class should be all good of their kind,
carefully prepared and displayed, and fully labelled. They should also
be so arranged that they can be seen and studied without being removed
from their position in the case or in any way disturbed or damaged. It
would be best that they should never be taken out of the museum, but if
it is necessary to remove them for the purpose of demonstration at
lectures or classes, special provision should be made by which a whole
tray or case can be moved together, with due precautions against
disturbing the individual specimens. As a rule, the teachers should
either bring the classes into the museum for demonstrations, or they
should rely upon a different set of specimens kept in store in the
classrooms, and only brought out when required, and which may be handled
and examined without fear of injury. Really good permanent preparations
may be looked at, but not touched except by very skilled hands.
In zoology the collection should consist of illustrations of the
principal modifications of animal forms, living and extinct, a few
selected typical examples of each being given, showing the anatomy and
development as well as the external form. The series now in the course
of arrangement in the Central Hall of the Natural History branch of the
British Museum in the Cromwell Road may, as far as it is complete, be
taken as a guide, but for a school museum it will not be necessary to
enter so fully into detail as in that series.
In botany there should be a general morphological collection, showing
the main modifications of the different organs in the greater groups
into which the vegetable kingdom is divided, and illustrating the terms
used in describing these modifications. Such a collection may also be
seen (although still far from complete) in the same institution.
For a teaching collection of minerals, an admirable model has for
several years past been exhibited in the Mineralogical Gallery of the
Natural History Museum, being, in fact, the various paragraphs of Mr.
Fletcher’s _Introduction to the Study of Minerals_ cut up, and with each
statement illustrated by a choice specimen.
The geological collection would best be limited mainly to a series
illustrating the rocks and characteristic fossils of the British Isles,
arranged stratigraphically. There would be no difficulty in making such
a series on any scale, according to the space available, and if well
selected and arranged, it would be extremely instructive and form a
complete epitome of the whole subject. It should be placed in a
continuous series along one side of the room, beginning with the oldest
and ending with the most recent formations. It might be preceded by some
general specimens illustrating the various kinds of rock structures,
etc.
Mineral and fossil specimens are generally to be procured as wanted from
the dealers, and as they require little or no preparation, collections
illustrating these subjects can be quickly made, if money is available
for the purpose. This is not, however, the case with zoological and
botanical specimens, most of which require labour, skill, and knowledge
to be expended upon their preparation before they can be preserved in
such a manner as to make them available for permanent instruction.
We will next proceed to consider what objects may be included under the
second head, many of which need not be constantly exhibited, but may be
preserved in drawers for special study. These may be--
(1) A well-named collection of the commoner British insects, especially
those of the neighbourhood in which the school is situated, with their
larvæ, which should (if means will allow) be mounted on models of the
plants upon which they feed. All should have their localities and the
date of capture carefully recorded. These are best kept in a cabinet,
with glass-topped drawers, with a stop behind, so as to allow them to be
pulled out for inspection, but not entirely removed. Such a collection,
formed of specimens prepared and presented by Lord Walsingham, can now
be seen in the British Room of the Natural History Museum.
(2) A similar collection of British shells, especially the land and
freshwater shells of the neighbourhood.
(3) If space and means allow, a collection of British birds, especially
the best-known and more interesting species. Rare and occasional
visitors, reckoned in the books as British, which are the most expensive
and difficult to procure, are the least important for such a collection.
Variations in plumage in young and old, and at different seasons, should
be shown in some common species. Every specimen must be good and well
mounted, or it is not worth placing in the museum.
(4) The principal British mammals of smaller size, especially the bats,
shrews, and mice.
(5) The British reptiles, Amphibia, and commoner fishes, so shown that
their distinctive characters may be recognised.
(6) A collection, as complete as may be, of British plants, or at all
events of the plants of the neighbourhood. By far the best way of
preserving and exhibiting such a collection is in glazed frames, movably
hinged upon an upright stand, as may be seen in the Botanical Gallery of
the Natural History Museum. A collection arranged in this manner should
find a place in every school museum of natural history.
(7) A collection of the fossils found in the quarries of the
neighbourhood, should there be any.
Every collection or series should be kept perfectly distinct from and
independent of the others, and its nature and object clearly indicated
by a conspicuous label.
The exhibited specimens should be arranged in upright wall-cases or in
table-cases on the floor of the room. For the latter a high slope is
preferable, and in all the exhibition space should not extend too high
or too low for comfortable inspection. Between three to six or seven
feet from the floor should be the limits for the exhibition of small
objects. The three feet nearest the floor may be enclosed with wooden
doors forming cupboards or fitted with drawers. Glass in this situation
is liable to be broken by the feet or knees.
The museum should have a permanent curator--a man of general scientific
attainments, and who is specially acquainted with, and devoted to,
museum work, and who might also be one of the teachers, if too much of
his time is not so occupied. But, as he is not likely to have special
knowledge of more than one branch of natural history, the teachers of
the other branches represented in the museum would probably each give
advice and assistance with regard to his own department. It is also
probable that some of the boys may be sufficiently interested in the
work to render valuable aid in collecting and preparing specimens.
If ethnographical, archæological, historical, or art collections be also
part of the general museum scheme, they should be kept quite distinct
from the natural history collections, preferably in another room.
Above all things, let the following words of Agassiz be remembered: “The
value of a museum does not consist so much in the number as in the order
and arrangement of the specimens contained in it.”
V
BOYS’ MUSEUMS[9]
It is a strange and interesting fact in human nature that among
thousands of boys who do not take the slightest interest in anything
pertaining to what is commonly called “Natural History,” there are here
and there, at all events among all cultivated nations, some few to whom
it is an absorbing passion, affording more delight than anything else in
life. Very often this is only a passing phase, affecting boys chiefly
between the ages of fourteen and sixteen, and then entirely dying away,
but with some it persists through life, materially modifying the whole
course of existence. This curious condition of mind, or “idiosyncrasy”
as physicians call it, is not confined to particular races or nations;
the Japanese have it as well as Europeans and Americans. Nor is it
limited to any particular position in the social or educational scale.
No one could have had it in a more intense form than the poor Scotch
shoemaker, Thomas Edward, child of some of the humblest people of the
land, whose biography by Samuel Smiles I presume all readers of this
magazine are acquainted with. On the other hand, there have been few
keener naturalists and collectors than the late Crown Prince Rudolf of
Austria, and in England at the present time few, if any, can yield in
this respect to the heir of the wealthy house of Rothschild, the owner
of the finest private zoological museum in the world.
One great peculiarity of this condition of mind is that, though it does
occasionally run in families, more often it arises as it were
spontaneously in one member of a family, without any inherited
predisposition or any external circumstance, as far as is known, leading
to it. Indeed, it is often most strongly developed when the
circumstances seem most adverse, and where no encouragement whatever has
been given to pursue it. I am especially in a position to become
acquainted with all the symptoms of what I may call this affection, as
from my official position fathers and mothers of boys attacked by it
continually consult me as to how the inclination or passion for natural
history should be treated in view of the future career of the
boy--whether it should be peremptorily suppressed, or whether and in
what direction it should be developed, and above all, what are the
prospects of its leading to obtaining a livelihood. Having a strong
sympathy with boys of such tastes, I have generally availed myself of
the opportunity of a little talk with them, and have given them such
advice as seemed best in the particular case. As to natural history as
the regular occupation of one who has no other means of living, I have
little to say that is favourable, as it is about the worst paid and
least appreciated of all professions. The only thing that I can say for
it is that the prospects are brightening, surely if slowly, both in
Europe and America. It is, I firmly believe, a profession of the future.
The only way to judge of what is coming is to look back at the past, and
note the changes that have been recently and are still taking place. The
opportunities for pursuing natural history with some sort of
remuneration, small as they are, are undoubtedly greater now than they
were twenty or thirty years ago.
With the general spread of education, lectureships, demonstratorships,
and curatorships are every year becoming more numerous, and there is no
reason to suppose that this excellent state of things will not continue.
But still, before advising any one to take up natural history as a
profession, I must be convinced of his really intense and abiding
interest in the subject, and of his zeal and determination to pursue it
at whatever sacrifice of ease or comfort, his readiness “to scorn
delights and live laborious days” in fact. Some boys seem to be so
devoted to it as to be incapable of applying themselves to anything
else. If this is really the case, I generally advise parents to let
them go on if possible, giving them the best education in the subject
that is available, and letting them take their chance of obtaining an
appointment when they are fit for one. The difficulty with such cases is
that to pursue natural history with any chance of profit in these days a
considerable knowledge of other subjects, especially modern languages,
is absolutely indispensable. The continually-increasing amount of
scientific literature which must be taken account of in every branch of
natural history has much changed the conditions of study required for
it, as has also the growing tendency to give appointments solely on the
results of competitive examination. In no case would I discourage the
taste altogether, but I more often advise some other means of making a
living, holding on to natural history as a recreation and relaxation. To
a soldier or sailor, for instance, a love of natural history is the
greatest possible blessing, and still more to the man of independent
fortune. They are often saved by it from all kinds of evil which want of
wholesome occupation engenders. Their life becomes a continuous delight,
instead of being a burden to themselves and others. Especially to those
mainly engaged in absorbing money-making pursuits, the refreshment of an
occasional excursion into the realms of nature need not be insisted on.
It is perfectly obvious to all who have ever had an opportunity of
observing it.
With an early love of natural history is almost always associated a love
of collecting, and probably there is no better way of becoming familiar
with a subject than by making a collection of objects illustrating it.
The value of all knowledge depends a great deal upon the amount of
labour and time spent in acquiring it. The easy methods of which we make
too much boast in the present day, handbooks, pictures, lectures,
well-arranged public museums, etc., have their drawbacks and snares as
well as their advantages. They are all helps if properly used, but they
will not supersede, and nothing will ever supersede, the downright hard
personal work by which all solid, lasting knowledge must be gained. The
value of making a collection of any kind of specimens about which you
wish to know something is that you are forced to spend time and thought
over them, to look at them, carefully to prepare them and compare them,
to arrange and name them. In proportion as a collection has had all this
done to it will be its value. That a museum depends for its utility, not
upon its contents, but upon the mode of arrangement of its contents, is
now a trite saying. An ill-arranged museum has been well compared to the
letters of the alphabet tossed about indiscriminately, meaning nothing;
a well-arranged one to the same letters placed in such orderly sequence
as to produce words of counsel and instruction. Far more, however, than
the intrinsic value of the collection, in the case of the beginner, is
its value as a means of education to the owner. The arrangement of a
collection not only teaches the nature and properties of the objects
contained in it; it also stimulates a desire to know more of the similar
objects not contained in it, but to be found in other and larger
collections. Still more important than this, as an educator, it calls
out many valuable practical qualities: originality, order, neatness,
perseverance, taste, power of discriminating small differences and
resemblances, all of which will be found useful in other spheres of
life.
It matters less what are the contents of a museum than that there should
be some definite object in bringing them together. To be a mere
“snapper-up of unconsidered trifles” is not forming a museum. The
subject chosen to be illustrated by the specimens collected should not
be of indefinite extent, but have some natural limit. This alone will
enable the collector to attain to the highest goal in the happiness of
his occupation: the filling in of all the vacant spaces when the
framework of his collection is completed. The richer a series is, the
greater joy there is in adding to it what still remains wanting. Limits
to collections of natural history objects are of two kinds. Either a
particular natural group of animals or plants may be selected, as
shells, butterflies, mosses, seaweeds, etc., or any subdivision of these
great groups; or else the products of particular localities, preferably
of course that in which the collector lives, may only be regarded. A
combination of these two methods of limitation will generally lead to
the most manageable and profitable amateur museum. Suppose, for
instance, our young friend were to set himself the task of collecting
and preserving all the fossils or all the land and freshwater shells, or
all the birds’ eggs, or all the beetles, to be found within a radius,
say, of ten miles round his dwelling-place, what a fund of knowledge he
would acquire not only of the appearance of the individual specimens,
but of their natural surroundings and habits! And what delightful
rambles he would have in the open air, with eyes and ears intently
appreciative of all the varied beauties of the lovely world in which we
dwell, lost, unfortunately, to so many who pass through it with none of
these interests and pleasures!
Although a collection, with a definite object, of specimens obtained,
prepared, and arranged by one’s self is the ideal of a boy’s museum, I
do not say that the possession of a few miscellaneous articles, which
are sure to be given by kind friends as soon as the taste for possessing
them is recognised, may not sometimes be an advantage, especially as a
help in stimulating inquiry and knowledge. My first “museum” was, as I
recollect, very much of this nature. It was contained in a large, flat,
shallow box with a lid, and I made cardboard trays which filled and
fitted the bottom of the box, and kept the various specimens separate.
Everything was carefully labelled, and there was also a manuscript
catalogue in a copy-book. No boy should ever be allowed to keep any sort
of museum without a catalogue in which the history of every specimen and
the date at which it came into his possession are carefully entered.
When the box was outgrown it was superseded by a small cabinet with
drawers, then by a cupboard; but before I had left the parental home for
college, an entire small room was dignified by the name of my “museum.”
It was the love of curatorship which thus grew up within me, without the
remotest external influence or inherited predisposition towards it, as
none of my relatives had any interest in such pursuits, that determined
my after career, and led to such success as I have met with in it. My
boyish fondness for dissecting animals and preparing their skeletons at
that time could find no nearer outlet in any academic career than in the
pursuits of a medical student; and the anatomical museum of my college
was at first to me a much greater subject of interest than the wards of
the hospital--so much so in fact, that while still in my second year of
studentship the curatorship falling vacant, I was asked to undertake the
office. Here I was in my glory, and although later on the more practical
work of the surgical profession had its attractions also,--attractions
which at one time nearly carried me off into the stream of London
hospital practice,--I finally returned to the old love, and through a
succession of fortunate incidents, the museum under my care, instead of
the one little box with which I began, is now the largest, most
complete, and magnificently housed in the world.
I need hardly say that in all my subsequent career I have always looked
back at my early attempts at curatorial work with especial satisfaction.
The educational power of all work done when young can never be
overestimated. The sooner knowledge is acquired the more valuable it is.
You have it so much longer and it becomes so much more a part of
yourself. One of the first specimens I possessed was a little stuffed
bird with a brown back and white underneath, and a very short tail. I
saw it in the window of a pawnbroker’s shop in my native town,
Stratford-on-Avon. I often passed the shop, and looked at it with wonder
and admiration. At last I summoned up courage to ask its price. “Three
pence,” was the answer. This was a serious consideration; but the
financial difficulty being overcome, I carried the bird home in triumph.
Having access to a copy of Bewick’s _British Birds_, I identified it as
the dipper or water ousel, and even learnt its scientific name, _Cinclus
aquaticus_. It was wretchedly stuffed. Though more than fifty years have
passed since I saw it last, for during an absence at school, it, with
many other treasures, fell into places where “moth and rust do corrupt,”
its appearance is still fixed in my mind’s eye, with its hollow back and
crooked legs sticking out of impossible parts of its body; but I was not
then so critical as I have since become. My only reason for mentioning
it is because that bird became part of my permanent stock of
ornithological knowledge, and ever since, whether by a mountain stream
in the Highlands of Scotland, or a rocky river in the Harz or Thuringian
Forests in Germany, when I see a dipper flitting over the rushing water
or diving beneath the surface, it seems an old familiar friend of my
childhood.
Another specimen of which I have a very vivid recollection was labelled
in the handwriting of the kind donor, “Bone from Kirkdale Cave,
Yorkshire.” It was given to me by an old gentleman who lived in the
neighbourhood, and whose large collection of geological specimens was a
great delight to me to look over. It was a perfectly valueless fragment
from a scientific point of view, not having characters enough to
identify the animal to which it belonged, being little more in fact than
a chip from the surface of a long bone, of which thousands were found in
the cave. But it woke up a train of interest in me, leading to the whole
subject of caves and their bygone inhabitants, and the reading of
Buckland’s _Reliquiæ Diluvianæ_; while ever since Kirkdale Cave has
stood out among all other caves, with a sort of romantic halo conferred
upon it in my mind by the present of that fragment of bone with all its
early associations. These are only two instances out of any number I
could tell of the ways in which a boy’s museum may become a source of
knowledge and of interest that may last through life.
VI
ADDRESS AT THE OPENING OF THE BOOTH MUSEUM AT BRIGHTON[10]
We are assembled in a room that contains a collection in many respects
unequalled by any other in the world. In the first place, it has been
entirely the work of one man in a life of no great length,--he had only
reached the age of fifty when he died,--but who devoted an extraordinary
amount of energy and perseverance, and also expended a very considerable
amount of money, in making it as perfect as possible of its kind. You
must not suppose for a moment that Mr. Booth was the only man who ever
made a collection of British birds. Birds have always been favourites,
and the birds of our own islands, though far less remarkable for form,
size, and brilliancy of plumage than those of other lands, have for many
reasons been peculiarly attractive. The national pride which causes us
to love our countrymen better than foreigners includes birds as well as
other bipeds. It has, therefore, been the aim of many public museums, as
well as private lovers of natural history, to make as complete a
collection of British birds as possible. But it is one thing to have a
collection adapted and conveniently arranged for reference and study by
the learned ornithologist, or consisting of as many specimens as can be
crammed into the smallest space they could occupy, without regard to
their condition or their order, and quite another thing to have a
collection under such circumstances and so arranged as to convey the
fullest possible amount of information and instruction, and to excite
the greatest possible interest in the minds of those who, like the
majority of us, are not in a position to devote any large portion of
our scanty leisure to their study. For this latter purpose I have no
hesitation in saying it would be difficult to imagine a collection so
complete, and so admirably arranged and displayed, as the one in which
we are. I purposely avoid comparison with the beautiful series, showing
the nesting habits of birds, now being arranged in the National Museum
in London under the supervision of Dr. Günther, because the objects of
the two are in many respects different, as are also the methods in which
they have been carried out. We must recollect that this collection was
formed by one who was an intense lover of bird-life, one who spent the
greater part of his own life, night and day, summer and winter, in
watching their manners and actions in their native haunts, and who knew
from his own keen observation exactly what were their favourite
surroundings, what kind of soil or of rock, or of tree or of flower,
each species would be most likely to be found among or near. Most
collections contain only the birds themselves. Here we have not only
birds, but the home in which the birds dwelt, most carefully and
accurately reproduced, and on such a scale and in such a manner as has
never been done anywhere before. As for the birds themselves, not only
are they the finest and best specimens of their kind that could be
procured, and in many cases showing various stages of plumage, at
different ages and different seasons of the year, but far more care,
knowledge, and artistic skill has been expended on their mounting than
is generally the case either in museums or in private collections. The
art of taxidermy, though quite an old one in Europe, extending back
certainly three or four hundred years, has made very little progress
until very recent times, and even now, though there is so great a
development of nearly all branches of art, it has had far too little
attention bestowed upon it. Very few people seem to know the difference
between a really well-mounted bird or mammal and an inferior one, but
there is as much difference between them as between a picture of a lion
by Landseer or Rosa Bonheur, and a picture of the same animal depicted
by a village artist on the sign of a public-house. And yet so little do
people understand this, that they go on filling museums and collections
with wretched examples, and continue to pay the unfortunate bird-stuffer
a miserably inadequate sum for work which should be the work of a real
artist, and which can only be done by a man who not only has devoted
great care and attention to the subject, but has also the rare gift of
inborn genius. I am very critical, indeed, as you can see, on the
subject of bird-stuffing, and I am happy to be able to say, and every
time I enter this museum it strikes me more, that the greater number of
specimens in it, though, of course, they are unequal, are admirable
specimens of the art of taxidermy. Many of them are very fine indeed,
all are above the average, and I believe there is not a single bad one
among them. The collection is eminently adapted for public instruction.
If the advantages to be derived from it were only the momentary pleasure
of looking at it here, it would be of comparatively little account, but
if properly used it may be the means of spreading knowledge and interest
which will affect the whole course of some of our lives. We all have
cares and troubles enough in our passage through this world, and we are
so often brought into contact with so much that is mean, disagreeable,
and ugly, that we ought not, for our own sakes, as well as for the sakes
of those among whom we live, to neglect any sources of joy and gladness
that might be offered to us. The man who walks through life with his
eyes open to beauty, wherever it can be found, is by so much a happier
and a more useful man than one whose eyes are closed to it. The
observation of bird-life is one among many of unfailing sources of
pleasure. We cannot walk upon our downs, or along our cliffs, or on our
sands, with our eyes open without seeing birds innumerable, though I
believe that many never do see them. This museum, however, should teach
us to see them, to know them one from another, to make them our friends
and companions, and, rightly used, it may be a source of making many
lives happier, and sweeter, and purer than they otherwise would be. For
such a collection as this ever to be dispersed or destroyed would be a
national misfortune. The Mayor has alluded to the fact that it was first
offered to the British Museum, and if I had had any idea that, if we did
not accept it, it would be destroyed or dispersed, I should have felt it
my duty to advise the Trustees to take it over. I received, however, an
intimation that the Corporation of Brighton was not only willing, but
most anxious to take charge of the collection, and to maintain it.
Although it would have been a great privilege to me to have been its
official guardian, I rejoice to think that it is going to remain here,
and that you have expressed your determination to maintain it for the
benefit of your fellow-townsmen and for visitors. The great central
national collections are the fitting repositories of many specimens of
natural objects and works of art. Such as are unique, and such as are
necessary for the researches of advanced students who require facilities
for their investigations which can only be obtained by the direct
comparison of a large series of specimens one with another, ought to be
in them. But, on the other hand, the more collections like this--adapted
for general instruction--are to be met with in other great centres of
population, the better it will be for the welfare of the country
generally. Apart from the fact that the collection was made at Brighton,
and a large number of the birds in it obtained in the immediate
neighbourhood, Brighton seems to be a particularly suitable place for
preserving a museum like this. You have a vast number of visitors, who
come for the purpose of seeking repose or health, for whom such a light,
interesting, and easy occupation as is afforded by learning what this
museum can teach, ought to be the best that can be found. It only needs
to be better known to be very much more widely appreciated than it has
been hitherto. In conclusion, I feel sure that I am expressing the
feelings of friends around me who are interested in the advancement of
the Natural History sciences, and of many more who are unable on account
of other engagements to be present, in thanking the Mayor and
Corporation for asking us to come to this interesting meeting, and in
congratulating them on possessing such a valuable addition to the many
attractions of the town.
VII
THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND[11]
While thinking over various subjects for an address with which to open
the business of the Section over which I have the honour to preside, it
has occurred to me that the time which has been allotted by the
arrangements of the Congress for the purpose may be made most useful to
my hearers if, instead of entering upon a discussion of any abstract
question, I were to ask your attention to a subject upon which I may
possibly be able to give a little information of practical use to
members of the Congress during their visit to this city.
No class of persons can appreciate so fully the importance and value of
museums as those whose occupation it is to study the form and relations
of the various parts of the body, whether of plants, animals, or man.
Our science would make little progress if the objects of our inquiries,
once used for examination or description, were then thrown aside, and
those coming after were denied the opportunity of which we have availed
ourselves. A museum is a register, in a permanent form, of facts,
suitable for examination, verification, and comparison one with another.
Hence, ever since serious attention has been awakened to the interest of
anatomical studies, museums have always been important adjuncts to their
successful prosecution, and the preservation of the various structures
of the body has occupied the attention of very many anatomists, since
the time of the great Italian teachers of the early part of the
seventeenth century, with whom apparently the art commenced.
We have in London, as you are all aware, a museum which stands, in some
respects, in a peculiar position, differing perhaps from any in the
world in its origin, its scope, its method of maintenance, and its
relation to the profession and to the State, in which, for very nearly
twenty years, it has been my privilege to pass my days. It has occurred
to me that a few words in explanation of the history, arrangement, and
contents of that museum might add to the interest and profit of those
visits which I trust every one here will find time to pay to it during
the meeting of the Congress.
The great mind of John Hunter, far in advance of his age--and, it may
be, even of ours--saw at one glance the vast importance of biological
science, and the best means to further its pursuit. To this end he
founded his museum, and directed by his will that it should always be
maintained in its integrity. Wherever civilised men are gathered
together, there are now minds who feel what Hunter felt. The wants of
such minds have created in every country in Europe, and the enlightened
parts of the New World, museums designed to serve in their different
degrees the same functions as our Hunterian collection. Such museums are
evidently national needs; they have already come, though not by any
means to the extent they will in future come, to be looked upon as an
essential portion of the educational machinery of the State. Such
museums are, in almost every capital of Europe, supported directly at
the expense of the State, or are connected with some great educational
institution dependant upon Government for aid. In England alone the need
has been supplied first by a private individual, and secondly by a
private, or semi-private institution, composed of members of a single
profession, with only occasional assistance from the State. In this
country the State (and therefore every individual composing it) is
indebted to John Hunter and the Royal College of Surgeons for relieving
it of the burden which must otherwise have fallen upon it, of providing
that portion of the national education afforded by a biological museum.
The period occupied by John Hunter in the formation of his collection
was all comprised between thirty years--1763, the date of his return
from service with the army in Portugal, and 1793, that of his death. The
labour which he accomplished during this time was something prodigious,
as has often been recounted in various biographies and Hunterian
“orations.” Notwithstanding all that has been written and said, it is
impossible to do justice to his wonderful activity and industry. In
nothing, however, were these qualities so conspicuous as in the
formation of his museum.
Public museums in his time scarcely existed. The British Museum was
little more than a library and gallery of art; the small cabinet of
natural history, reinforced by the old collection of the Royal Society,
scarcely made any show. Anatomical specimens, even bones and teeth, were
looked upon with disfavour. Some that had accidentally found their way
into the collection were, even within the present century, treated as
intruders, and turned out without much ceremony.
Teachers of anatomy were forming their own private collections, but
these were all eclipsed by those of the two Hunters, William and John.
That of the latter especially grew to such an extent as to become in
some sort a national and public institution. He built a large room to
contain it in Castle Street, at the back of his house in Leicester
Square, and when finally arranged there, so much interest was taken in
it that he found it necessary to open it to public inspection at certain
stated times. Still it was maintained entirely at his own cost, and it
is stated that by the time of his death he had spent upwards of £70,000
upon it. Whether this estimate be correct or not, his expenditure on it
must have been very great, as though he had for many years made one of
the largest professional incomes in London, his museum was the sole
property he left behind.
John Hunter was a very miscellaneous collector--minerals, coins,
pictures, ancient coats of mail, weapons of various dates and nations,
and other so-called “articles of _vertu_,” engaged his attention. These,
however, and his furniture and books, had to be sold to meet the most
pressing needs of the family. What would be now called the “biological”
part of his collection was kept intact, during the six years which
elapsed between his death and its purchase by the English Government in
1799. The preservation of the collection during this period is mainly
due to the devotion of William Clift, Hunter’s last assistant, whose
services were retained for this purpose at a very small salary by the
executors, Sir Everard Home and Dr. Matthew Baillie, and whose fidelity
was rewarded by his being appointed the first “Conservator” of the
collection after it came into the possession of the College of Surgeons.
The story of the negotiations with a Government whose interests and
energies were then concentrated upon the great Continental war, and the
answer of the Prime Minister Pitt, when applied to on the subject,
“What! buy preparations! Why, I have not money enough for gunpowder,”
are well known. These difficulties were, however, overcome, and on the
recommendation of a committee of the House of Commons, appointed to
inquire into the subject, the sum agreed to by the executors, viz.,
£15,000, was voted for its purchase on the 13th of June 1799. Then came
the question what was to be done with it. There was at that time no
department of Government under the care of which such a collection could
be placed. The condition of the British Museum has been already alluded
to. The now flourishing and all-absorbing “Department of Science and
Art” had not been invented. There was one body in London which might be
supposed to have some special interest in the maintenance of such a
collection,--the venerable and dignified College of Physicians,--but
that body, it is commonly reported, demurred to accept it on the ground
of want of funds to meet the annual expense of its maintenance. With
reference to this report, Dr. Pitman has been kind enough, in response
to my inquiries, to examine the archives of the College, and finds that
there is no record of any such offer having been made or refused. If any
negotiations were entered into, they must, therefore, have been of a
purely informal nature.
There was still another corporate body--a comparatively obscure one at
that time--the Corporation of Surgeons, which had only separated itself
some fifty-four years before from the old City Company of Barbers and
Surgeons,[12] and although it had thrown off the connection which
restrained its members from assuming the position of cultivators of a
liberal profession, it had as yet done little to raise itself in public
estimation, and had few resources from which to provide for the expenses
of such a collection. Nevertheless, the Court of the Corporation
determined by an unanimous vote on 23rd December 1799 to accept the
museum on the terms proposed by the Government, and almost
simultaneously obtained a new charter, under which it became “The Royal
College of Surgeons,” a body accredited by Government to examine all
persons wishing to practise surgery in the kingdom, and migrated from
its old quarters in the City to the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, round
which the present establishment has grown up.
Thus John Hunter’s museum and the College of Surgeons of England, though
of entirely independent origin, have had their fortunes inextricably
intermixed, since the former became national property, and the latter
took the title and position it now holds.
The College is still the principal examining body for those who practise
surgery throughout the kingdom. It takes no part directly in
professional education, though it exercises a considerable indirect
influence by the manner of conducting its examinations, and by the
curriculum it requires from candidates. Its revenues are mainly derived
from the fees paid for the diplomas which it grants, which, for the last
ten years, have averaged 383 a year. In former times these fees
considerably exceeded the expenses of the comparatively slight
examination required from candidates, and the surplus, besides defraying
the current expenses of the Museum and Library, was devoted to the
erection of the present buildings, and the acquisition of the freehold
property and invested capital of the College. It says much for the
personal disinterestedness of the eminent members of the surgical
profession who have constituted the Court of Examiners, and who until
very lately were practically the ruling body of the College, that they
fixed their own remuneration at so low a rate as to permit an
expenditure during the present century upon the purposes just indicated,
of a sum which cannot be estimated at less than £400,000. Now, owing to
the more searching and practical character of the examinations, the
expenses of conducting them have augmented to such an extent as to be
scarcely more than covered by the payments of the candidates; and but
for the proceeds of the investments made under different circumstances,
the College would not have the means of carrying on the scientific work
it has undertaken.
The various professorships and lectureships that are attached to the
College have grown up chiefly in consequence of one of the conditions
under which the Hunterian Collection was entrusted to it by
Government--that a course of no less than twenty-four lectures shall be
delivered annually by some member of the College upon comparative
anatomy and other subjects, illustrated by the preparations. Other
lectureships have been founded by private benefactions, but these are of
limited number, or on special subjects, and are intended, not so much
for the education of students, but rather as the means of introducing
new discoveries or ideas to members of the profession and others
interested in scientific pursuits, to all of whom they are freely open
without payment.
Besides the museum, the College has added to its means of benefiting its
own members and the profession generally, a library containing every
important work and periodical upon surgery, medicine, anatomy, and the
collateral sciences.
During the first six years after the collection came into the possession
of the College, it remained in the gallery in Castle Street, which had
been built by Hunter for its reception; but in 1806, the lease of the
premises having expired, it was removed temporarily to a house in
Lincoln’s Inn Fields, adjoining the College of Surgeons, while the
building in which it was destined to be lodged was preparing for its
reception. This building, towards the erection of which, Parliament
contributed the sum of £27,500, was completed and first opened to
visitors in 1813.
The museum was greatly enlarged entirely at the expense of the College
in 1835, and a still more important addition, that of the great Eastern
hall, was completed in 1855. Towards the expense of this, Parliament
contributed a further grant of £15,000, the whole of the rest of the
expenses of the purchase of the site, the building and the annual
maintenance of the museum, having been borne by the College.
In accepting the Hunterian Collection, the College of Surgeons undertook
a heavy responsibility, weightier perhaps than was contemplated at the
time. Although not required by the letter of the contract to do more
than preserve Hunter’s specimens, the College undertook the charge in
the spirit of the founder, and thus made itself responsible for
maintaining such a collection as should meet the requirements of the
ever-expanding and vigorous young science to which it ministers.
Hunter’s collection was held to be the nucleus of a national biological
museum, and its preservation and augmentation by the College has
certainly prevented the formation of such a collection by the State.
Hunter was no specialist, and even after eliminating the non-biological
subjects before alluded to, a very miscellaneous collection remained;
illustrations of life in all its aspects, in health and in disease;
specimens of botany, zoology, palæolontology, anatomy, physiology, and
every branch of pathology; preparations made according to all the
methods then known; stuffed birds, mammals and reptiles, fossils, dried
shells, corals, insects and plants; bones and articulated skeletons;
injected, dried, and varnished vascular preparations; dried preparations
of hollow viscera; mercurial injections, dried and in spirit; vermilion
injections; dissected preparations in spirit of both vegetable and
animal structures, natural and morbid; undissected animals in spirit,
showing external form, or awaiting leisure for examination; calculi and
various animal concretions; even a collection of microscopic objects,
prepared by one of the earliest English histologists, W. Hewson.
It is very difficult to compare the present Hunterian Museum, as it is
still often called, although officially only recognised as the Museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons of England, with any other existing
collection, as its nature and the character of its contents have been
determined by several accidental circumstances rather than by any very
settled purpose. Originally a private collection, embracing a large
variety of objects, it has been carried on and increased upon much the
same plan as that designed by the founder, with modifications only to
suit some of the requirements of advancing knowledge. The only portions
of Hunter’s biological collection which have been actually parted with
are the stuffed birds and beasts, which, with the sanction of the
trustees appointed by Government to see that the College performs its
part of the contract as custodians of the collection, were transferred
to the British Museum, and a considerable number of dried vascular
preparations, which having become useless in consequence of the
deterioration in their condition, resulting from age and decay, have
been replaced by others preserved by better methods. Of the various
departments of which the museum now consists, very few,--in fact only
the collection of illustrations of skin diseases, and the collection of
surgical instruments,--are not the direct continuation of series founded
by John Hunter.
To find an analogous institution to the Museum of our College of
Surgeons, in Paris, for instance, we should have to combine the
collections of Comparative Anatomy and Anthropology at the Jardin des
Plantes, and even a portion of the separate palæontological collection
at that establishment, the collection of human anatomy of the Musée
Orfila, and that of pathological anatomy of the Musée Dupuytren. If
these were all brought together under one roof, and somewhat compressed
and rearranged, we should have something in its nature resembling the
museum of which I am now speaking.
In this combination on one spot, and under one management, of so many
diverse collections, we have a survival of a condition of scientific
knowledge more characteristic certainly of the last century than of the
one in which we live; but in this age of specialities it is well perhaps
to be reminded by such an institution of the essential unity of
biological knowledge, and of the important illustrations which one
branch of it may afford to another, especially when the detailed facts
are to be combined for the purpose of philosophical generalisation.
In visiting the museum, and in the comparison which may be instituted
between it and others of its kind, it is important to recollect this
origin and history, as they will account for many shortcomings. It must
not be forgotten that to its comparative antiquity (for it is certainly
the predecessor and prototype of all the anatomical museums of this
country and of America, and to most of those on the Continent) is due
many faults of construction and arrangement which should not be found in
a building designed with the knowledge and experience of recent years. I
have elsewhere pointed out what I consider the chief of these.[13]
Though the large size of the principal rooms allows of a fine _coup
d’œil_, such a construction does not permit of that separation and
distribution of the different series which is desirable for the purposes
of study. Human anatomy, invertebrate zoology, and pathology, for
instance, come into such near juxtaposition as to produce some confusion
in the minds of strangers, though familiarity with the arrangement soon
disperses the difficulties at first met with in finding the situation
and limits of the particular department required. The narrowness and
unprotected condition of the shelves in the galleries is also a radical
defect now unfortunately irremediable. Furthermore, the indulgence of
those who have the happiness to live elsewhere than in the absolute
centre of a population of four millions of coal-burning people, must be
asked for certain dusky results of such a situation, which no amount of
care and expense can obviate.
I must now ask leave to be your guide to some of the contents of the
museum, as it is at present arranged, and will take the different
branches of biology which are illustrated in it in some kind of order,
beginning with the part which relates to life in a normal condition.
Hunter’s collection and observations were not limited to the animal
kingdom. Wherever any physiological process could be illustrated by
vegetable life, vegetables were pressed into the service, as may be seen
in the physiological gallery, and by the Memoranda on Vegetation, left
by him in MS. and printed by the College in 1860. In his collection were
many portions of various recent plants, and a series, amounting to 184
in number, of fossil woods, fruits, and impressions of stems and leaves.
These specimens are arranged in the large wall-case on the right-hand
side (on going in) of the entrance door of the first or western hall.
With them are some additions made in former years, but since the great
development of the parts of the museum more essential to the general
purposes of the institution, it has been necessary to restrict the
growth of such branches as are more fully and advantageously illustrated
elsewhere.
The zoology of invertebrate animals largely attracted Hunter’s
attention. Many of the treasures collected in the famous voyages of
Captain Cook came into his possession through his friend, Sir Joseph
Banks. He purchased, whenever opportunity offered, as at the sale of Mr.
Ellis’s famous collection of corals and zoophytes. In 1786, at the sale
of the Duchess of Portland’s museum, he bought for fifteen guineas the
fine _Pentacrinus_, now in the museum, of which very few examples had
then been found. Of insects, especially Lepidoptera, he had a large
series. Of fossil invertebrates, as many as 2092 specimens are now
recorded in the catalogue as Hunterian. The series of fossil cephalopods
is remarkably rich.
Such invertebrate animals as are dissected, or illustrate any special
anatomical fact, are arranged in the so-called physiological series in
the gallery, to be described presently, but beyond these there remained
a vast number of specimens only showing external form, which by
selection and arrangement have been lately formed into a special
zoological collection, intended to introduce the student to a general
knowledge of the principal forms of animal life, and to the mode in
which they are grouped. This series, arranged in the floor cases on the
left side of the western museum, includes selected specimens of nearly
all the orders, and in many cases of the families, both of the living
and extinct forms; illustrated both by their hard and imperishable parts
as the “corals” or stony skeletons of the Actinozoa, the shells of
Mollusca, and the tegumentary structures of the Articulata, and by the
softer and more destructible parts of the bodies preserved in spirit.
The various groups are distinctly separated from each other and clearly
named. Students who desire to pursue the study of any of the sections
more deeply than the small selected series of exhibited specimens will
allow, will find the remainder of the specimens mentioned in the
catalogues, arranged in drawers below the cases. The series does not
extend beyond the invertebrata, as the peculiarities of the remaining
classes of the Animal Kingdom are abundantly illustrated in other parts
of the museum.
Although locally far removed, occupying one portion of the upper gallery
of the middle museum, a small but interesting special collection,
illustrating the subject of Helminthology, may be mentioned here. It was
thought that the importance in a medical and social point of view of
those animals which infest the interior of man and the principal
domestic and other animals, justified a more extended exhibition of
their modifications than could be assigned to any other group of animals
of such inferior organisation, and by the aid of the well-known
helminthologist, Dr. Spencer Cobbold, the present collection was
arranged and catalogued in 1866; the materials being mostly already in
the collection, though scattered in other series or hidden in the
storerooms. The collection contains upwards of 200 specimens, and may
still be somewhat extended. The intention is to show every parasitic
animal which, under any circumstances, can affect the human body, and a
selection of the principal types of those that inhabit the lower
animals, especially such species as are associated with man. If
increased beyond these limits, the collection would become interesting
only to the student of detailed systematic zoology, and therefore not a
legitimate object for our museum.
I will pass next to the section of the museum which is, perhaps,
altogether the most characteristic, and is certainly the most eminently
Hunterian. It was specially the creation of the founder, is still
arranged almost exactly as he left it, and, notwithstanding the very
numerous additions, still contains a larger proportion of Hunterian
specimens than any other department. This is the collection which is
called _Physiological_, because the specimens in it are classified
mainly according to their supposed function. Physiology, as we know it
now, is scarcely a subject which can be illustrated in a museum. The
processes and actions which take place in the living body are not to be
shown in bottles, but the organs, through the medium of which
physiological processes are performed, can be, and it is these which are
illustrated in this collection. It is more truly a collection of
comparative anatomy, or morphology as we should now call it. It shows
the variations in form which the different organs undergo either in
different species, or in the same species under different conditions, as
age and sex or season. Many of these modifications clearly have relation
to function, as we see in the difference of form and relative size of
the compartments of the stomach of the young ruminant, which is
nourished by milk, and the adult which feeds on grass, the periodic
variations in the size of the testis in birds, etc. But in a vast number
more we can see no special adaptation to purpose, but merely variation,
apparently for variety’s sake. Look, for instance, at all the
differences of the form of the liver throughout the mammalian series,
which, as far as we know, have no relation to its action as a secreting
gland. Though of little interest to the physiologist, modifications of
this kind are of the highest importance to the morphologist. They throw
light upon one of the great biological problems, classification, which,
when rightly interpreted, means nothing more or less than a statement of
the order in which living beings have been evolved one from another.
From such variations of form most precious indications of the
relationship of one animal to another can be obtained, and the less
these variations are related to adaptation to some particular function,
the better they can be relied on for this purpose. But Hunter’s ideas
were far different. He tried to bring together analogous parts according
to their uses--organs of progressive motion adapted for flying--eyes
modified for seeing in water--eyes modified for seeing in air, and so
forth. Practically, such a system could not be logically carried out.
Too many modifications of form were found to occur, to which no special
modification of function could be assigned, a compromise had to be made,
and in the large number of cases the organs had to be arranged according
to the affinities of the animals to which they belonged--brains of
fishes, brains of birds, brains of mammals, etc. As the collection
continues to advance, the classification according to homology is
gradually superseding that according to analogy, with which it began.
This collection at present contains 6982 specimens mounted in bottles,
of which 3745, or more than one-half, are Hunterian. It may be
convenient to know that these are distinguished by the figures upon them
which refer to the catalogue being painted in black. The specimens added
since Hunter’s time are lettered in red. The greater number of the
former must be fully a century old, and being still in as perfect
preservation as when first put up, afford a fair guarantee of the
absolute permanence, with proper care, of specimens preserved in
alcohol. The skill displayed in dissecting, injecting, and mounting the
majority of these preparations has scarcely ever been surpassed in
modern times, and this collection alone, if it were all that Hunter had
left, would be a grand monument to his industry and zeal for anatomical
knowledge; as is its valuable and instructive descriptive catalogue,
published in five volumes, and completed in the year 1840, a lasting
evidence of the same qualities on the part of Mr. Clift’s eminent
successor in the conservatorship of the museum, Professor Owen.
Many points in comparative anatomy can be illustrated quite as
efficiently, and more economically, by dried preparations, which require
neither spirit nor bottles to preserve them in. Though we have not
attained in this country the art of making such preparations in the
elegant and instructive manner pursued in several of the museums in
Italy, notably in that of Pisa, and though nearly all the original
Hunterian dried preparations have perished long ago, or become
partially useless, there will still be found some worthy of attention
in the rail cases round the galleries which contain the spirit
preparation. While speaking of the contents of these cases I would
specially call attention to the series showing the modifications of the
small bones of the ear, throughout the mammalian class, arranged a few
years ago by Mr. Alban Doran, one of the assistants in the museum, which
is probably not surpassed in extent or variety and method of arrangement
anywhere else.
The Histological Collection is contained in a separate small room
adjoining the physiological galleries, and consists of upwards of 12,000
specimens, illustrating the minute structure of the tissues of plants
and animals, mostly prepared under the direction of Professor Quekett,
the third conservator of the museum, who devoted the greater part of his
life to this work. Since his death in 1861, it has been rearranged and
kept in order; but the additions have not been numerous, chiefly in
consequence of the practical difficulties in exhibiting such a
collection to visitors to a public museum.
Although the anatomy of man naturally takes its place among that of
other species in the Physiological series, the preparations illustrating
it were chiefly confined to viscera--the details of regional anatomy,
and of the arrangement and distribution of muscles, vessels, and nerves,
not finding a natural place in the scheme upon which that department of
the museum was organised. It was, however, a few years ago thought
desirable that human anatomy, in consideration of its great importance
to our profession, should be exhibited on a much more extended scale
than it had been hitherto, and that a ready demonstration should be
afforded by means of permanent preparations of the structure of all
parts of the human frame. To those who have already learnt their
anatomy, and who wish to refresh their memory, or verify a fact about
which some passing doubt may be felt, or those who are precluded by
circumstances from visiting the dissecting-room, the preparations of
this series must prove of great value. The series of dissections already
made with this end, commenced by a former able assistant in the museum,
Dr. J. Bell Pettigrew, and carried on to their present perfection by Mr.
W. Pearson, are arranged on shelves over the floor cases on the western
side of the western museum, contiguous to the series of human osteology,
to which they form the natural sequel.
No portions of the structure of vertebrate animals can be preserved with
greater facility than the bones and teeth. Moreover, the skeleton being
the framework around which the rest of the body is built up, gives, more
than any other system, an outline of the general organisation of the
whole animal, and it has this special importance, that a large number of
species--all those in fact which are not at present existing upon the
earth--can be known to us by little beyond the form of the bones.
Osteology has, therefore, always had many votaries, as a special branch
of study, and it is one which finds much favour in the eyes of curators
of museums, from the satisfactory manner in which it can be illustrated
by specimens. Hunter’s osteological collection was considerable, quite
in advance of any other in this country. The two small whales
(_Balænoptera rostrata_ and _Hyperoodon rostratus_) which formed part of
it were almost the only skeletons of animals of their order which
existed in any museum at the time of his death. This fact alone shows
the marvellous change that has taken place within less than a century in
the facilities for the study of comparative anatomy. How great the
contrast to what may now be seen here in the College of Surgeons, in the
British Museum, in Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Dublin, in a score or
more of museums on the European continent, in America, even in Australia
and New Zealand! Richly supplied osteologial collections have sprung up
in every considerable centre of scientific culture over the world; but
as ours was one of the first in point of time, we may also claim for it
a high position in point of completeness. Others, such as that at the
British Museum, the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and the famous Leiden
collection, may be larger, but this is because the College Museum has
been designedly limited rather to selected illustrations of all the most
important modifications of structure, than to numerous examples of
closely allied species, which can only be looked for in a purely
zoological museum. When important forms have become extinct, their
characters are shown by their fossilised remains, which, though at
present most illogically arranged in a distinct room apart from their
existing allies, will soon be incorporated in the general osteological
series, where alone they can find a reasonable position in an anatomical
museum.
The value of a collection is not to be estimated only by the number of
specimens it contains, nor by even their rarity or judicious selection,
but also by the condition of the specimens, and the facility by which
they may be made available for study and reference. On this head we
claim to be somewhat in advance of other museums, on account of the
improvements which have been made in late years in preparing and
articulating entire skeletons, and in displaying portions of the bony
framework in an instructive manner. Formerly all the bones were rigidly
fixed together, so that their articular surfaces, if not actually
destroyed, were completely concealed; and no bone could possibly be
removed and separately examined. The aim of a series of changes in the
method of mounting skeletons introduced here, and now adopted more or
less completely in many other museums (the details of which were carried
out with great skill by our late able articulator, Mr. James Flower) has
been to obviate all these difficulties, and to make each bone, as far as
possible, independent of all the rest, whilst preserving the general
aspect and form of the entire skeleton.
Another improvement in the osteological series introduced within the
last twenty years has been the formation of a special collection
designed to show the principal modifications of each individual element
of the skeleton throughout the vertebrate classes, by placing the
homologous bones of a number of different animals in juxtaposition. For
convenience of comparison, the specimens of this series are all placed
in corresponding positions, mounted on separate stands, and to each is
attached a label bearing the name of the bone and the animal to which it
belongs. This series is especially instructive to the students of
elementary osteology, and forms an introduction to the general series.
As in other departments of the museum, the more nearly man is approached
in structure, the more complete do the illustrations of anatomical
modification become, and, as might be expected, the osteology of man is
far more thoroughly shown than that of any other species. The specimens
of human osteology (of which a revised catalogue, enumerating 1306
specimens, was published two years ago) begin by illustrations of the
development of the bones; these are followed by the normal skeleton,
exhibited under various aspects, then by individual variations, among
which may be mentioned one of the most remarkable objects in the museum,
the skeleton of the celebrated Irish giant, O’Brian, who died in London
in 1783, and about the preservation of whose remains so many legends are
told in the biographies of John Hunter. Finally, the special osteology
of man or illustrations of the osteological characters of the various
races of mankind. In this important subject Hunter was a long way in
advance of most of his contemporaries, as the origin of his collection
dates almost, if not quite, as far back as that of the founder of
physical anthropology, the celebrated Blumenbach. The series has been
greatly augmented of late years, and completely rearranged, and the
splendid addition made to it last year by the purchase of the great
private collection of the late Dr. Barnard Davis has brought it up in
point of completeness to truly national importance.
As forming a transition from the department of normal anatomy and
physiology to that of pathology, may next be mentioned the teratological
series, or collection of congenital malformations of man and the lower
animals, which necessarily forms part of every general biological
museum. This difficult, mysterious, and, as far as the light it throws
upon the workings of the laws of nature, still unsatisfactory subject,
had considerable attraction for Hunter, and many of the specimens in the
series form part of his museum. It has been steadily, though not very
rapidly increasing ever since, and had the advantage, a few years ago,
of being thoroughly revised, rearranged, and catalogued by Mr. B. T.
Lowne. It is arranged in the upper gallery of the middle museum.
The pathological series is the section of the museum to the study of
which, in the eyes of Hunter and his successors, all the others form an
introduction. It occupies the whole of the two galleries and part of the
ground-floor of the western hall. As the museum of the College differs
from those attached to the various medical schools, in having no
hospital or _post-mortem_ room in connection with it, from which to draw
the supplies for completing this collection, it has been increased by
the acquisition from time to time, when opportunity afforded, of various
private collections, as those of Mr. Heaviside in 1829, Mr. Langstaff in
1835, Mr. Howship and Mr. Taunton in 1841, Mr. Liston in 1842, and Sir
Astley Cooper in 1843, obtained by purchase; and the collections of Sir
William Blizard in 1811, Sir Stephen Love Hamminck in 1851, and Dr.
Peacock in 1876, presented to the College. Contributions of recent
specimens are also constantly received from numerous individual donors,
the acquisitions from this source having greatly increased of late
years. The total number of specimens now in the catalogue amounts to
5148, of which 1672 are Hunterian. As in the physiological galleries,
the latter are distinguished by their numbers being painted in black.
The descriptive catalogue of this series, written by Sir James Paget,
and published in five quarto volumes between the years 1846 and 1849, is
one of the best-known and most valuable of all the publications of the
College, and has always been looked upon as a model upon which other
pathological catalogues should be formed. The additions made to the
collection since that time have been so numerous that the necessity of a
new catalogue has long been felt. Under these circumstances, it is a
matter of great congratulation to all who are interested in the welfare
of this valuable collection, that the author of the original catalogue
has undertaken, with the co-operation of Dr. Goodhart and Mr. Doran, to
make a new one, in which the old descriptions will be revised, the new
specimens incorporated in their appropriate places, and such changes
introduced into the general arrangement as the advance of pathological
knowledge and greater experience of the requirements of the museum
appear to necessitate. This great work, especially arduous for one so
much engaged in professional avocations as Sir James Paget, is now far
advanced. The prospect of its early completion will doubtless compensate
the members of the Congress who will make an inspection of this part of
the collection for the transitional and somewhat disarranged condition
in which they will find it on their present visit.
As adjuncts to the general pathological series are certain special
collections, which have separate catalogues devoted to them. One, which
will be examined with interest by those devoting themselves to aural
pathology, is the series of preparations illustrative of diseases of the
ear, formed by the late Mr. Joseph Toynbee, which came into the
possession of the College at his death in 1866. It is a large and
probably unique collection of 824 specimens, illustrating all the known
morbid conditions of the organ of hearing, such as could only have been
brought together by one specially engaged for a considerable number of
years in investigating this branch of surgery, and the value of which is
greatly enhanced by a complete descriptive catalogue, published during
Mr. Toynbee’s lifetime. This series is arranged in part of the rail
cases of the lower pathological gallery in the western museum. The
remainder of the same cases are devoted to the collection of urinary
calculi and other concretions, salivary, biliary, and intestinal, both
from man and various animals, probably the most complete and best
arranged in the world. The careful chemical analysis and description of
the whole of these specimens has been the work of Mr. Thomas Taylor.
In a corresponding position in the upper gallery of the same museum is
the Dermatological collection, consisting of an extensive series of
beautifully executed models, of actual specimens, casts and drawings
illustrating the various affections of the skin. This collection was
commenced in the year 1870, the whole of the specimens in it, the cases
which contain them, and the catalogue describing them having been
presented to the College by Mr. Erasmus Wilson, at that time Professor
of Dermatology in the College.
Lastly, must be mentioned a collection--for the reception of which a
separate room, approached from the end of the eastern museum, was
devoted, in 1870--of surgical instruments and appliances, which, though
small at present, contains many instruments curious for their antiquity,
or interesting for their associations, and doubtless, now that a
convenient and appropriate locality has been established for their
reception and preservation, will be gradually augmented by additions of
a similar nature. It is mainly to the interest taken in the subject
which it illustrates by the late Sir William Fergusson that the
establishment of this collection is due.
Such is a general outline of the history and contents of the museum
which, for eighty years, the College of Surgeons has maintained for the
benefit not only of its own members, but for that of the profession at
large, and indeed of all who take any interest in biological science,
whether the young student preparing for his examination, or the advanced
worker who has here found materials for many an important contribution
by which the boundaries of knowledge have been materially enlarged. To
all such it is freely open without any fee or charge. Even the written
or personal introduction of members, still nominally required, is never
asked for on the four open days from any intelligent or interested
visitor; and on the one day of the week in which it is closed for
cleaning, facilities are always given to those who are desirous of
making special studies, and to the increasing number of lady students,
whether artistic, scholastic, or medical. Artists continually resort to
the museum, to find opportunities of studying the anatomy of man and
animals, which no other place in London affords; and of late years it
has been the means of a still wider diffusion of knowledge, by the
visits which have been organised on summer Saturday afternoons by
various associations of artisans, to whom a popular demonstration of
some part of its contents is usually given on each occasion by the
conservator.
If the knowledge of organic nature is of any value to man, and this is a
proposition which I am sure all who attend this Congress will admit, as
on such knowledge the whole superstructure of their profession is built,
there can be no question but that such an institution as I have here
sketched out must be one of pure and simple benefit. Its maintenance has
been a worthy object upon which the College has spent its care and its
money, and whatever may be the changes which impending legislation may
effect in the organisation of the profession, we may all hope that the
great work begun by John Hunter, and carried on by those who, under the
guidance and support of the Council of the College, have followed him
in the care of the collection, may not be impaired or destroyed. Whether
the whole of the charges of maintaining such a museum in all its parts
on a continually extending scale should be the duty of one institution,
like the College of Surgeons, or even of one profession, may be a
question for future consideration; but, in the meantime, how easily
could its preservation and extension be rendered entirely independent of
all the chances and changes of medical education and legislation, or
even of Government assistance and interference! When we see the immense
sums voluntarily provided every year in this country by donation and
bequest; when we see, and see with pleasure and gratitude, through the
length and breadth of the land, cathedrals, churches, chapels, colleges,
schools, hospitals, and asylums founded, endowed, enlarged, and
restored,--may we not hope that an old and tried institution like ours
will not be so entirely neglected as it has hitherto been by members of
our profession in search of some means for the disposal of any surplus
wealth they may possess. Few objects can be so surely productive of
good, so little liable to abuse at any future time, as the preservation,
augmentation, and maintenance of a museum, in which the facts of the
beautiful and wonderful world around us are displayed for the
instruction of mankind.[14]
GENERAL BIOLOGY
VIII
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE COURSE OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY[15]
Mr. President and Gentlemen--I am sure that the feeling that is
uppermost in the minds of all here assembled is regret at the cause
which has placed me before you on this occasion. Of the able and
distinguished men who have filled this chair since it was instituted in
the commencement of the century, not one was more able or more
distinguished than its last occupant, either as an original investigator
in the branch of science he adorns or as a facile expositor of its
truths. The loss of Professor Huxley’s services to this Institution is
indeed to be deplored. The only consolation is that what is loss to us
may be gain to others. He but leaves us that he may concentrate his
time, his energies, his genius, elsewhere.
Feeling as deeply as I do the responsibilities of the Hunterian
professorship, and my incapacity to discharge its duties in a manner
worthy of its dignity and importance, I should certainly have declined
to undertake it when it was proposed to me, if it had not been for the
thought that these lectures are emphatically _museum_ lectures, intended
to illustrate and explain the treasures of our noble collection, and
that from these has been derived almost all I know of the great subject
that I am now called upon to teach. I shall, therefore, perhaps more
than another might, speak to you directly from those specimens. I am, as
it were, _their_ mouthpiece. Having lovingly dwelt and worked among them
so long, I felt that I could hardly refuse to tell you something of what
they are always telling me--to endeavour to put their silent eloquence
in some sort of articulate language. If I can only succeed in awakening
an interest in them, and lead any one who may chance to come into this
theatre to continue his studies in the museum, where he will meet with
far greater return for his time and his attention than here, the
delivery of these lectures will not have been altogether in vain.
I have just mentioned the museum. It is impossible to do so without
recalling the circumstance that this day is the one on which we have
been accustomed to celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the
illustrious founder of that collection.
The 14th of February is a red-letter day in our calendar. On this day a
series of eloquent tributes have been paid to the merits of that great
man by successive Hunterian orators. I will not delay the commencement
of the proper subject of this course by endeavouring to speak of Hunter
either as a philosopher, a physiologist, or a surgeon, but I cannot
refrain from making a passing allusion to his work in relation to the
special subject of these lectures--_Comparative Anatomy_. And even this
would have been superfluous, after the able analysis of Hunter’s work in
this branch of science contributed by Professor Owen to the fourth
volume of Palmer’s edition of his collected writings, if it had not been
for the vast elucidation of the nature and amount of that work by the
subsequent publication of the two closely-printed octavo volumes of
_Essays and Observations on Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology,
Psychology, and Geology, by John Hunter, being his Posthumous Papers on
those Subjects_, arranged and revised by Professor Owen (1861).
Hunter’s reputation has suffered grievously from the extreme difficulty
he always met with in giving adequate expression to his ideas. Mr.
Clift, who acted for a time as his amanuensis, has told us how he has
often “written the same page for him at least half a dozen times over,
with corrections and transpositions almost without end;” and those who
are familiar with his writings must own that, after all this labour, the
result was often far from satisfactory. Hunter was himself painfully
aware of the deficiency. This it is which has detracted much from the
estimate in which many of his published works are held, and it is this
which was, I suspect, the reason why his published writings bear so
small a proportion to the vast mass of rough manuscript which he left
behind him, especially on the subjects with which we are at present
engaged.
The perusal of the work just mentioned will show how, while occupied
with a large and anxious practice--in itself labour enough for ordinary
men--while cultivating with what I might describe as a passionate energy
the sciences of physiology and pathology, while collecting and arranging
a museum such as never has been formed before or since by a single
individual, he had also carefully recorded a series of dissections of
different species of animals which, as his learned editor justly says,
if “published _seriatim_, would not only have vied with the labours of
Daubenton as recorded in the _Histoire Naturelle_ of Buffon, or with the
_Comparative Dissections_ of Vicq d’Azyr, which are inserted in the
early volumes of the _Encyclopédie Méthodique_ and in the _Mémoires de
l’Académie Royale de France_, but they would have exceeded them both
together.”[16] In fact they would have established Hunter’s fame as by
far the greatest contributor to the knowledge of animal structure of his
time, and, what is more important, would have aided most materially in
the advancement and diffusion of that knowledge.
The work as now published contains notes of dissections, more or less
complete, of no less than 129 species of mammalia, 80 species of birds,
20 species of reptiles, 9 of amphibia, and 19 of fishes, besides
numerous invertebrated animals of various classes; and these appear to
be by no means the entire series of dissections left by Hunter.
The fate of the original manuscripts forms a sad page in the history of
our science, and, I must also add, in the history of a man whom our
Profession, and this College especially, might otherwise have regarded
with feelings of respect and gratitude. Exactly thirty years after
Hunter’s death, his brother-in-law and executor, Sir Everard Home, who
had retained possession of them when the collection was transferred to
the College, committed them all to the flames. The use that he had made
of them in composing the lectures which he delivered from this chair,
though often previously surmised, has become but too obvious since the
publication of this work.[17]
Happily, Hunter’s devoted assistant and friend, the assiduous and
excellent custodian of his collection for nearly fifty years, William
Clift, had occupied himself in the interval between Hunter’s death and
the removal of the manuscripts to Sir Everard Home’s house, in making
copious extracts from these precious documents. The publication of these
extracts, nearly seventy years after their author had passed away,
however meritorious a labour on the part of their editor, can
unfortunately do little to regain for Hunter that place among the
leaders of science which his own untimely death, and the negligence, or
worse, of his executor had deprived him. Highly original and valuable as
are the observations contained in these volumes, they have by this time
been nearly all anticipated by others. A crowd of workers in the same
field, pressing in from all directions, have covered the ground which
ought to have been occupied by the figure of Hunter, and from which no
tardy recognition of his merits can ever dispossess them. We shall still
continue to look to Cuvier and to Meckel as the main sources of our
modern knowledge of comparative anatomy, and not to Hunter. Let us,
though, never forget that our illustrious countryman had, before their
time, collected materials for a work which needed but the finishing
touches to have made it one of the greatest, most durable, and valuable
contributions ever made by any one man to the advancement of the science
of comparative anatomy.
* * * * *
The present course of lectures, as just said, are intimately associated
with the museum; their annual delivery was one of the conditions on
which the care of the Hunterian collection was entrusted by the
Government to our College, and it was expressly stipulated that they
should be “illustrated by the preparations.” I am bound, therefore, in
my choice of subjects to consider what the museum teaches, and what it
does not teach. The museum teaches one subject, and, primarily, only one
subject--namely, the variations in the form and relations of the
different parts or organs of which the bodies of various animals are
composed. In brief, it teaches _Animal Morphology_, which is nearly
synonymous with _Comparative Anatomy_.
Now, _morphology_, I need hardly say, is not _physiology_, though it may
be one of the foundations on which that complex science is based. But,
contrary as it may seem to some of the most cherished notions of the
founder of the collection, an anatomical museum can scarcely do more in
teaching physiology than a collection of minerals can in teaching
chemistry. The physiologist should certainly be well versed in the
nature of the materials and organs by which the functions of which he
treats are carried on--having, indeed, need of all the help he can
obtain from all quarters in the solution of the difficult problems which
come before him; but his science is, in the main, experimental. Whether
it be from the inherent difficulties that attend such inductions, or
from the hasty and illogical way in which they have often been made,
hitherto a large proportion of the attempts to solve physiological
inquiries by an appeal to morphology alone have ended in failure, often
of a mortifying character. We still have to confess our ignorance of the
purpose and application of innumerable most obvious and striking
modifications of structure, which no amount of reasoning or guessing,
without actual observation on the living organism, seems able to remove.
I am speaking of physiology in the sense in which the term is ordinarily
restricted. There is a more general and higher physiology, to which I
shall refer presently, to elucidate which morphology is one of the most
essential aids.
When morphology was first cultivated with anything like scientific
precision, views since called “teleological,” exclusively prevailed.
Every animal was looked upon as an isolated machine; every part of that
animal was supposed to have been formed expressly for carrying on the
economy of that particular species or individual in the most efficient
manner, without any reference to other species or individuals. If
anything further was looked for in anatomising an animal beyond the mere
gratification of curiosity or love of knowledge for its own sake, it was
_direct adaptation to purpose_.
Many, indeed, are the curious speculations indulged in by anatomists of
this school, impelled, as they appear always to have been, to find an
immediate use for every modification of form. In numerous instances
these were mere conjectures, which an enlarged knowledge of the habits
and economy of the animal treated of, or of kindred species, showed to
be fallacious.
As time went on, however, and men began to obtain a deeper insight into
these subjects, resemblances either between the whole structure or
between particular parts of different animals, which could not be
explained on the utilitarian principle, became strikingly obvious.
Moreover, such things as rudimentary and functionless organs in one
animal, representing developed or functional organs in another, became
known in the further prosecution of morphology. Then the idea gradually
dawned that there was some “secret bond” which linked creature to
creature, and which permitted deviation only to a certain point from a
certain given pattern of construction.
This was the doctrine of _type_ or _common plan_. A “type” or a “common
plan” for each natural group of the animal kingdom was supposed to have
influenced, or to have been held in view at, the creation of every
different species composing that group, the deviations from this type
being related to the special exigencies of the particular species.
This was a great step in advance when regarded as a mere exposition of
the facts of morphology, and when the idea was not carried out by
fanciful imaginations beyond the point warranted by these facts. Upon
this view many anatomists of great eminence seemed to rest. But still it
explained nothing, accounted for nothing. It gave not even a shadow of a
reason for the resemblances amid diversity found everywhere. It only
asserted that the Creator had imposed certain apparently quite arbitrary
restrictions to His power; but, beyond this almost paradoxical
assertion, it gave no clue to elucidate anything like a theory of
creation.
In the meanwhile, however, the great results arrived at in other
branches of science, the increasing accumulation of facts from various
sources, all tending to show that the orderly and harmonious working of
the whole universe was due to constantly acting causes or laws, acting
now, having acted for immeasurable time past, and, as far as we can see,
about to act for immeasurable time to come,--the great work of the
astronomers and the geologists, leading to “the general conception of
some _great principle of orderly evolution_, according to which the
present as well as past systems of existence have been produced out of
preceding orders of things,”[18]--could not pass unnoticed by the
biologists.
First with a faint and uncertain sound, but in later times more boldly
and confidently, an hypothesis has been propounded which does profess to
account for some, at least, of the facts of animal creation, and to
afford a guide to the solution of the problem, if not of the original
beginnings, at least of the present diversities, as well as
resemblances, among the animal and vegetable life on the globe.
This theory has for its basis that the secret bond of union is not
“conformity to type,” is no ideal to which the operations of Creation
were limited, but is one of actual consanguinity, or, as otherwise
expressed, “genetic affinity.”
The fundamental part of the theory is that, as individuals are known to
come into being by a process of generation acting according to fixed and
certain laws, the same to-day and yesterday and to-morrow, in like
manner have races, varieties, species, and other larger groups of
animals and plants come into being--that the species existing at any one
period on the earth’s surface are, in fact, the direct descendants,
modified according to definite laws, of the creatures inhabiting the
earth in previous periods.
The theory of orderly evolution already applied to most of the phenomena
of the physical world has thus been also applied to organic nature.
This hypothesis, originally promulgated in a comparatively crude form by
De Maillet, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and more recently advocated by
the author of the _Vestiges of Creation_,[19] for a long time found
little favour with English naturalists of eminence. Indeed, so late as
1856, Baden Powell, in his masterly essay “On the Philosophy of
Creation,” arguing with great force “that one grand overruling
principle, the universality of law, order, and continuity, presiding as
powerfully over the earlier stages of creation as during its continuance
at the present moment, applies equally to organic as to inorganic
existence,” can find little support from the writings of any who had
made the diversities of organic life their special study. It was, in
fact, in opposition to the views then held by most naturalists, and
chiefly from a profound and philosophical analysis of the laws which
govern the physical universe, that, reasoning from the general to the
special, he came to the conclusion that “at least, _as a philosophical
conjecture_, the idea of transmutation of species under adequate changes
of condition, and in incalculably long periods of time, seems supported
by fair analogy and probability.”
Very shortly after, however, these views received an immense stimulus by
the working out of a necessary complement to the main theory, one which
was absolutely essential to its general reception--namely, a suggestion
of a possible and intelligible _modus operandi_--almost simultaneously
by the studies of Wallace amid the exuberant displays of nature in the
unexplored forests of the Malayan archipelago, and by the patient
accumulation and careful and candid examination of fact upon fact, drawn
from every branch of biological science, and all converging on the
theory of “_the origin of species by means of natural selection_,” by
the great naturalist[20] whose name is now so thoroughly identified with
the entire transmutation hypothesis, that already in the German
booksellers’ catalogues “Darwinismus” is made a prominent subdivision in
their classification of scientific literature; and in this country
“Darwinism” is the term popularly, if not quite correctly, applied to
the general doctrine of “organic evolution.”
In reference to the effect which the publication of these researches has
produced, the learned and judicious President of the Linnæan Society,
Mr. Bentham, in his last anniversary address, says that “the
investigation of the origin, development, and life history of species or
races has been termed _the great problem of the day_”; and the impulse
they have given to the study of biology in general, and to our special
branch in particular, is not exaggerated by the eminent German anatomist
Gegenbaur in stating, in a work just published, that “_the theory of
descent will begin a new period in the history of comparative anatomy_.”
On the other hand, it happened rather unfortunately that popular views
of natural theology, probably through the great influence of a famous
work published during what I have described as the first or “utility”
stage of morphology, have attached themselves more or less to the ideas
of that period, and well-meaning but mistaken persons regard with
aversion and alarm the modern theories which are, to a certain extent,
subversive of those ideas. I have no hesitation in saying _mistaken_,
for it is perfectly evident that all arguments as to “the power, wisdom,
and goodness of the Creator,” derived from an animal structure not
miraculously created, but produced by the ordinary laws of generation,
as all known animal structures are, must be entirely and equally valid,
whether the laws producing that structure have been operating for a
shorter or longer period.
As Professor Asa Gray has well put it, “If the argument from structure
to design is convincing when drawn from a particular animal, say a
Newfoundland dog, and is not weakened by the knowledge that this dog
came from similar parents, would it be weakened if, in tracing his
genealogy, it were ascertained that he was a remote descendant of the
mastiff or some other breed, or that both these and other breeds came
(as is suspected) from some wolf? If not, how is the argument for design
in the structure of our particular dog affected by the supposition that
his wolfish progenitor came from a post-tertiary wolf, perhaps less
unlike an existing one than the dog in question is to some other of the
numerous existing races of dogs, and that this post-tertiary came from
an equally or more different tertiary wolf? And if the argument from
structure to design is not invalidated by our present knowledge that our
individual dog was developed from a single organic cell, how is it
invalidated by the supposition of an analogous natural descent, through
a long line of connected forms, from a cell, or from some simple animal
existing ages before there were any dogs?”[21]
Those who recognise that the ebb and flow of the tides, the
thunderstorms, the rains, and frosts, are beneficent in their effects,
although the result not of direct miraculous interference, but of
unchanging cosmical laws, have not the right to accuse of want of
reverence the men who affirm that the wonderfully complex and
beautifully adjusted contrivances of animal structure may also have been
brought about through the intervention of agencies of similar nature.
This opposition, moreover, may have done harm in another manner, by
evoking the natural tendency that exists in many earnest and intensely
truth-loving minds to recoil against any display of unphilosophical
dogmatism, and any appeal to passions and prejudices, where reason alone
ought to have sway, and may thus have led in some cases to a too warm
and partial adoption of theories condemned on such grounds.
The rising school of biologists are destined to live in troublous times.
There can be no doubt that many of the questions now opening consequent
upon the rapid and widespread acceptance of the evolution theory, will
give more disquiet to a large class of persons otherwise not indisposed
to welcome the advances of scientific discovery, than was ever given by
the promulgation of the astronomical revelations of the sixteenth
century, or the more recent establishment of the high antiquity of the
earth, and are likely to lead to equally active reprisals.
The astronomers and geologists have in their turn had to confront the
storm--they and their sciences have survived and triumphed; and, on the
other hand, the faith and morality of the world have not suffered. Now
the biologists are standing in the breach. As a part of or necessary
sequel to the great doctrine of organic evolution, the question of the
origin and position of Man will inevitably obtrude itself. In the coming
discussion on this subject, all who take part in it, or alarm themselves
about it, would do well calmly to consider this point. It is one similar
to that just mentioned with regard to the so-called “natural theology.”
Whatever man’s place may be either _in_ or _out_ of nature, whatever
hopes, or fears, or feelings about himself or his race he may have, we
all of us admit that these are quite uninfluenced by our knowledge of
the fact that each individual man comes into the world by the ordinary
processes of generation, according to the same laws which apply to the
development of all organic beings whatever,--that every part of him
which can come under the scrutiny of the anatomist or naturalist has
been evolved according to these regular laws from a simple minute ovum,
indistinguishable to our senses from that of any of the inferior
animals. If this be so--if man is what he is, notwithstanding the
corporeal mode of origin of the individual man, so he will assuredly be
neither less nor more than man, whatever may be shown regarding the
corporeal origin of the whole race, whether this was from the dust of
the earth, or by the modification of some pre-existing animal form.
This, I conceive, is the ground on which those who would maintain
unimpaired the spiritual and moral dignity of the human race may safely
stand.[22]
* * * * *
In 1861 one of the most distinguished of American naturalists wrote:
“Those, if any there be, who regard the derivative hypothesis as
satisfactorily proved must have loose notions as to what proof is. Those
who imagine it can be easily refuted and cast aside must, we think, have
imperfect or very prejudiced conceptions of the facts concerned and of
the questions at issue.” The experience of nine years leaves the case
precisely, in my judgment, as thus stated by Professor Asa Gray.
Anything which assists to throw light upon it, to lead us nearer either
to its acceptance or rejection, is of primary importance to the
biologist. We must not refuse to take it into earnest consideration.
I think, therefore, that it may be worth while to devote a few words to
two objections which are frequently urged, not indeed against this
theory, but against the prominent place I would assign to its
consideration by all who would enter deeply into the philosophy of
biology. Both of these objections are founded upon misconceptions as to
the real nature of the present aspect of the theory of development.
The first, taking its leading idea from the title of Mr. Darwin’s book,
is that it is unprofitable work to trouble ourselves about the _origin_
of species, or, indeed, of anything else. These events of the very
remote past, it is said, are quite beyond our ken; we really can never
know anything certain about them, and had far better occupy ourselves
with things of the present--things which we can really hope to know much
about.
The other, akin to this, has lately been put forth on high authority.
Let the “derivative hypothesis” be granted, the studies of the zoologist
are not thereby in any way affected. “For all intents and purposes of
the descriptive and recording naturalist,” it is said, “species are
constant; they will last our time. When the existing binomial units of
botanical and zoological specific lists cease to show their present
distinctive characters, the _homo sapiens_ of Linnæus will have merged
into another, probably a higher specific form.”[23]
As I have said, both these objections are founded on an entire
misconception of the main question at issue. If the developmental theory
as held by Darwin, Wallace, and their followers is true, the origin of
species is as much a thing of the present as of the past. It is an
essential part of the theory that the laws which have produced the
diversity of organic forms in the world are those by which the world not
only has been, but _is_ governed. They are as constant, ever-acting, and
unchanging as the laws which direct the movements of the clouds or cause
the torrents to flow down from the mountain side. There is no proof
whatever that the laws of variation and natural selection, if such be
the laws which lead to the introduction of new forms and the extinction
of old ones, were ever more potent than they are at present. A large
class of the arguments by which the theory is supported is derived from
observation upon the present phenomena of life. According to the
hypothesis, transitional forms and incipient species are to be met with
everywhere around us. It is this, in fact, which has given rise to the
difficulty zoologists and botanists always meet with in defining the
limits of the various so-called species composing so many groups both
of animals and plants. Until it is settled whether there is an
insensible blending in the conditions expressed by the terms “variety,”
“race,” “subspecies,” “species,” or whether the old idea of the
immutability of species is to be maintained, zoology can hardly be said
to have a philosophical basis.
The second objection just named appears to suppose a simultaneous march
of all organic beings from form to form--a transmutation _en masse_ of
the whole--so that to any one among them they would all appear
stationary. Such a view is utterly opposed to the greater number of
zoological and palæontological facts, and to all the necessities of the
Darwinian hypothesis. One species, either with little inherent capacity
for variation, or so circumstanced that such variation as may have
occurred in different individuals has never been accumulated by
selection, may remain without alteration for ages, while other species
differently constituted or circumstanced may have undergone vast
transmutations during the same period. In fact, the derivative
hypothesis is not a theory of things long ago; it is not a curious
speculation into the beginnings of the present condition of things. It
may be appealed to every day in the solution of constantly occurring
problems in morphology.
I will give an example from the subject of our present course. There is
in Australia an animal, the koala (_Phascolarctos cinereus_), rather
larger than a cat, but having more the aspect of a small bear (Fig. 1).
It is covered with a soft woolly fur, and lives entirely among the
boughs of trees, on the leaves of which it feeds. Its tail is a mere
rudiment. Its feet are admirably adapted for grasping the branches on
which it climbs. The hind feet especially are remarkably modified for
this end, being very broad, and having a strong prehensile or opposable
inner toe or hallux, like a thumb. The skeleton of that foot is very
singular (see Fig. 2). The hallux is stout, and placed nearly at a right
angle with the other toes. The next two digits are rather slender,
placed close together, and in the living animal are united almost to the
claws in a common integument. The two outer toes are free and much
stouter than the others, the fourth especially so.
Now, a naturalist of the last century would have looked upon this foot
simply as a piece of machinery beautifully
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--The Koala (_Phascolarctos cinereus_). From
_Gould’s Mammals of Australia_.]
adapted for the particular work it had to perform in the animal’s life.
He would have pointed to the broad palm, the
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Skeleton of the hind foot of the Koala
(_Phascolarctos cinereus_).]
opposable great toe, and would doubtless, if a worthy representative of
his school, have developed some ingenious theory to show that the
smaller size of the second and third toes, and that being wrapped up to
their ends in skin, added to the efficiency of the foot as a climbing
organ, though indeed he might be at a loss to say why the American
opossums, of precisely similar habits, and with similarly opposable
great toes, have all their other four toes free and equal.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.--Skeleton of the hind foot of the Virginian
Opossum (_Didelphys Virginiana_).]
The philosophical naturalist of the second of the types that I have
sketched out, in investigating this structure, will institute a careful
comparison between the foot of the koala and that of other animals
belonging to the same group.
Among the marsupial animals of Australia, few are so well known as the
kangaroo. Like the koala, it is a vegetable feeder, and these two forms
have some dental and other structural characters in common. But the mode
of progression, and the limbs which effect this, offer the greatest
possible contrast.
In the kangaroo the hind legs are disproportionately large. The foot
especially is long and narrow, and at first sight appears composed of a
single large toe. Its motion along the ground consists of a series of
leaps or hops effected entirely by these powerful hind limbs. On looking
more closely at the foot (see Fig. 4), it will be seen that the first
digit or hallux is entirely wanting, but the other four toes are present
with their complete number of phalanges. The fourth is immensely
developed, the fifth moderately so, but the second and third are reduced
to the most slender rudiments, and are so united in life by a common
integument, that they look like a single toe with a double claw.
Now, here are two feet as unlike as possible in their functions--the one
formed for rapidly hopping along over the arid plains, the other for
slowly and securely climbing among the boughs of the forests--yet
presenting a deep-seated resemblance in a character not found in the
feet of any other known mammal except the immediate allies of these two.
We may call this “conformity to type” without getting much nearer to an
explanation of the phenomenon. Perhaps it is safest to rest at this
stage.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Skeleton of the hind foot of the kangaroo
(_Macropus major_).]
But is it not powerfully suggestive--I will not say more, for, of
course, by itself it cannot be considered as a proof--of true
relationship, of inheritance from a common ancestor? We can easily see
that in some manner the great preponderance of the one toe in the
kangaroo, and the reduction of the others, would be advantageous in its
mode of progression, reducing the foot to a narrow spring-board as it
were; and we can see that this attenuation of the second and third toes,
after the first had quite disappeared, might be a stage in the direction
of their total disappearance. But while this was taking place, let us
suppose that one branch of the family took to climbing trees (I must not
enter fully into all that might be supposed on this subject, as I am
merely introducing this as an example of the mode in which morphological
problems are illustrated by these general views), and the variations in
a particular direction, tending towards better climbing, were preserved
and accumulated on the Darwinian hypothesis, the hallux (a common part
in all mammals, only in abeyance when not wanted) was redeveloped in a
form best adapted for its actual purposes, the other digits gradually
resuming their normal condition; these two, however, still preserving
strong reminiscences of the ancestral state.[24]
It is certainly significant that all the Australian vegetable-feeding
climbing opossums have feet constructed on this type, one that is
similar to that of the kangaroos of the same country, while the American
opossums, further removed geographically, and therefore, in all
probability, in actual relationship, with feet functionally the same,
show no trace of this deep-seated structural peculiarity--a peculiarity
most important for the consideration of the philosophical anatomist, as
it evidently depends on some more far-reaching cause than mere
adaptation to purpose.
* * * * *
In considering a little more fully the application of such views to the
study of morphology, I must say a few words on _classification_. It was
felt at the very outset of the study of natural history that without
some system of classification the subject was little more than a
hopeless chaotic confusion. The first instinct of a zoologist is to
arrange in some sort of order the multitudinous objects with which he
has to deal. In the beginning of science, with little sound knowledge,
such classifications were often mere arbitrary arrangements, founded on
some easily accessible peculiarities, and forming nothing more than a
means by which the distinction between certain objects and certain other
objects could be grasped by the mind of the founder and communicated to
others. Classifications based on such characters became so general, and
were often so carelessly and ignorantly put together, that they
threatened to bring the whole system into disrepute; whereas I have
little hesitation in saying that, in reality, _classification_ is one of
the, if not the, most important aims and ends of the study of
morphology. It is the best contribution which we can make towards the
solution of the great biological problem, for a true classification,
viewed by the light of the derivative hypothesis, is nothing more or
less than an expression of the actual amount of affinity between
different objects. An order, a family, or a genus is no longer a group
of animals linked together by some arbitrarily selected characters, but
a group supposed to have been descended from a common ancestor, and to
have become, by whatever process, gradually differentiated from other
groups of animals.[25]
As in such groups, when once established, there can be no crossing with
other groups (as in human families, to which they are sometimes
compared), all the resemblances which are found between members of
different groups must either be characters inherited from the common
ancestor, perhaps lost through many generations and reappearing at a
subsequent period by the process of “reversion,” or they must be
characters having merely _analogical_ resemblances--_i.e._ characters
developed by variation, but which, owing to similarity of conditions of
existence or other causes, have become similar to each other.
To discriminate between these two classes of characters,--namely, those
that are essential and fundamental, or, in the language of one school,
are dependent on conformity to type, or, according to the derivative
hypothesis, are inherited from remote ancestors, and those that are
modifications to suit the conditions of existence to which the animal
is exposed, or, in other words, adaptive characters,--is a constantly
recurring problem to the systematic morphologist; and the difficulties
that encompass the solution of this problem are the main causes of the
little progress hitherto made towards a general agreement as to
classification otherwise than in the main groups. Let me illustrate this
point by a single and, as it happens, by no means difficult example.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--The Thylacine (_Thylacinus cynocephalus_). From
Wolf’s _Zoological Sketches_.]
You have before you the skeletons of two animals very similar in their
general or superficial characters--one is the common dog, the other the
carnivorous marsupial, the thylacine, sometimes called “Tasmanian wolf.”
These animals, when wild, have very similar habits. You will see that,
in the general characters of the skeleton, the structure of the limbs,
and the arrangement of the teeth, a remarkable similarity prevails. You
might easily conclude that these animals were related. They were,
indeed, formerly placed near together by systematists.
Now, if I place by the dog another well-known animal, a sheep, you will
see that in many characters of its bones, its feet, its teeth, etc., it
differs far more from the dog than the latter does from the thylacine.
Yet zoologists affirm, without the slightest hesitation, that the sheep
and the dog are far more nearly related to each other than either is to
the thylacine. This assertion is founded on a discrimination of the
essential from the adaptive characters. The dog and the sheep belong to
one great branch of the mammalian class, although they represent
different stocks of that branch. The thylacine belongs to another
primary branch, but in that branch it has taken the place, functionally,
of the dog in the other; its organs have become adapted to perform the
same work.[26]
It has been asserted, in a recent very able pamphlet by an anonymous
writer, “On the Difficulties of the Theory of Natural Selection,”[27]
“that on the theory of ‘natural selection’ it is all but impossible,
such are the probabilities against it, that identical structures should
have arisen independently. Yet many structures undeniably exist which,
to all appearance, must have so arisen.” And the “remarkable identity of
structure between certain of the teeth of the large predatory marsupial,
the thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf, and those of the common dog,” is cited
as a case in point. Now, though I am fully willing to admit difficulties
in the theory, quite inexplicable with our present knowledge, as many
almost as the author quoted, I cannot see this one in the same light. It
appears to me that the probabilities, instead of being against the
independent origin of such similar structures (erroneously called
_identical_) as those just mentioned, are exceedingly in their favour. I
cannot in the least see why a marsupial animal should not be carnivorous
and predaceous as well as a placental animal, and if so, why its teeth
should not have come to possess the general attributes essential to
animals of such habits--namely, large, pointed, recurved fangs at each
of the anterior angles of the jaw; the teeth between them much reduced,
so as not to interfere with the piercing and holding action of the
canines; the molars more or less scissor-shaped. These are plainly
adaptive characters, and whatever process has produced them in the one
case is just as likely to have produced them in the other--I might
almost say, must have produced them in the other. So far, however, are
the teeth of the thylacine and the dog from being essentially
“identical,” that in numerous non-adaptive and non-functional
characters, as the number of the incisors, premolars, and molars, the
mode of succession, and the minute structure (all which will be spoken
of at a later period of the course), they widely differ, the dog
conforming in all these points with the ordinary placental mammals, the
thylacine with the remaining marsupials. Such characters, underlying, in
large groups of animals, the various modifications in relation to use,
cannot be too diligently sought out as the true landmarks to guide our
steps through the intricacies that beset our path in tracing affinities.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.--Skull of Thylacine.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Skull of Shepherd’s Dog.]
Another valuable guiding principle in morphological studies is this. It
is a remark of Gegenbaur’s, in his valuable work “On the Structure of
the _Carpus_ and _Tarsus_,” but it must have occurred to any one who has
given much thought to these problems. When we wish to discover the
distinguishing characters between different organisms, it is necessary
to examine them in their most fully developed condition. If, on the
other hand, our object is to trace their resemblance, their intimate
relationships, we must study them in their early embryonic stages. By
these methods we can do much to separate what is secondary or superadded
from what is fundamental or essential in the character of an animal. The
farther back we can carry our researches, the more prominent do the
characters, common to the whole group to which the animal belongs,
become. The more completely mature the specimen, the more do the special
characters of the species or even of the individual predominate.
* * * * *
It is not my province in these lectures to indulge much in speculations.
Indeed, as students of morphology, we are as yet little in a position to
do so. I shall not say much more even on the general views to which I
have lately referred, for I feel that the acquisition of a sound basis
of fact to work with is what is, at present, most needed in comparative
anatomy. The difficulties which beset the beginner, and indeed the more
advanced student, in this subject are very great. As regards the branch
to which I propose more particularly to direct your attention, the
anatomy of the class Mammalia, which, we might suppose, was better
worked out than any other, the information to be found in books is
scattered, fragmentary, unequal, and often untrustworthy; even good
elementary treatises are wanting, much more anything like an exhaustive
work. Moreover, our museum--superior as I believe it to be to any other
of the kind--is, as yet, far from adequate to supply the knowledge
frequently sought for in it.
In considering the special subject for these lectures, I have often
thought that the greatest permanent benefit would be conferred on our
science by collecting together in a systematic form all the available
information upon limited groups of the animal kingdom, supplementing, as
far as possible, the deficiencies of knowledge by fresh observations,
and illustrating the subject by a complete series of preparations. At
the present day it is only by working out a definite branch of limited
extent monographically, that any solid advances in detailed knowledge
can be attained. Courses of lectures on this principle, especially if
they were published so as to reach a wider circle of students than this
theatre is apt to contain, may do much to _advance_ knowledge; but, on
the other hand, they might do less than more elementary lectures, giving
a general outline of a larger variety of topics, to _diffuse_ knowledge,
for it is probable that they would be attractive to only a limited
number of auditors or of readers.
I think it therefore advisable, in the first course I have the honour of
addressing to you, to confine my subject to a survey of the structure of
the animals of the highest class of organised beings; and I think that
this will prove of the greater importance and interest to the audience
assembled here, because it may be presumed that all have already either
commenced or completed the acquisition of a knowledge of the structural
anatomy of one, the most elevated member, of that class. I propose,
therefore, to take human anatomy as a point of departure, and, presuming
on your acquaintance with its details, shall refer only to some of its
general outlines, and shall point out the deviations from and
resemblance to the mammalian structure as we know it in man, in
descending throughout the series of animals composing the class.
I trust that some further interest may be given thereby to the daily
work of the student of our profession. Human anatomy is too often
learned as a mere collection of hard names applied to a complicated
network of structures, the form, position, and relation of which have to
be got up, probably to be forgotten soon afterwards. It might, however,
be made a far more attractive and useful subject if taught by the light
of a wider morphology. But I am afraid that very little of our
anatomical teaching, either by books or lectures, is of this class at
present. If any comparative anatomy is introduced, instead of
enlightening and illustrating the subject, it often only adds another
load to the already over-burdened memory--for instance, after the usual
dry, detailed and technical description of the part treated of, a
disquisition is added on what is called its “transcendental” anatomy,
extremely incomprehensible to most minds, and consisting chiefly in the
imposition of a new set of names to parts of which the student has just
succeeded in mastering the old ones.
All this ought to be reversed; the essential nature of the part in
question, as deduced from comparative anatomy, should be first announced
with a glance at its principal modifications; then its special
characters as seen in man will be a subject of intelligent interest. I
know from experience that after studying and teaching human anatomy for
many years on the ordinary methods, there were many parts the meaning
and nature of which I never understood until I began to dissect animals;
and increase of knowledge in this direction constantly throws light on
apparently unmeaning or incomprehensible parts of human structure.
One word more by way of introduction. I began with the mention of my
immediate predecessor in this chair. To him I must once again return.
The subject matter of the present course will embrace many points
treated of by him, more or less fully, in some of his lectures delivered
in this theatre, and many on which I have had the advantage of his
conversation and counsel. His teaching has entered so deeply into, and
mingled so closely with, observations and reflections that may have
suggested themselves in the course of my work in the museum, that in
many cases it would be difficult to trace the sources of information
that I may have to impart, and I may, perhaps, appear guilty of
appropriating what should belong to another. Let me acknowledge then,
once for all, how deeply I am indebted to Professor Huxley, not only for
the information conveyed in the public manner of lectures and books, but
also for the generous way in which, on all occasions, his time, his
knowledge, his thoughts, have been freely given to me. And I say this
the more willingly, because I know that I am but one of many whose
labours have been lightened, whose efforts have been stimulated, whose
difficulties have been smoothed, by his encouragement and support, by
his candid and judicious criticism, and by the example of his often
self-sacrificing devotion to the advancement of scientific truth.
I also desire, in conclusion, Mr. President, to take this opportunity of
publicly expressing the obligations which I, as well as numbers of
others, feel towards you and your predecessors in that chair, as well as
to the former and present members of the Council of the College,
individually and collectively, for the immense aid that you have given
to the progress of philosophical biology in this country, and I may say,
in the whole world, by the maintenance and augmentation of John Hunter’s
Museum. An epoch of revolution appears to be at hand in our profession,
which may lead to a material alteration in the respective positions and
opportunities of the various corporate bodies. Whatever changes may take
place, the College of Surgeons will always look back with satisfaction
to the fact that, for the first seventy years of the century, when these
studies were less appreciated than they are now, or will be hereafter,
it has, with scanty aid from the national resources, cherished the
growth of a truly national institution, the benefits of which are not
confined to any one class or profession, but are freely open to the
whole community. I can say, moreover, with perfect assurance, speaking
both from my own experience and from knowledge of the history of the
museum, as recorded in its archives, that any deficiencies which exist
in the condition of the collection, any needs which it does not supply,
must be due to other causes than want of encouragement to the officers
of the establishment, or want of liberality in supplying the requisite
funds, on the part of the Council of the College.
IX
RECENT ADVANCES IN NATURAL SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN
FAITH[28]
I have been requested by the Subjects Committee of the Congress to place
before you a brief statement of some of the advances which have recently
been made in natural science, with a view to open a discussion upon
their relations, real or supposed, to religious belief. The particular
advances which, as I am given to understand, were especially in the
minds of the Committee in proposing this question, are those which have
resulted in the more or less general adoption by scientific men of the
view of the sequence of events which have taken place and are still
taking place in the universe, to which the term “evolution” is now
commonly applied.
All that is embraced by this term, the various realms of nature in which
its manifestations are traced, the various shades of meaning attached to
it by different persons, would constitute far too large and complex a
subject to be treated of in the time to which addresses to this meeting
are wisely restricted. I will therefore select for special consideration
the only point in the application of the theory upon which I can speak
with any practical knowledge--one which is, however, in the eyes of many
of very vital interest. It is the one, at all events, which at the
present moment attracts most attention; the new ideas upon it being
received with enthusiasm by some, and with distrust, if not with
abhorrence, by others.
The doctrine of continuity, or of direct relation of event to some
preceding event according to a natural and orderly sequence is now
generally recognised in the inorganic world; and although the modern
expansion of this doctrine as applied to the living inhabitants of the
earth appears to many so startling, and has met with so much opposition,
it is, in a more restricted application, a very old and widespread
article of scientific as well as of popular faith.
Putting aside, as quite immaterial to the present discussion, the still
controverted question of the evidences of the production of the lowest
and most rudimentary forms of life from inorganic matter, it may be
stated as certain that there is no rational and educated person,
whatever his religious beliefs or philosophical views, who is not
convinced that every individual animal or plant, sufficiently highly
organised to deserve such distinctive appellation, now existing upon the
world, has been produced from pre-existing parents by the operation of a
series of processes of the order to which the term natural is commonly
applied. These processes are also fundamentally the same throughout the
whole range of living beings, however much modified in detail to suit
the various manifestations under which those beings are presented to us.
We feel absolutely certain, when we see a horse, a bird, a butterfly, or
an oak-tree, that each was derived from pre-existing parents, more or
less closely resembling itself. Though we may have no direct evidence of
the fact in each individual case, the knowledge derived from the
combined observations of an overwhelming number of analogous cases is of
such a positive character that we should entirely refuse to credit any
one who made the contrary assertion, and should feel satisfied that he
had been deluded by some error of observation. We cannot, indeed,
conceive of the sudden beginning of any such creatures, either from
nothing, from inorganic matter, or even from other animals or plants
totally unlike themselves.
To persons whose opportunities of observation of animal and plant life
are limited to a comparatively few kinds, existing under comparatively
similar circumstances, and which observations moreover only extend over
a comparatively limited period of time, it appears that in each kind of
animal or plant such as those just mentioned, individuals of various
succeeding generations present a very close resemblance to each other.
That they often vary a little cannot escape careful observation, but the
deviations from the common characters of the kind to be noticed by
persons whose range of vision is thus limited are not striking, and
usually appear not to pass beyond certain bounds. Hence arose the common
idea, natural enough under such circumstances, but which gradually
developed itself, not only into a scientific hypothesis, but even, it
would appear, almost into an article of religious belief, that the
different kinds or “species,” as they are technically called, of animals
and plants, had each its separate origin, its fixed limits of variation,
and could not under any circumstances become modified or changed into
any other form.
This idea became deeply rooted in the human mind, in consequence of the
very long period during which it prevailed, the horizon of observation
having remained practically stationary from the time man first began to
observe and record the phenomena of nature, until little more than a
century ago, when commenced that sudden expansion of knowledge of the
facts of the animal and vegetable world, which has been steadily
widening ever since. Now it is important to observe that it is strictly
_pari passu_ with the growth of knowledge of the facts, that the
theoretical views of nature have changed, and the older hypothesis of
species to which I have referred has gradually given way to a new and
different one.
The expansion of the special branches of knowledge affecting our views
upon this subject has taken place in many different directions, of which
I can here only indicate the most striking.
1. The discovery of enormous numbers of forms of life, the existence of
which was entirely unknown a hundred years ago. The increase of
knowledge in this respect is something inconceivable to those who have
not followed its progress. Not only has the number of well-defined
species known multiplied prodigiously, but infinite series of gradations
between what were formerly supposed to be distinct species are being
constantly brought to light. The difficulty of giving any satisfactory
definition of what is meant by the term “species” is increasingly felt
day by day by practical zoologists, as evidenced by the introduction of
such terms as “sub-species,” “permanent local variety,” etc., into
general use, and especially by the wide differences of opinion as to the
number or limits of the species included in any given group of animals
or plants among naturalists who have made such group their special
study.
2. Vast increase in the knowledge of the intimate structure of organic
bodies, both as revealed by ordinary dissection, and by microscopic
examination, a method of investigation only brought to perfection in
very recent years. By the knowledge thus acquired has been demonstrated
the unity of plan pervading, under diverse modifications, the different
members of each natural group of organisms, at one time attributed to
“conformity to type,” a so-called explanation which explained nothing,
but for which a _vera causa_ may be found in descent from a common
ancestor. Wonderful gradations in the perfection to which different
structures have attained in the progress of their adaptation to their
respective purposes have also been shown, and of still greater
importance and interest, the numerous cases of apparently useless or
rudimentary organs in both animals and plants, which were absolutely
unaccounted for under the older hypothesis.
3. The comparatively new study of the geographical distribution of
living things, which has only become possible since the prosecution of
the systematic and scientific explorations of the earth’s surface, which
have distinguished the present century. The results of this branch of
inquiry alone have been sufficient to convince many naturalists of the
unsoundness of the old view of the distinct origin of species, whether
created each in the region of the globe to which it is now confined, or,
as many still imagine, all in one spot, from which they have spread
themselves unchanged in form, colour, or other essential attributes to
their present abodes, however diverse in climate and other environments
or conditions of existence.
4. Lastly, though most important of all, must be mentioned the entirely
new science of palæolontology, opening up worlds of organic life before
unknown, also showing infinite gradations of structure, but mainly
important as increasing our horizon of observation to an extent not
previously dreamt of in the direction of time. Powers of observation
formerly limited to the brief space of a few generations are now
extended over ages, which the concurrent testimony of various branches
of knowledge, of astronomy, cosmogony, and geology, show are
immeasurable compared with any periods of which we hitherto had
cognisance. We are enabled to trace, and every year, as discovery
succeeds discovery, with increasing distinctness, numerous cases of
sequences of modification running through groups of animals in
successive periods of time, such as the gradual progress in the
development and perfection of the antlers of deer, from their entire
absence in the earliest known representatives of the type, through the
simple conical or bifurcated form, increasing in complexity as time
advanced to the magnificent many-branched appendages which adorn the
heads of some species of recent stags; such also as the progressive
modifications, so often described, beginning in the short-necked,
heavy-limbed, many-toed tapir-like animal of the Eocene period, and
ending in the graceful, long-necked, light-limbed, single-toed horse of
our own age, and numerous others which time will not allow me even to
mention.
It would be impossible here to trace the history of the effect of this
enormous influx of knowledge upon the doctrine of the separate origin
and fixed characters of species; to narrate the scattered efforts of
philosophical minds, discontented with the former views, but not yet
clearly seeing the light; to describe the slow and struggling growth of
the new views, amid difficulties arising from imperfections of knowledge
and the opposition of prejudice, or to apportion to each of those who by
their labours have contributed to the final result, his exact share in
bringing it about. How much, for instance, is due to the work and the
writings of our illustrious countryman, Darwin? and how much to those
who have preceded or followed him? All this forms an episode in the
history of the progress of human knowledge, which has been abundantly
chronicled elsewhere.
The result may, however, be briefly stated to be, that the opinion now
almost, if not quite, universal among skilled and thoughtful naturalists
of all countries, and whatever their beliefs upon other subjects, is
that the various forms of life which we see around us, and the
existence of which we know from their fossil remains, are the product,
not of independent creations, but of descent with gradual modification
from pre-existing forms. In short, the law of the natural descent of
individuals, of varieties, races, or breeds (which being within the
limits of the previous powers of observation, was already universally
admitted), has been extended to the still greater modifications
constituting what we call species, and consequently to the higher groups
called genera, families, and orders. The barrier fancied to exist
between so-called varieties and so-called species has broken down.
Any one commencing the study of the subject at the present time without
prejudice, and carefully investigating the evidence upon which to form
his conclusions, bearing in mind that he must look for his proofs, not
so much in direct experiments or absolute demonstrations, which from the
nature of the case are impossible, but in the convergence of the
indications furnished by the interpretations of multitudinous facts of
most diverse kinds, must find it extremely difficult to place himself in
the position of those who held the older view, so much more reasonable,
so much more in accordance with all that we know of the general
phenomena of nature, does this new one seem. In fact the _onus probandi_
now appears entirely to lie with those who make the assertion that
species have been separately created. Where, it may be asked, is the
shadow of a scientific proof that the first individual of any species
has come into being without pre-existing parents? Has any competent
observer at any time witnessed such an occurrence? The apparent advent
of a new species in geological history, a common event enough, has
certainly been cited as such. As well might the presence of a horse in a
field, with no sign of other animals of the same kind near it, be quoted
as evidence of the fallacy of the common view of the descent of
individuals. Ordinary observation tells us of the numerous causes which
may have isolated that horse from its parents and kindred. Geologists
know equally well how slight the chances of more than a stray individual
or fragment of an individual here and there being first preserved and
afterwards discovered to give any indication of the existence of the
race. Those who object to the new view complain sometimes of the
frequency with which its advocates take refuge, as they call it, in the
“imperfection of the geological record.” I think, on the contrary, the
difficulty is always to allow sufficiently for this imperfection. When
we contrast the present knowledge of palæolontology with what it was
fifty or even ten years ago--when we see by what mere accident as it
were, a railway driven through a new country, a quarry worked for
commercial purposes, a city newly fortified, so many of the most
important discoveries of extinct animals have been made--we must be
convinced that all arguments drawn from the absence of the required
links are utterly valueless. The study of palæolontology is as yet in
its merest infancy, the wonder is that it has already furnished so much,
not so little, corroboration of the doctrine of transmutation of
species.
Direct proof is, then, equally absent from both theories. For the old
view it may be said that it has been held for a very long time by
persons whose knowledge of the facts of nature which bear upon it was
extremely limited. On the other hand, the new view is continually
receiving more support as that knowledge increases, and furnishes a key
to a vast number of otherwise inexplicable facts in every branch of
natural history, in geological and geographical distribution, in the
habits of animals, in their development and growth, and especially in
their structure. I will take one instance from the last named--the
anatomy of the whale. How is it possible, upon any other supposition
than that it is the descendant of some land animal, with completely
developed limbs and teeth, which has become gradually modified to suit
an aquatic mode of existence, to explain the presence of the numerous
rudimentary, and to their present possessors absolutely useless,
structures found in its body. Amongst others, a complete set of teeth,
existing only in embryonic life, entirely disappearing even before
birth, and rudimentary hind legs, with their various bones, joints, and
muscles, of which no trace is seen externally. It may be asserted that
the whale was originally created so, as it was asserted, and long
maintained, that fossil shells and bones were originally created as such
in the rocks in which they are found. It took more than two centuries
of continuous and most acrimonious discussion to convince the world,
especially the theological world, that these were the actual remains of
animals which had once lived in a former period of the earth’s history.
Their evidence is now, however, universally admitted as supplying
knowledge of the changed conditions of the surface of the earth, and
with equal clearness do these rudimentary organs, hidden in the secret
recesses of the whale’s body, furnish, to those who inquire, indications
that the animal has passed through phases of existence unlike those in
which we now see it.
I do not for a moment assert that the new view explains everything that
we students of nature are longing to know, or that we do not everywhere
meet with obscure problems and perplexing difficulties, facts that we
cannot account for, and breaks in the chain of evidence. As to the
details and mode of operation of the secondary laws by which variation
and modification have been brought about, we are far from being in
accord. Happy for us that it is so, or our work would be at an end. I
only maintain that the transmutation view removes more difficulties,
requires fewer assumptions, and presents so much more consistency with
observed facts, than that which it seeks to supersede, and is,
therefore, so generally accepted, that there is no more probability of
its being abandoned, and the old doctrine of the fixity of species
revived, than that we should revert to the old astronomical theories
which placed the earth in the centre of the universe, and limited the
date of its creation to six ordinary days.
The question of the fixity or the transmutation of species is a purely
scientific one, only to be discussed and decided on scientific grounds.
To the naturalist, it is clearly one of extreme importance, as it gives
him for the first time a key to the interpretation of the phenomena with
which he has to deal. It may seem to many that a question like this is
entirely beside the business of a Church Congress, as it is one with
which only those expert in the ways of scientific investigation, and
deeply imbued with knowledge of scientific facts, could be called upon
to deal. This would certainly have been my view, if it had not been that
some who, from their capacities and education, should have been
onlookers in such a controversy, awaiting the issues of the conflict
while the lists are being fought out by the trained knights, have rushed
into the fray, and by their unskilful interposition have only confused
the issues, casting about dust instead of light. In the hope of clearing
away some of this dust the present discussion has been decided upon.
It is self-evident that a solid advance of any branch of knowledge must,
in some way or other, and to a greater or less degree, influence many
others, even those not directly connected with it, and therefore the
rapid simultaneous strides of so many branches of knowledge as may be
embraced under the term of “Recent Advances in Natural Science,” will be
very likely to have some bearing upon theological beliefs. Whether in
the direction of expanding, improving, purifying, elevating, or in the
direction of contracting, hardening, and destroying, depends not upon
those engaged in contributing to the advance of science, but upon those
whose special duty it is to show the bearing of these advances upon
hitherto received theological dogmas. The scientific questions
themselves may well be left to experts. If the new doctrines are not
true, there are plenty of keen critics among men of science ready to
sift the sound from the unsound. Error in scientific subjects has its
day, but it is certain not long to survive the ordeal, yearly increasing
in severity, to which it is subjected by those devoted to its
cultivation. On the other hand, the advances of truth, though they may
be retarded, will never be stopped by the opposition of those who are
incompetent by the nature of their education to deal with the evidence
on which it rests. There is no position so dangerous to religion as that
which binds it up essentially with this or that scientific doctrine,
with which it must either stand or fall. The history of the reception of
the greatest discoveries in Astronomy and Geology, the passionate
clinging to the exploded pseudo-scientific views on those subjects
supposed to be bound up with religious faith, the fierce denunciations
of the advocates of the then new, but now universally accepted ideas,
are well-worn subjects, and would not be alluded to but for the
repetition, almost literal repetition in some cases, of that reception
which has been accorded to the new views of biology.
Ought not the history of those discoveries and the controversies to
which they gave rise, to be both a warning and an encouragement? Those
who hoped and those who feared that faith would be destroyed by them,
have been equally mistaken; and is it not probable that the same result
will follow the great biological discoveries and controversies of the
present day?
In stating thus briefly what is the issue of these discoveries, as
generally understood and accepted by men of science, I have done all
that I promised, and must leave, in far more competent hands, the part
of the subject especially appropriate for discussion at this meeting. I
may, however, perhaps be allowed to put a few plain and simple
considerations before you, which may have some bearing upon the subject,
and which have no pretensions to novelty, though being often lost sight
of, their repetition may do no harm.
I said at the commencement of this paper that it has long been admitted
by all educated persons, whatever their religious faith may be, that
that very universal, but still most wonderful process, the commencement
and gradual development of a new individual of whatever living form,
whether plant, animal, or man, takes place according to definite and
regularly acting laws, without miraculous interposition. Further than
this, I believe that every one will admit that the production of the
various races or breeds of domestic animals is brought about by similar
means. We do not think it necessary to call in any special intervention
of creative power to produce a short-horned race of cattle, or to
account for the difference between a bull dog and a greyhound, a Dorking
and a Cochin-China fowl. The gradual modifications by which these races
were produced, having taken place under our own eyes as it were, we are
satisfied that they are the consequence of what we call natural laws,
modified and directed in these particular cases by man’s agency. We have
even gone farther, having long admitted, without the slightest fear of
producing a collision with religious faith, that variation has taken
place among animals in a wild state, producing local races of more or
less stable and permanent character, and brought about by the influence
of food, climate, and other surrounding circumstances.
The evidences of the Divine government of the world, and of the
Christian faith, have been sufficient for us, notwithstanding our
knowledge that the individual was created according to law, and that the
race or variety was also created according to law. In what way then can
they be affected by the knowledge that the somewhat greater
modifications, which we call species, were also created according to
law? The difficulties, which to some minds seem insuperable, remain
exactly as they were; the proofs, which to others are so convincing, are
entirely unaffected by this widening of scientific knowledge.
Even to what is to many the supreme difficulty of all, the origin of
man, the same considerations are applicable. Believe everything you will
about man in his highest intellectual and moral development, about the
nature, origin, existence, and destiny of the human soul; you have long
been able to reconcile all this with the knowledge of his individual
material origin according to law, in no whit different in principle from
that of the beasts of the field, passing through all the phases they go
through, and existing long before possessing, except potentially, any of
the special attributes of humanity. At what exact period and by what
means the great transformation takes place no one can tell. If the most
Godlike of men have passed through the stages which physiologists
recognise in human development without prejudice to the noblest,
highest, most divine part of their nature, why should not the race of
mankind, as a whole, have had a similar origin, followed by similar
progress and development, equally without prejudice to its present
condition and future destiny? Can it be of real consequence at the
present time, either to our faith or our practice, whether the first man
had such an extremely lowly beginning as the dust of the earth, in the
literal sense of the words, or whether he was formed through the
intervention of various progressive stages of animal life?
The reign of order and law in the government of the world has been so
far admitted that all these questions have really become questions of a
little more or a little less order and law. Science may well be left to
work out the details as it may. Science has thrown some light, little
enough at present, but ever increasing, and for which we should all be
thankful, upon the processes or methods by which the world in which we
dwell has been brought into its present condition. The wonder and
mystery of Creation remain as wonderful and mysterious as before. Of the
origin of the whole, science tells us nothing. It is still as impossible
as ever to conceive that such a world, governed by laws, the operations
of which have led to such mighty results, and are attended by such
future promise, could have originated without the intervention of some
power external to itself. If the succession of small miracles, formerly
supposed to regulate the operations of nature, no longer satisfies us,
have we not substituted for them one of immeasurable greatness and
grandeur?
X
A PRACTICAL LESSON FROM BIOLOGICAL STUDIES[29]
In the name of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, I
beg to thank you, and those societies which have joined together in
presenting this address, for the kind terms in which it is expressed and
has been delivered to me. It is most gratifying to us--who believe in
the beneficial results upon human life conferred by the diffusion of
scientific knowledge, as all members of this great association must
do--to find that our work, and the objects of our meeting are so highly
appreciated by such a wide circle as that represented by the signatories
to this address. It is, moreover, particularly satisfactory to find such
a recognition--where, perhaps, at first sight, we might hardly have
expected it--of the advantages of pure or abstract science apart from
its practical application to the material welfare of mankind. You have
recognised what is certainly known to those who have followed most
closely the history of science, but what is not so generally known or
appreciated by others, that nearly all the marvellous benefits which
have been conferred on man by the application of scientific knowledge
have been the results of the discoveries of philosophers who are
pursuing knowledge solely for its own sake--without any hope of reward,
without any hope of benefit to themselves or to others, and, very often,
amid the indifference, the neglect, and even the scorn of their
contemporaries. The particular branch of science which it is my lot to
represent is, at first sight, very little specially connected with the
general welfare of man, and is looked upon by many as little more than
idle speculation or mere curiosity. I well remember--though it is
certainly many years ago now--one who, more than any one else living in
this country, has advanced that branch of science--Professor Huxley--in
a lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, saying that the common
idea of a naturalist was “a wet, dirty man poking about the sea-shore
with a net in one hand and a bottle in the other--an innocent and
perhaps harmless individual, but a very useless one.” Well, I may say
that the description was made some thirty years ago, before Professor
Huxley himself had done so much to raise the character of naturalists
and natural history in this country, yet it still holds good in the
opinion of many at the present time. You must recollect, however, that
the researches of naturalists of that class, men who have occupied
themselves in closely observing the ways and habits, and studying the
structure of animals of a low type of organisation, have produced
already marvellous results upon the happiness and welfare of mankind.
Through researches of this kind we are obtaining knowledge of the causes
and prevention of disease, which, when further advanced, for they are
only beginning now, will, I have no doubt, lead to an enormous saving of
health and of life. Moreover, through the researches of such naturalists
greater results still have been produced. They have produced effects
upon our mode of thinking on many subjects--on our relations to each
other and to the universe--effects the end of which we hardly see at
present. And they have taught us one great lesson, one that I alluded to
in the address which I had the honour of giving here last
Wednesday--namely, that progress in living nature has been due in great
measure to the principle which Darwin most popularised, if he did not
first enunciate, which he, at all events, brought into the condition in
which we now know it--that of the survival of the fittest in the
struggle for existence. Now, it is a law in nature that there should be
a certain amount of individual differences or variations in the
different animals and plants inhabiting the earth, and that the progress
from the lower to the higher forms of animals and plants has been due
to the opportunity of those individuals who are a little superior in
some respects to their fellows of asserting that superiority, of
continuing to live, and of propagating that superiority as an
inheritance to their descendants. That law, established in nature, is, I
believe, equally applicable to ourselves; and this is the message which
pure and abstract biological research has sent to help us on in some of
the commonest problems of human life. The lesson is this--that there is
always a certain amount of variability, that there is no such thing as
equality--equality in powers of work, equality in powers of endurance,
or equality in the powers of men for doing great things in the world;
and that progress depends on giving full liberty to that inequality,
wherever it asserts itself, having full play. Now, supposing this law
did not exist in the animal kingdom, instead of the world being filled
with all the diversity and beauty which it now possesses, every living
thing would have been in the condition of slimy polyps at the bottom of
the sea, and if it did not exist in mankind, we should all still be in
the condition of flint-chipping savages. I will leave it to you to apply
to yourselves, in your own social condition and social life, the
application of that law. I will not press it any further at present, but
leave you to think it out afterwards. You will, however, easily see that
it means that, as there is no such thing as equality among yourselves,
if you are to have progress there must be no attempt whatever to keep
down the capacities of the superior to the level of the inferior. Any
man who gets a little rise above his fellows helps on the progress of
the world, and brings all the others on with him. Now, having merely
mentioned an application of abstract science from a quarter where,
perhaps, you little expect it, I will conclude by once more thanking
you, Mr. Girling, and those who have forwarded the address in the name
of the Association. I am sure it will give the Association great
pleasure to hear what you have done, and how you have sympathised with
their work, and to assure you that the hopes and wishes expressed at the
end of the address are, as far as possible, most fully realised.
XI
ON PALÆONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF GRADUAL MODIFICATION OF ANIMAL FORMS[30]
I need scarcely say that one of the greatest, if not absolutely the
greatest problem which has ever exercised the minds of naturalists is
that of the fixity or the mutability of species.
Are the various specific forms under which animal and vegetable life
exist upon earth, now and in all times past, fixed within certain narrow
limits of variation, and did each originally appear upon the earth
without genetic connection with any previously existing forms, having
been created _de novo_ in fact? or have these different species been
produced by gradual modification from pre-existing living forms, under
the influence of certain laws, at present very imperfectly understood,
acting through vast and indefinite periods of time?
It is clear that these two views are strongly opposed to each other.
Both have been held and still are held by men who are justly considered
masters in the branch of knowledge to which they relate; and the
solution of the question will exercise so important an influence on the
progress of zoology that any real contribution towards it should be one
of the most welcome additions to science that a naturalist of the
present day can make.
The question is, indeed, so far-reaching, so all-pervading, that it
meets us everywhere in the study of every group of animal or vegetable
life, and in almost every aspect in which the study can be carried out.
It bears largely upon, and is greatly illustrated by, descriptive
zoology or botany. It adds vastly to the interest of the pursuit of
anatomy, by calling out the meaning of rudimentary structures and
so-called typical resemblances; it elucidates obscure questions relating
to the habits and instincts of animals; it brings into prominence the
signification of various facts of geographical distribution, and the
life it throws into the study of palæontology is too obvious to need
remark.
Evidences bearing upon, either for or against, the theory of _evolution_
or _descent_ can be collected from all these sources. I need only refer
to Mr. Darwin’s works, which must be familiar to you all, in
illustration of the great variety and number of the branches of science
which can be brought to throw light upon it. Indeed, in a subject like
this, where direct observation can count for little, in consequence of
the extreme shortness of the observing time of any individual compared
with the enormous period required for the assumed changes, it is only by
the accumulation of a vast number of facts from various sources, and
observing the direction in which they all point, that anything like
proof can be obtained.
Leaving aside, for the present occasion, all other sources of evidence
in favour of either of these views, I propose this evening to enter only
upon one which is in some respects, as all must admit, the most
important, as it comes nearer than any other to show what actually has
been the history of our existing species in times past; for as the most
natural and conclusive way of ascertaining the method by which a nation
has arrived at its present condition of society, customs, laws, etc.,
would certainly be to examine into the preserved records of its past
history, so it must be with the present condition of animal and
vegetable life.
We all know that such records have been preserved, that the solid rocks
beneath our feet in many places teem with the actual remains of
creatures which lived and died thousands or millions of years ago.
Why should they not yield to us the knowledge we are all so eager to
acquire?
If species are and ever have been immutable, shall we not find the same
hard and fast lines surrounding each as we do now? Shall we not find
long series of similar forms following without change on an abrupt
commencement? If the other alternative be correct, ought we not to find
specimens of all the various stages through which the wonderful variety
we meet with now has been brought about? Every gap which now so widely
separates group from group ought to be filled up, and the various phases
of modification should follow through the successive eras of geological
time.
Now, there can be no hesitation in saying that the evidence of
palæontology, in the present state of the science, does not reveal the
last-described condition of things. Notwithstanding the vast increase of
our knowledge in recent years, very many large groups of animals stand
completely isolated, and the more nearly allied forms are mostly
separated from each other by tolerably definite intervals.
Is, then, the question decisively answered against evolution or
derivation by palæontology?
We must pause before we can join in the assertion that it is. The
subject is far more complex than it may seem at first.
Before going further, a proper estimate must be arrived at of the nature
and value of our evidence, and in doing this we must give full weight to
the considerations derived from the “imperfection of the geological
record” so strikingly elucidated in Mr. Darwin’s chapter on the subject.
To those who have not fully considered this question, it is difficult to
conceive how immense is the interval between our excessively fragmentary
knowledge of extinct animals, and that perfect palæontological record
which would imply evidence, first, of every form of life that has ever
existed, and, secondly, of the period at which it existed.
If there were time, I might dwell long upon this part of the subject,
but I must leave you to imagine (1) What the chances are against the
fossilisation of any animal that dies. (2) What the chances of the
stratum in which some fossil
[Illustration: PROVISIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF UNGULATA.
PERISSODACTYLA ARTIODACTYLA
]
remains have been embedded being itself preserved during the constant
changes going on on the earth’s surface, and ultimately appearing in a
situation accessible to man’s research. (3) What the further chances
against their being so found, even if they should have been preserved in
an accessible locality.
I might refer you to the exceedingly minute portion of the earth’s
surface which has yet been really explored palæontologically; to the
cases that are occurring every day of new and most unexpected forms and
of whole species or orders, known only by an isolated individual, as the
_Archæopteryx_ of the Solenhofen oolite; to say nothing of more
recondite speculations in the work above referred to, on the
improbability of preservation of intermediate forms, owing to variation
having usually been most rife during periods of elevation, when
fossilisation is less likely to occur.
All these show in such a striking manner the extremely small value of
negative evidence in palæontology, that I am quite justified in asking
you to leave it altogether out of consideration in thinking of, or
reasoning on, what is to follow.
Such being the material with which we have to deal, it will be seen that
we must go to work upon it in a most careful and circumspect manner. We
cannot rush at conclusions, but must be content cautiously, and often
with much labour and anxiety, to piece together our facts, scrupulously
observing the minutest hints, and following out the direction indicated
by often very obscure signs, before we can reconstruct even an outline
of the fabric from which we hope to gain an idea of the past history of
the beings of which we treat.
I have selected for illustration of the subject this evening the
division or order of Mammals called by naturalists UNGULATA, or hoofed
animals, chiefly because it is the one of which the palæontological
history--at least in the tertiary period (for beyond that we cannot
trace it)--is better known than any other, and as that of which the
classification,--that is, the relations of its various sub-groups to
each other,--is on the whole better understood than in most other
zoological divisions.
The order includes the most familiar of our domestic animals, and with
the general appearance of the rest we are most of us well acquainted,
thanks to the Zoological Gardens. They are the various forms of horses,
asses, and zebras, the rhinoceroses and the tapirs, the pigs,
hippopotamus, camels, deer, antelopes, sheep, oxen, and goats.
They are essentially herbivorous (though some few may be more or less
omnivorous), and their teeth are modified accordingly. Their limbs are
adapted for carrying the body in ordinary terrestrial progression, and
are of very little use for any other purpose, such as climbing, seizing
prey, or carrying food to the mouth. They never have clavicles or
collar-bones, and their toes never exceed four in number (the digit
which corresponds to the first of the complete pentadactyle foot being
always wanting), and have the ends encased in hoofs instead of nails or
claws. The species at present existing are very numerous, and widely
diffused over the earth’s surface, being wanting only in the Australian
province. These Ungulate animals are divided into two natural groups,
each having very many characters in common, the establishment of which,
though contrary to the views of the great naturalists of the beginning
of this century, has been a great gain to zoological science, especially
as this division pervades all the known extinct as well as recent forms;
and although some forms of either group may present some partial
approximation to the other, no directly intermediate species are known.
It is important, therefore, to apprehend thoroughly the distinction
between these groups, which have received from Professor Owen the names
of _Perissodactyle_, or odd-toed, and _Artiodactyle_, or even-toed, from
one of their most striking external characteristics. The first have the
toes of both feet arranged symmetrically to a line drawn through the
middle of what would be the third toe of the typical pentadactyle foot,
which toe is always the largest, and in some cases the only one fully
developed. In the second, the toes are arranged symmetrically to a line
drawn between the third and fourth toes, so that these two toes are
equally developed, and may be alone present, or may be supplemented by
an outer pair (the second and fifth), often in a more or less
rudimentary condition. Besides these distinctions in the limbs, there
are so many others correlated with them in the number of the vertebræ,
the structure of the cranial bones, of the teeth, of the digestive
organs, etc., that there can be no question about their forming natural
divisions, very important to palæontologists, as it often happens that
the position of an extinct and little-known form can be determined from
a very small fragment of bone.
Each of these groups is further divided into genera, the names of which
in what appears, in the present state of knowledge, to be their natural
position and relation to each other are indicated on the diagram. From
this it will be seen that the existing Perissodactyles (excluding Hyrax,
the position of which is doubtful, though I am inclined to consider it
as an aberrant member of this group) consist of three groups, the
tapirs, the rhinoceroses, and the horses, each represented by but few
species, and (except in the case of the horse, through the agency of
man) of rather restricted geographical distribution.
These groups at present are separated by very decided intervals, so much
so, that one of them, containing the horses, has been considered by many
naturalists as forming an order apart, the _Solidungula_.
The existing Artiodactyles range themselves around two principal types,
the tubercular-toothed, or bunodont, and the crescentic-toothed, or
selenodont. To the former belong the pigs in all their modifications,
including the babirussa and wart-hogs, and the hippopotamus and peccary.
To the latter the ruminants, _i.e._ vast numbers of species of animals
included under the general designation of sheep, oxen, goats, antelopes,
deer, musks, giraffes, and the two allied though aberrant forms, the
camels, and the _Tragulidæ_ or chevrotains, an interesting little group
long confounded with the musk deer.
The two extremes of this division, represented by the pigs and the
hollow-horned ruminants, seem to have very little in common at first
sight, and if we were acquainted with the organisation only of the
existing species, we might be justified in treating them as belonging to
very distinct groups. But even among existing forms there are some
examples, which may almost be called intercalary types, so widely do
they depart from the group to which they are most nearly relative in
the direction of the other.
These are among the bunodonts, the little South American peccaries
(_Dicotyles_), and among the selenodonts, in a far greater degree, the
chevrotains (_Tragulus_). The latter in many remarkable characters
deviate strongly from the ruminants, and approach the pigs, or rather,
as will be shown presently, to the generalised type of the entire group.
Such being the present condition of the order, what does palæontology
reveal of its past history?
In the first place, it is most necessary to bear in mind the provisional
character of all classifications of extinct animals, because of our
imperfect knowledge of their structure; but endeavouring to make the
best use of what little we possess, I have added in the scheme opposite
all the best-known extinct forms somewhere near the position, in
relation to the existing forms and each other, in which their affinities
would place them, and have shown by the different shading their relation
as regards time.
The tertiary period, with which we are now alone concerned, has here
been divided for convenience into six epochs. Of course, it were
possible to have gone into minute details and made many more divisions,
but it would have made the diagram less clear, and it is best, perhaps,
not to attempt to refine too much in this somewhat tentative exposition
of a biological history, especially as there is still much uncertainty
as to the exact relative age of many of our fossiliferous strata.
The epochs chosen are the recent (including the pleistocene), the
pliocene, late and early miocene, and late and early eocene, each
represented by a different shading. It is not meant that if a genus or
group is here assigned to one of these epochs, that some of its members
may not have extended in some degree beyond its limits (as it must be
always remembered that the boundaries of these epochs are quite
artificial), either before or after, but that the period assigned to it
was that in which it most chiefly flourished. When two shadings are
represented, one within another, it signifies that the group existed in
both, and of course in all intervening periods.
To begin with the Perissodactyles. The earliest known forms constitute a
family called _Lophiodontidæ_, composed of the genera _Lophiodon_,
_Coryphodon_, and _Hyracotherium_. Of these animals little is known
except the teeth, which, however, indicate rather a primitive or root
form, from which, by modification, all the other teeth of
Perissodactyles can be derived. The elevations and depressions of the
molar teeth of _Lophiodon_, for instance, are arranged on a pattern
which is the best key to that of all others of the sub-order; and it is
by going back, as it were, to it that we can understand and compare all
the other variously modified, and often more complicated, forms.
Moreover, these Lophiodonts possess a dental character which
distinguishes them from all other _Perissodactyles_, and brings them
into a more generalised ungulate type, for which reason I place them
nearest to the earlier forms of artiodactyles--that is, that all the
premolars are smaller and of a simpler form than the true molars.
Whether they possessed any modification of the limbs or other structures
which bear them out in this position, we unfortunately cannot say.
At a somewhat later epoch in the earth’s history appeared on the scene
the _Palæotheriidæ_, an important group, containing animals the osseous
structure and dentition of which are completely known, chiefly through
the famous researches of Cuvier into the fossils found in the gypsum
quarries at Montmartre. These were animals something like existing
tapirs, with three toes on each foot, complete and distinct radius and
ulna and tibia and fibula, complete typical number of teeth, _i.e._ _i_
3/3 _c_ 1/1 _p_ 4/4 _m_ 3/3 = 44; but the molar teeth modified in
pattern from that of the Lophiodonts. They flourished in the later
eocene, after which period they are no longer met with. They have been
divided into several genera, but Gaudry has shown that these are united
by transitional forms, and present a gradual series of modifications,
corresponding with successive geological epochs. Another offset, from
the ancient Lophiodont stock (with which it appears to be connected
through the American eocene _Hyracahyus_), constitutes the family
_Tapiridæ_, first known in the miocene and continued with scarcely any
modification to our own day, and therefore a most interesting form to
contemplate in its living state, as it brings back, in the most
striking way, the general facies of the fauna of those ancient times. In
one respect the tapir is remarkable among Perissodactyles, as it has on
its fore-feet as many as four toes, thus retaining a primitive or
generalised character. The other two existing forms, the rhinoceros and
the horse, appear to be more direct modifications of the Palæotherium
type, though in different directions. The existing rhinoceros closely
resembles the Palæotherium in the general structure of its skeleton,
limbs, number of toes, etc., and in the general pattern of the molar
teeth; it differs, however, in the greatly reduced number of front
teeth, incisors and canines, which in the African two-horned species are
often absolutely wanting; and also in the possession of those singular
epidermal appendages to the face, the well-known horns, either one or
two in number. Now palæontology points out with tolerable precision the
intermediate steps by which these modifications have been brought about.
A small ancient rhinoceros has been found in the early miocene of North
America, to which Leidy has given the name of _Hyracodon_, which had no
horn, and had the complete number of incisor and canine teeth, and was
in many ways, at least as far as the skull and teeth are concerned,
intermediate between _Palæotherium_ and _Rhinoceros_ proper. The earlier
known European rhinoceroses have had the name _Aceratherium_ given to
them, the small size of the nasal bones being apparently quite unfitted
to support such a weapon as a horn. The resemblance of their skull to
_Palæotherium_ has been pointed out by H. v. Meyer.
The more recent fossil rhinoceroses present wonderfully intermediate
forms between some of the existing species, as _R. pachygnathus_ of
Pikermi, as Gaudry has shown, is about equally related to the two
species of modern African rhinoceros, and might have been (upon the
derivative hypothesis) the ancestor of both. In the same way the
Himalayan _R. sivalensis_ appears to be related to the modern _R.
indicus_ and _sondiacus_, and the _R. schleirmacheri_ to the Asiatic
two-horned species. One special line of variation indicated chiefly by
the ossification of the nasal septum culminated in the _R. tichorhinus_,
which became extinct only in the most recent geological epoch. The
history of this small group alone in its bearings upon evolution might
occupy many lectures; I must content myself now only with one
observation, borrowed from Mr. Boyd Dawkins, that in all modern
rhinoceroses the molar teeth have deeper crowns than in those which
existed prior to a certain epoch, so that the height of these teeth
alone will serve to distinguish a pleistocene from a pliocene form, in
other respects closely allied. The value of this observation will be
illustrated in the sequel.
The next line of modification from _Palæotherium_, is that which
culminates in the most specialised of mammals, the modern horse, an
animal we are so accustomed to look at that we scarcely ever notice the
most remarkably adaptive character of its structure for its special mode
of life. If we were not acquainted with the horse (and here of course I
include its immediate allies, the asses and zebras) we could scarcely
conceive of an animal whose only support was the tip of a single toe on
each extremity, to say nothing of the singular conformation of its teeth
and other organs. So striking have these characters appeared to many
zoologists that the animals possessing them have been reckoned as an
order apart called _Solidungula_; but palæontology has revealed that in
the structure of its skull, its teeth, its limbs, the horse is nothing
more than a modified _Palæotherium_; and though still with gaps in
certain places, many of the intermediate stages of these modifications
are already known to us, being the _Paloplotherium_, _Anchitherium_,
_Merychippus_, and _Hipparion_. On this very interesting point, which
looks more like a real genealogical history than any other known,
however, I need not dwell, as it was so fully treated of in a lecture
delivered in this theatre three years ago by Professor Huxley--a lecture
entitled the “Pedigree of the Horse.”
Lastly, there is _Macrauchenia_, a curiously modified Perissodactyle
found in pleistocene times in South America, apparently another
derivative of the palæotherium type, presenting resemblances (though
perhaps only analogical) to some of the artiodactyles, especially the
camels.
Directly intermediate forms between _Macrauchenia_ and the other animals
of its group are not yet known; but considering how little evidence we
have of the animal life of the middle or older tertiaries of South
America, this is not to be wondered at.
On the whole it will be seen that, taking actual anatomical characters
alone, palæontological research, even so far as it has yet been carried,
bridges over most of the gaps existing between the modern forms of
Perissodactyles, entirely abolishing, for instance, the order
_Solipedia_, as it is impossible to draw a satisfactory line where the
animal ceases to be equine and becomes a palæotheroid; some drawing it
between _Anchitherium_ and _Palæotherium_, some between _Anchitherium_
and _Hipparion_. Moreover, and this is most important, the lines from
the modern more specialised forms converge towards the ancient more
generalised forms; so that if we could get a side-view of what is shown
in the diagram, the earliest forms at the bottom and the latest at the
top, we should have lines (broken, it is true, here and there) diverging
from a common, or near a common centre, towards a circumference above--a
view, in fact, of the conventional genealogical tree.
We turn now to the _Artiodactyles_, represented at present by the
scattered groups before spoken of, clustering round two type-forms so
widely sundered in their structure and habits as the pig and the ox; but
the former history of this division yields a totally different state of
things. Of early eocene Artiodactyles we know very little at present;
but in the later divisions of the same epoch forms appeared, such as
_Anoplotherium_, _Dichobune_, _Chœropotamus_, and _Hyopotamus_, which
were certainly neither pigs nor ruminants, but which partook remarkably
of the characters of both. They had the complete number of teeth, _i.e._
incisors and canines, like modern pigs, but molars with indications of
the crescentic pattern so characteristic of ruminants. They had two or
four toes; but the metacarpals and metatarsals were not united to form a
cannon bone as in ruminants, and they wanted the horny appendages to the
head, so usually met with in the modern representatives of that group.
From some of these central forms, or more probably from a still earlier
allied group indicated by the genus _Acotherulum_, or by some other
still undescribed remains from Mauremont, transitions can be traced
with few breaks, through the successively modified miocene genera
_Chærotherium_ and _Palæochærus_ to the genus _Sus_, or true pig, in
which the dentition undergoes some remarkable specialisations, as the
upturning of the upper canines, and great development and extremely
tuberculated character of the posterior molars, which are both
singularly exaggerated in some modern offsets of the pig family, the
first in the babirussa, and the second in the wart-hog (_Phacochærus_).
More distantly related to the true pigs are the hippopotamus on the one
hand, and the peccary on the other. In relation to the first, not found
anteriorly to the latest miocene, it is significant that the earliest
known forms had the more generalised number of incisor teeth (six)
instead of four as in the modern hippopotamus, and hence has been made
into a genus by itself, called _Hexaprotodon_.
The researches of Leidy into the ancient (miocene and early pliocene)
fauna of Nebraska have furnished evidence of a remarkable group of
animals now entirely extinct, the _Oreodontidæ_, the characters of which
are perfectly intermediate between those of the pigs and the ruminants;
animals with pig-like feet and complete number of incisors, canines, and
molars, but with the latter important set of teeth, formed precisely on
the same type as those of the deer. Within this particular group Leidy
has noted a curious series of slight modifications coinciding with the
successive age of the strata, in which the remains were found.
_Agriochærus_, the most ancient, approaches nearer to _Chæropotamus_,
has orbits open behind and very shallow-crowned teeth. Then follows
_Oreodon_ proper, and lastly _Merychyus_, more like the modern
ruminants.
To return to the European forms, in the genus _Gelocus_, where the union
of the two principal bones of the metapodium first occurs, Kowalevsky
has noticed the gradual way in which this change seems to have been
brought about in successive epochs of eocene and early miocene strata,
at first free in the young, and only coalescing in old animals,
afterwards coalescing at a much earlier age. The gradual perfecting of
the foot by the development of the ridge round the lower articular end
of the metapodium in later forms, the ridge being quite wanting in
early forms of the same group, has been noticed by the same author in
many different series of Ungulates.
During the miocene period the peculiar dental characteristics of the
modern ruminants, especially the loss of the upper incisors, were
developed, all selenodont artiodactyles henceforth showing it. Of this
early race of imperfect ruminants, still retaining many generalised
characters, especially in the skull, the cervical vertebræ, fibula,
stomach, etc., the chevrotains (_Tragulidæ_) are the survivors,
especially the West African _Hyomoschus_, which has existed almost
unchanged since the late miocene of Sansans and Steinheim. Then for the
first time the appendages called antlers were introduced, but only in a
comparatively rudimentary condition, with long pedicles and few
branches, as in the modern Muntjaks. It was not till pliocene and
especially pleistocene epochs that the wonderful and luxuriant variety
of cervine antlers reached their full development. As offsets of the
deer group, the giraffe, the gigantic Siwalik _Sivaitherium_, and the
_Helladotherium_ of Greece may be mentioned, the two latter having
become extinct, apparently without descendants.
Later still, the yet more specialised forms of hollow-horned ruminants
appear--forms which now dominate the earth, being of all Ungulates the
most widely diffused and most numerous in species, in individuals, and
in outward variety, though in essential structure all alike. One of
their principal characteristics is the modification of their molar teeth
in the same way as in the modern horses, to which in some respects they
seem to form a parallel group. The difference between the molar tooth of
a hollow-horned ruminant and that of a deer consists in the great
lengthening of the crown without any change in the pattern of the enamel
folds, and in the addition of cement to support these folds. This
alteration did not take place suddenly, and the crowns of teeth of the
artiodactyles before the time of deer were still shorter than in those
animals.
Among the deer themselves, as Lartet observed, the most ancient have
very short-crowned molars, and the depressions on the surface are so
shallow that the bottom is always visible, while in the Cervidæ of the
more recent tertiary periods, and especially the pleistocene and living
species, these same cavities are so deep that, whatever be the state of
dentition, the bottom cannot be seen. This (he says) is a perfectly
reliable rule for distinguishing the ancient from the more modern forms
of deer, and can be applied to other animals as well as the Cervidæ.
From it he surmises that the duration of the life of modern is greater
than that of ancient deer. The same careful observer also remarks that
in many natural groups a gradual progress is observed in the volume of
the brain and complexity of its surface, as deduced from casts of the
interior of the skull, from which fact he concludes that a gradual
growth of vital energy and intelligence has occurred as the effect of
the tendency towards improvement, of which the cause is always acting,
and the limits indefinite.
Thus the history of the Even-toed Ungulates tells the same story as that
of the Perissodactyles. The modern forms are placed along lines which
converge towards a common centre. Moreover, the lines of both groups, to
a certain extent, approximate; but within the limits of our knowledge
they do not meet. Both artiodactyles and perissodactyles existed low
down in the eocene, just as Carnivores, Insectivores, bats, rodents, and
other great groups then existed with boundary lines as distinctly marked
as now.
Was the order, according to which the introduction of new forms seems to
have taken place since that epoch, then entirely changed? or did it
continue as far back as the period when these lines would have been
gradually fused into a common centre?
Here we are landed in the region of pure speculation; but bolder
travellers than I have endeavoured to penetrate its mysteries, as may be
seen by a perusal of Professor Huxley’s presidential address to the
Geological Society for 1870.
I have so far confined myself within the region of the known, and shown
that at least in one group of animals the facts which we have as yet
acquired point to the former existence of intermediate forms, so
numerous that they go far to discredit the view of the sudden
introduction of new species.
They also show many cases of gradual modification of particular organs,
probably always to the benefit of the race, and also a general progress
from lower to higher or more specialised types: though, as in all other
cases of progress (human civilisation, for instance), attended with many
exceptions, some local and temporary, some only apparent.
Whether the inferences which seem to me to follow from these facts are
true or not may still be an open question; for the sake of the stimulus
that an open question of this sort lends to scientific research I am
very glad that it is so; but if true, if we are led by them to the
conclusion that the world we live in is a world of gradual growth and
progress, and orderly evolution, what grander view of the Creation and
the history of that world can we have opened to us?
XII
A CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE[31]
On the 10th of January 1778 died the great Swedish naturalist, Charles
Linné, more commonly known as Linnæus, a name which will ever be
mentioned with respect and regard in an assembly devoted to the
cultivation of the sciences of Zoology and Botany, as, whatever may be
the future progress of those sciences, the numerous writings of Linnæus,
and especially the publication of the _Systema Naturæ_, can never cease
to be looked upon as marking an era in their development. That work
contained a systematic exposition of all that was known on these
subjects expressed in language the most terse and precise. The
accumulated knowledge of all the workers at Zoology, Botany, and
Mineralogy since the world began, was here collected together by patient
industry, and welded into a complete and harmonious whole by penetrating
genius.
Exactly a century has passed since Linnæus died. What of the progress of
the subjects to which he devoted his long and laborious life? This one
century is a brief space compared with the ages which have passed since
man began to dwell upon the earth, surrounded by living objects, which
have, more and more as time rolled on, awakened his curiosity,
stimulated his faculties to observe, and impelled him to record the
knowledge so gained for the benefit of those to come. How does it stand
in comparison with those which preceded it, in the contributions it has
thus acquired and recorded?
It may be not without interest in commencing our work at this meeting to
cast our eyes back and take stock, as it were, of the knowledge of a
hundred years ago, and of that of the present time, and see what
advances have been made; to look at the living world as it was known to
Linnæus and as it is known to ourselves. The _Systema Naturæ_, the last
edition of which, revised by the author, was published in 1766, will be
a convenient basis for the comparison; but as the subject is one which,
even in a most superficial outline, might reach such lengths as would
well tire out the most patient of audiences, and absorb time which will
be more profitably occupied by the valuable contributions which are
forthcoming from other members of the Association, I will merely take a
small section of the work, about 100 pages out of the first of the four
volumes, those devoted to the first class MAMMALIA. The comparison of
this part is perhaps the easiest, as the contrast is the least striking,
and the progress has been comparatively the slowest. The knowledge of
large, accessible, and attractive-looking animals had naturally preceded
that of minute and obscure organisms, and hence, while in many other
departments the advance has altogether revolutionised the knowledge of
Linnæus, in the Vertebrated Classes, especially the one of which I shall
now speak, it has only extended and reformed it.
In taking the _Systema Naturæ_ of Linnæus, the comparison is certainly
carried back somewhat beyond the hundred years which have elapsed since
his death, and the brilliant contributions to the knowledge of the
Mammalia of Buffon and Daubenton, just then beginning to be known, and
the systematic compilation of Erxleben (published in 1777), are ignored;
but for the present purpose, especially considering the limited time at
my disposal, it will be best not to go beyond the actual text of the
work in question.
Before considering systematically the different groups into which
Linnæus divides the class, I must remark in passing upon what is the
greatest, and indeed most marvellous difference between the knowledge of
Zoology of our time and that of Linnæus. Now we know that the animals at
present existing upon the earth are merely the survivors of an
immensity of others, different in form, characters, and mode of life,
which have peopled the earth through vast ages of time, and to which
numerically our existing forms are but infinitesimally small, and that
the knowledge we already possess of great numbers fully justifies the
expectation of an enormous further advance in this direction. In the
time of Linnæus the existence in any past time of a species having no
longer living representatives on the earth, though perhaps the
speculation of a few philosophical minds, had not been received among
the certainties of science, and at all events found no place in the
great work we are now considering.
In the twelfth edition of the _Systema Naturæ_ we find the class
MAMMALIA divided into seven orders: I. _Primates_, II. _Bruta_, III.
_Feræ_, IV. _Glires_, V. _Pecora_, VI. _Belluæ_, VII. _Cete_. These
orders contain forty genera without any intermediate subdivisions. The
genera are again divided into species, of which the total number is 220.
The first order, PRIMATES, contains four genera: _Homo_, _Simia_,
_Lemur_, and _Vespertilio_.
The vexed question of man’s place in the zoological system was thus
settled by Linnæus. He belongs to the class _Mammalia_, and the order
_Primates_, the same order which includes all known monkeys, lemurs, and
bats: he differs only generically from these animals. But then we must
remember that the Linnæan genera were not our genera; they correspond
usually to what we call families, sometimes to entire orders. So that
practically man’s position is much the same as that to which, after
several vicissitudes, as his separation as an order by Blumenbach and
Cuvier, or as a sub-class by Owen, he has returned in the systems of
nearly all the zoologists of the present day who treat of him as a
subject for classification upon zoological and not metaphysical grounds.
Yet since the time of Linnæus the whole science of Anthropology has been
created. There is certainly an attempt at the division of the species
_Homo sapiens_ into six varieties in the _Systema Naturæ_, but it has
scarcely any scientific basis. Zoological Anthropology may be said to
have commenced with Blumenbach, who, it is interesting to recall as an
evidence of the rapid growth of the science, was a contemporary with
most of us in this room, for he died as lately as 1840, although his
first work on the subject, _De generis humani varietate nativa_, was
published three years before the death of Linnæus, too late, however, to
influence the work we are now speaking of. The scientific study of the
natural history of man is therefore, we may say, but one century old. To
what it has grown during that time you are probably aware. Scarcely an
important centre of civilisation in the world but has a special Society
devoted to its cultivation. It forms by itself a special department of
the Biological Section of our Association--a department of such
importance that on this occasion no less distinguished a person than a
former most eminent President of the whole Association was thought fit
to take charge of it. From him you will doubtless hear what is its
present scope, aim, and compass. I need only remind you that except the
one cardinal point of the zoological relation of man to other forms of
life, which Linnæus appears to have appreciated with intuitive
perception, all else that you will now hear in that department was not
dreamt of in his philosophy.
As might naturally be supposed, apes and monkeys have, for various
reasons, attracted the attention of observers of nature from very early
times, and consequently Linnæus was able to give rather a goodly list of
species of these animals, amounting to thirty-three; but of their mutual
affinities, and of the important structural differences which exist
between many of them, he seems to have had no idea, his three divisions
being simply regulated by the condition of the tail, whether absent,
short, or long.
We now know that the so-called Anthropoid or man-like apes, the gorilla,
chimpanzee, orang, and gibbons, form a group apart from all the others
of such importance that everything related to their history, structure,
and habits has been most assiduously studied, and there is now an
immense literature devoted to this group alone. Nothing could better
illustrate the advances we have made in a hundred years, than the
contrast of our present knowledge of these forms with that of Linnæus.
It is true that, as shown in the most interesting story of the gradual
development of our knowledge relating to them in the first chapter of
Huxley’s _Man’s Place in Nature_, the animal now called gorilla was,
without doubt, the pongo, well known to and clearly described by our
countryman, Andrew Battle, a contemporary of Shakespeare; and that a
really accurate and scientific account of the anatomy of the chimpanzee
had been published as far back as 1699 by Dr. Edward Tyson, who, as the
first English comparative anatomist, I am proud to claim as in some sort
a predecessor in the chair I have the honour to hold in London, as he is
described on the title-page of his work as “Reader of Anatomy at
Chirurgeons’ Hall.”
Linnæus was, however, not acquainted with these, and his second species
of the genus _Homo_, _H. troglodytes_, and his first of the genus
_Simia_, _S. satyrus_, were both made up of vague and semi-fabulous
accounts of the animals now known as chimpanzees and orangs, but
hopelessly confounded together. Of the gorilla, and what is stranger
still, of any of the large genus of gibbons, or long-armed apes of
South-eastern Asia, he had at the time he revised the _Systema_ no idea.
The remaining monkeys, we now know, fall into three very distinct
sections: the _Cercopithecidæ_ of the Old World, and the _Cebidæ_ and
_Hapalidæ_ of the New, or by whatever other names we may like to
designate them. Although members of all three groups appear in the list
in the _Systema_, they are all confusedly mixed together. Even that the
American monkeys belong to a totally different stock from those of the
Old World does not seem to have been suspected.
The genus _Lemur_ of Linnæus comprehends five species, of which the
first four were all the then known forms of a most interesting section
of the Mammalia. These animals, mostly inhabitants of the great island
of Madagascar, though some are found in the African continent, and
others in some of the Southern and Eastern parts of Asia, constitute a
well-defined group, but one of which the relations are very uncertain.
At one time, as in the system of Linnæus, they were closely associated
with the monkeys. As more complete knowledge of their organisation has
been gradually attained, the interval which separates them structurally
from those animals has become continually more evident, and since they
cannot be placed within the limits of any of the previously constituted
orders, it has been considered advisable by some naturalists to increase
the ordinal divisions in their behalf and to allow them to take rank as
a distinct group, related to the _Primates_ on the one hand, and to the
_Carnivora_ and _Insectivora_ on the other. The knowledge of their
relations, however, bids fair to be greatly increased by the discoveries
of fossil forms lately made both in France and America, some of which
seem to carry their affinities even to the _Ungulata_.
Existing upon the earth at present, besides the more ordinary lemurs to
which the species known to Linnæus belong, there are two aberrant forms,
each represented by a single species. These are the little _Tarsius_ of
Borneo and Celebes, and the singular _Chiromys_, or Aye-aye, which,
though an inhabitant of the headquarters of the group, Madagascar, and
living in the same forests and under the same conditions as the most
typical lemurs, exhibits a most remarkable degree of specialisation in
the structure both of limbs and teeth, the latter being modified so as
to resemble, at least superficially, those of the Rodents, a group with
which in fact it was once placed. It was discovered by Sonnerat in
Madagascar in 1780, two years after the death of Linnæus. The specimen
brought to Paris by this traveller was the only one known until 1860.
Since that date, however, its native land has been more freely open than
before to explorers, and many specimens have been obtained, one having
lived for several years in the Gardens of the London Zoological Society.
The history of a name is often not a little curious. Linnæus applied the
term _Lemures_, _i.e._ the departed spirits of men, to these animals on
account of their nocturnal habits and ghost-like aspect. The
hypothetical continent in the Indian Ocean, supposed to have connected
Madagascar with the Malayan Archipelago is called by Mr. Sclater,
_Lemuria_, as the presumed original home of the lemur-like animals.
Although the steps are not numerous, it might puzzle a classical
scholar, ignorant of Zoology, to explain the connection between this
continent and the Roman festival of the same name.
The fifth animal which Linnæus places in his genus _Lemur_, under the
name of _L. volans_, is the very singular creature to which the generic
term _Galeopithecus_ has since been applied. It is one of those
completely aberrant forms which, having no near existing relations, and
none yet discovered among extinct forms, are perfect puzzles to
systematic zoologists. It is certainly not a lemur, and not a bat, as
has been supposed by some. We shrink from multiplying the orders for the
sake of single genera containing only two closely-allied species; so we
have generally allowed it to take refuge among the _Insectivora_, though
without being able to show to which of that somewhat heterogeneous group
it has any near affinities.
The fourth genus of the PRIMATES is _Vespertilio_, comprising six
species of bats. This genus has now by universal consent expanded into
an order, and one of the best characterised and distinctly circumscribed
of any in the class: indeed, those who have worked most at the details
of the structure of bats find so much diversity in the characters of the
skull, teeth, digestive organs, etc., associated with the modification
of the fore-limbs for flight common to all, as almost to entitle them to
be regarded rather as a sub-class. Anatomical as well as palæontological
evidence shows that they must have diverged from the ordinary mammalian
type at a very far distant date, as the earliest known forms, from the
Eocene strata, are quite as specialised as any now existing, and no
trace has hitherto been discovered of forms linking them to any of the
non-volant orders. By the publication within the last few weeks of a
valuable monograph on the existing species of the group, entitled “A
Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the Collection of the British Museum,” by
G. E. Dobson, we are enabled to contrast our present knowledge with that
of the time of Linnæus. Although the author has suppressed a large
number of nominal species which formerly encumbered our catalogues, and
wisely abstained from the tendency of most monographists to multiply
genera, he describes four hundred species, arranged in eighty genera;
nearly double the number of species, and exactly double the number of
genera, of the whole class MAMMALIA in the _Systema Naturæ_, and these
Dr. Günther remarks in his Preface are probably only a portion of those
existing. The small size, nocturnal habits, and difficulty of capture of
these animals, are sufficient reasons for the supposition that there
are still large numbers unknown to science. In the list of Linnæus, the
first primary group of Dobson, the _Megachiroptera_, now containing
seventy species, is represented by a single one, _V. vampyrus_,
obviously a _Pteropus_, to which the bloodthirsty habits of the fabulous
Vampyre are attributed, but which is not absolutely identified with any
one of the known species. The other species described by Linnæus can
almost all be identified with bats at present well known.
A curious example of the results of basing classification upon a few,
and those somewhat artificial characters, is afforded by one of the true
bats, now called _Noctilio leporinus_, though admitted by Linnæus to be
“_simillimus vespertilionibus, similiter pedibus alatus_, being
separated from the others, not only generically, but even placed in
another order, that of the GLIRES or Rodents, because it did not, or was
supposed not to fall under the definition of the order PRIMATES, which
begins “_Dentes primores incisores superiores IV. paralleli_.” In
reality this bat has four upper incisors, but the outer ones are so
small as to have been overlooked when first examined. But even if this
were not so, no one would now dream of basing an animal’s position upon
such a trivial character when opposed to the totality of its
organisation and habits.
The characters of the incisor teeth are placed in the first rank in the
definitions of all the orders in the _Systema Naturæ_, and hence the
next order called BRUTA, characterised by “_dentes primores nulli
superius aut inferius_,” contains a curious mixture of heterogeneous
animals, as the names of the genera _Elephas_, _Trichechus_, _Bradypus_,
_Myrmecophaga_, _Manis_, and _Dasypus_ will indicate. It contains, in
fact, all the animals then known comprised in the modern orders of
_Proboscidea_, _Sirenia_, and _Edentata_, together with the walrus, one
of the _Carnivora_. The name BRUTA has been revived for one of these
orders, that more generally called _Edentata_, but I think very
inappropriately, for it was certainly not equivalent, and if retained at
all, should rather belong to the _Proboscidea_, as _Elephas_ stands
first in the list of genera which Linnæus assigned to the group.
It is curious to find that the striking differences between the African
and the Indian elephants, now so well understood by every beginner in
Zoology, and all the facts which have already been accumulated relating
to the numerous extinct forms of Proboscideans, whether Mammoths,
Mastodons, or Dinotheria, were quite unknown to Linnæus. One species
only, _Elephas maximus_, represented in the zoology of a hundred years
ago all that was known of the elephants or elephant-like animals.
The genus _Trichechus_ of this edition exhibits a very curious phase of
zoological knowledge. It contains two species--1. _T. rosmarus_, the
walrus, now known to be a modified seal, and therefore a member of the
Linnæan order FERÆ, and 2. _T. manatus_, a name under which were
included all the known forms of manatees and dugongs, in fact the whole
of the modern order _Sirenia_,--animals widely removed in all essential
points of their organisation from the walrus, with which they are here
generically united. Their position, however, between the elephant on the
one hand and the sloths on the other, is far better than their
association with the _Cetacea_, as in Cuvier’s system, an association
from which it has been most difficult to disengage them, notwithstanding
their total dissimilarity except in a few external characters. Although
the discovery of many fossil forms has done much to link together the
few existing species and to show the essential unity of the group, it
has thrown no light upon their origin, or their affinities to other
mammals. They still stand, both by their structure and their habits, in
a strangely isolated position, and it baffles conjecture to say whence
they have been derived, or how they have attained their present singular
organisation.
The remaining genera of the Linnæan order BRUTA constitute the group out
of which Cuvier, following Blumenbach, formed his order _Edentata_, a
name certainly not happily chosen for a division which includes species
like the great armadillo, having a larger number of teeth than any other
land mammal, but which, nevertheless, has been so generally adopted, and
is so well understood, that to attempt to change it would only introduce
an element of confusion. Four out of five of the principal modifications
of form in the group at present known are indicated by the four Linnæan
genera, _Bradypus_ or sloth, _Myrmecophaga_ or ant-eater, _Manis_ or
pangolin, and _Dasypus_ or armadillo. The advances during the century
have consisted in the accumulation of a great mass of details respecting
these groups; the addition of a fifth and very distinct existing form,
the _Orycteropus_ or Cape ant-eater; and the discovery of numerous and
very remarkable extinct forms, such as the Megatheriums and Glyptodons
of South America, now so fully known by their well-preserved osseous
remains. There is, however, still much to be done in working out the
real relationship of the somewhat isolated members of the order, if it
be a natural order, both to each other, and to the rest of the Mammalia,
from which they stand widely removed in many points of organisation.
The third order of Linnæus, FERÆ, contained all the then known animals,
which, with whatever diversities of general structure, agreed in their
predatory habits, and possessed certain general characters of teeth and
claws to correspond, though the terse definition of “_Dentes primores
superiores sex, acutiusculi canini solitarii_,” is by no means
universally applicable to them. This order was broken up by Cuvier into
the orders _Carnivora_ and _Insectivora_, and the genus _Didelphys_,
included in it by Linnæus, has been since by universal assent removed to
another group.
The first six genera belong to the very well-defined and probably
natural group now called _Carnivora_. The one placed at the head of the
list, _Phoca_, is equivalent to the large and important modern sub-order
_Pinnipedia_,--the walrus, however, though essentially a seal, having
been, as before mentioned, relegated by Linnæus to another order, on
account of its aberrant dentition. But three species are recorded in the
genus; _P. ursina_, the sea-bear of the North Pacific (now _Otaria
ursina_); _P. leonina_, founded on Anson’s sea-lion, now commonly called
the elephant seal, or sea-elephant (_Macrorhinus proboseideus_, or more
properly _leoninus_); and _P. vitulina_, the common seal of our coasts.
The terrestrial sub-order of _Carnivora_ is represented by five genera:
1. _Canis_, including the dog, wolf, hyæna, fox, arctic fox, jackal,
etc. 2. _Felis_, with only six species, but still one of the few Linnæan
genera, which covers exactly the same ground as at present in the
opinion of the majority of zoologists, although it may be mentioned as
an example of the tendency towards excessive and unnecessary
multiplication of generic names which exists in some quarters, that it
has been divided into as many as fourteen. 3. _Viverra_, a heterogeneous
group, containing ichneumons, coatis, and skunks, animals belonging to
three very distinct families, according to modern ideas. 4. _Mustela_, a
far more natural group, being nearly equivalent to the modern family
_Mustelidæ_; and, lastly, a very comprehensive genus _Ursus_, consisting
of _U. meles_, the badger, _U. lotor_, the raccoon, _U. luscus_, the
wolverene, and all the true bears known, comprised in the single species
_U. arctos_. Many interesting forms of _Carnivora_, as _Cryptoprocta_,
_Proteles_, _Eupleres_, _Ailurus_, and _Ailuropus_, have no place in the
Linnæan system, being comparatively modern discoveries. The very recent
date (1869) at which the last-named remarkable animal was made known to
science by the enterprising researches of the Abbé David into the Fauna
of Eastern Thibet, gives hope that we may not yet be at the end of the
discovery of even large and hitherto unsuspected forms of existing
mammals.
Next in the Linnæan system comes the genus _Didelphys_, constituted for
the reception of five species of American opossums. This is a very
interesting landmark in the history of the progress of the knowledge of
the animal life of the world, as these five opossums, forming a genus in
the midst of the order FERÆ, were all that was then known of the great
sub-class _Marsupialia_, now constituting a group entirely apart from
the ordinary members of the class. It is difficult now to imagine an
animal world without kangaroos, without wombats, without phalangers,
without thylacines, without dasyures, and so many other familiar forms,
and yet such was the animal world known to Linnæus. It is true that a
species of kangaroo from one of the islands of the Austro-Malayan
Archipelago was described as long ago as 1714 by De Bruyn, who saw it
alive at the house of the Dutch governor of Batavia, and that Captain
Cook and Sir Joseph Banks saw and killed kangaroos on the east coast of
Australia in 1770, and had published figures and descriptions of them in
1773, or five years before the death of Linnæus; but the work we are
now considering contains no traces of knowledge of the existence of such
a remarkable and now so well-known animal.
The three remaining genera of FERÆ, _Talpa_, _Sorex_, and _Erinaceus_,
contained all the known species of the present order INSECTIVORA, which
now embraces many and very varied forms, quite unsuspected a century
ago, and to which it is probable that many others will be added by the
time the exploration of the animal products of the world is completed.
The fourth order, GLIRES, has remained practically unchanged to our day,
although the name _Rodentia_ has generally superseded that bestowed upon
it by Linnæus. The five genera of the _Systema Naturæ_, _Hystrix_,
_Lepus_, _Castor_, _Mus_, and _Sciurus_, have been vastly increased,
partly by subdivision and partly by the discovery of new forms.
_Noctilio_ is, as before mentioned, removed to the Chiroptera, but its
loss is well compensated for by _Hydrochærus_, the well-known Capybara,
the largest existing member of the group, which in the Linnæan system is
placed among the Belluæ, in the same genus with the pigs.
The fifth Linnæan order, PECORA, is a fairly natural group, equivalent
to Cuvier’s _Ruminantia_; but it is no longer considered of the value of
an order, since the animals composing it have now been shown to be as
closely related to certain of those belonging to the next order as they
are to each other. The first genus, _Camelus_, contains both the
American lamas and the Old World camels, the demonstration of the common
origin and close affinities of which has been one of the important
results of the recent discoveries in the palæontology of the Western
continent. In the next genus, _Moschus_, were placed the well-known musk
deer of the highlands of Central Asia, and two small African antelopes,
which have no special affinity with it. The subsequent inclusion in the
same genus of the small chevrotains (_Tragulinæ_), which was very
natural at the time, as they agree perfectly with the musk in the
absence of horns and the presence of large canine tusks, by which
artificial characters the genus was defined by Linnæus, was one of those
unfortunate associations which have greatly retarded the progress of
knowledge of the true affinities of the group. Judging by the popular
works on Zoology, it is still as difficult to apprehend that a
chevrotain is not a musk deer, as it is that a manatee is not a
cetacean,--both errors of the same kind, if not quite so gross, as that
of regarding a whale as a fish, or a bat as a bird. The Linnean genus
_Cervus_ contains six species of true deer, including the moose,
reindeer, red deer, fallow, and roe, associated with the giraffe.
The twenty-one species of the great group of hollow-horned Ruminants, at
that time recognised, are distributed quite arbitrarily in three genera,
_Capra_, _Ovis_, and _Bos_. Though subsequent investigations have
greatly increased the number of species known, we are still in much
uncertainty about their mutual affinities and generic distinctions.
Being a group of comparatively modern origin, and only just attaining
its complete development, variation has chiefly affected the less
essential and superficial organs. Moreover, the process of extinction of
intermediate forms has not operated sufficiently long to break it up
into distinctly-separated natural minor groups, as is the case with many
of the older families, which lend themselves, therefore, far more
readily to systematic classification, especially as long as the extinct
forms are unknown or ignored.
The sixth order of land mammals, BELLUÆ, corresponding to the
_Pachydermata_ of Cuvier, contains what is now known to be a
heterogeneous collection, viz. the horses, the hippopotamus, the pigs,
rhinoceroses, and the rodent capybara. The abolition of these two last
orders and the entire rearrangement of the ungulate mammals into two
different natural groups, now called _Artiodactyla_ and
_Perissodactyla_, first indicated by Cuvier in the “Ossemens fossiles,”
from the structure of the limbs alone, and afterwards confirmed by Owen
from comparison of every part of the organisation, has been one of the
most solid advances made in our knowledge of the classification of the
Mammalia during the present century.
The past history of this, as of so many other groups of vertebrated
animals, has been brought to light in an unexpected manner by the
wonderful discoveries of fossil remains made during the last ten years
in the Rocky Mountains of America,--discoveries, the importance of which
will only be fully appreciated when the elaborate and beautifully
illustrated work which Professor Marsh has now in progress is completed.
The last Linnæan order, CETE, is exactly conterminous with the order so
named, or rather more generally modified to _Cetacea_, in the best
modern systems, for Linnæus did not commit the error of Cuvier and
others, of including the _Sirenia_ among the whales. His knowledge of
the animals composing the group was necessarily very imperfect; indeed
it is only within the last few years, especially since the impulse given
to their study by Eschricht of Copenhagen, that the great difficulties
which surround the investigation of the structure and habits of these
denizens of the open sea have been so far surmounted that we have begun
to obtain clear views of their organisation, affinities, and
geographical distribution.
Two most remarkable forms of mammals, so abnormal in their organisation
as now to be generally considered deserving the rank of a distinct
sub-class, the _Echidna_ and _Ornithorhynchus_, were first made known to
science in 1792 and 1799 respectively, and consequently have no place in
the _Systema Naturæ_. The very recent discovery of a third form to this
group, or at least a very striking modification of one of the forms, the
large New Guinea echidna (_Acanthoglossus bruynïi_), is the last
important acquisition to our knowledge of the class.
In this brief review of the progress of one small section of one branch
of zoological knowledge, it will be seen that it is chiefly of systems
of arrangement, of classification, and of names, that I have been
treating. By many biologists of the present day these are looked upon as
the least attractive and least profitable branches of the subject. The
interest of classification, though it has lost much in some senses by
the modern advances of scientific biology, has, however, gained vastly
in others. The idea that has now, chiefly in consequence of the writings
of Darwin, taken such strong hold upon all working naturalists--the idea
of a gradual growth and progressive evolution, and therefore genetic
connection between all living things--breaks down the artificial
barriers which zoologists raise around their groups, and shows that such
names as _species_, _genera_, _families_, _orders_, etc., are merely
more or less clumsy attempts to express various shades of differences
among creatures connected by infinite gradations, and in this sense
destroys the importance attached to them by our predecessors. On the
other hand, it immensely increases the interest contained in the word
“relationship,” as it implies that the word is used in a real and not,
as formerly, in a metaphorical sense. There is a kind of classification,
such as we might apply to inanimate substances or manufactured articles.
We may say, for instance, that a tumbler, a wine-glass, and a tea-cup
are more closely related to each other than either one is to a chair or
a table, and that they might be formed into one group, and the
last-named objects be placed in a second. This kind of classification is
certainly useful in its way for methodical arrangement and descriptive
purposes. It is the kind of arrangement which Linnæus and his
contemporaries applied to animals. It is, however, a very different
classification from that which supposes that the members of a group
having common essential characters are descended from a common ancestor,
and have gradually, by whatever cause or means, become differentiated
from other groups. On this view a true classification, if it could be
obtained, would be a revelation of the whole secret of the evolution of
animal life, and it is no wonder that many are willing to devote so
large a share of their energies in an endeavour to attain it.
The right application of the principles of nomenclature, first clearly
established by Linnæus, to the groups we form is, again, by no means to
be despised, as laxity and carelessness in this respect are becoming
more and more the greatest hindrances to the study of Zoology. The
introduction of any new term, especially a generic name, and indeed the
use of an old one by any person whose authority carries weight, has an
appreciable effect upon the progress of science, and should never be
made without a full sense of the responsibility incurred. All beginners
are puzzled and often repelled by the confused state of zoological
nomenclature to an extent to which those who have advanced so far as
only to care for the things, and to whom the actual names by which they
are called are comparatively indifferent, have little idea. Those whose
special gift or inclination leads them to the pursuit of other branches
of Biology, as Morphology, Physiology, or Embryology, must have definite
names for the objects they observe, depict, or describe, and are
dependent upon the researches of the systematic zoologist for supplying
them, and should not neglect to take his counsel, otherwise much of
their work will lose its value.
Several times has the British Association thought this a worthy subject
for the consideration of its members, and through the instrumentality of
a committee of working naturalists an excellent code of regulations and
suggestions on the subject of zoological nomenclature was drawn up in
1842. These rules were revised and reprinted in 1865; and in accordance
with a resolution adopted at the last annual meeting at Plymouth they
have been again republished at the cost of the Association during the
present year. The mere issue of such rules must have had a beneficial
effect, as they have undoubtedly been a guide to many careful and
conscientious workers. Unfortunately no means exist of enforcing them
upon those of a different class, but there is still something wanting,
short of enforcing them, which possibly may be within the power of the
Association to effect. In the administration of the judicial affairs of
a nation, besides the makers of the laws, we have an equally essential
body to interpret or apply the law to particular cases--the judges.
However carefully compiled or excellent a code of regulations may be,
dubious and difficult cases will arise, to which the application of the
law is not always clear, and about which individual opinions will
differ. The necessary permission given in the Association rules to
change names which are either “glaringly false,” or “not clearly
defined,” opens the door to considerable latitude of private
interpretation. As what we are aiming at is simply convenience and
general accord, and not absolute justice or truth, there are also cases
in which the rigid law of priority, even if it can be ascertained,
requires qualification, and others in which it may be advisable to put
up with a small error or inconvenience to avoid falling into a larger
one. I may name such cases as the propriety or the reverse of reviving
an obselete or almost unknown name for one which, if not strictly
legitimate, has been universally accepted, or the retention of a name
when already applied to a different genus, instead of the institution of
another in its place. For instance, should the name _Echidna_, by which
the well-known Monotrematous Mammal is known in every text-book and
catalogue in every language, be superseded by _Tachyglossus_, because
the former name had previously been applied to a genus of snakes? or
should the chimpanzee be no longer called _Troglodytes_ lest it should
be confounded with a wren? Should _Chiromys_ be discarded for
_Daubentonia_, _Trichechus_ for _Odobenus_, and _Tapirus_ for
_Hydrochœrus_? Should the Java slow lemur be called _Loris_, _Stenops_,
or _Nycticebus_? Should Sowerby’s whale be placed in the genus
_Physeter_, _Delphinus_, _Delphinorhynchus_, _Heterodon_, _Diodon_,
_Aodon_, _Nodus_, _Ziphius_, _Micropterus_, _Micropteron_, _Mesodiodon_,
_Dioplodon_, or _Mesoplodon_, in all of which it may be found in various
systematic lists? Should one of the largest and best known of the
Cetaceans of our seas be called _Balænoptera musculus_, _Physalus
antiquorum_, or _Pterobalæna communis_, all names used for it by authors
of high authority? Should the smallest British seal be called _Phoca
hispida_, _fœtida_, or _anellata_?
I might go on indefinitely multiplying instances which will be answered
differently by different naturalists, the arguments for one or the other
name being often nicely balanced. What is wanted, therefore, is some
kind of judicial authority for deciding which should in future be used.
If a committee of eminent naturalists, selected from various nations,
and divided into several sections, according to the subjects with which
each member is most familiar, could be prevailed upon to take up the
task of revising the whole of our existing nomenclature upon the basis
of the laws issued by the Association in 1842, occasionally tempering
their strictly legal decisions with a little discretion and common
sense, and with a view, as much as possible, of avoiding confusion and
promoting general convenience,--and if the working zoologists of the
world generally would agree to accept the decisions of such a committee
as final,--we should dispose of many of the difficulties with which we
are now troubled. There seems to me no more reason why the nomenclature
of such a committee, if it were composed of men in whose judgment their
fellow-workers would have confidence, should not be as universally
accepted as is the nomenclature of the last edition of the _Systema
Naturæ_ of Linnæus. We have agreed not to look beyond that work for
evidence of priority, and why should we not agree in the same way to
accept decisions which would probably be arrived at with even fuller
knowledge and greater sense of responsibility?
Whether this suggestion will be received with favour or not, it appeared
to me that it was one not inappropriate for the consideration of this
Section, which has already dealt with the question in a manner so
advantageous to science, and also for this year, which has witnessed the
hundredth anniversary of the death of the great teacher of systematic
zoology.
Our knowledge of the living inhabitants of the earth has indeed changed
since that time. Our views of their relations to the universe, to each
other, and to ourselves, have undergone great revolutions. The knowledge
of Linnæus far surpassed that of any of his contemporaries; but yet of
what we now know he knew but an infinitesimal amount. Much that he
thought he knew we now deem false. Nevertheless, some of the oldest
words to be found in all his writings contain sentiments which still
claim a response in the hearts of many. Although we are less accustomed
to see such words in works of science, that is no proof that their
significance has been impaired by the marvellous progress of knowledge.
With the words which Linnæus selected to place at the head of his great
work I will conclude--
_O Jehova,_
_Quam ampla sunt tua opera!_
_Quam sapienter ea fecisti!_
_Quam plena est terra possessione tua!_
XIII
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON[32]
Nowhere has the progress which the world has made during the fifty years
of Her Majesty’s reign, the completion of which we are now happily
celebrating, been more strikingly manifested than in the advance of that
so-called “natural knowledge” for the improvement of which our Royal
Society was instituted more than two centuries ago. Although there have
been, without doubt, immense strides in other directions--in morals, in
art, in historical and literary criticism--I venture to say that none of
these can be compared with the marvellous progress that has been made in
scientific knowledge and scientific methods.
The tangible results that have followed the practical applications of
mechanics, physics, and chemistry have so deeply affected the material
interests of mankind, that the progress of these branches of knowledge
may seem to put into the shade the wonderful changes that have taken
place in the kindred sciences. Nevertheless, I think we may safely say
that Zoology, in a certain sense one of the oldest of human studies, has
in these latter times undergone a new birth, which has not only changed
the standpoint from which we view the special objects of our studies,
but has also spread its influence far and wide, and profoundly modified
our conceptions on many questions at first sight entirely remote from
its sphere. The universal abandonment of the doctrine of fixity of
species, which was an article of faith with almost every zoologist in
1837, has introduced new interests, as well, it must be confessed, as
new difficulties, the extent of which we are only beginning to
appreciate. The definite systems of classification and methods of
nomenclature on which our fathers relied utterly fail before the wider
field of vision which it is the privilege, as well as the embarrassment,
of the present generation of zoologists to realise.
But it is no part of my intention, in the brief space of time for which
I shall ask your patience, to attempt to give a history of the recent
advances of zoological science in general, but only, as requested by
your Council, to say a few words on the progress of the particular
Institution established for its cultivation in which we are personally
interested, and the duration of which is so nearly contemporaneous with
that of Her Majesty’s reign.
Before this Society was founded there was no distinct organisation in
the country devoted solely to collecting, recording, and discussing the
facts upon which zoological science rests. The dignified parent of all
our scientific societies, the _Royal_, certainly undertook, as it does
still, the discussion of many zoological subjects; but it could not be
expected to treat them in any detail. The Linnæan was a society of great
respectability, devoted solely to biological research, both zoological
and botanical, already nearly forty years of age, and possessed of all
the usual appurtenances of a scientific organisation--meetings, library,
and collections for reference. I cannot help thinking that if its
leading Fellows had, at that time, displayed more energy, it might have
kept in its hands the principal direction of the biological studies of
the country, instead of allowing what has since proved so formidable a
rival to spring up, and to absorb so large a portion of its useful
functions. However, for reasons which it is perhaps not worth while to
inquire into now, it did not supply all the needs of the lovers of
Zoology; and in the year 1826 an active and zealous band united
together, and, as the Charter tells us, “subscribed and expended
considerable sums of money for the purpose” of founding the _Zoological
Society of London_.
The leading spirit of this band was Sir Stamford Raffles, then just
returned from the administration of those Eastern islands of which the
history, both natural and political, will ever be intimately associated
with his name. He was chosen for the office of President, but his death,
on the 5th of July 1826, deprived the Society, while yet in its infancy,
of his valuable services even some years before it acquired its Charter
of Incorporation. In this deed, dated 27th March 1829, Henry, Marquis of
Lansdowne, is named as the first President of the chartered Society,
Joseph Sabine as the first Treasurer, and Nicholas Aylward Vigors the
first Secretary.
The Society appears to have acquired great popularity in a surprisingly
short time. The first printed list of members that I can discover (dated
1st January 1829) contains the names of 1294 ordinary Fellows and 40
honorary and corresponding members. The list is an interesting one, from
the number of names it includes of persons eminent either in science,
art, literature, politics, or social life; indeed, there were not many
people of distinction in the country at that time who are not to be
found in it.
A piece of ground in the Regent’s Park having been obtained from the
Government at little more than a nominal rent, the Gardens were laid
out, and opened in 1828, during which year 98,605 visitors are recorded
as having entered. In the following (the first complete) year there were
as many as 189,913 visitors, and this number was increased in 1831 to
262,193.
While the menagerie of living animals was being formed in the Regent’s
Park, the Officers and Fellows of the Society were also engaged in
establishing a museum of preserved specimens, which soon assumed very
considerable dimensions. A catalogue printed as early as the year 1828
contains a classified list of 450 specimens of Mammalia alone; and it
continued for many years to attract donations from travellers and
collectors in all parts of the world, and became of great scientific
importance, inasmuch as it contained very many types of species
described for the first time in the publications of the Society. It was
at first lodged in rooms in the society’s house in Bruton Street; but
these becoming so crowded as to present the “confused air of a store
rather than the appearance of an arranged museum,” premises were taken
in 1836 in Leicester Square, the same which were formerly occupied by
the museum of John Hunter before its removal to the College of Surgeons.
At this time the museum is reported to have contained as many as 6720
specimens of vertebrated animals, and numerous additions were still
being made both by donations and by purchase. The rooms in Leicester
Square being found inconvenient for the purpose, it was finally
resolved, after considerable discussion of various sites, to transfer
the collection to the Gardens in the Regent’s Park; and in 1843 the
building which is now occupied as a lecture-room on the upper floor and
a storeroom below was constructed and fitted up for its reception.
Although the museum was at one time looked upon as a very important part
of the Society’s operations, being spoken of as “the centre of the
Society’s scientific usefulness” (Report of Council, 1837), and one upon
which considerable sums of money were spent, it was afterwards a cause
of embarrassment, from the difficulty and expense of keeping it up in a
state of efficiency; and when the Zoological Department of the British
Museum acquired such a development as to fulfil all the objects proposed
by the Society’s collection, the uselessness of endeavouring to maintain
a second and inferior zoological museum in the same city became
apparent, and in 1856 it was, as I think very wisely, determined to part
with the collection, the whole of the types being transferred to the
National Museum, and the remaining specimens to other institutions,
where it was thought their value would be most appreciated.
Another enterprise in which the Fellows of the Society were much
interested in its early days was the farm at Kingston, the special
object of which was thus defined: “It will be useful in receiving
animals which may require a greater range and more quiet than the
Gardens at the Regent’s Park can afford. It is absolutely necessary for
the purpose of breeding and rearing young animals and giving facilities
for observations on matters of physiological interest and research, and,
above all, in making attempts to naturalise such species as are hitherto
rare or unknown in this country.” The farm, however, apparently not
fulfilling the objects expected of it, and being a source of expense
which the Society could not then well afford, was gradually allowed to
fall into neglect, and finally abandoned in 1834.
The mention of this establishment, however, causes me to allude to one
of the objects on which the Society laid considerable stress at its
foundation, and which is defined in the Charter as “the introduction of
new and curious subjects of the Animal Kingdom,” but which, as may be
gathered from the Annual Reports of the Council and from other
documents, meant not only the temporary introduction of individuals for
the purpose of satisfying curiosity about their external characters and
structure, but also the permanent domestication of foreign animals which
might become of value to man, either for their utility in adding to our
food-supplies or for the pleasure they afford by their beauty.
Abundant illustrations of the vanity of human expectations are afforded
by the details of the hopes and disappointments recorded in the reports
of the Society relating to this subject. It is mentioned in the report
of the year 1832 that “the armadillo has three times produced young, and
hopes are entertained of this animal, so valuable as an article of food,
being naturalised in this country.” More than fifty years have passed,
and British-grown armadillo has not yet appeared upon the menu-cards of
our dinner-tables. At one time the South American curassows and guans
were confidently looked upon as future rivals to our barn-door fowls and
turkeys. Various species of pheasants and other game birds from Northern
India, collected and imported at great expense, were to add zest and
variety to the battue of the English sportsman. The great success which
for many years attended the breeding of giraffes in the Gardens not
unnaturally led to the expectation that these beautiful creatures might
become denizens of our parks, or at all events a source of continued
profit to the Society; and it is possible that some who are here now may
have been present at the feast, for which an eland was sacrificed, amid
loudly-uttered prognostications that the ready acclimatisation of these
animals would result, if not in superseding, at least in providing a
change from our monotonous round of mutton, beef, and pork.
Unfortunately for these anticipations, no giraffe has been born in the
Gardens during the last twenty years, and elands are still far too
scarce to be killed for food of man in England.
It is well that these experiments should have been tried; it may be
well, perhaps, that some of them should be tried again when favourable
opportunities occur; but it is also well that we should recognise the
almost insuperable difficulties that must attend the attempt to
introduce a new animal able to compete in useful qualities with those
which, as is the case of all of our limited number of domestic animals,
have gradually acquired the peculiarities making them valuable to man,
by the accumulation of slight improvements through countless generations
of ancestors. While all our pressing wants are so well supplied by the
animals we already possess, it can no longer pay to begin again at the
beginning with a new species. This appears to be the solution of the
singular fact, scarcely sufficiently appreciated, that no addition of
any practical importance has been made to our stock of truly domestic
animals since the commencement of the historic period of man’s life upon
earth.
I now turn to the history of one of the most important features of the
Society, the scientific meetings. In the early days of the Society there
was only one class of general meetings for business of all kinds; and
the exhibition of specimens and the communication of notices on subjects
of zoological interest formed part of the ordinary proceedings at those
meetings. The great extent, however, of the general business was soon
found to interfere with such an arrangement. The number of the elections
and of the recommendations of candidates, the reports on the progress of
the Society in its several branches during each month, and other
business, were found to require so much time as to leave little for
scientific communications, and the Council saw with regret that these
were frequently and necessarily postponed to matters of more pressing
but less permanent interest. To obviate this inconvenience and to afford
opportunities for the reception and discussion of communications upon
zoological subjects, the Council had recourse to the institution of a
“Committee of Science and Correspondence,” composed of such members of
the Society as had principally applied themselves to science,--at the
meetings of which communications upon zoological subjects might be
received and discussed, and occasional selections made for the purpose
of publication.
The first meeting of the Committee took place on the evening of Tuesday,
9th November 1830, at the Society’s house in Bruton Street, when a
communication was received upon the anatomy of the uran-utan by a young
and then unknown naturalist, Richard Owen by name. This was the first of
that long series of memoirs, extending over a period of more than fifty
years, the publication of which in our _Transactions_ has done so much
to advance the knowledge of comparative anatomy and to give an
illustrious place to their author in the annals of science.
Among the names of others who are mentioned as having taken part in the
business of the Committee during the first year of its existence, either
by their actual presence or by forwarding communications, are N. A.
Vigors, W. Yarrell, J. E. Gray, J. Gould, E. T. Bennett, Andrew Smith,
Bryan H. Hodgson,[33] T. Bell, W. Martin, Joshua Brookes, W. Kirby, W.
H. Sykes, Marshall Hall, W. Ogilby, and John Richardson.
The Committee continued in existence for two years, having met for the
last time on 11th December 1832. The success of its meetings was so
great that it was thought desirable to make an alteration in the
by-laws, by which the meetings of the Committee were replaced by the
“General Meetings of the Society for Scientific Business.” The first of
these meetings took place on Tuesday, the 8th of January 1833, and they
have continued to be held on two Tuesdays in each month during the
season to the present time. As long as the Society retained its house in
Bruton Street, the meetings were held there. In 1843 the Society took
another house, which it occupied for forty-one years, No. 11 Hanover
Square; but its needs having outgrown the accommodation afforded there,
it removed in 1884 to the far more spacious and commodious premises in
No. 3 of the same square, which we at present occupy. These meetings of
the Society, which are open to all the Fellows and to friends
introduced by them, have exercised a considerable influence upon the
progress of zoological knowledge, not only by the reading and discussing
of communications formally brought before them, but also by the
interchange of ideas at the informal social gatherings over the
coffee-table in the Library afterwards, which have great value as
affording a common meeting-ground and bond of union for all the working
zoologists of the country, as well as for many visitors from foreign
lands.
The more important scientific communications to these meetings have from
the commencement been published in the form of quarto _Transactions_ and
octavo _Proceedings_, which constitute a series of inestimable
importance both for the value of the material contained in them and for
the excellence of the illustrations of new or rare forms of animal life
with which they are embellished. In later times they have also formed a
vehicle for communicating to the world the important results obtained
from the dissection of animals which have died at the Gardens, and
which, since the establishment of the office of Prosector in 1865, have
been systematically used for this purpose.
In connection with the scientific meetings must be mentioned the
Library, the first formation of which is described in the report of the
Council for the year 1837, and which has been steadily growing ever
since by donations of books, by exchange of publications with other
learned Societies, and by judicious annual expenditure of money, until
it has become one of the best-selected, well-arranged, and most
accessible collection of works of reference that it is possible for the
zoological student to enjoy. Its value has been greatly increased by the
publication within the past month of an excellent catalogue, which
contains the titles of about 6560 works.
The most recent addition to the functions that the Society has
undertaken with a view to carry out the purposes of its foundation is
the publication of an Annual Record of Zoological Literature, containing
a summary of the work done by British and Foreign naturalists in the
various branches of Zoology in each year, a publication of the utmost
value to the working zoologist. Such a Record has been carried on for
some years past by a voluntary association of naturalists, but, owing
to the difficulties met with in obtaining sufficient support, it was in
danger of being abandoned, until the Council, after the full
consideration which the importance of the subject deserved, resolved to
take it in hand as part of the operations of the Society.
The Society has, however, not only been mindful of advancing scientific
knowledge--it has also endeavoured to spread some of this knowledge in a
popular manner by means of lectures. In former years these were only
given in an occasional manner; but the liberal bequest of Mr. Alfred
Davis to the Society in 1870 has enabled the Council to undertake a more
regular and systematic method of instruction; and the Fellows and others
have had every summer for several years past the opportunity of hearing
many of our most eminent naturalists and able expositors upon subjects
which they have made especially their own. I regret, however, to add
that the interest taken by the Society generally in these lectures has
not quite equalled the expectations that were raised when the question
of establishing them was first brought before the notice of the Council.
Although, as will be seen by a consideration of the various subjects
which I have already referred to, the Society has a wide sphere of
operation and many methods by which the objects of its founders are
carried out, it is undoubtedly the maintenance of the menagerie of
living animals in the Gardens where we are now assembled by which it is
best known both to the public as well as to a large number of our
Fellows. It will be well, therefore, before concluding, to add a few
words upon some points of interest connected with the past history and
present condition of this branch of the Society’s operations, the one
which is at the same time the largest source of its revenue and cause of
expenditure.
The collection and exhibition of rare and little known living animals
has long been a subject of interest and instruction in civilised
communities, and in many countries either the State or the Sovereign has
considered it as part of their duty or privilege to maintain a more or
less perfect establishment of the kind.
Before the Zoological Society was formed the “lions” at the Tower had
been for centuries a national institution; and it may be interesting to
those who derive pleasure in tracing the links between the present and
the past, to be reminded that our collection is in some measure a lineal
continuation of that time-honoured institution, as it appears from the
Reports of the Council that in the year 1831 His Majesty King William
the Fourth “was graciously pleased to present to the Society all the
animals belonging to the Crown lately maintained at the Tower.” It is
also recorded that in the previous year His Majesty had made a
munificent donation of the whole of the animals belonging to the Royal
Menagerie kept in Windsor Park. This may perhaps be the place to mention
that in the Report read April 1837 the Council “had the gratification to
call the special attention of the members to a donation from Her Royal
Highness the Princess Victoria,” consisting of a pair of those pretty
and interesting little animals, the Stanley musk-deer. During the fifty
years that have elapsed since this first-recorded mark of interest in
the society on the part of her present Majesty, the Queen and her family
have never failed to show their regard for its welfare whenever any
opportunity has arisen, of which the acceptance of the Presidency by the
late Prince Consort, on the death of the Earl of Derby in 1851, was one
of the most signal instances. The advantages which the Society has
received from the numerous donations to the Menagerie, and the constant
kindly interest shown in its general progress by H.R.H. the Prince of
Wales, are so continually before the observation of the Fellows, that I
need scarcely do more than allude to them here, beyond stating that in
no year of the Society’s existence has the number of visitors to the
Gardens or the Society’s income been so great as in 1876, when the large
collection of animals brought from India by His Royal Highness formed
the special object of attraction.
Except for the collection, necessarily of limited extent, exhibited in
the Tower, and a few others having their origin in commercial
enterprise, as Mr. Crosse’s menagerie at Exeter Change and the various
itinerant wild-beast shows, there were, before the foundation of the
Society’s Gardens, little means in the country of gaining knowledge of
the strange forms of exotic animal life with which the world abounds.
An extensive, well-arranged, and well-kept collection, where the
circumstances of exhibition were more favourable than in the
institutions just referred to, seemed then to fulfil a national need, as
the rapidly-acquired popularity of the Society already alluded to
testifies. Indeed, when we consider the amount of enjoyment and
instruction which has been afforded to the 24,572,405 visitors who are
registered as having entered our Gardens from their first opening in
1828 to the end of last year, it is easy to realise what a loss the
country would have sustained if they had not existed. There was a
period, it is true, in which they fell rather low in popular favour, the
record of 1847 showing both the smallest number of visitors and the
lowest income of any year in the Society’s existence. A new era of
activity in the management of the Society’s affairs was then happily
inaugurated, which resulted in a prosperity which has continued ever
since, with only slight fluctuations, arising from causes easy to be
understood--a prosperity to which the scientific knowledge, zeal, and
devotion to the affairs of the Society of our present Secretary, ably
seconded in all matters of detail by the Resident Superintendent, have
greatly contributed.
Among the great improvements which have been gradually effected in the
Gardens in recent years is the erection of larger, more commodious, and
more substantial buildings for the accommodation of the animals than
those that existed before. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the
successive steps that have been taken in this direction. The primary
habitation of the lions and other large feline animals was the building
near the north-east corner of the Gardens, which many of us may remember
as a Reptile-house, and which has been lately restored as a
dwelling-place for the smaller Carnivora. The Council Reports of the
period frequently speak of the bad accommodation it afforded to the
inmates, the consequent injury to their health, and the disagreeable
effects on visitors from the closeness of the atmosphere. In September
1843 the terrace, with its double row of cages beneath, was completed;
and the report of the following spring, speaking of this as “one of the
most important works ever undertaken at the Gardens,” congratulates the
Society upon the fact that the anticipations of the increased health of
this interesting portion of the collection, resulting from a free
exposure to the external air and total absence of artificial heat, have
been fully realised. The effects of more air and greater exercise were
indeed said to have become visible almost immediately. Animals which
were emaciated and sickly before their removal became plump and sleek in
a fortnight after, and the appetites of all were so materially increased
that they began to kill and eat each other. This, however, led to an
immediate increase in their allowance of food, since which time, it is
stated, no further accidents of the kind have occurred. As this
structure, looked upon at that period as so great an improvement upon
its predecessors, still remains, though adapted for other inmates, we
all have an opportunity of contrasting the size of its dens and the
provision it affords generally for the health and comfort of the animals
and the convenience of visitors, with those of the magnificent building
which superseded it in 1876.
In the report of the year 1840 it is stated that the only work of
considerable magnitude undertaken since the last anniversary was the
erection of the “New Monkey-house,” and the Council speak with great
satisfaction of the substantial nature of the structure and the superior
accommodation which its internal arrangements were calculated to afford
to its inmates.
Many of us may remember this building, which stood on the space now
cleared in the centre of the Gardens. Twenty-four years after its
erection, in their report, dated April 1864, we find the Council
speaking of it as “what is at present perhaps the most defective portion
of the Society’s Garden establishment,” and the erection of a second
“New Monkey-house” was determined upon. This is the present light and
comparatively airy and spacious building, the superiority of which over
the old one in every respect is incontestable.
Up to the year 1848 the only attempt which had been made to familiarise
the visitors with the structure and habits of animals of the class
Reptilia was by the occasional display of a pair of pythons, which were
kept closely covered in a box of limited dimensions in one of the
smaller Carnivora-houses. In 1849 the building which had been rendered
vacant by the removal of the lions to the new terrace was fitted up with
cases with plate-glass fronts on a plan entirely novel in this country,
and which for many years afforded an instructive exhibition of the
forms, colours, and movements of many species of serpents, lizards, and
crocodiles. This house was a vast improvement upon anything of the kind
ever seen before; but the contrast between it and the present handsome
and spacious building so recently erected in the south-eastern corner of
the grounds affords another illustration of the great progress we are
making.
If time allowed I might also refer to the Elephant-house, completed in
1870, to the Insect-house, opened in 1881, and to various others of less
importance.
The erection of these houses has necessarily been a very costly
undertaking; in fact, since what may be called the reconstruction of the
permanent buildings of the Gardens, which commenced in the year 1860,
more than £50,000 has been expended upon them. It is only in years of
great prosperity, when the Society’s income has considerably exceeded
its necessarily large permanent expenditure, that works such as these
can be undertaken.
Much as has been done in this direction, we must all admit that there is
still more required. The buildings of to-day will, we may even hope,
some day seem to our successors what the former ones appear to us. The
old idea of keeping animals in small cramped cages and dens, inherited
from the Tower and travelling wild-beast shows, still lingers in many
places. We have a responsibility to our captive animals, brought from
their native wilds to minister to our pleasure and instruction, beyond
that of merely supplying them with food and shelter. The more their
comfort can be studied, the roomier their place of captivity, the more
they are surrounded by conditions reproducing those of their native
haunts, the happier they will be, and the more enjoyment and instruction
we shall obtain when looking at them. Many of our newest improvements
are markedly in this direction. I may especially mention the new
inclosure for wild sheep near the Lion-house in the South Garden, with
its picturesque rockwork and fall of water, and the large Aviary for
herons and similar birds just completed on what used to be called the
Water-Fowls’ Lawn.
All such improvements can, however, only be carried out by the continued
aid of the public, either by becoming permanently attached to the
Society as Fellows or by visiting the Gardens. I trust that this brief
record of the principal events of the Society’s history will show that
such support is not undeserved by those who have had the management of
its affairs.
XIV
WHALES, AND BRITISH AND COLONIAL WHALE FISHERIES[34]
When asked by your Council to lecture upon some subject connected with
natural history, it occurred to me that the great link between Britain
and all her Colonies was the ocean, and that, therefore, something
concerning its animal inhabitants might be interesting to those whose
avocations and situation in life call them to traverse its pathless
ways. Even in an ordinary voyage, such as is necessitated by any
intercourse between a Colony and the Mother Country, some familiarity
may be acquired with the gigantic denizens of the deep; but the
knowledge of them so gained is generally so slight and superficial that
I venture to think that some more accurate and definite information
about them would be welcome. The subject I have chosen is, however, so
large that I can only, in the limited time allowed on one evening,
select a few of the more interesting features in the history of these
remarkable animals, both from the point of view of the naturalist and in
their relation to human civilisation and commerce.
In the admirable sketch, by our greatest living naturalist, of the
history of the science of comparative anatomy during the present
century, appended to the recently published _Life of Sir Richard Owen_,
Professor Huxley says: “Take, for example, the question whether a whale
is a fish or not, which, I observe, is not yet quite settled for some
people. As the whale is not a little like a fish outside, and lives
permanently in the sea, why should it not be classed with the fishes?”
Before proceeding to answer this question, I must ask another. In what
sense do you use the term “fish”? It happened to me a few years ago to
receive a semi-official inquiry from the Colonial Office, as to whether
a lobster was a fish, because an important point in the dispute between
the French and English about the Newfoundland fisheries depended upon
the interpretation of an old treaty in which the word “fish” occurs.
After giving the modern naturalists’ definition of a fish, by which a
lobster is clearly excluded from the class, of course I felt it
necessary to remind my correspondents that in such a case the real
answer to the question lay in the sense in which the word was used at
the time of the treaty, and by those who were parties to drawing it up,
and if that could be ascertained it would be more to the point than the
strictest of scientific definitions. Now, on turning to what was, in the
beginning of the present century, our greatest authority on the meaning
of words, I find in _Johnson’s Dictionary_ (I now quote from Todd’s
edition, 1818) “_fish_” defined as “an animal that inhabits the water.”
Without doubt this was the general and popular view, as the universally
used expressions _shell-fish_, lobster and oyster _fisheries_, whale
_fisheries_, and even seal _fisheries_, abundantly testify. I therefore
cannot say that in a certain vague and antiquated sense of the word,
“fish” may not be applied to the animals of which I propose to speak to
you this evening. This must not, however, cause us to forget that,
tested by the light of modern scientific knowledge, a whale is in
everything essential in its structure entirely removed from the class of
animals to which zoologists now restrict the term “fish,” a very clearly
defined group of cold-blooded creatures, breathing by means of gills the
air which is dissolved in the water in which they swim, with lowly
organised brain, and producing their young from eggs, and after they are
born not nourishing them by the mother’s milk--in all of which, and many
other important characters, whales are entirely removed from them. In
fact, as Professor Huxley continues, in response to the question with
which I stopped the quotation:--
The answer, of course is, that the moment one compares a whale with
any one of the thousands of ordinary fishes, the two are seen to
differ in almost every particular of structure and, moreover, in
all those points in which the whale differs from the fish, it
agrees with ordinary mammals. Therefore the zoologists put the
whales into the same class with the mammals, and not into that of
the fishes. But this conclusion implies the assumption that animals
should be arranged according to the totality of their resemblances.
It means that the likenesses in structure of whales and mammals are
greatly more numerous and more close than the likenesses between
whales and fishes.
It also means, if the derivative hypothesis of animal species is true,
that the whale is far more nearly related to, say, a horse or a cow than
it is to a cod or a shark.
It is decided, then, that, from the point of view of a zoologist at all
events (whatever the fisherman and the man of business may continue to
say), the whales and their allies belong to the class _Mammalia_, and
not to that of _Pisces_. We can easily fix their place in that class as
constituting a distinct and clearly defined order, the _Cetacea_,
derived from the Latin word _cetus_ = a whale. Although the term “whale”
is generally, if somewhat vaguely, restricted to the larger and
middle-sized members of the order, the smaller ones, commonly called
“dolphins” and “porpoises,” to all intents and purposes belong to it,
and no line can be drawn to separate them except size; and even in this
respect there is a regular gradation between the colossal rorqual of 80
feet in length to the pontoporia, or dolphin of the estuary of the La
Plata, which scarcely exceeds a yard from snout to tail. On this
occasion, after a few general observations on the group, I propose to
limit myself almost entirely to the larger species, to which the term
“whale” is most especially appropriate, and which have the greatest
interest to man, on account of the industries to which the commercial
value of their products gives rise.
Taken altogether, as I have mentioned, the _Cetacea_ constitute a
perfectly distinct and natural order of mammals, characterised by their
purely aquatic mode of life and external fish-like form. Their body
passes anteriorly into the head without any distinct constriction or
neck, and posteriorly tapers off gradually to the tail, which is
provided with a pair of lateral pointed expansions of skin, supported by
dense fibrous tissue, called “flukes,” forming together a horizontally
placed triangular propelling organ, quite different from the
vertically-placed tail-fin of a fish. The fore limbs are reduced to the
condition of flattened paddles, encased in a continuous skin, showing no
external sign of division into arm, forearm, hand, or fingers, and
without any trace of nails. There are no vestiges of hind limbs visible
externally, although in many species rudiments of the hip and thigh
bones, and of the muscles and joints connecting them, are found buried
far away below the surface. The general surface of the body is smooth
and glistening and devoid of hair, the absence of which, as a preserver
of the animal heat, is compensated for by the remarkable layer of dense
fat or “blubber” immediately beneath the skin. The whole organisation
necessitates their life being passed entirely in the water, as on land
they are absolutely helpless; but they have to rise very frequently to
the surface for the purpose of respiration. The position of the
respiratory orifice, nostril, or “blowhole” on the highest part of the
head is very important for this mode of life, since it is the only part
of the body of which the exposure above the surface is absolutely
necessary. Of the numerous erroneous ideas connected with natural
history, few are so widespread and still so firmly believed,
notwithstanding repeated expositions of its falsity, as that whales
spout out through their blowholes water taken in at their mouth. The
fact is, the “spouting,” or more properly “blowing,” of the whale is
nothing more than the ordinary act of breathing, which, taking place at
longer intervals than in land animals, is performed with a greater
amount of emphasis. The moment the animal rises to the surface it
forcibly expels from its lungs the air taken in at the last inspiration,
which of course is highly charged with watery vapour in consequence of
the natural respiratory changes. This, rapidly condensing in the cold
atmosphere in which the phenomenon is generally observed, forms a column
of steam or spray, which has been erroneously taken for water.
It also often happens, especially when the surface of the ocean is
agitated into waves, that the animal commences its expiratory puff
before the orifice has quite cleared the top of the water, some of which
may thus be driven upwards with the blast, tending to complete the
illusion. In hunting whales the harpoon often pierces the lungs or air
passages of the unfortunate victim, and then fountains of blood may be
forced high in the air through the blow-holes, as commonly depicted in
scenes of Arctic adventure; but this is nothing more (allowance being
made for the whale’s peculiar mode of breathing) than what always
follows severe wounds of the respiratory organs of other warm-blooded
animals.
The _Cetacea_ all subsist on animal food of some kind. One genus alone
(the killers, _Orca_) eat other warm-blooded animals, as seals, and even
members of their own order, both large and small. Some feed on fish,
others on small floating crustacea, pteropods, and medusæ; while the
staple food of many is constituted of the various species of cephalopods
(squid and cuttlefish), which abound in some seas in vast quantities.
With some exceptions they are generally timid, inoffensive animals,
active in their movements, sociable and gregarious in their habits. They
are remarkable for the great care and affection with which they treat
their young.
Among the existing members of the order there are two very distinct
types--the toothed whales (_Odontoceti_) and the whalebone or baleen
whales (_Mystacoceti_), which present throughout their organisation
markedly distinct structural characters, and have no transitional forms
between them. The giants of the order, of which I am about to speak,
contain representatives of both groups.
The whales that have teeth and no whalebone are far the most numerous,
and include all the smaller members of the order, the various kinds of
dolphins and porpoises, among which are the fresh-water dolphins of the
great rivers of India and South America. Some of the moderate-sized
animals of this group, especially those spoken of by sailors under the
vague designations of “grampuses,” “bottle-noses,” and “black fish”
(_Orca_, _Hyperoodon_, and _Globicephalus_ of zoologists), may be
classed as whales, and some of them, as well as the narwhal and beluga
or white whale of the Arctic Seas, are objects of pursuit by man, and
when captured yield products, mainly oil, of commercial value. But time
will only allow me now to speak in any detail of one species, which
greatly surpasses all the others, not only in size, but in value and
interest, as having long afforded material for a regular and important
branch of human industry. This is the animal commonly called the “sperm
whale,” known in books by its French name of _cachalot_, or its
scientific designation of _Physeter macrocephalus_, which, taken
altogether--not in length, but in bulk and weight--is the most colossal
of all animals.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.[35]]
Although a contrary opinion prevailed at one time, it is now fairly well
established that there is but one species of sperm whale, which has a
remarkably wide geographical distribution, being met with, usually in
herds, or “schools” as they are termed, in almost all tropical or
subtropical seas, but not occurring, except accidentally, in the Polar
regions. Not unfrequently specimens appear on the coasts of Great
Britain, but only as solitary stragglers, or as dead carcasses floated
northwards by the Gulf Stream. It is remarkable that every case of these
of which we have an accurate record has been an old male. The females
and young appear never to wander so far from their usual haunts,
although they have been met with in the Mediterranean, and even on the
Atlantic coast of France. The sperm whale (Fig. 8) is a strange-looking
animal, and cannot be mistaken for any other cetacean. The head is about
one-third of the whole length of the animal, very massive, high, and
truncated in front, and owes its huge size and remarkable form mainly to
the great accumulation of a peculiar form of oily matter, contained in
great cells, connected with the nasal passages, and filling the large
hollow on the upper surface of the skull. This oily matter, liquid at
the natural temperature of the body, crystallises when cold, and yields
when refined the spermaceti of commerce, so valuable in the manufacture
of surgical ointments and candles. The nostril or “blowhole” is single,
in the form of a longitudinal slit, and placed, not near the top of the
head, as in most other cetaceans, but near the front end of the great
snout, and rather to the left of the middle line. Consequently the
“blowing” of the sperm whale is so different from that of all other
species that the whalers can recognise it at any distance. The steamy
jet, instead of being double and projected directly upwards, as in an
ordinary fountain, which is the case with all the large whalebone
whales, is single and directed obliquely forwards. The opening of the
mouth is on the under side of the head, considerably behind the end of
the snout. The lower jaw is extremely narrow, and has on each side from
twenty to twenty-five stout conical teeth, which furnish ivory of good
quality, though not in sufficient bulk for most of the purposes for
which that article is required. The upper teeth are quite rudimentary
and buried in the gum. The pectoral fin, or flipper, is short and broad,
and on the back, where many whales have a dorsal fin, there is a series
of low, rounded protuberances, scarcely to be called fins. The general
colour of the surface is black above and gray below, the colours
gradually shading into each other. The food of the sperm whale consists
mainly of various species of cephalopods (squid and cuttlefish), but
they also eat fish of considerable size.
The length of the sperm whale has been, as is always the case in which
size is the most striking characteristic, greatly exaggerated. Giants
are always said to be much larger than they really are, as tested by
rigid measurements. To say nothing of the fabulous dimensions given by
older writers, even Beale, who had immense opportunities of actual
observation, says that one captured in the Japan seas measured 84 feet
in length. Such statements, however intended in good faith, can never be
relied upon; the difficulties and sources of fallacy in making such
measurements are very great, and we are not assured whether the length
is taken, as it should be, in a straight line between the front end of
the head and the middle of the end of the tail, or following the curves
of the surface of the body, which of course would give a considerably
greater length. I have taken pains to obtain careful measurements of all
the skeletons available of perfectly adult or even aged animals in
various museums which I have visited, and it is curious how nearly alike
they are. Allowing for the distance between the vertebræ and for the
soft parts at either end, about 55 feet seems to be the usual length of
the male sperm whale, and I have never been able to find any substantial
proof that any one has even attained the length of 60 feet, fairly
measured. The skeleton at Burton Constable, prepared from a whale which
came ashore on the Yorkshire coast in 1825, is that of a very aged
animal, and now measures 48 feet 4 inches in length, the vertebræ being
articulated in close apposition, but even if 10 feet are allowed in
addition, this would not bring it up to 60 feet. In the museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons is a lower jaw presented by the late Mr. W. L.
Crowther, of Hobart Town, which was considered as that of the largest
sperm whale ever killed in the Tasmanian seas, and quite unique on
account of its size. It only measures one inch more than the jaw of the
Yorkshire specimen. The female of this species, contrary to what occurs
among the whalebone whales, is very much smaller than the male.
The products of the sperm whale which render it commercially valuable
when killed are (1) sperm oil, obtained by boiling the thick coating of
blubber which everywhere envelops the body of the animal; (2)
spermaceti, contained in the great cavity on the top of the head; (3)
ambergris, formerly used in medicine, and now in perfumery--a concretion
formed in the intestine of this whale, and often found floating on the
surface of the seas it inhabits. Its genuineness is proved by the
presence of the horny beaks of the cephalopods on which the whale feeds.
The capture or “fishery” of the sperm whale will be spoken of later on
in conjunction with that of the other species of whales.
All the other large whales which are of importance to man belong to the
group called “whalebone whales,” because they are provided with a
remarkable apparatus in the mouth for the purpose of obtaining their
food, to which the rather misleading name of “whalebone” has been
given,--a name for which naturalists have substituted “baleen”; but the
former is so completely engrafted into our language, especially in all
commercial transactions connected with the subject, that it will
probably last as long as the material itself, although it is now well
known that it has nothing to do with “bone” in the ordinary acceptation
of the word. What whalebone actually is was apparently a mystery to our
forefathers. Belon in 1551 hazarded the conjecture that it was the
eyebrows of the whale; but others thought that it was the apparatus by
which it steered itself through the water. This notion is probably
connected with the old feudal law cited by Blackstone (vol. i. p. 233),
that the tails of all whales belonged to the Queen as a perquisite to
furnish her Majesty’s wardrobe with whalebone. The whalebone whales have
no teeth in either jaw (except some of a most rudimentary nature, which
disappear even before birth), but in the place teeth usually occupy in
the upper jaw, or rather upon each side of the palate, the whalebone
grows. This consists of flattened horny plates, several hundred in
number on each side, separated by a narrow bare interval along the
middle line. The chemical composition and general character of these
plates resemble those of hair, horn, or hoof. In minute structure they
more nearly resemble the horn of the rhinoceros than any other similar
growth. They are placed transversely to the long axis of the palate,
with very short spaces between them. Each plate or blade is somewhat
triangular in form, with the base attached to the palate and the apex
hanging downwards. The outer edge of the blade is hard and smooth, but
the inner edge and apex fray out into long bristly fibres, so that the
roof of the whale’s mouth looks as if covered with hair, as described by
Aristotle. As the bony palate is more or less arched from before
backwards, the blades are longest near the middle of the series, and
gradually diminish towards the front and back of the mouth.
The use of the whalebone to the whale is to strain the water from the
small marine molluscs, crustaceans, or fish upon which the whales
subsist. In feeding they fill the immense mouth with water containing
shoals of these small creatures, and then on their closing the jaws and
raising the tongue, so as to diminish the cavity of the mouth, the water
streams out through the narrow intervals between the hairy fringe of the
whalebone blades, and escapes through the lips, leaving the living prey
to be swallowed. In the different kinds of whales, which I shall now
speak of, there are great differences in the character of the baleen. In
the Californian grey whale (_Rachianectes glaucus_), an animal which
attains a length of from 30 to 40 feet, the baleen blades are fewer than
two hundred on each side, and far apart, very short (the longest being
from 14 to 16 inches in length), coarse, and inelastic, light brown or
nearly white in colour. From this there is a gradual transition, through
the rorquals or finners, the humpbacks, the southern right whales, up to
the Greenland whale, which exhibits this structure in its greatest
perfection, both for the purposes it serves in the animal economy, and
for the uses to which it has been applied by man.
All the known whalebone whales may be divided into five different groups
or _genera_, as they are called by naturalists, the first of which
(genus _Balæna_) have long been distinguished by practical whalers as
“right whales,” as they are, compared to all the others, the right
whales to catch, being of far the greater commercial value. They are
readily distinguished externally by the perfectly smooth back, without
any trace of a dorsal fin, and by the skin of the throat and chest being
also smooth, whereas in most of the other forms this region presents a
number of deep longitudinal plaits or furrows. Of the right whales there
are two perfectly distinct forms, though whether each of these
represents a single species, or can be subdivided into several, is still
a matter of uncertainty, and for our present purpose of little
importance, as if minute investigation can prove that they are
separable, they are most closely allied and perfectly similar to all
ordinary observation. The two forms, which I shall speak of as species
or kinds, are the Greenland or rather Arctic right whale (_Balæna
mysticetus_) and the southern right whale (_Balæna australis_).
[Illustration: FIG. 9.]
The Arctic right whale (Fig. 9), when full grown, attains the length of
from 45 to 50 feet, a size which, as in the case of the sperm whale, has
generally been greatly exaggerated in old descriptions. As is apparently
the case in all whalebone whales, but contrary to what occurs in the
sperm whale, the female is rather larger than the male. Its external
form is shown in Fig. 9, from a careful drawing by Mr. Robert Gray. In
this species all the peculiarities which distinguish the head and mouth
of the whales from those of other mammals have attained their greatest
development. The head is of enormous size, exceeding one-third of the
whole length of the creature. The cavity of the mouth is fully as large
as that of the body, chest and abdomen together. The upper jaw is very
narrow but greatly arched from before backwards, to increase the height
of the cavity and allow for the great length of the baleen or
“whalebone” blades. The enormous rami of the lower jaw are widely
separated behind, and have a still farther outward sweep before they
meet in front, giving the floor of the mouth the shape of an immense
spoon. The baleen blades attain the number of 380 or more on each side,
and those in the middle of the series have a length of 10 or sometimes
12 feet. They are black in colour, fine, and highly elastic in texture,
and fray out at the inner edge and ends into long, delicate, soft,
almost silky, but very tough hairs. The remarkable development of the
mouth, and of the structures in connection with it, which distinguishes
the right whale among its allies is entirely in relation to the nature
of its food. It is by this apparatus that it is enabled to avail itself
of the minute but highly nutritious crustaceans and pteropods which
swarm in immense shoals in the seas it frequents. The large mouth
enables it to take in at one time a sufficient quantity of water filled
with these small organisms, and the length and delicate structure of the
baleen provide a sufficient strainer or hair-sieve by which the water
can be drained off. If the baleen were rigid, and only as long as is the
aperture between the upper and lower jaws when the mouth is shut, a
space would be left beneath it when the jaws are separated, through
which the water and the minute particles of food would escape together.
But instead of this, the long, slender, brush-like, elastic ends of the
whalebone blades fold back when the mouth is closed, the front ones
passing below the hinder ones in a channel lying between the tongue and
the lower jaw. When the mouth is opened their elasticity causes them to
straighten out like a bow unbent, so that at whatever distance the jaws
are separated the strainer remains in perfect action, filling the whole
of the interval. The mechanical perfection of the arrangement is
completed by the great development of the lower lip, which rises stiffly
above the jawbone, and prevents the long, slender, flexible ends of the
baleen from being carried outwards by the rush of water from the mouth,
when its cavity is being diminished by the closure of the jaws and
raising of the tongue.
If, as appears highly probable, the “bowhead” or right whale of the
Okhotsk Sea and Behring Strait belongs to this species, its range is
circumpolar, but it is strictly limited to the icy seas of the north.
“Though,” as Scammon says, “it is true that these animals are pursued in
the open water during the summer months, in no instance have we learned
of their being captured south of where winter ice-fields are
occasionally met with.” In the Behring Sea it is seldom seen south of
the 55th parallel, and the southern limit of its range in the North Sea
has been ascertained by Eschricht and Reinhardt to be from the east
coast of Greenland at 64° N. lat. along the north of Iceland towards
Spitzbergen. Though found in the seas on both sides of Greenland, and
passing freely from one to the other, it is never seen so far south as
Cape Farewell; but on the Labrador coast, where a cold stream sets down
from the north, its range is somewhat further. There is no authentic
instance of its having been seen or captured upon any European coast.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
The southern right whale, or “black whale” (Fig. 10), as it is often
called by whalers, attains about the same length as the last, but
differs in being more slender in form, in possessing a smaller head in
proportion to the body, shorter baleen (scarcely more than half the
length), a differently shaped contour of the upper margin of the lower
lip, and a greater number of vertebræ. Animals of this group closely
resembling each other have been found abundantly in the temperate seas
of both hemispheres, North Atlantic and North Pacific (where they are
regularly hunted by the Japanese), and in the neighbourhood of the Cape
of Good Hope, Kerguelen’s Island, Australia, and New Zealand, but
according to Captain Maury’s charts they are never or rarely seen in the
tropical seas. It is chiefly this supposed isolation of distribution
rather than any constant distinctive characters which has given rise to
the idea that the North Atlantic whale (called _Balæna biscayensis_),
the Japanese (_B. japonica_), the Cape whale (_B. australis_), and the
New Zealand whale (_B. antipodarum_), must be of different species.
Until more numerous specimens of skeletons are procured for our museums,
or more accurate descriptions can be obtained, the question cannot be
satisfactorily determined.
The whalebone whales, not called right whales, are (1) the humpback
(_Megaptera_), or “hunchback” (Fig. 11), so called by whalers on account
of the low hump-like form of the dorsal fin. In Dudley’s account of the
whales of the New England coast (_Phil. Trans._ 1725), the fourth
species is “The bunch or humpback whale, distinguished from the right
whale by having a bunch standing in the place where the fin does in the
finback. This bunch is as big as a man’s head, and a foot high, shaped
like a plug pointing backwards.” A better distinction from all other
whalebone whales is the immense length of the pectoral fins or flippers,
which are indented or scalloped along their margins. The usual length of
the adult ranges from 45 to 50 feet. The baleen plates are short and
broad, and of a deep black colour. This whale has a very wide range,
being found, with no important differences, in both the North and South
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and from Greenland to South Georgia. When
caught it yields a fair supply of oil, but much less than the right
whales, and its whalebone is of very inferior quality.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
(2) The rorquals, or finners (_Balænoptera_) (Fig. 12). These have the
plicated skin of the throat like that of the humpback, the furrows being
more numerous and close set, but the pectoral fins are comparatively
small, and the dorsal fin distinct, compressed, and triangular. The head
is comparatively small and flat, and pointed in front, the whalebone
short and coarse, the body long and slender, and the tail very much
compressed before it expands into the “flukes.” The rorquals are perhaps
the most abundant and widely distributed of all the whales, being found
in all seas, except the extreme Arctic and probably Antarctic regions.
Owing to the small quantity and inferior quality of their whalebone, the
comparatively limited amount of blubber or subcutaneous fat, their great
activity, and the difficulty of capturing them by the old methods, these
whales were not until recently an object of pursuit by whale-fishers;
but since the introduction of steam-vessels, and especially of explosive
harpoons fired from guns in the place of those hurled by the human hand,
a regular fishery of “finbacks” has been established on the coast of
Finmark, where many hundreds are killed every year, their bodies being
towed to shore for the purpose of flensing. Some of the rorquals attain
the largest size of any of the _Cetacea_, the blue whale (_Balænoptera
sibbaldii_), not unfrequent in the British Seas, reaching a length of 80
or perhaps 85 feet when fully adult. On the other hand, one common
species (_B. rostrata_) never exceeds 30 feet in length.
(3) Besides these there are other two forms of whalebone whales not
reckoned as right whales, the grey whale of the North Pacific
(_Rhachianectes glaucus_), and a small and very peculiar species from
the seas around New Zealand and Australia (_Neobalæna marginata_); but
these being very local in distribution, and of little value except for
museums, are more interesting from a scientific than from a commercial
point of view.
I now proceed to the next part of my subject--the pursuit and capture of
whales by man for the sake of the materials they yield, which are of
value in commerce. The method universally followed is attacking the
animal when it comes to the surface of the water to breathe by means of
a weapon called a harpoon, with an iron sharp-pointed barbed head, and
to the shaft of which is attached a strong line. In former days this was
always thrown by the hand, and to do so effectually required great skill
on the part of the man who wielded it. Now the harpoon is generally
projected from a gun, which carries a considerably greater distance than
could be traversed by a hand-thrown weapon, and the necessity of
approaching so closely to the animal is avoided. Various methods to
increase the efficacy of harpoons have also been introduced including
devices by which they explode within the body of the victim. Long
straight spears or lances are also used to despatch the animal when it
has been secured by the line attached to the harpoon. The whale is
always approached by rowing in a boat as closely to it as necessary.
These boats may be directly connected with a station on the coast or
with a ship out at sea. This gives rise to the primary division of whale
fishing into two principal methods: shore fishing and open-sea fishing,
both of which are extensively practised in various parts of the world.
In the first, a look out is kept from a station on some projecting
headland, and when a whale appears within sight signals are given on
which the boats go out in pursuit, and when a capture takes place the
body is towed to shore for the purpose of obtaining its valuable
products. In the second, the ships sail to some distant part of the open
sea, where it is supposed that whales are likely to be met with. The
look out is kept from the “crow’s nest” on the masthead, and the boats
being all in readiness row out in pursuit the moment a whale is sighted,
and if successful tow their prey to the side of the vessel.
As I mentioned before, all cetaceans have immediately beneath their
skin, and closely connected with it, a very dense layer of what is
called “blubber,” in large whales as much as a foot in thickness,
composed of a network of cellular tissue, the interspaces of which are
filled with oil. This layer, though so adherent to the outer skin as to
be separated from it with difficulty, is only connected with the flesh
or muscles which lie below by loose tissue, and so is easily stripped
off. With a large whale this process, called “flensing,” is effected as
follows. If the animal is caught at sea, the carcass is lashed alongside
the ship, and men with spikes in their shoes, descend upon the slippery
surface, and with large sharp-edged spades perform the cutting part of
the operation, having first fixed, by means of a hook, a strong rope
into the blubber at the junction of the head and the body. This rope
runs over pulleys fixed to the rigging of the ship, and the blubber,
separated by the spades into strips about two or three feet broad, is
gradually hauled up on to the deck of the ship. The cuts being made in a
spiral direction round the body of the whale, the blubber is stripped
off from head to tail, much as a spiral roller or bandage might be, the
body of the whale meanwhile performing a rotatory motion. When the
blubber is brought on board, it is cut up into smaller pieces, and
either stowed in casks or tanks to be brought home to undergo the next
process, that of “trying out,” or if the voyage is of lengthened
duration, as in the case of the South Sea whalers hailing from European
or American ports, this is done on board the ship. It simply consists of
boiling the blubber in large iron pots until the oil is separated from
the mesh of cellular tissue which contained it, the latter being
generally used for fuel in subsequent boilings. In the case of the sperm
whale the upper surface of the great head is opened, and the liquid
spermaceti is baled out of the cavities which contain it, and in the
case of the whalebone whales the whalebone is removed from the mouth.
All the rest of the animal being useless is turned adrift into the sea,
and speedily becomes the prey of voracious sharks and other fish and sea
birds. When whales are caught near the shore, as in many of the
“fisheries,” from boats without the intervention of sea-going vessels,
they are towed into shallow water for the purpose of flensing and
removing the whalebone.
The earliest known regular whale fishery is that which took place from
the Basque towns of France and Spain, Bayonne, Biarritz, St. Jean de
Luz, Fuenterrabia, St. Sebastian, Guetaria, Ondarroa, and many others.
From the tenth century onwards the hardy fishermen of the towns and
villages of this coast pursued the Atlantic right whales in the Bay of
Biscay, at first only catching them from open boats near the shore, but
afterwards, as the whales became more scarce and the whalers more
adventurous, following them in ships across the Atlantic to the
Bermudas, Newfoundland, and Iceland. From this source all the whale oil
and all the whalebone used by our forefathers down to the year 1600 was
derived. Queen Elizabeth and all her court depended upon the Basque
fishermen for the most prominent characteristics of their costume. The
supply was, however, diminishing when the attempt to discover the
North-East route to China, about the close of the sixteenth century, led
to the opening up of the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen, and the
discovery of the Arctic right whale, an animal up to that time
practically unknown to man. This being much more valuable, both on
account of the larger quantity and finer quality of the whalebone it
produced, and also the larger amount of oil, for many years attracted
the principal attention of the whaling ships of Europe. The English
entered into the business at a very early period, but, being
unacquainted with the methods of capturing whales, engaged Basque
harpooners for all their earliest voyages, and closely followed their
methods. The very word “harpoon” is said to be Basque. The Dutch also
took the fishing up on a very extensive scale, and established a
permanent settlement upon the northern shore of Spitzbergen, which they
named “Smeeremberg,” which was the rendezvous of the whaling fleet
during the summer, and to which the blubber was brought for boiling. In
its most flourishing period, about the year 1680, the Dutch whale
fishery employed as many as 260 ships and 14,000 men. When, however, the
whales became scarcer in the neighbourhood of the coast, and the ships
had to seek them further in the open sea, it was found more economical
to bring the blubber direct to Holland, and Smeeremberg was deserted.
The great war at the end of the last century, in which England kept
possession of the North Sea, put an end to the whale fishery, not only
of Holland, but of France and of all other countries which had engaged
in it, and henceforth we maintained a monopoly of the trade. From the
year 1732 to 1824, our government paid bounties, amounting altogether,
it is calculated, to £2,500,000, to vessels engaged in the northern
whaling business, with a view to encourage the enterprise. The ships at
first sailed from London, then Hull, Yarmouth, and Whitby entered into
the field. In 1819 as many as sixty-five ships went to the north from
Hull. Since 1836 no ship has gone from London, and now Dundee and
Peterhead are the only ports in the British Islands which keep up the
northern whale fishery, though on a much more limited scale than
formerly.
The fishery between Greenland and Spitzbergen, which in the last century
proved so productive, is almost played out, but that of Davis Straits
and Lancaster Sound is still remunerative, owing to the very high price
that whalebone has lately been fetching. At the beginning of the century
the average value was from £70 to £90 a ton, but a few years ago a sale
was effected at the enormous sum of £2650 per ton; this is the highest
price which has ever been given for it, and recently it has somewhat
declined. In 1893 four Dundee vessels secured between them twenty-seven
whales. An average-sized Greenland whale will produce about fifteen
hundredweight of whalebone and about fifteen tons of oil. The Greenland
fishery begins early in May, and goes on to the end of September. A few
vessels remain all winter in Cumberland Inlet, ready to take advantage
of the opening of the ice in the following spring. The Arctic right
whale, called locally by the American whalers the “bowhead,” has since
1848 been regularly hunted in the neighbourhood of Behring Strait and
the Okhotsk Sea, where its southern limit, according to Scammon, is
about 54°.
Although doubtless individual sperm whales approaching near the shore,
especially in the neighbourhood of the right whale fisheries, had often
fallen a prey to man, the systematic capture of this species is of
recent date compared to that of some other kinds. It began about the end
of the seventeenth century, from the Atlantic coasts of North America,
especially the part then called New England, at first only from the
shore, but afterwards in sea-going vessels from Nantucket, New Bedford,
and other ports, which gradually extended their voyages into the Indian
and Pacific Oceans. From the year 1775 vessels engaged in this trade
(assisted for a time by Government bounties) regularly left the mouth of
the Thames for the South Seas, making voyages of three or four years’
duration; but since 1853 the business has been abandoned by the English,
and what little remains of it has almost entirely reverted into the
hands of the Americans. At one time our Australian Colonies had a
considerable number of ships engaged in the sperm whale fishery, and a
few still sail every year from Hobart Town. Sperm oil has fallen so
greatly in price that its production is now hardly a remunerative
industry, and it has found a rival, possessing all the qualities which
render it of special value, in the oil of an allied but much smaller
species of whale, the bottlenose (_Hyperoodon_), which has consequently
become the object of a regular fishery in the North Sea, especially by
the Norwegians.
Let me now return to the whales of the Basques, the North Atlantic right
whale. It is a singular fact that its existence was quite overlooked by
naturalists till lately, all accounts of it which are to be found in the
numerous records of European whale fishing having been attributed to the
Greenland whale, which was supposed by Cuvier, for instance, to have had
formerly a much wider distribution than now, and to have been driven by
the persecution of man to its present circumpolar haunts. To the two
Danish naturalists Eschricht and Reinhardt is due the credit of having
proved its existence as a distinct species from a careful collation of
numerous historical notices of its structure, distribution, and habits,
and, although they were at one time disposed to think that the species
had become extinct, they were able to show that this was not the case,
an actual specimen having been captured in the harbour of San Sebastian
in January 1854, the skeleton of which Eschricht was fortunate enough to
secure for the Copenhagen Museum. More recently other specimens have
been captured on the Spanish coast, the Mediterranean, North America,
and Norway. A skeleton has fortunately been secured for the British
Museum, the exhibition of which is only delayed by the want of a proper
room in which it can be mounted. In the North Pacific a very similar if
not identical whale is regularly hunted by the Japanese, who tow the
carcasses ashore for the purpose of flensing and extracting the
whalebone. In the tropical seas, according to Captain Maury’s whale
charts, right whales are never or rarely seen, but when the southern
temperate seas were explored, they were found to be abundantly inhabited
by right whales called “black whales,” so closely similar in character
to the Atlantic and Japanese species that, although described and named
as if distinct, at present no satisfactory and constant characters have
been pointed out by which they can be separated. Of course this may
arise from our very imperfect knowledge of these animals, very few
specimens[36] having been preserved in museums, and still fewer accurate
descriptions and drawings have been made of recently killed individuals,
notwithstanding the hundreds of thousands which have been slaughtered
from British and American ships during the present century. Just as its
northern representative approached the coasts during the winter, and
left for the open seas in the summer months, so these southern whales
resorted to the bays and inlets of the Cape of Good Hope, Australia, and
New Zealand during the southern winter (May to October), and departed
for higher latitudes during the remainder of the year.
Though certain numbers of the southern right whales were caught in the
open sea by American or Colonial ships engaged mainly in the sperm whale
fishery, the principal fishery at one time, as remunerative to those who
pursued it as it was destructive to the whales, was carried on from the
shore, at first at the Cape, then in Australia and Tasmania, and more
recently in New Zealand. Of the latter we have very detailed accounts in
many contemporary works, Wakefield, Dieffenbach, and others, and a good
epitome of its history will be found in Sherrin’s _Handbook of the
Fishery of New Zealand_ (1886). Whaling vessels from America and England
were in the habit of visiting the New Zealand seas for the purposes of
their trade ever since the beginning of the century, but the first shore
station was established in 1827 at Preservation Inlet, near the south
end of the Middle Island, and in a few years there were twelve stations
between that place and Banks Peninsula. In 1833 Messrs. G. and E.
Weller, merchants, of Sydney, founded a whaling establishment at Otago,
which was for a short time the most successful and important of any on
the coast. In 1834 the whales caught yielded 310 tons of oil, besides
bone, and for several years there were on this station from seventy-five
to eighty Europeans constantly employed. In 1840 the oil fell off to
fourteen tons, and the fishery was abandoned. The value of “black oil”
at this time was £8 to £12 a ton in New Zealand, and as much as £30 in
London. In other parts of the islands the fishery was continued for a
longer period. It is stated that in 1843 the whale fishery on the whole
of the coast employed eighty-five boats and some 730 men, and the oil
taken amounted to 1290 tons, valued at £20,000, the whalebone being
valued at £12,000. After this period the decline in the take became very
rapid, and the stations with their great shears for hoisting the bodies
of the whales on shore for the purpose of flensing, the furnaces and
boiling pots for “trying out” the oil, and the bold and hardy, but
unhappily rough and dissolute, inhabitants entirely disappeared from the
scene. The cause of this is not difficult to divine. The result was
fully anticipated by all who carefully observed what was going on.
Almost literally the goose that laid the golden egg was being killed.
The whales appeared in the month of May and remained till October. Those
that approached nearest to the coast and were the easiest prey to the
fishermen were females about to bring forth their young. It was the
regular habit of this species of whale to seek at this season some
quiet, sheltered harbour, bay, or inlet, and there to remain with the
new-born young, until it acquired strength and vigour enough to take
care of itself in the open sea. The very affection of the whale for her
young thus became the principal cause of its destruction. The whalers
soon discovered that if the calf (as they called it) was wounded or
caught the mother would never leave it, and they found that the calf,
though of no value in itself, being inexperienced and slow, was easily
captured, and then the mother became a sure prey. To the old code,
regulating the northern whale fisheries, which assigned the whale to the
boat which first fixed a harpoon securely in it, they added: “The boat
making fast to a calf has a right to the cow, because the cow will not
desert her young.” It should be added that strong protests were made
against this cruel and in the end unprofitable mode of capture, but they
all passed unheeded. The result has been to the southern right whale
much the same as that which happened to its Atlantic ally after its
persecution by the Basques, although it was brought about in a much
shorter space of time. The whale not only became scarce on the New
Zealand coasts, but in all parts of its range. To destroy it in its last
remaining breeding haunts was to destroy it everywhere. Although we have
at present, unfortunately, very little accurate information about the
habits and migrations of whales, there is every reason to believe that
in the Antarctic summer this species retired nearer the South Pole. Sir
James C. Ross in 1840, in lat. 64°, nearly due south of New Zealand, and
again in 1842 in nearly the same latitude, south of the Falkland
Islands, found right whales very abundant in the month of December. On
the strength of this observation it has been thought that a whale
corresponding to the Arctic right whale might be a permanent inhabitant
of the Antarctic icy seas. Two years ago some ships sailed from Dundee
in the hope of meeting with it, but they were completely disappointed.
No trace of such whales was found, for doubtless Sir James Ross had only
come across the summer haunts of the same whales which were then
undergoing the process of ruthless extermination in their winter
breeding places on the Australian and New Zealand coasts. Such having
been the fate of this species, and the sperm whale not being habitually
found in icy seas, the probability of any large whale being again met
with in the Antarctic regions is very remote.
Our Colonial whale fisheries are practically extinct, probably never to
be revived, at all events with anything like the success they met with
formerly. Not that any species of whale is likely to be completely
exterminated by man. It is only too easy to exterminate an animal whose
habitat is confined to land, especially if that land is of limited
extent, as in the case of an island; but the ocean is vast, and the
possibilities of escape from pursuers in it are great. When the numbers
of any species become so small that it no longer pays to hunt them, they
have a chance, as has been most strikingly shown in the case of the
North Atlantic or Biscay whale. Without doubt, they would increase again
in the southern seas, and if means could be taken to give the whale an
effectual close time, the Australian and New Zealand black-whale fishery
could be revived, as it has been partially in Tasmania; but the
difficulty and expense of establishing any sufficient protection would
probably be greater than the value of the produce. Although the better
qualities of whalebone still maintain a very high price, owing to their
great scarcity, substitutes for it are being gradually invented, and the
competition of mineral oils, now found in such abundance in so many
parts of the world, and the rapid advances of other methods of lighting
have greatly reduced the value of both sperm and train oil. Unless
whales can be caught easily and cheaply, they will not be worth catching
at all; and this indicates their best chance of maintaining their place
in the world, as experience shows that if any profit can be made out of
them, the cupidity of man will give them no quarter.
XV
ON WHALES, PAST AND PRESENT, AND THEIR PROBABLE ORIGIN[37]
Few natural groups present so many remarkable, very obvious, and easily
appreciated illustrations of several of the most important general laws
which appear to have determined the structure of animal bodies, as that
selected for my lecture this evening. We shall find the effects of the
two opposing forces--that of heredity or conformation to ancestral
characters, and that of adaptation to changed environment,
whether brought about by the method of natural selection or
otherwise--distinctly written in almost every part of their structure.
Scarcely anywhere in the animal kingdom do we see so many cases of the
persistence of rudimentary and apparently useless organs, those
marvellous and suggestive phenomena which at one time seemed hopeless
enigmas, causing despair to those who tried to unravel their meaning,
looked upon as mere will-of-the-wisps, but now eagerly welcomed as
beacons of true light, casting illuminating beams upon the dark and
otherwise impenetrable paths through which the organism has travelled on
its way to reach the goal of its present condition of existence.
It is chiefly to these rudimentary organs of the Cetacea and to what we
may learn from them that I propose to call your attention. In each case
the question may well be asked, granted that they are, as they appear to
be, useless, or nearly so, to their present possessors, insignificant,
imperfect, in fact _rudimentary_, as compared with the corresponding or
homologous parts of other animals, are they survivals, or vestiges of a
past condition, become useless owing to change of circumstances and
environment, and undergoing the process of gradual degeneration,
preparatory to their final removal from an organism to which they are
only, in however small a degree, an incumbrance, or are they incipient
structures, beginnings of what may in future become functional and
important parts of the economy? These questions will call for an attempt
at least at solution in each case as we proceed.
Before entering upon details, it will be necessary to give some general
idea of the position, limits, and principal modifications of the group
of animals from which the special illustrations will be drawn. The term
“whale” is commonly but vaguely applied to all the larger and
middle-sized Cetacea, and though such smaller species as the dolphins
and porpoises are not usually spoken of as whales, they may for all
intents and purposes of zoological science be included in the term, and
will come within the range of the present subject. Taken altogether the
_Cetacea_ constitute a perfectly distinct and natural order of mammals,
characterised by their purely aquatic mode of life and external fishlike
form. The body is fusiform, passing anteriorly into the head without any
distinct constriction or neck, and posteriorly tapering off gradually
towards the extremity of the tail, which is provided with a pair of
lateral pointed expansions of skin supported by dense fibrous tissue,
called “flukes,” forming together a horizontally-placed, triangular
propelling organ. The fore-limbs are reduced to the condition of
flattened ovoid paddles, incased in a continuous integument, showing no
external sign of division into arm, forearm, and hand, or of separate
digits, and without any trace of nails. There are no vestiges of
hind-limbs visible externally. The general surface of the body is smooth
and glistening, and devoid of hair. In nearly all species a compressed
median dorsal fin is present. The nostrils open separately or by a
single crescentic valvular aperture, not at the extremity of the snout,
but near the vertex.
Animals of the order _Cetacea_ abound in all known seas, and some
species are inhabitants of the larger rivers of South America and Asia.
Their organisation necessitates their life being passed entirely in the
water, as on the land they are absolutely helpless; but they have to
rise very frequently to the surface for the purpose of respiration. They
are all predaceous, subsisting on living animal food of some kind. The
members of one genus alone (_Orca_) eat other warm-blooded animals, as
seals and even animals of their own order, both large and small. Some
feed on fish, others on small floating crustacea, pteropods, and medusæ,
while the staple food of many is constituted of the various species of
Cephalopods, chiefly _Loligo_ and other _Teuthidæ_, which must abound in
some seas in vast numbers, as they form almost the entire support of
some of the largest members of the order. The Cetacea are, with some
exceptions, timid, inoffensive animals. They are active in their
movements, and sociable and gregarious in their habits.
Among the existing members of the order there are two very distinct
types--the toothed whales, or _Odontoceti_, and the baleen whales, or
_Mystacoceti_, which present throughout their organisation most markedly
distinct structural characters, and have in the existing state of nature
no transitional forms. The extinct _Zeuglodon_, so far as its characters
are known, does not fall into either of these groups as now constituted,
but is in some respects intermediate, and in others more resembles the
generalised mammalian type.
The important and interesting problems of the origin of the Cetacea and
their relations to other forms of life are at present involved in the
greatest obscurity. They present no more signs of affinity with any of
the lower classes of vertebrated animals than do many of the members of
their own class. Indeed, in all that essentially distinguishes a mammal
from one of the oviparous vertebrates, whether in the osseous, nervous,
vascular, or reproductive systems, they are as truly mammalian as any,
even the highest, members of the class. Any supposed signs of
inferiority are, as we shall see, simply modifications in adaptation to
their peculiar mode of life. Similar modifications are met with in
another quite distinct group of mammalia, the _Sirenia_ (Dugongs and
Manatees), and also, though in a less complete degree, in the aquatic
Carnivora or seals. But these do not indicate any community of origin
between these groups and the Cetacea. In fact, in the present state of
our knowledge, the Cetacea are absolutely isolated, and little
satisfactory reason has ever been given for deriving them from any one
of the existing divisions of the class rather than from any other. The
question has indeed often been mooted whether they have been derived
from land mammals at all, or whether they may not be the survivors of a
primitive aquatic form which was the ancestor not only of the whales,
but of all the other members of the class. The materials for--I will not
say solving--but for throwing some light upon this problem, must be
sought for in two directions--in the structure of the existing members
of the order, and in its past history, as revealed by the discovery of
fossil remains. In the present state of science it is chiefly on the
former that we have to rely, and this therefore will first occupy our
attention.
One of the most obvious external characteristics by which the mammalia
are distinguished from other classes of vertebrates is the more or less
complete clothing of the surface by the peculiar modification of
epidermic tissue called hair. The Cetacea alone appear to be exceptions
to this generalisation. Their smooth, glistening exterior is, in the
greater number of species, at all events in adult life, absolutely bare,
though the want of a hairy covering is compensated for functionally by
peculiar modifications of the structure of the skin itself, the
epidermis being greatly thickened, and a remarkable layer of dense fat
being closely incorporated with the tissue of the derm or true skin;
modifications admirably adapted for retaining the warmth of the body,
without any roughness of surface which might occasion friction and so
interfere with perfect facility of gliding through the water. Close
examination, however, shows that the mammalian character of hairiness is
not entirely wanting in the Cetacea, although it is reduced to a most
rudimentary and apparently functionless condition. Scattered, small, and
generally delicate hairs have been detected in many species, both of the
toothed and of the whalebone whales, but never in any situation but on
the face, either in a row along the upper lip, around the blowholes or
on the chin, apparently representing the large, stiff “vibrissæ” or
“whiskers” found in corresponding situations in many land mammals. In
some cases these seem to persist throughout the life of the animal;
more often they are only found in the young or even the fœtal state. In
some species they have not been detected at any age.
Eschricht and Reinhardt counted in a new-born Greenland right whale
(_Balæna mysticetus_) sixty-six hairs near the extremity of the upper
jaw, and about fifty on each side of the lower lip, as well as a few
around the blowholes, where they have also been seen in _Megaptera
longimana_ and _Balænoptera rostrata_. In a large rorqual (_Balænoptera
musculus_), quite adult and sixty-seven feet in length, stranded in
Pevensey Bay in 1865, there were twenty-five white, straight, stiff
hairs about half an inch in length, scattered somewhat irregularly on
each side of the vertical ridge in which the chin terminated, extending
over a space of nine inches in height and two and a half inches in
breadth. The existence of these rudimentary hairs must have some
significance beyond any possible utility they may be to the animal.
Perhaps some better explanation may ultimately be found for them, but it
must be admitted that they are extremely suggestive that we have here a
case of heredity or conformation to a type of ancestor with a full hairy
clothing, just on the point of yielding to complete adaptation to the
conditions in which whales now dwell.
In the organs of the senses the Cetacea exhibit some remarkable adaptive
modifications of structures essentially formed on the Mammalian type,
and not on that characteristic of the truly aquatic Vertebrates, the
fishes, which, if function were the only factor in the production of
structure, they might be supposed to resemble.
The modifications of the organs of sight do not so much affect the
eyeball as the accessory apparatus. To an animal whose surface is always
bathed with fluid, the complex arrangement which mammals generally
possess for keeping the surface of the transparent cornea moist and
protected, the movable lids, the nictitating membrane, the lachrymal
gland, and the arrangements for collecting and removing the superfluous
tears when they have served their function, cannot be needed, and hence
we find these parts in a most rudimentary condition or altogether
absent. In the same way the organ of hearing in its essential structure
is entirely mammalian, having not only the sacculi and semicircular
canals common to all but the lowest vertebrates, but the cochlea, and
tympanic cavity with its ossicles and membrane, all, however, buried
deep in the solid substance of the head; while the parts specially
belonging to terrestrial mammals,--those which collect the vibrations of
the sound travelling through air, the pinna and the tube which conveys
it to the sentient structures within,--are entirely or practically
wanting. Of the pinna or external ear there is no trace. The meatus
auditorius is certainly there, reduced to a minute aperture in the skin
like a hole made by the prick of a pin, and leading to a tube so fine
and long that it cannot be a passage for either air or water, and
therefore can have no appreciable function in connection with the organ
of hearing, and must be classed with the other numerous rudimentary
structures that whales exhibit.
The organ of smell, when it exists, offers still more remarkable
evidence of the origin of the Cetacea. In fishes this organ is specially
adapted for the perception of odorous substances permeating the water;
the terminations of the olfactory nerves are spread over the inner
plicated surface of a cavity near the front part of the nose, to which
the fluid in which the animals swim has free access, although it is
quite unconnected with the respiratory passages. Mammals, on the other
hand, smell substances with which the atmosphere they breathe is
impregnated; their olfactory nerve is distributed over the more or less
complex foldings of the lining of a cavity placed more deeply in the
head, but in immediate relation to the passages through which air is
continually driven to and fro on its way to the lungs in respiration,
and therefore in a most favourable position for receiving impressions
from substances floating in that air. The whalebone whales have an organ
of smell exactly on the mammalian type, but in a rudimentary condition.
The perception of odorous substances diffused in the air, upon which
many land mammals depend so much for obtaining their food, or for
protection from danger, can be of little importance to them. In the more
completely modified Odontocetes the olfactory apparatus, as well as
that part of the brain specially related to the function of smell, is
entirely wanting, but in neither group is there the slightest trace of
the specially aquatic olfactory organ of fishes. Its complete absence
and the presence of vestiges of the aerial organ of land mammals in the
Mystacocetes are the clearest possible indications of the origin of the
Cetacea from air-breathing and air-smelling terrestrial mammalia. With
their adaptation to an aquatic mode of existence, organs fitted only for
smelling in air became useless, and so have dwindled or completely
disappeared. Time and circumstances do not seem to have permitted the
acquisition of anything analogous to the specially aquatic smelling
apparatus of fishes, the result being that whales are practically
deprived of whatever advantage this sense may be to other animals.
It is characteristic of the greater number of mammalia to have their
jaws furnished with teeth having a definite structure and mode of
development. In all the most typical forms these teeth are limited in
number, not exceeding eleven on each side of each jaw, or forty-four in
all, and are differentiated in shape in different parts of the series,
being more simple in front, broader and more complex behind. Such a
dentition is described as “heterodont.” In most cases also there are two
distinct sets of teeth during the lifetime of the animal, constituting a
condition technically called “diphyodont.”
All the Cetacea present some traces of teeth, which in structure and
mode of development resemble those of mammals, and not those of the
lower vertebrated classes, but they are always found in a more or less
imperfect state. In the first place, at all events in existing species,
they are never truly heterodont, all the teeth of the series resembling
each other more or less, or belonging to the condition called
“homodont,” and not obeying the usual numerical rule, often falling
short of, but in many cases greatly exceeding it. The most typical
Odontocetes, or toothed whales, have a large number of similar, simple,
conical, recurved, pointed teeth, alike on both sides and in the upper
and under jaws, admirably adapted for catching slippery, living prey,
such as fish, which are swallowed whole without mastication. In one
genus (_Pontoporia_) there may be as many as sixty of such teeth on
each side of each jaw, making 240 in all. The more usual number is from
twenty to thirty. These teeth are never changed, being “monophyodont,”
and they are, moreover, less firmly implanted in the jaws than in land
mammals, having never more than one root, which is set in an alveolar
socket, generally wide and loosely fitting, though perfectly sufficient
for the simple purpose which the teeth have to serve.
Most singular modifications of this condition of dentition are met with
in different genera of toothed whales, chiefly the result of
suppression--sometimes of suppression of the greater number, combined
with excessive development of a single pair. In one large group, the
Ziphioids, although minute rudimentary teeth are occasionally found in
young individuals, and sometimes throughout life, in both jaws, in the
adults the upper teeth are usually entirely absent, and those of the
lower jaw reduced to two, which may be very large and projecting like
tusks from the mouth, as in _Mesoplodon_, or minute and entirely
concealed beneath the gums, as in _Hyperoodon_,--an animal which is for
all practical purposes toothless, yet in which a pair of perfectly
formed though buried teeth remain throughout life, wonderful examples of
the persistence of rudimentary and to all appearance absolutely useless
organs. Among the _Delphinidæ_ similar cases are met with. In the genus
_Grampus_ the teeth are entirely absent in the upper, and few and early
deciduous in the lower jaw. But the narwhal exceeds all other Cetaceans,
perhaps all other vertebrated animals, in the specialisation of its
dentition. Besides some irregular rudimentary teeth found in the young
state, the entire dentition is reduced to a single pair, which lie
horizontally in the upper jaw, and both of which in the female remain
permanently concealed within the bone, so that this sex is practically
toothless, while in the male the right tooth usually remains similarly
concealed and abortive, and the left is immensely developed, attaining a
length equal to more than half that of the entire animal, projecting
horizontally from the head in the form of a cylindrical or slightly
tapering pointed tusk, with the surface marked by spiral grooves and
ridges.
The meaning and utility of some of these strange modifications it is
impossible, in the imperfect state of our knowledge of the habits of the
Cetacea, to explain, but the fact that in almost every case a more full
number of rudimentary teeth is present in early stages of existence,
which either disappear, or remain as concealed and functionless organs,
points to the present condition in the aberrant and specialised forms as
being one derived from the more generalised type, in which the teeth
were numerous and equal.
The Mystacocetes, or whalebone whales, are distinguished by entire
absence of teeth, at all events after birth. But it is a remarkable
fact, first demonstrated by Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and since amply
confirmed by Cuvier, Eschricht, Julin, and others, that in the fœtal
state they have numerous minute calcified teeth lying in the dental
groove of both upper and lower jaws. These attain their fullest
development about the middle of fœtal life, after which period they are
absorbed, no trace of them remaining at the time of birth. Their
structure and mode of development have been shown to be exactly that
characteristic of ordinary mammalian teeth, and it has also been
observed that those at the posterior part of the series are larger, and
have a bilobed form of crown, while those in front are simple and
conical, a fact of considerable interest in connection with speculations
as to the history of the group.
It is not until after the disappearance of these teeth that the baleen,
or whalebone, makes its appearance. This remarkable structure, though,
as will be presently shown, only a modification of a part existing in
all mammals, is, in its specially developed condition as baleen,
peculiar to one group of whales. It is therefore perfectly in accord
with what might have been expected, that it is comparatively late in
making its appearance. Characters that are common to a large number of
species appear early--those that are special to a few, at a late period,
alike both in the history of the race and of the individual.
Baleen consists of a series of flattened, horny plates, several hundred
in number, on each side of the palate, separated by a bare interval
along the middle line. They are placed transversely to the long axis of
the palate, with very short spaces between them. Each plate or blade is
somewhat triangular in form, with the base attached to the palate, and
the apex hanging downwards. The outer edge of the blade is hard and
smooth, but the inner edge and apex fray out into long, bristly fibres,
so that the roof of the whale’s mouth looks as if covered with hair, as
described by Aristotle. The blades are longest near the middle of the
series, and gradually diminish towards the front and back of the mouth.
The horny plates grow from a dense fibrous and highly vascular matrix,
which covers the palatal surface of the maxillæ, and which sends out
lamellar processes, one of which penetrates the base of each blade.
Moreover, the free edge of each of these processes is covered with very
long vascular thread-like papillæ, one of which forms the central axis
of each of the hair-like epidermic fibres of which the blade is mainly
composed. A transverse section of fresh whalebone shows that it is made
up of numbers of these soft vascular papillæ, circular in outline, each
surrounded by concentrically arranged epidermic cells, the whole bound
together by other epidermic cells, which constitute the smooth cortical
(so-called “enamel”) surface of the blade, and which, disintegrating at
the free edge, allows the individual fibres to become loose and to
assume the hair-like appearance spoken of before. These fibres differ
from hairs in not being formed in depressed follicles in the enderon,
but rather resemble those of which the horn of the rhinoceros is
composed. The blades are supported and bound together for a certain
distance from their base, by a mass of less hardened epithelium,
secreted by the surface of the palatal membrane or matrix of the
whalebone in the intervals of the lamellar processes. This is the
“intermediate substance” of Hunter, the “gum” of the whalers.
The function of the whalebone is to strain the water from the small
marine molluscs, crustaceans, or fish upon which the whales subsist. In
feeding they fill the immense mouth with water containing shoals of
these small creatures, and then, on their closing the jaws and raising
the tongue, so as to diminish the cavity of the mouth, the water streams
out through the narrow intervals between the hairy fringe of the
whalebone blades, and escapes through the lips, leaving the living prey
to be swallowed. Almost all the other structures to which I am
specially directing your attention, are, as I have mentioned, in a more
or less rudimentary state in the Cetacea; the baleen, on the other hand,
is an example of an exactly contrary condition, but an equally
instructive one, as illustrating the mode in which nature works in
producing the infinite variety we see in animal structures. Although
appearing at first sight an entirely distinct and special formation, it
evidently consists of nothing more than the highly modified papillæ of
the lining membrane of the mouth, with an excessive and cornified
epithelial development.
The bony palate of all mammals is covered with a closely adhering layer
of fibro-vascular tissue, the surface of which is protected by a coat of
non-vascular epithelium, the former exactly corresponding to the derm or
true skin, and the latter to the epiderm of the external surface of the
body. Sometimes this membrane is perfectly smooth, but it is more often
raised into ridges, which run in a direction transverse to the axis of
the head, and are curved with the concavity backwards; the ridges,
moreover, do not extend across the middle line, being interrupted by a
median depression or _raphé_. Indications of these ridges are clearly
seen in the human palate, but they attain their greatest development in
the Ungulata. In oxen, and especially in the giraffe, they form distinct
laminæ, and their free edges develop a row of pointed papillæ, giving
them a pectinated appearance. Their epithelium is thick, hard, and
white, though not horny. Although the interval between the structure of
the ridges in the giraffe’s palate and the most rudimentary form of
baleen at present known is great, there is no difficulty in seeing that
the latter is essentially a modification of the former, just as the hoof
of the horse, with its basis of highly developed vascular laminæ and
papillæ, and the resultant complex arrangement of the epidermic cells,
is a modification of the simple nail or claw of other mammals, or as the
horn of the rhinoceros is only a modification of the ordinary derm and
epiderm covering the animal’s body differentiated by a local exuberance
of growth.
Though the early stages by which whalebone has been modified from more
simple palate structures are entirely lost to our sight, probably for
ever, the conditions in which it now exists in different species of
whales, show very marked varieties of progress, from a simple
comparatively rudimental and imperfect condition, to what is perhaps the
most wonderful example of mechanical adaptation to purpose known in any
organic structure. These variations are worth dwelling upon for a few
minutes, as they illustrate in an excellent manner the gradual
modifications that may take place in an organ, evidently in adaptation
to particular requirements, the causation of which can be perfectly
explained upon Darwin’s principle of natural selection.
In the rorquals or fin-whales (genus _Balænoptera_, Fig. 12, p. 198),
found in almost all seas, and so well known off our own coasts, the
largest blades in an animal 70 feet long do not exceed 2 feet in length,
including their hairy terminations; they are in most species of a pale
horn colour, and their structure is coarse and inelastic, separating
into thick, stiff fibres, so that they are of no value for the ordinary
purposes to which whalebone is applied in the arts. These animals feed
on fish of considerable size, from herrings up to cod, and for foraging
among shoals of these creatures the construction of their mouth and the
structure of their baleen is evidently sufficient. This is the type of
the earliest known extinct forms of whales, and it has continued to
exist, with several slight modifications, to this day, because it has
fulfilled one purpose in the economy of nature. Other purposes for which
it was not sufficient have been supplied by gradual changes taking
place, some of the stages of which are seen in the intermediate
conditions still exhibited in the Megaptera and in the Atlantic and
southern right whales. Before describing the extreme modifications in
the direction of complexity, I may mention, to show the range at present
presented in the development of baleen, that there has lately been
discovered in the North Pacific a species called by the whalers the
Californian grey whale (_Rachianectes glaucus_), which shows the
opposite extreme of simplicity. The animal is from 30 to 40 feet in
length; the baleen blades are only 182 on each side (according to
Scammon) and far apart, very short (the longest being from 14 to 16
inches in length), light brown or nearly white in colour, and still more
coarse in grain and inelastic than that of the rorquals. The food of
these whales is not yet known with certainty. They have been seen
apparently seeking for it along soft bottoms of the sea, and fuci and
mussels have been found in their stomachs.
In the Greenland right whale of the circumpolar seas, the bowhead of the
American whalers (_Balæna mysticetus_, Fig. 9, p. 195), all the
peculiarities which distinguish the head and mouth of the whales from
other mammals have attained their greatest development. The head is of
enormous size, exceeding one-third of the whole length of the creature.
The cavity of the mouth is actually larger than that of the body, thorax
and abdomen together. The upper jaw is very narrow, but greatly arched
from before backwards, to increase the height of the cavity and allow
for the great length of the baleen, the enormous rami of the mandibles
are widely separated posteriorly, and have a still further outward sweep
before they meet at the symphysis in front, giving the floor of the
mouth the shape of an immense spoon. The baleen blades attain the number
of 350 or more on each side, and those in the middle of the series have
a length of ten or even twelve feet. They are black in colour, fine and
highly elastic in texture, and fray out at the inner edge and ends into
long, delicate, soft, almost silky, but very tough hairs.
How these immensely long blades depending vertically from the palate
were packed into a mouth the height of which was scarcely more than half
their length was a mystery not solved until a few years ago. Captain
David Gray, of Peterhead, at my request, first gave us a clear idea of
the arrangement of the baleen in the Greenland whale, and showed that
the purpose of its wonderful elasticity was not primarily at least the
benefit of the corset and umbrella makers, but that it was essential for
the correct performance of its functions. It may here be mentioned that
the modification of the mouth structure of the right whale is entirely
in relation to the nature of its food. It is by this apparatus that it
is enabled to avail itself of the minute but highly nutritious
crustaceans and pteropods which swarm in immense shoals in the seas it
frequents. The large mouth enables it to take in at one time a
sufficient quantity of water filled with these small organisms, and the
length and delicate structure of the baleen provides an efficient
strainer or hair sieve by which the water can be drained off. If the
baleen were, as in the rorquals, short and rigid, and only of the length
of the aperture between the upper and lower jaws when the mouth was
shut, when the jaws were separated a space would be left beneath it
through which the water and the minute particles of food would escape
together. But instead of this, the long, slender, brush-like ends of the
whalebone blades, when the mouth is closed, fold back, the front ones
passing below the hinder ones in a channel lying between the tongue and
the bone of the lower jaw. When the mouth is opened their elasticity
causes them to straighten out like a bow that is unbent, so that at
whatever distance the jaws are separated, the strainer remains in
perfect action, filling the whole of the interval. The mechanical
perfection of the arrangement is completed by the great development of
the lower lip, which rises stiffly above the jawbone, and prevents the
long, slender, flexible ends of the baleen being carried outwards by the
rush of water from the mouth, when its cavity is being diminished by the
closure of the jaws and raising of the tongue. The interest and
admiration excited by the contemplation of such a beautifully adjusted
piece of mechanism is certainly heightened by the knowledge that it has
been brought about by the gradual adaptation and perfection of
structures common to the whole class of animals to which the whale
belongs.
Few points of the structure of whales offer so great a departure from
the ordinary mammalian type as the limbs. The fore-limbs are reduced to
the condition of simple paddles or oars, variously shaped, but always
flattened and more or less oval in outline. They are freely movable at
the shoulder-joint, where the humerus or upper-arm bone articulates with
the shoulder-blade in the usual manner, but beyond this point, except a
slight flexibility and elasticity, there is no motion between the
different segments. The bones are all there, corresponding in number and
general relations with those of the human or any other mammalian arm,
but they are flattened out, and their contiguous ends, instead of
presenting hinge-like joints, come in contact by flat surfaces, united
together by strong ligamentous bands, and all wrapped up in an
undivided covering of skin, which allows externally of no sign of the
separate and many-jointed fingers seen in the skeleton.
Up to the year 1865 it was generally thought that there was nothing to
be found between this bony framework and the covering skin, with its
inner layer of blubber, except dense fibrous tissue, with blood-vessels
and nerves sufficient to maintain its vitality. Dissecting a large
rorqual, 67 feet in length, upon the beach of Pevensey Bay in that year,
I was surprised to find lying upon the bones of the forearm
well-developed muscles, the red fibres of which reached nearly to the
lower end of these bones, ending in strong tendons, passing to, and
radiating out on, the palmar surface of the hand. Circumstances then
prevented me following out the details of their arrangement and
distribution, but not long afterwards Professor Struthers, of Aberdeen,
had an opportunity of carefully dissecting the fore-limb of another
whale of the same species, and he has recorded and figured his
observations in the _Journal of Anatomy_ for November 1871. He found on
the internal or palmar aspect of the limb three distinct muscles
corresponding in attachments to the flexor carpi ulnaris, the flexor
profundus digitorum, and the flexor longus pollicis of man, and on the
opposite side but one, the extensor communis digitorum.[38] Large as
these muscles actually are, yet, compared with the size of the animal,
they cannot but be regarded as rudimentary, and being attached to bones
without regular joints and firmly held together by unyielding tissues,
their functions must be reduced almost to nothing. But rudimentary as
the muscles of the fin-whales are, lower stages of degradation of the
same structures are found in other members of the group. In some they
are indeed present in form, but their muscular structure is gone, and
they are reduced in most of the toothed whales to mere fibrous bands,
scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding tissue which connects the
inner surface of the skin with the bone. It is impossible to contemplate
these structures without having the conviction forced home that here are
the remains of parts once of use to their possessor, now, owing to the
complete change of purpose and mode of action of the limb, reduced to a
condition of atrophy verging on complete disappearance.
The changes that have taken place in the hind-limbs are even more
remarkable. In all known Cetacea (unless _Platanista_ be really an
exception) a pair of slender bones are found suspended a short distance
below the vertebral column, but not attached to it, about the part where
the body and the tail join. In museum skeletons these bones are often
not seen, as, unless special care has been taken in the preparation,
they are apt to get lost. They are, however, of much importance and
interest, as their relations to surrounding parts show that they are the
rudimentary representatives of the pelvic or hip bones, which in other
mammals play such an important part in connecting the hind-limbs with
the rest of the skeleton. The pelvic arch is thus almost universally
present, but of the limb proper there is, as far as is yet known, not a
vestige in any of the large group of toothed whales, not even in the
great cachalot or sperm whale, although it should be mentioned that it
has never been looked for in that animal with any sort of care. With the
whalebone whales, however, at least in some of the species, the case is
different. In these animals there are found, attached to the outer and
lower side of the pelvic bone, other elements, bony or only
cartilaginous as the case may be, clearly representing rudiments of the
first, and in some cases the second segment of the limb, the thigh or
femur, and the leg or tibia. In the small _Balænoptera rostrata_ a few
thin fragments of cartilage, imbedded in fibrous tissue attached to the
side of the pelvic bone, constitute the most rudimentary possible
condition of a hind-limb, and could not be recognised as such but for
their analogy with other allied cases. In the large rorqual,
_Balænoptera musculus_, 67 feet long, previously spoken of, I was
fortunate enough in 1865 to find attached by fibrous tissue to the side
of the pelvic bone (which was sixteen inches in length) a distinct
femur, consisting of a nodule of cartilage of a slightly compressed,
irregularly oval form, and not quite one inch and a half in length.
Other specimens of the same animal dissected by Van Beneden and
Professor Struthers have shown the same; in one case, partial
ossification had taken place. In the genus _Megaptera_ a similar femur
has been described by Eschricht; and the observations of Reinhardt have
shown that the Greenland right whale (_Balæna mysticetus_) has not only
a representative of the femur developed far more completely than in the
rorqual, being from six to eight inches in length and completely
ossified, but also a second smaller and more irregularly formed bone,
representing the tibia. Our knowledge of these parts in this species has
recently been greatly extended by the researches of Dr. Struthers, who
has published in the _Journal of Anatomy_ for 1881 a most careful and
detailed account of the dissection of several specimens, showing the
amount of variation to which these bones (as with most rudimentary
structures) are liable in different individuals, and describing for the
first time their distinct articulation one with the other by synovial
joints and capsular ligaments, and also the most remarkable and
unlooked-for presence of muscles passing from one bone to the other,
representing the adductors and flexors of mammals with completely
developed limbs, but so situated that it is almost impossible to
conceive that they can be of any use; the whole limb, such as it is,
being buried deep below the surface, where any movement, except of the
most limited kind, must be impossible. Indeed, that the movement is very
limited and of no particular importance to the animal was shown by the
fact that in two out of eleven whales dissected the hip-joint was firmly
anchylosed (or fixed by bony union), though without any trace of
disease. In the words of Dr. Struthers, “Nothing can be imagined more
useless to the animal than rudiments of hind-legs entirely buried
beneath the skin of a whale, so that one is inclined to suspect that
these structures must admit of some other interpretation. Yet,
approaching the inquiry with the most sceptical determination, one
cannot help being convinced, as the dissection goes on, that these
rudiments really are femur and tibia. The functional point of view fails
to account for their presence. Altogether they present for contemplation
a most interesting instance of those significant parts, rudimentary
structures.”
We have here a case in which it is not difficult to answer the question
before alluded to, often asked with regard to rudimentary parts, Are
they disappearing or are they incipient organs? We can have no
hesitation in saying that they are the former. All we know of the origin
of limbs shows that they commence as outgrowths upon the surface of the
body, and that the first-formed portions are the most distal segments.
The limb, as proved by its permanent state in the lowest Vertebrates,
and by its embryological condition in higher forms, is at first a mere
projection or outward fold of the skin, which, in the course of
development, as it becomes of use in moving or supporting the animal,
acquires the internal framework which strengthens it and perfects its
functions. It would be impossible, on any theory of causation yet known,
to conceive of a limb gradually developed from within outwards. On the
other hand, its disappearance would naturally take place in the opposite
direction; projecting parts which had become useless, being in the way,
would, like all the other prominences on the surface of the
whales,--hair, ears, etc.,--be removed, while the most internal,
offering far less interference with successful carrying on the purposes
of life, would be the last to disappear, lingering, as in the case of
the Greenland whale, long enough to reveal their wonderful history to
the anatomist who has been fortunate enough to possess the skill and the
insight to interpret it.
Time will not allow of more illustrations drawn from the structure of
existing Cetacea; we turn next to what the researches of palæontology
teach of the past history of the order. Unfortunately this does not at
present amount to very much. As is the case with nearly all other orders
of mammals, we know nothing of their condition, if they existed, in the
mesozoic age. Even in the Cretaceous seas, the deposits at the bottom of
which are so well adapted to preserve the remains of the creatures which
swam in them, not a fragment of any whale or whale-like animal has been
found. The earliest Cetaceans of whose organisation we have any good
evidence are the Zeuglodons of the Eocene formations of North America.
These were creatures whose structure, as far as we know it, was
intermediate between that of the existing sub-orders of whales, having
the elongated nasal bones and anterior position of the nostrils of the
Mystacocetes, with the teeth of the Odontocetes, and with some
characters more like those of the generalised mammalian type than of any
of the existing forms. In fact _Zeuglodon_ is precisely what we might
have expected _a priori_ an ancestral form of whale to have been. The
remarkable smallness of its cerebral cavity, compared with the jaws and
the rest of the skull, so different from that of modern Cetaceans, is
exactly paralleled in the primitive types of other groups of mammals.
The teeth are markedly differentiated in different parts of the series.
In the anterior part of both jaws they are simple, conical, or slightly
compressed and sharp pointed. The first three of the upper jaw are
distinctly implanted in the premaxillary bone, and so may be reckoned as
incisors. The tooth which succeeds, or the canine, is also simple and
conical, but it does not greatly exceed the others in size. This is
followed by five teeth with two distinct roots and compressed pointed
crowns, with denticulated cutting edges. It has been thought that there
was evidence of a vertical succession of the molar teeth, as in
diphyodont mammals, but the proof of this is not quite satisfactory.
Unfortunately the structure of the limbs is most imperfectly known. A
mutilated humerus has given rise to many conjectures; to some anatomists
it appears to indicate freedom of motion at the elbow-joint, while to
others its characters seem to be those of the ordinary Cetacea. Of the
structure of the pelvis and hind-limb we are at present in ignorance.
From the middle Miocene period fossil Cetacea are abundant, and
distinctly divided into the two groups now existing. The Mystacocetes,
or whalebone whales, of the Miocene seas were, as far as we know now,
only _Balænopteræ_, some of which (as the genus _Cetotherium_) were, in
the elongated flattened form of the nasal bones, the greater distance
between the occipital and frontal bones at the top of the head, and the
greater length of the cervical vertebræ, more generalised than any now
existing. In the shape of the mandible also, Van Beneden, to whose
researches we are chiefly indebted for a knowledge of these forms,
discerns some approximation to the Odontocetes. Right whales (_Balæna_)
have not been found earlier than the Pliocene period, and it is
interesting to note that instead of the individuals diminishing in bulk
as we approach the times we live in, as with many other groups of
animals, the contrary has been the case, no known extinct species of
whales equalling in size those that are now to be met with in the ocean.
The size of whales, as of all other things whose most striking attribute
is magnitude, has been greatly exaggerated; but when reduced to the
limits of sober fact, the Greenland right whale of 50 feet long, the
sperm whale of 60, and the great northern rorqual (_Balænoptera
sibbaldii_) of 80, exceed all other organic structures known, past or
present. Instead of living in an age of degeneracy of physical growth,
we are in an age of giants, but it may be at the end of that age. For
countless centuries impulses from within and the forces of circumstances
from without have been gradually shaping the whales into their present
wonderful form and gigantic size; but the very perfection of their
structure and their magnitude combined, the rich supply of oil
protecting their internal parts from cold, the beautiful apparatus of
whalebone by which their nutrition is provided for, have been fatal
gifts, which, under the sudden revolution produced on the surface of the
globe by the development of the wants and arts of civilised man, cannot
but lead in a few years to their partial if not complete extinction.
It does not need much foresight to divine the future history of whales,
but let us return to the question with which we started, What was their
probable origin?
In the first place, the evidence is absolutely conclusive that they were
not originally aquatic in habit, but are derived from terrestrial
mammals of fairly high organisation, belonging to the placental division
of the class,--animals in which a hairy covering was developed, and with
sense organs, especially that of smell, adapted for living on land;
animals, moreover, with four completely-developed pairs of limbs on the
type of the higher vertebrata, and not of that of fishes. Although their
teeth are now of the simple homodont and monophyodont type, there is
much evidence to show that this has taken place by the process of
degradation from a more perfect type, even the fœtal teeth of whalebone
whales showing signs of differentiation into molars and incisors, and
many extinct forms, not only the Zeuglodons, but also true dolphins, as
the Squalodons, having a distinct heterodont dentition, the loss of
which, though technically called a “degradation,” has been a change in
conformity to the habits and needs of the individuals. So much may be
considered very nearly, if not quite, within the range of demonstrated
facts, but it is in determining the particular group of mammals from
which the Cetacea arose that greater difficulties are met with.
One of the methods by which a land mammal may have been changed into an
aquatic one is clearly shown in the stages which still survive among the
Carnivora. The seals are obviously modifications of the land Carnivora,
the Otariæ, or sea-lions and sea-bears, being curiously intermediate.
Many naturalists have been tempted to think that the whales represent a
still further stage of the same kind of modification. So firmly has this
idea taken root that in most popular works on zoology in which an
attempt has been made to trace the pedigree of existing mammals, the
Cetacea are definitely placed as offshoots of the Pinnipedia, which in
their turn are derived from the Carnivora. But there is to my mind a
fatal objection to this view. The seal of course has much in common with
the whale, inasmuch as it is a mammal adapted for an aquatic life, but
it has been converted to its general fish-like form by the peculiar
development of its hind-limbs into instruments of propulsion through the
water; for though the thighs and legs are small, the feet are large and
are the special organs of locomotion, the tail being quite rudimentary.
The two feet applied together form an organ very like the tail of a fish
or whale, and functionally representing it, but only functionally, for
the time has, I trust, quite gone by when the Cetacea were defined as
animals with the “hinder limbs united, forming a forked horizontal
tail.” In the whales, as we have seen, the hind-limbs are aborted and
the tail developed into a powerful swimming organ. Now it is very
difficult to suppose that when the hind-limbs had once become so well
adapted to a function so essential to the welfare of the animal as that
of swimming, they could ever have become reduced and their action
transferred to the tail;--the animal must have been in a too helpless
condition to maintain its existence during the transference, if it took
place, as we must believe, gradually. It is far more reasonable to
suppose that whales were derived from animals with large tails, which
were used in swimming, eventually with such effect that the hind-limbs
became no longer necessary, and so gradually disappeared. The powerful
tail, with lateral cutaneous flanges, of an American species of otter
(_Pteronura sandbachii_), or the still more familiar tail of the beaver,
may give some idea of this member in the primitive _Cetacea_. I think
that this consideration disposes of the principal argument in favour of
the whales being related to the seals, as most of the other
resemblances, such as those in the characters of their teeth, are
evidently resemblances of analogy related to similarity of habit.
As pointed out long ago by Hunter, there are numerous points in the
visceral organs of the Cetacea which far more resemble those of the
Ungulata than of the Carnivora. These are the complex stomach, the
simple liver, the respiratory organs, and especially the reproductive
organs and structures relating to the development of the young. Even the
skull of Zeuglodon, which has been cited as presenting a great
resemblance to that of a seal, has quite as much likeness to one of the
primitive pig-like Ungulates, except in the purely adaptive character of
the form of the teeth.
Though there is, perhaps, generally more error than truth in popular
ideas on natural history, I cannot help thinking that some insight has
been shown in the common names attached to one of the most familiar of
Cetaceans by those whose opportunities of knowing its nature have been
greatest--“Sea-Hog,” “Sea-Pig,” or “Herring-Hog” of our fishermen,
_Meerschwein_ of the Germans, corrupted into the French “Marsouin,” and
also “Porcpoisson,” shortened into “Porpoise.”
The difficulty that might be suggested in the derivation of the Cetacea
from the Ungulata, arising from the latter being at the present day
mainly vegetable feeders, is not great, as the primitive Ungulates were
probably omnivorous, as their least modified descendants, the pigs, are
still; and the aquatic branch might easily have gradually become more
and more piscivorous, as we know from the structure of their bones and
teeth, the purely terrestrial members have become by degrees more
exclusively graminivorous.
One other consideration may remove some of the difficulties that may
arise in contemplating the transition of land mammals into whales. The
gangetic dolphin (_Platanista_) and the somewhat related _Inia_ of South
America, which retain several rather generalised mammalian characters,
and are related to some of the earliest known European Miocene dolphins,
are both to the present day exclusively fluviatile, being found in the
rivers they inhabit almost up to their very sources, more than a
thousand miles from the sea. May this not point to the freshwater origin
of the whole group, and thus account for their otherwise inexplicable
absence from the Cretaceous seas?
We may conclude by picturing to ourselves some primitive generalised,
marsh-haunting animals with scanty covering of hair like the modern
hippopotamus, but with broad, swimming tails and short limbs, omnivorous
in their mode of feeding, probably combining water-plants with mussels,
worms, and freshwater crustaceans, gradually becoming more and more
adapted to fill the void place ready for them on the aquatic side of the
borderland on which they dwelt, and so by degrees being modified into
dolphin-like creatures inhabiting lakes and rivers, and ultimately
finding their way into the ocean. Here the disappearance of the huge
Enaliosaurians, the _Ichthyosauri_ and _Plesiosauri_, which formerly
played the part the Cetacea do now, had left them ample scope. Favoured
by various conditions of temperature and climate, wealth of food supply,
almost complete immunity from deadly enemies, and illimitable expanses
in which to roam, they have undergone the various modifications to which
the Cetacean type has now arrived, and gradually attained that colossal
magnitude which we have seen was not always an attribute of the animals
of this group.
Please to recollect, however, that this is a mere speculation, which may
or may not be confirmed by subsequent palæontological discovery. Such
speculations are, I trust, not without their use and interest,
especially when it is distinctly understood that they are offered only
as speculations and not as demonstrated facts.
ANTHROPOLOGY
XVI
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY[39]
It is impossible for us to commence the work of this section of the
Association without having vividly brought to our minds the loss which
has befallen us since our last meeting--the loss of one who was our most
characteristic representative of the complex science of
Anthropology--one who had for many years conducted with extraordinary
energy, amidst multifarious other avocations, a series of researches
into the history, customs, and physical characters of the early
inhabitants of our island, for which he was so especially fitted by his
archæological, historical, and literary as well as his anatomical
knowledge, and who was also the most popular and brilliant expositor, to
assemblies such as meet together on these occasions, of the results of
those researches. I need scarcely say that I refer to Professor
Rolleston.
Within the last few months the study of our subject in this country has
received an impulse from the publication of a book--small in size, it is
true, but full of materials for thought and instruction--the
_Anthropology_ of Mr. E. B. Tylor, the first work published in English
with that title, and one very different in its scope and method from the
older ethnological treatises.
The immense array of facts brought together in a small compass, the
terseness and elegance of the style, the good taste and feeling with
which difficult and often burning questions are treated, should give
this book a wide circulation among all classes, and thoroughly
familiarise both the word and the subject to English readers.
The origin and early history of man’s civilisation, his language, his
arts of life, his religion, science, and social customs in the primitive
conditions of society, are subjects in which, in consequence of their
direct continuity with the arts and sciences, religious, political, and
social customs among which we all live, by which we are all influenced,
and about which we all have opinions, every person of ordinary education
can and should take an interest. In fact, really to understand all these
problems in the complex condition in which they are presented to us now,
we ought to study them in their more simple forms, and trace them as far
as may be to their origins.
But, as the author remarks, this book is only an introduction to
anthropology, rather than a summary of all that it teaches; and some,
even those that many consider the most important branches of the
subject, are but lightly touched upon, or wholly passed over.
In one of the estimates of the character and opinions of the very
remarkable man and eminent statesman, whose death the country was
mourning last spring, it was stated: “Lord Beaconsfield had a
deep-rooted conviction of the vast importance of race, as determining
the relative dominance both of societies and of individuals;”[40] and
with regard to the question of what he meant by “race,” we have a key in
the last published work of the same acute observer of mankind: “Language
and religion do not make a race--there is only one thing which makes a
race, and that is blood.”[41] Now “blood” used in this sense is defined
as “kindred; relation by natural descent from a common ancestor;
consanguinity.”[42] The study of the true relationship of the different
races of men is then not only interesting from a scientific point of
view, but of great importance to statesmanship in such a country as
this, embracing subjects representing almost every known modification of
the human species whose varied and often conflicting interests have to
be regulated and provided for. It is to want of appreciation of its
importance that many of the inconsistencies and shortcomings of the
government of our dependencies and colonies are due, especially the
great inconsistency between a favourite English theory and a too common
English practice--the former being that all men are morally and
intellectually alike, the latter being that all are equally inferior to
himself in all respects: both propositions egregiously fallacious. The
study of race is at a low ebb indeed when we hear the same contemptuous
epithet of “nigger” applied indiscriminately by the Englishmen abroad to
the blacks of the West Coast of Africa, the Kaffirs of Natal, the
Lascars of Bombay, the Hindoos of Calcutta, the aborigines of Australia,
and even the Maoris of New Zealand!
But how is he to know better? Where in this country is any instruction
to be had? Where are the books to which he may turn for trustworthy
information? The subject, as I have said, is but slightly touched upon
in the last published treatise on anthropology in our language. The
great work of Pritchard, a compendium of all that was known at the time
it was written, is now almost entirely out of date. In not a single
university or public institution throughout the three kingdoms is there
any kind of systematic teaching, either of physical or of any other
branch of anthropology, except so far as comparative philology may be
considered as bearing upon the subject. The one Society of which it is
the special business to promote the study of these questions, the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, is, I regret to
say, far from flourishing. An anthropological museum, in the proper
sense of the word, either public or private, does not exist in this
country.
What a contrast is this to what we see in almost every other nation in
Europe! At Paris there is, first, the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, where
man, as a zoological subject--almost entirely neglected in our British
Museum--has a magnificent gallery allotted to him, abounding not only in
illustrations of osteology, but also in models, casts, drawings, and
anatomical preparations, showing various points in his physical or
natural history, which are expounded to the public in the free lectures
of the venerable Professor Quatrefages and his able coadjutor, Dr. Hamy.
There is also the vigorous Society of Anthropology, which is stated in
the last annual report to number 720 members, showing an increase of 44
during the year 1880, and which is forming a museum on a most extensive
scale; and, finally, the School of Anthropology, founded by the
illustrious Broca, whose untimely death last year, instead of
paralysing, seems to have stimulated the energies of colleagues and
pupils into increased activity. In this school, supported partly by
private subscriptions, partly by the public liberality of the
Municipality of Paris, and of the Department of the Seine, are
laboratories in which all the processes of anthropological manipulation
are practised by students and taught to travellers. Here all the bodies
of persons of outlandish nationalities dying in any of the hospitals of
Paris are dissected by competent and zealous observers, who carefully
record every peculiarity of structure discovered, and are thus laying
the foundation for an exhaustive and trustworthy collection of materials
for the comparative anatomy of the races of man. Here, furthermore, are
lectureships on all the different branches. Biological and anatomical
anthropology, ethnology, prehistoric, linguistic, social, and medical
anthropology are all treated of separately by eminent professors who
have made these departments their special study. The influence of so
much activity is spreading beyond the capital. The foundation of an
Anthropological Society at Lyons has been announced within the present
year.
In Germany, although there is not at present any institution organised
like the school at Paris, the flourishing state of the Berlin
Ethnological Society, which also reports a large increase in the number
of its members, the various other societies and journals, and the
important contributions which are continually being made from the
numerous intellectual centres of that land of learning, all attest the
interest which the study of man excites there. In Italy, in the
Scandinavian kingdoms, in Russia, and even in Spain, there are signs of
similar activity. A glance at the recent periodical literature of
America, especially the publications of the Smithsonian Institution,
will show how strongly the scientific work of that country is setting in
the same direction.
It is true that a very great proportion of the energies of the
societies, institutions, and individuals who cultivate this vast subject
are, in all these lands, as it is indeed to so great an extent in our
own, devoted to that branch which borders upon the old and favourite
studies of archæology and geology. The fascinating power of the pursuit
of the earliest traces of man’s existence upon the earth, with the
possibilities of obtaining some glimpses of his mode of origin, is
attested in the devotion seen everywhere in museums, in separate
publications, and in journals, to prehistoric anthropology.
But, though the study of man’s origin and earliest appearances upon the
earth, and that of the structural modifications to which in course of
time he has arrived, or the study of races, are intimately related, and
will ultimately throw light upon one another, I venture to think that
the latter is the more pressing of the two, as it is certainly the more
practically important; and hence the necessity for greater attention to
physical anthropology. In seeking for a criterion upon which to base our
study of races, in looking for essential proofs of consanguinity of
descent from common ancestors in different groups of men, I have no
hesitation in saying that we must first look to their physical or
anatomical characters, next to their moral and intellectual
characters--for our purpose more difficult of apprehension and
comparison--and, lastly, as affording hints, often valuable in aid of
our researches, but rarely to be depended upon, unless corroborated from
other sources, to language, religion, and social customs.
The study of the physical or anatomical characters of the races of man
is unfortunately a subject beset with innumerable difficulties. It can
only be approached with full advantage by one already acquainted with
the ordinary facts of human anatomy, and with a certain amount of
zoological training. The methods used by the zoologist in discriminating
species and varieties of animals, and the practice acquired in detecting
minute resemblances and differences that an ordinary observer might
overlook, are just what are required in the physical anthropologist.
As the great problem which is at the root of all zoology is to discover
a natural classification of animals, so the aim of zoological
anthropology is to discover a natural classification of man. A natural
classification is an expression of our knowledge of real relationship,
of consanguinity--of “blood,” as the author of _Endymion_ expresses it.
When we can satisfactorily prove that any two of the known groups of
mankind are descended from the same common stock, a point is gained. The
more such points we have acquired, the more nearly shall we be able to
picture to ourselves, not only the present, but the past distribution of
the races of man upon the earth, and the mode and order in which they
have been derived from one another.
The difficulties in the way of applying zoological principles to the
classification of man are vastly greater than in the case of most
animals; the problem being, as we shall see, one of much greater
complexity. When groups of animals become so far differentiated from
each other as to represent separate species they remain isolated; they
may break up into further subdivisions--in fact, it is only by further
subdivision that new species can be formed; but it is of the very
essence of species, as now universally understood by naturalists, that
they cannot recombine, and so give rise to new forms. With the varieties
of man it is otherwise. They have never so far separated as to answer to
the physiological definition of species. All races are fertile one with
another, though perhaps in different degrees. Hence new varieties have
constantly been formed, not only by the segmentation, as it were, of a
portion of one of the old stocks, but also by various combinations of
those already established.
Neither of the old conceptions of the history of man, which pervaded the
thought, and form the foundation of the works of all ethnological
writers up to the last few years, rest on any solid basis, or account
for the phenomena of the present condition and distribution of the
species.
The one view--that of the monogenist--was that all races, as we see them
now, are the descendants of a single pair, who, in a comparatively short
period of time spread over the world from one common centre of origin,
and became modified by degrees in consequence of changes of climate and
other external conditions. The other--that of the polygenist--is that a
certain number of varieties or species (no agreement has been arrived
at as to the number, which is estimated by different authorities at from
three to twenty or more) have been independently created in different
parts of the world, and have perpetuated the distinctive characters as
well as the geographical position with which they were originally
endowed.
The view which appears best to accord with what is now known of the
characters and distribution of the races of man, and with the general
phenomena of nature, may be described as a modification of the former of
these hypotheses.
Without entering into the difficult question of the method of man’s
first appearance upon the world, we must assume for it a vast
antiquity--at all events as measured by any historical standard. Of this
there is now ample proof. During the long time he existed in the savage
state--a time compared to which the dawn of our historical period was as
yesterday--he was influenced by the operation of those natural laws
which have produced the variations seen in other regions of organic
nature. The first men may very probably have been all alike; but, when
spread over the face of the earth, and become subject to very diverse
external conditions--climate, food, competition with members of his own
species or with wild animals--racial differences began slowly to be
developed through the potency of various kinds of selection acting upon
the slight variations which appeared in individuals in obedience to the
tendency implanted in all living things.
Geographical position must have been one of the main elements in
determining the formation and the permanence of races. Groups of men
isolated from their fellows for long periods, such as those living on
small islands, to which their ancestors may have been accidentally
drifted, would naturally, in course of time, develop a new type of
features, of skull, of complexion or hair. A slight set in one
direction, in any of these characters, would constantly tend to
intensify itself, and so new races would be formed. In the same way
different intellectual or moral qualities would be gradually developed
and transmitted in different groups of men. The longer a race thus
formed remained isolated, the more strongly impressed and the more
permanent would its characteristics become, and less liable to be
changed or lost, when the surrounding circumstances were altered, or
under a moderate amount of intermixture from other races--the more
“true,” in fact, would it be. On the other hand, on large continental
tracts, where no “mountains interposed make enemies of nations,” or
other natural barriers form obstacles to free intercourse between tribe
and tribe, there would always be a tendency towards uniformity from the
amalgamation of races brought into close relation by war or by commerce.
Smaller or feebler races have been destroyed or absorbed by others
impelled by superabundant population or other causes to spread beyond
their original limits; or sometimes the conquering race has itself
disappeared by absorption into the conquered.
Thus, for untold ages, the history of man has presented a shifting,
kaleidoscopic scene; new races gradually becoming differentiated out of
the old elements, and, after dwelling awhile upon the earth, either
becoming suddenly annihilated or gradually merged into new combinations;
a constant destruction and reconstruction; a constant tendency to
separation and differentiation, and a tendency to combine again into a
common uniformity--the two tendencies acting against and modifying each
other. The history of these processes in former times, except in so far
as they may be inferred from the present state of things, is a difficult
study, owing to the scarcity of evidence. If we had any approach to a
complete palæontological record, the history of man could be
reconstructed; but nothing of the kind is forthcoming. Evidences of the
anatomical characters of man, as he lived on the earth during the time
when the great racial characteristics were being developed, during the
long ante-historic period in which the Negro, the Mongolian, and the
Caucasian were being gradually fashioned into their respective types, is
entirely wanting, or, if any exists, it is at present safely buried in
the earth, perhaps to be revealed at some unexpected time, and in some
unforeseen manner.
It will be observed, and perhaps observed with perplexity by some, that
no definition has as yet been given of the oft-recurring word “race.”
The sketch just drawn of the past history of man must be sufficient to
show that any theory implying that the different individuals composing
the human species can be parcelled out into certain definite groups,
each with its well-marked and permanent limits separating it from all
others, has no scientific foundation; but that, in reality, these
individuals are aggregated into a number of groups of very different
value in a zoological sense, with characters more or less strongly
marked and permanent, and often passing insensibly into one another. The
great groups are split up into minor subdivisions, and filling up the
gaps between them are intermediate or intercalary forms, derived either
from the survival of individuals retaining the generalised or ancestral
characters of a race from which two branches have separated and taken
opposite lines of modification, or from the reunion of members of such
branches in recent times. If we could follow those authors who can
classify mankind into such divisions as trunks, branches, races, and
sub-races, each having its definite and equivalent meaning, our work
would appear to be greatly simplified, although perhaps we should not be
so near the truth we are seeking. But being not yet in a position to
define what amount of modification is necessary to constitute
distinction of race, I am compelled to use the word vaguely for any
considerable group of men who resemble each other in certain common
characters transmitted from generation to generation.
In approaching the question of the classification of the races of man
from a physical point of view, we must bestow great care upon the
characters upon which we rely in distinguishing one group from another.
It is well known in zoology that the modifications of a single organ or
system may be of great value, or may be quite useless, according as such
modifications are correlated with others in different organs or systems,
or are mere isolated examples of variation in the economy of the animal
without structural changes elsewhere. The older ornithologists
associated in one order all the birds with webbed feet, and the order
thus constituted, _Natatores_ or _Palmipedes_, which received the great
sanction of Cuvier, still stands in many zoological compilations. Recent
investigations into the anatomy of birds have shown that the species
thus associated together show no other sign of natural affinity, and no
evidence of being derived from the same stock. In fact, there is
tolerably good proof that the webbing of the feet is a merely adaptive
character, developed or lost, present or absent, irrespective of other
structural modifications. In the same way, when anthropology was less
advanced than it is now, it was thought that the distinction between
long and short headed, dolichocephalic and brachycephalic people,
pointed out by Retzius, indicated a primary division of the human
species; but it was afterwards discovered that, although the character
was useful otherwise, it was one of only secondary importance, as the
long-headed as well as the short-headed group both included races
otherwise of the strongest dissimilarity.
In all classifications, the point to be first ascertained is the
fundamental plan of construction; but in cases where the fundamental
plan has undergone but little modification, we are obliged to make use
of what appear trivial characters, and compensate for their triviality
by their number. The more numerous the combinations of specialised
characters, by which any species or race differs from its congeners, the
more confidence we have in their importance. The separation of what is
essential from what is incidental or merely superficial in such
characters lies at the root of all the problems of this nature that
zoologists are called upon to solve; and in proportion as the
difficulties involved in this delicate and often perplexing
discrimination are successfully met and overcome will the value of the
conclusions be increased. These difficulties, so familiar in zoology,
are still greater in the case of anthropology. The differences we have
to deal with are often very slight; their significance is at present
very little understood. We go on expending time and trouble in heaping
up elaborate tables of measurements, and minutely recording every point
that is capable of description, with little regard to any conclusions
that may be drawn from them. It is certainly time now to endeavour, if
possible, to discriminate characters which indicate deep-lying affinity
from those that are more transient, variable, or adaptive, and to
adjust, as far as may be, the proper importance to be attached to each.
It is, however, quite to be expected that, in the infancy of all
sciences, a vast amount of labour must be expended in learning the
methods of investigation. In none has this been more conspicuous than in
the subject under consideration. Many have come to despair, for
instance, of any good, commensurate with the time it occupies, coming of
the minute and laborious work involved in craniometry. This is because
nearly all our present methods are tentative. We have not yet learnt, or
are only beginning to learn, what lines of investigation are profitable
and what are barren. The results, even as far as we have gone, are,
however, quite sufficient, in my opinion, to justify perseverance. I am,
however, not so sure whether it be yet time to answer the demand, so
eager and so natural, which is being made in many quarters for the
formulation of a definite plan of examination, measurement, and
description to which all future investigation should rigidly adhere. All
steps to promote agreement upon fundamental points are to be cordially
welcomed, and meetings or congresses convened for such a purpose will be
of use by giving opportunities for the impartial discussion of the
relative value of different methods; but the agreement will finally be
brought about by the general adoption of those measurements and methods
which experience proves to be the most useful, while others will
gradually fall into disuse by a kind of process of natural selection.
The changes and improvements which are being made yearly, almost
monthly, in instruments and in methods, show what we should lose if we
were to stop at any given period, and decree in solemn conclave that
this shall be our final system, this instrument and this method shall be
the only one used throughout the world, that no one shall depart from
it. We scarcely need to ask how long such an agreement would be binding.
The subject is not sufficiently advanced to be reduced to a state of
stagnation such as this would bring it to.
To take an example from what is perhaps the most important of the
anatomical characters by which man is distinguished from the lower
animals, the superior from the inferior races of man; the smaller or
greater projection forwards of the lower part of the face in relation to
the skull proper, or that which contains the brain. From the time when
Camper drew his facial angle, to the present day, the readiest and
truest method of estimating this projection has occupied the attention
of anatomists and anthropologists, and we are still far from any general
agreement. Every country, every school, has its own system, so different
that comparison with one another is well-nigh impossible. This is
undoubtedly an evil; but the question is whether we should all agree to
adopt one of the confessedly defective systems now in vogue, or whether
we should not rather continue to hope for, and endeavour to find, one
which may not be subject to the well-known objections urged against all.
We want, especially in this country, more workers--trained and
experienced men, who will take up the subject seriously, and devote
themselves to it continuously. Of such we may say, without offence to
those few who have done occasional excellent work in physical
anthropology, but whose chief scientific activity lies in other fields,
we have not one. In the last number of the French _Revue
d’Anthropologie_, a reference caught my eye to a craniometrical method
in use by the “English school” of anthropologists. It was a reference
only to a method which I had ventured to suggest, but which, as far as I
know, has not been adopted by any one else. A school is just what we
have not, and what we want--a body of men, not only willing to learn,
but able to discuss, to criticise, to give their approval to, or reduce
to its proper level, the results put forth by our few original
investigators and writers. The rapidity with which any one of the most
slender pretensions who ventures into the field (I speak from painful
experience) is raised to be an oracle among his fellows is one of the
most alarming proofs of the present barrenness of the land.
Another most urgent need is the collection and preservation of the
evidences of the physical structure of the various modifications of man
upon the earth. Especially urgent is this now, as we live in an age in
which, in a far greater degree than any previous one, the destruction of
races, both by annihilation and absorption, is going on. The world has
never witnessed such changes in its ethnology as those now taking place,
owing to the rapid extension of maritime discovery and maritime
commerce, which is especially affecting the island population among
which, more than elsewhere, the solution of the most important
anthropological problems may be looked for. If we have at present
neither the knowledge nor the leisure to examine and describe, we can at
least preserve from destruction the materials for our successors to work
upon. Photographs, models, anatomical specimens, skeletons or parts of
skeletons, with their histories carefully registered, of any of the
so-called aboriginal races, now rapidly undergoing extermination or
degeneration, will be hereafter of inestimable value. Drawings,
descriptions, and measurements are also useful, though in a far less
degree, as allowance must always be made for imperfections in the
methods as well as the capacity of the artist or observer. Such
collections must be made upon a far larger scale than has hitherto been
attempted, as, owing to the difficulties already pointed out in the
classification of man, it is only by large numbers that the errors
arising from individual peculiarities or accidental admixture can be
obviated, and the prevailing characteristics of a race or group truly
ascertained. It is only in an institution commanding the resources of
the nation that such a collection can be formed, and it may therefore be
confidently hoped that the Trustees of the British Museum will
appropriate some portion of the magnificent new building, which has been
provided for the accommodation of their natural history collections, to
this hitherto neglected branch of the subject.
I have mentioned two of the needs of anthropology in this country--more
workers and better collections: there is still a third--that of a
society or institution in which anthropologists can meet and discuss
their respective views, with a journal in which the results of their
investigations can be laid before the public, and a library in which
they can find the books and periodicals necessary for their study. All
this ought to be provided by the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, which originated in the amalgamation of the old
Ethnological and Anthropological Societies. But, as I intimated some
time ago, the Institute does not at the present time flourish as it
should; its meetings are not so well attended as they might be; the
journal is restricted in its powers of illustration and printing by want
of funds; the library is quite insufficient for the needs of the
student.
This certainly does not arise from any want of good management in the
Society itself. Its affairs have been presided over and administered by
some of the most eminent and able men the country has produced. Huxley,
Lubbock, Busk, Evans, Tylor, and Pitt-Rivers have in succession given
their energies to its service, and yet the number of its members is
falling away, its usefulness is crippled, and its very existence seems
precarious. Some decline to join the Institute, others leave it, upon
the plea that, being unable from distance or other causes to attend the
meetings, they cannot obtain the full return for their subscriptions;
others on the ground that the Journal does not contain the exact
information which they require.
There surely is to be found a sufficient number of persons who are
influenced by different considerations, who feel that anthropological
science is worth cultivating, and that those who are laboriously and
patiently tracing out the complex problems of man’s diversity and man’s
early history are doing a good work, and ought to be encouraged by
having the means afforded them of carrying on their investigations and
of placing the results of their researches before the world--who feel,
moreover, that there ought to be some central body, representing the
subject, which may, on occasion, influence opinion or speak
authoritatively on matters often of great practical importance to the
nation.
There must be many in this great and wealthy country who feel that they
are helping a good cause in joining such a society, even if they are not
individually receiving what they consider a full equivalent for their
small subscription--many who feel satisfaction in helping the cause of
knowledge, in helping to remove the opprobrium that the British
Anthropological Society alone of those of the world is lacking in
vitality, and in helping to prevent this country from falling behind all
the nations in the cultivation of a science in which for the strongest
reasons it might be expected to hold the foremost place. It is a far
more grateful task to maintain, extend, and if need be improve, an
existing organisation than to construct a new one. I feel, therefore, no
hesitation in urging upon all who take interest in the promotion of the
study of Anthropology to rally round the Institute, and to support the
endeavours of the present excellent president to increase its
usefulness.
XVII
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY[43]
It is not usual for the President of a Section of this Association to
think it necessary to give any explanation of the nature of the subjects
brought under its cognisance, or to emphasise their importance among
other branches of study; but so general is the ignorance, or at all
events vagueness of information, among otherwise well-instructed
persons, that I will ask your permission to devote the short time
accorded to me before the actual work of the Section begins to giving
some account of the history and present position of the study of
Anthropology in this country, and especially to indicate what this
Association has done in the past, and is still doing, to promote it.
It is only ten years since the section in which we are now taking part
acquired a definite and assured position in the organisation of the
Association. The subject, of course, existed long before that time, and
was also recognised by the Association, though with singular
vicissitudes of fortune and position. It first appeared officially in
1846, when the “Ethnological sub-Section of Section D” (then called
“Zoology and Botany”) was constituted. This lasted till 1851, when
Geography parted company from Geology, with which it had been previously
associated in Section C, and became Section E, under the title of
“Geography and Ethnology.” In 1866 Section D changed its name to
“Biology,” with Physiology and Anthropology (the first occurrence of
this word in our official proceedings) as separate “Departments”; but
the latter does not seem to have regained its definite footing as a
branch of Biological Science until three years later (1869), when
Section E, dropping Ethnology from its title, henceforward became
Geography alone. The Department for the first two years (1869 and 1870)
was conducted under the title of Ethnology, but in 1871 it resumed the
name of Anthropology, given to it in 1866, and it flourished to such an
extent, attracting so many papers and such large audiences, that it was
finally constituted into a distinct Section, to which the letter H was
assigned, and which had its first session at the memorable meeting at
Montreal, exactly ten years ago, under the fitting and auspicious
presidency of Dr. E. B. Tylor.
The history of the gradual recognition of Anthropology as a distinct
subject by this Association is an epitome of the history of its gradual
growth, and the gradual recognition of its position among other sciences
in the world at large, a process still in operation and still far from
complete. Although the word Anthropology had certainly existed, but used
in a different sense, it was not till well into the middle of the
present century that it, or any other word, had been thought of to
designate collectively the scattered fragments of various kinds of
knowledge bearing upon the natural history of man, which were beginning
to be collected from so many diverse sources. Indeed, as I have once
before upon a similar occasion remarked, one of the great difficulties
with regard to making Anthropology a special subject of study, and
devoting a special organisation to its promotion, is the multifarious
nature of the knowledge comprehended under the title. This very
ambition, which endeavours to include such an extensive range of
subjects, ramifying in all directions, illustrating and receiving light
from so many other sciences, appears often to overleap itself, and give
a looseness and indefiniteness to the aims of the individual or the
institution proposing to cultivate it. The old term Ethnology, or the
study of peoples or races, has a limited and definite meaning. It treats
of the resemblances and modifications of the different groups of the
human species in their relations to each other, but Anthropology, as now
understood, has a far wider scope. It treats of mankind as a whole. It
investigates its origin and his relations to the rest of the universe.
It invokes the aid of the sciences of zoology, comparative anatomy, and
physiology, in its attempts to estimate the distinctions and
resemblances between man and his nearest allies, and in fixing his place
in the scale of living beings. In endeavouring to investigate the origin
and antiquity of man, geology must lend its assistance to determine the
comparative ages of the strata in which the evidences of his existence
are found, and researches into his early history soon trench upon
totally different branches of knowledge. In tracing the progress of the
race from its most primitive condition, the characteristics of its
physical structure and relations with the lower animals are soon left
behind, and it is upon evidence of a kind peculiar to the human species,
and by which man is so pre-eminently distinguished from all other living
beings, that our conclusions mainly rest. The study of the works of our
earliest known forefathers--“prehistoric archæology” as it is commonly
called--is now almost a science by itself. It investigates the origin of
all human culture, endeavours to trace to their common beginning the
sources of our arts, customs, and history. The difficulty is, what to
include and where to stop; as, though the term prehistoric may roughly
indicate an artificial line between the province of the anthropologist
and that which more legitimately belongs to the archæologist, the
antiquary, and the historian, it is perfectly evident that the studies
of the one pass insensibly into those of the others. Knowledge of the
origin and development of particular existing customs throws immense
light upon their real nature and importance; and conversely, it is often
only from a profound acquaintance with the present or comparatively
modern manifestations of culture that we are able to interpret the
slight indications afforded us by the scanty remains of primitive
civilisation.
It is considerations such as these that have caused the gradual
introduction of the term Anthropology as a substitute for Ethnology,
which I have traced in the history of this Association, and which is
seen in other organisations for the cultivation of our science.
The first general association for the study of man in this country was
founded in 1843, under the name of the “Ethnological Society” (three
years, therefore, before the Ethnological sub-Section of Section D of
this Association). It did excellent work for many years under that
title, but partly from personal considerations, and partly from a desire
to undertake a wider and somewhat different field of research, another
and in some senses a rival society, which adopted the name of
“Anthropological,” was founded in 1863. For some years these existed
side by side, each representing in its most active supporters different
schools of the science. This arrangement naturally involved a waste of
strength, and it was felt that the interests of the subject would be
promoted by an amalgamation of the two societies. Many difficulties,
chiefly, as is usual in such cases, of a personal nature, had to be
overcome, one of the principal being the selection of a name for the
united society. It was generally felt that “Anthropological” would be
most appropriate, but the members of the old Ethnological Society could
not bring themselves absolutely to sink the fact of their priority of
existence, and all that they had done for science for so many years, by
merging their society into that of their younger and active rivals; so
after much discussion a compromise was effected, and the new
organisation which arose from the coalescence of the two societies
adopted the rather cumbrous title of _Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland_. This was in 1871, and since that period the
Society, as it is to all intents and purposes both in structure and
function, has pursued a peaceful and useful course of existence, holding
meetings at stated periods throughout the session, at which papers are
read, and subjects of interest to anthropologists exhibited and
discussed. It has also published a quarterly journal, which has been the
principal means in this country of communicating new information upon
such subjects. The Institute has for twenty-three years performed this
duty in a business-like and unostentatious manner, the only remarkable
circumstance connected with its history being the singular want of
interest taken by the outside world in its proceedings, considering
their intrinsic importance to society, especially in an empire like
ours, which more than any other affords a field for the study of man,
under almost every aspect of diversity of race, climate, and culture. At
the present time it numbers only 305 ordinary members, whose
subscriptions afford barely sufficient means to maintain the library and
journal in a state of efficiency. The kindred Geographical and
Zoological Societies have respectively 3775 and 2985 fellows, so far
greater is the interest taken in the surface of the earth itself, and in
the animals which dwell upon it, than in its human inhabitants!
Societies similar in their object to that the history of which I have
just sketched have sprung up, and are now in a more or less flourishing
condition, in every civilised country of the world. But confining our
retrospect to our own country, we may take a glance at what has been
done in recent years to promote the organised study of Anthropology
otherwise than by means of this Association (to which I shall refer
again later) or the Society of which I have just spoken.
One of the most potent means of registering facts, and making them
available for future study and reference, is to be found in actual
collections of tangible objects. To very considerable branches of
anthropological science this method of fixing the evidence upon which
our knowledge of the subject is based is particularly applicable. These
branches are mainly two, very distinct from each other, and each
representing one of the principal sides in which Anthropology presents
itself.
I. Collections illustrating the physical structure of man, and its
variations in the different races.
II. Collections showing his characteristic customs and methods of
living, his arts, arms, and costumes, as developed under different
circumstances and also modified by different racial conditions.
It is very rarely that these two are combined in one general
arrangement, and they are almost always studied apart, the
characteristics of mind, the general education and special training
which are required for the successful cultivation of either being rarely
combined in a single individual; and yet the complete history of any
race of mankind, especially with regard to its relation to other races,
must be based upon a knowledge both of its physical and psychical
characteristics, and customs, habits, language, and tradition largely
help, when anatomical characters fail to separate and define.
The anthropological museums of this country, as well as elsewhere, are
all of recent growth, and they are making progress everywhere with
steadily accelerating speed. This cannot be better illustrated than in
the place where we are at the present time. Many of those who are now in
this room can remember when the materials for the study of either branch
of the subject in Oxford were absolutely nonexistent. I can myself
recall the time when the site of the handsome building which now houses
the scientific treasures of the University was a bare field. All who
know the modern history of Oxford must be aware that it was mainly owing
to the enthusiastic zeal and steady perseverance in the cause of
scientific education of one who is happily still among us, the veteran
Regius Professor of Medicine, Sir Henry Acland, that that building was
erected. The possession of a well-selected and representative collection
illustrating the anatomical characters of the human species is chiefly
owing to the energetic labours of Professor Rolleston, one of the
brightest and noblest of Oxford’s sons, a man of whom I cannot speak
without feelings of the strongest affection and most profound regret for
his untimely loss to the University and the world.
The collection illustrating the arts and customs of primitive people the
University owes to the ingenuity and munificence of General Pitt-Rivers,
who not only provided the material on which it is based, but also the
original and unique scheme of arrangement, which adds so greatly to its
value as a means of education, and is so admirably calculated to awaken
an interest in the subject, even in the minds of the most superficial
visitor. In speaking thus of the method of displaying the Pitt-Rivers
collection, I must not be supposed to imply any disparagement of others
arranged on different plans. Provided there is a definite and consistent
arrangement of some sort, it is well that there should be a diversity in
the treatment of different collections, and for such a vast and
exhaustive collection as that under the care of Sir Wollaston Franks, at
the British Museum, the geographical system which has been adopted is
certainly the best. In it every specimen of whatever nature at once
finds a place, in which it can at any time be discovered and recognised.
In referring to our great national collection, I cannot refrain from
saying that there seemed till lately to be only one element wanting to
make it all that could be desired, and that was space, not only for the
proper preservation and exhibition of what it already contains, but also
for its inevitable future expansion. The provision in this respect was
totally inadequate to do justice to the importance of the subject.
Happily this consideration will be no longer a bar to the development of
the collection. The provident action of the authorities of the museum,
aided by the liberality of the Duke of Bedford, and the wisdom of Her
Majesty’s Government, has secured for many years to come the necessary
room for the expansion of the grandest of our national institutions.
More modern even than museums has been the introduction of any
systematic teaching of Anthropology into this country. This is certainly
most remarkable, considering that there is no nation to which the
subject is of such great importance. Its importance to those who have to
rule--and there are few of us now who are not called upon to bear our
share of the responsibilities of government--can scarcely be
overestimated in an empire like this, the population of which, as I have
just said, is composed of examples of almost every diversity under which
the human body and mind can manifest itself. The physical
characteristics of race, so strongly marked in many cases, are probably
always associated with equally or more diverse characteristics of temper
and intellect. In fact, even when the physical divergences are weakly
shown, as in the different races which contribute to make up the home
portion of the Empire, the mental and moral characteristics are still
most strongly marked. As the wise physician will not only study the
particular kind of disease under which his patient is suffering before
administering the approved remedies for such disease, but will also take
into careful account the peculiar idiosyncrasy and inherited tendencies
of the individual, which so greatly modify both the course of the
disease and the action of remedies, so it is absolutely necessary for
the statesman who would govern successfully not to look upon human
nature in the abstract and endeavour to apply universal rules, but to
consider the special moral, intellectual, and social capabilities,
wants, and aspirations of each particular race with which he has to
deal. A form of government under which one race would live happily and
prosperously may to another be the cause of unendurable misery. All
these questions then should be carefully studied by those who have any
share in the government of people belonging to races alien to
themselves. A knowledge of their special characters and relations to one
another has a more practical object than the mere satisfaction of
scientific curiosity; it is a knowledge upon which the happiness and
prosperity or the reverse of millions of our fellow-creatures may
depend. The ignorance often shown upon these subjects, even in so select
an assembly as the House of Commons, would be ludicrous if it were not
liable to lead to disastrous results.
Now let us consider what, amid all the complex, diverse, and costly
machinery of education in this country, is being done to satisfy the
demands for such knowledge. We may say at once, as regards all
institutions for primary and secondary education, absolutely nothing.
The inhabitants of the various regions of our own earth are treated with
no more consideration and interest in all such institutions than if they
lived on the moon or the planets. We must turn straight to the higher
intellectual centres in the hope of finding any anthropological
teaching. Here, at Oxford, if anywhere, we may expect to find it, and
here, first among the British Universities, have we seen, since the year
1883, among the list of the subjects taught the word “Anthropology,” but
the teacher, though one of the most learned of men in the subject the
country has produced, still only bears the modest title of “Reader.” A
professorship of Anthropology does not exist at present in the British
Isles, and even here the subject, though recognised as a “special,”
offers little field for distinction in the examinations for degrees, and
has therefore never been taken up in a thorough manner by students. Dr.
Tylor’s lectures must, however, have done much to have spread an
intelligent interest in some branches of Anthropology, and have proved
a valuable complement to the Pitt-Rivers collection, as have also the
courses which have been given by Mr. Henry Balfour upon the arts of
mankind and their evolution, one of which I am glad to see is announced
among the advantages offered to the University Extension students at
present with us. Physical Anthropology has also been taken up by
Professor A. Thomson, who, I understand, gives instructive lectures upon
it, open to the members of his class of human anatomy. At the opposite
end almost of the subject must be mentioned the extension and
organisation of the Ashmolean Museum under the care of Mr. Arthur Evans,
which has a bearing upon some branches of Anthropology, and the
foundation of the Indian Institute under the auspices of Sir Monier
Monier-Williams, which must give an impetus to the study of the
characteristics of the races of our great Empire in the East. Last, but
by no means least in its bearing upon the origin, divisions, and
diffusion of races, is the world-famous linguistic work of Professor Max
Müller and Professor Sayce, both of whom have presided over this Section
at former meetings of the Association.
Of the sister University I wrote thus in 1884: “In Cambridge there are
many hopeful signs. The recently appointed Professor of Anatomy, Dr.
Macalister, is known to have paid much attention to Anatomical
Anthropology, and has already intimated that he proposes to give
instruction in it during the summer term. An Ethnological and
Archæological Museum is also in progress of formation, which, if not
destined to rival that of Oxford, already contains many objects of great
value, and a guarantee of its good preservation and arrangement may be
looked for in the appointment of Baron Anatole von Hügel as its first
curator.”
Ten years have passed, and it is satisfactory to know that the teaching
of Anthropology has not only been fairly established, but the subject
has also found a place in the scheme of University examination. The
learned Professor of Human Anatomy continues to take a wide view of his
functions, giving a course during the Easter term on the methods of
Physical Anthropology and also museum demonstrations on craniometry and
osteometry, by the aid of a greatly increased and continually augmenting
collection of specimens. Those students who take anatomy as their
subject for the second part of the Natural Science Tripos have both
paper work and practical examination in Anthropology, each man having a
skull placed in his hands, of which he is expected to make a complete
diagnostic description. For the first part of the tripos each candidate
has one or more questions on the broad general principles of the
subject. Professor Macalister informs me that he has always at least six
men who go through a very thorough practical course with their own
hands. There has also lately been established a course of lectures on
the Natural History of the Races of Man, delivered during the Michaelmas
and Lent terms by Dr. Hickson, of Downing College, and Baron von Hügel
gives a course of museum demonstrations on the weapons, ornaments, and
other objects in the Ethnological Museum, which is open to all students,
and of which many take advantage.
In London, owing to the chaotic condition of all forms of higher
instruction, which has been brought so prominently into notice by the
universal demand for a teaching University (an aspiration which the
labours of the late Gresham Commission certainly seem to have brought
nearer to realisation than ever appeared possible before), all
systematic anthropological teaching has been entirely neglected. The
great collections to which I have already alluded, that of arts and
customs at the British Museum, and that of osteological specimens at the
Royal College of Surgeons, have by their steady augmentation done
valuable service in preserving a vast quantity of material for future
investigation and instruction, and students have at present all
reasonable facilities for pursuing their own researches in them.
Lectures have never formed any part of the official programme of the
British Museum, but at the College of Surgeons it is otherwise, and
though the contents of the collections are specially indicated as the
subject on which they should be delivered, for the last ten years at
least, Anthropology, notwithstanding the magnificent material at hand
for its illustration, has had no place in the annual syllabus. It is
also entirely ignored in the examination scheme of the University of
London, an institution which prides itself as being on a level with
modern educational requirements; and the managers of the new Imperial
Institute, casting about in all directions for some worthy object to
occupy their energies and their spacious buildings, do not appear to
have taken into serious consideration the value to the world and the
appropriateness to their original design of a great central school of
Anthropology, from which might emanate a full and satisfying knowledge
of the characteristics of all the various races of which the Empire is
composed.
In Scotland the recent Universities Commission has recognised Physical
Anthropology as a branch of human anatomy in their scheme for graduation
in pure science, the examination on this subject embracing a knowledge
of race characters as found in the skull and other parts of the
skeleton, in the skin, eyes, hair, features, and the external
configuration of the body generally; the methods of anthropometrical
measurement, both of the living body and the skeleton; the possible
influence of use and of external surroundings in producing modifications
in the physical characters of man, and an acquaintance with the “types”
of mankind and the structural relations of man to the higher mammals.
These regulations came into operation in the University of Edinburgh in
1892, and in accordance with them Professor Sir William Turner delivers
a special course of twenty-five lectures on Physical Anthropology, and
in addition ten practical demonstrations on osteometry. The museum under
his charge has greatly increased of late in number and value of the
specimens. But “Human Anatomy, including Anthropology,” being only one
of a series of nine subjects in any three or more of which a final
science examination on a higher standard has to be passed, there is not
at present any considerable number of students who take it up, and the
other Scotch Universities have not yet thought it necessary to establish
distinct courses of Physical Anthropology, although it is becoming more
and more a regular part of the anatomical teaching to advanced students.
For the following account of what is being done to further the
knowledge of our subject in the sister isle I am indebted to Professor
D. J. Cunningham. The only place in Ireland where anthropological work
is done is Trinity College. For many years those in charge of the museum
have been collecting skulls, and they were fortunate in obtaining the
greater part of Sir William Wilde’s collection. To these great additions
have been recently made, principally in the form of Irish crania from
different districts. All the anthropological specimens are lodged in one
large room, which is also used as an anthropometric laboratory. Though
there has never been any systematic teaching of Anthropology in Trinity
College, Dr. C. R. Browne (Professor Cunningham’s able assistant), who
takes charge of the laboratory, attends for two hours on three days a
week, and gives demonstrations in anthropological methods to any
students who are interested in the subject. The laboratory was opened in
June 1891, the instruments being provided by a grant from the Royal
Irish Academy, and about 500 individuals have already been measured, the
greater number of them students of the College. This is, however, only
part of the work carried out by the laboratory. Every year the
instruments are taken to some selected district in Ireland, and a
systematic study of the inhabitants is made. The Aran Islands, and also
the islands of Inishbofin and Inishshark, have been already worked out,
and this year excursions are organised to Kerry, to a district in
Wicklow, and to another in the west of Ireland. The Academy makes yearly
grants to the Committee for carrying on this work, the results of which
have been published in admirable memoirs by Professor A. C. Haddon and
Dr. C. R. Browne. The Science and Art Museum in Dublin, under the
direction of Dr. V. Ball, contains a small collection, arranged with a
view to general instruction, showing by means of skulls and casts the
physical characteristics of the different races of man, those of each
race being explained by a short printed label, and its range shown on a
map.
Though the development of anthropological science has thus not been
greatly advanced, in this country at least, by means of endowments, or
by aid of the State, or, till very recently, by our great scholastic
institutions, but has been mainly left to the unorganised efforts of
amateurs of the subject, its progress in recent years has been
undeniably great. I will give an instance of the strides that have been
made in one of its most important branches.
Physical or Anatomical Anthropology, or the study of the modifications
of the human body under its various aspects, the modifications dependent
upon sex and age, the modifications dependent upon race, and those
dependent upon individual variability, studied not many years ago in a
vague and loose manner, has gradually submitted to a rigorous and,
therefore, strictly scientific method of treatment. The generalities
which were formerly used to express the differences that were recognised
between the various subjects compared with each other have been replaced
by terms conveyed in almost mathematical precision. No one acquainted
with the history of the development of this branch of Anthropology can
fail to recognise how much it was accelerated by the genius of Broca,
and the school which he established in France, although all cultivated
nations are now vying with each other in the practice of exactitude in
anthropological research, and the time seems rapidly approaching when a
common agreement will be arrived at, by which all the observations which
may be made, under whatever diverse circumstances, and by whatever
different individuals, will be available for comparison one with
another.
This branch of our science has received the name of “Anthropometry.”
Although, as the name implies, measurement is one of its principal
features, it includes such other methods of comparison as can be reduced
to a definite standard, or to which definite tests can be applied, such
as the colour of the hair, eyes, and complexion, the form of the ear and
nose. The great desiderata that have been sought for, and gradually
attained, in measuring either the skeleton or the living person have
been two in number: 1. Exact definition of the points between which the
measurements should be taken. 2. Exact methods and instruments of
measurement. In both these cases the object looked for has been not only
that the measurements taken by the same observer at different times and
under different circumstances should coincide, but also that those
taken by different observers should be comparable. These requirements
seem so simple and natural at first sight that the majority of persons
whom I am addressing will wonder that I should allude to them. Only
those who are seriously occupied, or perhaps I should rather say, only
those who were seriously occupied a few years ago with the endeavour to
solve these problems can have any idea of their difficulty. The amount
of time and labour that has been spent upon them is enormous, but the
result has, I think, been quite commensurate with it.
We have attained at last to methods of measurement and standards of
comparison which, in the hands of persons of ordinary intelligence, and
with a moderate amount of training, will give data which may be
absolutely depended upon. From these we hope to be able to formulate
accurate information as to the physical conformation of all the groups
into which mankind is divided, and so gradually to arrive at a natural
classification of those groups, and a knowledge of their affinities one
to another.
But the exact methods of modern Anthropometry are not only important on
account of the aid they give in studying the race characteristics of
man. As has so often happened when scientific observation has been
primarily carried out for its own sake, it ultimately leads to practical
applications undreamt of by its earlier cultivators. The application of
Anthropometry not to the comparison of races, but to elucidate various
social problems--as the laws of growth, of heredity, of comparative
capacities of individuals within a community, and the effects of
different kinds of education and occupation, as worked out first by
Quetelet in Belgium, and subsequently by Francis Galton, Roberts, and
others in this country, and its still more concrete application as an
aid in administering justice by methods perfected by Bertillon in
France, are striking illustrations of the practical utility of labours
originally undertaken under the influence of devotion to science pure
and simple.
The importance of being able to determine the identity of an individual
under whatever circumstances of disguise he may be presented for
examination has, of course, long been apparent to all who have had
anything to do with the administration of the criminal law, and rough
and ready methods of recognition, depending mainly upon the more or less
acute faculty of perception and recollection of differences and
resemblances, possessed by the persons upon whom the duty of
identification has devolved, have long been in operation. The general
conformation, height, form of features, and colour of complexion, hair,
and eyes, have also been noted. Much additional assistance has been
obtained by the registration of definite physical characteristics, the
results either of natural conformation, or of injury, such as
mutilations, tattoo-marks, and scars, inflicted by accident or design.
The application of one of the most important scientific discoveries of
the age, photography, was eagerly seized upon as a remedy for the
difficulties hitherto met with in tracing personal identity, and
enormous numbers of photographs were taken of persons the peculiarities
of whose career led them to fall into the hands of the police, and who
were likely to be wanted again on some future occasion. No doubt much
help has been derived from this source, but also much embarrassment.
Even among photographic portraits of one’s own personal friends, taken
under most favourable circumstances, and with no intention of deception,
we cannot often help exclaiming how unlike they are to the person
represented. With portraits of criminals, the varying expression of the
face, changes in the mode of wearing the hair and beard, differences of
costume, the effects of a long lapse of time, years perhaps passed in
degradation and misery, may make such alterations that recognition
becomes a matter at least of uncertainty. That photographs are extremely
valuable as aids to identification, when their true position in the
process is recognised, cannot be doubted, but as a primary method they
have been found to be quite inapplicable, owing partly to the causes
just indicated, but mainly to the difficulty, if not impossibility, of
classifying them. The enormous expenditure of time and trouble that must
be consumed in making the comparison between any suspected person and
the various portraits of the stock which accumulates in prison bureaus
may be judged of from the fact that, in Paris alone, upwards of 100,000
such portraits of persons interesting to the police have been taken in
a period of ten years.
The primary desideratum in a system of identification is a ready means
of classifying the data upon which it is based. To accomplish this is
the aim of the Bertillon system. Exact measurements are taken between
certain well-known and fixed points of the bony framework of the body,
which are known not to change under different conditions of life. The
length and breadth of the head, the length of the middle finger, the
length of the foot, and the length of the forearm, are considered the
best, though others are added for greater certainty, as the height, span
of arms, length of ear, colour of eyes, etc. All these particulars of
every individual examined are recorded upon a card, and by dividing each
measurement into three classes, long, medium, and short, and by
classifying the various combinations thus obtained, the whole mass of
cards, kept arranged in drawers in the central bureau, is divided up
into groups, each containing a comparatively small number, and therefore
quite easily dealt with. When the card of a new prisoner is brought in,
a few minutes suffice to eliminate the necessity of comparison with any
but one small batch, which presents the special combination. Then
photographs and other means of recognition, as distinctive marks and
form of features, are brought into play, and identification becomes a
matter of certainty. On the other hand, if the combination of
measurements upon a new card does not coincide with any in the classed
collection in the bureau, it is known with absolute certainty that the
individual being dealt with has never been measured before.
One of the most striking results of the introduction of this system into
France has been that, since it has been brought fully into operation, a
large proportion of old offenders, knowing that concealment is hopeless,
admit their identity at once, and save a world of trouble and expense to
the police by ceasing to endeavour to conceal themselves under false
names.
Various representations upon this subject have been addressed to the
Home Secretary of our own Government during the last few years, and
among others one from the Council of this Association, which originated
in a resolution of this Section, adopted by the General Committee at
the meeting at Edinburgh in 1892, to this effect:
“That the Council be requested to draw the attention of Her Majesty’s
Government to the Anthropometric Method for the measurement of
criminals, which is successfully in operation in France, Austria, and
other continental countries, and which has been found effective in the
identification of habitual criminals, and consequently the prevention
and repression of crime.”
In consequence of these representations a Committee was appointed on
21st October 1893 by Mr. Asquith, consisting of Mr. C. E. Troup, of the
Home Office, Major Arthur Griffiths, Inspector of Prisons, and Mr.
Melville Leslie Macnaghten, Chief Constable in the Metropolitan Police
Force, with Mr. H. B. Simpson, of the Home Office, as Secretary, “to
inquire (_a_) into the method of registering and identifying habitual
criminals now in use in England; (_b_) into the ‘Anthropometric’ system
of classified registration and identification in use in France and other
countries; (_c_) into the suggested system of identification by means of
a record of finger marks; to report whether the anthropometric system or
the finger-mark system can with advantage be adopted in England either
in substitution for or to supplement the existing methods; and, if so,
what arrangements should be adopted for putting them into practice, and
what rules should be made under Section 8 of the Penal Servitude Act,
1891, for the photographing and measuring of prisoners.”
The Report of this Committee, with minutes of evidence and appendices,
was issued as a Parliamentary Blue-book in March last, and not only
contains a lucid and concise description of the methods of
identification already in use in this country, but also most striking
testimony from impartial but well-qualified persons to the value of a
more scientific mode of dealing with the subject. No pains seem to have
been spared to obtain, both by personal observation and by the
examination of competent witnesses, a thorough knowledge of the
advantages of the Bertillon system as practised in France, and the
result has been the recommendation of that system, with certain
modifications, for adoption in this country, with the addition of the
remarkably simple, ingenious, and certain method of personal
identification first used in India by Sir William Herschel, but fully
elaborated in this country by Mr. Francis Galton--that called the
“finger-mark system,” about which I shall have a few more words to say
presently.
With the concluding words of the Committee’s Report I most fully concur:
“We may confidently anticipate that, if fairly tried, it will show very
satisfactory results within a few years in the metropolis; but the
success of its application in the country generally will depend on the
voluntary co-operation of the independent county and borough police
forces. This, we feel sure, will not be withheld. When the principles of
the system are understood and its usefulness appreciated, we believe it
will not only save much time and labour to the police in the performance
of an important duty, but will give them material assistance in tracing
and detecting the antecedents of the guilty, and will afford, so far as
its scope extends, an absolute safeguard to the innocent.”
It is very satisfactory to be able to add that in the House of Commons
on 26th June, in answer to a question from Colonel Howard Vincent, the
Home Secretary announced that the recommendations of the Committee have
been adopted; and that, in order to facilitate research into the
judicial antecedents of international criminals, the registers of
measurements would be kept on the same plan as that adopted with such
success in France, and also in other continental countries.
I have just mentioned the “finger-mark system,” and of all the various
developments of Anthropology in recent times none appears to me more
interesting than the work done by Mr. Galton upon this subject; for
though, as indicated above, he is not quite the first who has looked
into the question or shown its practical application in personal
identification, he has carried his work upon it far beyond that of any
of his predecessors, both in its practical application and into regions
of speculation unthought of by any one else. Simple and insignificant as
in the eyes of all the world are the little ridges and furrows which
mark the skin of the under-surface of our fingers, existing in every
man, woman, and child born into the world, they have been practically
unnoticed by every one until Mr. Galton has shown, by a detailed and
persevering study of their peculiarities, that they are full of
significance, and amply repay the pains and time spent upon their study.
It is not to be supposed that all the knowledge that may be obtained
from a minute examination of them is yet by any means exhausted, but
they have already given valuable data for the study of such subjects as
variation unaffected by natural or any other known form of selection,
and the difficult problems of heredity, in addition to their being one
of the most valuable means hitherto discovered of fixing personal
identity.
As an example of the importance of some ready method to prove identity,
apart from its application to the detection, punishment, and prevention
of crime, to which I have already referred, I may recall to your
recollection that remarkable trial which agitated the length and breadth
of the land rather more than twenty years ago; a trial which occupied so
many months of the precious time of our most eminent judges and counsel,
and cost the country, as well as several innocent persons--I am afraid
to say how many--thousands of pounds, all upon an issue which might have
been settled in two minutes if Roger Tichborne, before starting on his
voyage, had but taken the trouble to imprint his thumb upon a piece of
blackened paper. It is wonderful to me, on reading again the reports of
the trial, to see how comparatively little attention was paid by
counsel, judge, or jury, to the extremely different physical
characteristics of the two persons claimed to be identical, but which
were so strongly marked that they ought to have disposed of the claim,
without any hesitation, at the very opening of the case. It was not
until the 102nd day of the first trial that the attention of the jury
was pointedly called to the fact that it was known that Sir Roger
Tichborne had been tattooed on the left arm with a cross, anchor, and a
heart, and that the Claimant exhibited no such marks. When this was
clearly brought out and proved, the case broke down at once. The second
trial for perjury occupied the court 188 days, the Lord Chief-Justice’s
charge alone lasting eight days. The issues were, however, more complex
than in the first trial, as it was not only necessary to prove that the
Claimant was not Tichborne, but also to show that he was some one else.
I feel convinced that at the present time the greater confidence that is
reposed in the methods of Anthropometry or close observance of physical
characters, and in the persistence of such characters through life,
would have greatly simplified the whole case; and I would strongly
recommend all who have nothing about their lives they think it expedient
to conceal to place themselves under the hands of Mr. Galton, or one of
his now numerous disciples, and get an accurate and unimpeachable
register of all those characteristics which will make loss of identity
at any future period a sheer impossibility.
Partly with this object in view, the Association has, for several years
past, during each of its meetings, opened, under the superintendence of
Dr. Garson, an Anthropometric Laboratory, on the plan of the admirable
institution of the same name which has been carried on in the South
Kensington Museum since the beginning of the year 1888, under the
direction and at the sole cost of Mr. Francis Galton, in which up to the
present time more than 7000 complete sets of measurements have been made
and recorded. The results obtained at the British Association meetings
have been published in the Annual Reports of the Association, and though
on a smaller scale than Mr. Galton’s, the operations of the laboratory
have been most useful in diffusing a knowledge of the value of
anthropometric work, and of the methods by which it is carried on.
For many years an “Anthropometric” Committee of the Association, in
which the late Dr. W. Farr, Mr. F. Galton, Mr. C. Roberts, Dr. Beddoe,
Sir Rawson Rawson, and others, took an active part, was engaged in
collecting statistical information relating to the physical characters,
including stature, weight, chest-girth, colour of eyes and hair,
strength of arms, etc., of the inhabitants of the British Isles; and
their reports, illustrated by maps and diagrams, were published in the
annual volume issued by the Association. This Committee terminated its
labours in 1883, although, as was fully acknowledged in the concluding
report, the subject was by no means completely exhausted.
A great and important work which the Association has now in hand, in
some sense a continuation of that of the Anthropometric Committee,
though with a more extended scope of operation, is the organisation of a
complete ethnographical survey of the United Kingdom based upon
scientific principles. In this work the Association has the co-operation
of the Society of Antiquaries of London, the Folk-lore Society, the
Dialect Society, and the Anthropological Institute. Representatives of
these different bodies have been formed into a Committee, of which Mr.
E. W. Brabrook is now chairman. It is proposed to record in a systematic
and uniform character, for certain typical villages and the neighbouring
districts (1), the Physical Types of the Inhabitants, (2) their current
Traditions and Beliefs, (3) Peculiarities of Dialect, (4) Monumental and
other Remains of Ancient Culture, and (5) Historical Evidence as to
Continuity of Race. The numerous Corresponding Societies of the
Association scattered over various parts of the country have been
invited to co-operate, and the greater number of them have cordially
responded, and special local committees have been formed in many places
to carry out the work.
The result of a preliminary inquiry as to the places in the United
Kingdom which appeared especially to deserve ethnographic study, mainly
on account of the stationary nature of the population for many
generations back, was given in the first Report of the Committee
presented at the Nottingham meeting of the Association last year, in
which it was shown that in the British Isles there are more than 250
places which, in the opinion of competent authorities, would be suitable
for ethnographic survey, and in which, notwithstanding the rapid changes
which have taken place during the last fifty years in all parts of the
country, much valuable material remains for the Committee to work upon.
Without doubt, as interest in the subject is aroused, this number will
be greatly increased.
A most important step in securing the essential condition that the
information obtained should be of the nature really required for the
purpose, and that the records of different observers should be as far as
possible of equal value and comparable one with another, has been the
compilation of a very elaborate and carefully prepared schedule of
questions and directions for distribution among those who have signified
their willingness to assist, and as a guarantee that the answers
obtained to the questions in the schedules will be utilised to the
fullest extent, certain members of the Committee, specially qualified
for each branch of the work, have undertaken to examine and digest the
reports when received.
It may be remarked in passing that the Anthropological Society of Paris
has within the past year formed a Commission of its members to collect,
in a systematic manner, the scattered data which, when united and
digested, shall form “une anthropologie véritablement nationale de la
France,” and has issued a circular with schedules of the required
observations. These are, however, at present limited to the physical
characters of the population.
Among the many services rendered to the science of Anthropology by the
British Association, not the least has been the aid it has afforded in
the publication of that most useful little manual entitled _Notes and
Queries on Anthropology_, of which the first edition was brought out
exactly twenty years ago (1874), under the supervision and partly at the
expense of General Pitt-Rivers. Since that time the subject has made
such great advances that a second edition, brought up to the
requirements of the present time, was urgently called for. A Committee
of the British Association, appointed to consider the report upon the
best means of doing this, recommended that the work should be placed in
the hands of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
This recommendation was approved by the Association, and grants
amounting to £70 were made to assist in defraying the cost of
publication. The Council of the Anthropological Institute appointed a
Committee of its members to undertake the revision of the different
subjects, with Dr. J. G. Garson and Mr. C. H. Read as editors
respectively of the two parts into which it is divided. The work was
published at the end of the year 1892, and is invaluable to the
traveller or investigator in pointing out the most important subjects of
inquiry, and in directing the observations he may have the means of
making into a methodical and systematic channel.
Besides those I have already mentioned, the Association has aided many
other anthropological investigations by the appointment of Committees to
carry them out, and in some cases by the more substantial method of
giving grants from its funds, and by defraying the cost of publication
of the results in its journal. Among these I may specially mention the
series of very valuable Reports upon the Physical Characters, Languages,
and Industrial and Social Condition of the North-Western Tribes of the
Dominion of Canada, drawn up by Mr. Horatio Hale, Dr. F. Boas, and
others, the importance of which has been recognised by the Canadian
Government in the form of a grant in aid of the expenses.
Another very interesting investigation into the Habits, Customs,
Physical Characteristics, and Religion of the Natives of Northern India,
initiated by Mr. H. H. Risley, and carried on under his supervision by
the Indian Government, though it has received little more than moral
support from the Association, may be mentioned here on account of the
illustration it affords of the value of exact anthropometric methods in
distinguishing groups of men. Although a practised eye can frequently
tell at a glance the tribe or caste of a man brought before him for the
first time, the special characters upon which the opinion is based have
not hitherto been reduced to any definite and easily comparable method
of description. In Mr. Risley’s examination, the nose, for instance
(which I have always held to be one of the most important of features
for classificatory purposes), instead of being vaguely described as
broad or narrow, is accurately measured, and the proportion of the
greatest width to the length (from above downwards), or the “nasal
index,” as it is termed (though it must not be confounded with the nasal
index as defined by Broca upon the skull), gives a figure by which the
main elements of the composition of this feature in any individual may
be accurately described. The average or mean nasal indices of a large
number of individuals of any race, tribe, or caste offer means of
comparison which bring out most interesting results. By this character
alone the Dravidian tribes of India are easily separated from the Aryan.
“Even more striking,” as Mr. Risley remarks, “is the curiously close
correspondence between the gradations of racial type indicated by the
nasal index and certain of the social data ascertained by independent
inquiry. If we take a series of castes in Bengal, Behar, or the
North-Western Provinces, and arrange them in the order of the average
nasal index, so that the caste with the finest nose shall be at the top,
and that with the coarsest at the bottom of the list, it will be found
that this order substantially corresponds with the accepted order of
social precedence. The casteless tribes--Kols, Korwas, Mundas, and the
like--who have not yet entered the Brahmanical system occupy the lowest
place in both series. Then come the vermin-eating Musuhars, and the
leather-dressing Chamárs. The fisher castes of Bauri, Bind, and Kewat
are a trifle higher in the scale; the pastoral Goala, the cultivating
Kurmi, and a group of cognate castes--from whose hands a Brahman may
take water--follow in due order; and from them we pass to the trading
Khatris, the landholding Bábhans, and the upper crust of Hindu society.
Thus, it is scarcely a paradox to lay down as a law of the caste
organisation in Eastern India that a man’s social status varies in
inverse ratio to the width of his nose.” The results already obtained by
this method of observation have been so important and interesting that
it is greatly to be hoped that the inquiry may be extended throughout
the remainder of our Indian Empire.
But for want of time I might here refer to the valuable work done in
relation to the natives of the Andaman Islands, a race in many respects
of most exceptional interest, first by Mr. E. H. Man, and more recently
by Mr. M. V. Portman, and for the same reason can scarcely glance at the
great progress that is being made in anthropological research in other
countries than our own. The numerous workers on this subject in the
United States of America are, with great assistance from the Government,
very properly devoting themselves to exploring, collecting, and
publishing, in a systematic and exhaustive manner, every fact that can
still be discovered relating to the history, language, and characters of
the aboriginal population of their own land. They have in this a clear
duty set before them, and they are doing it in splendid style. I wish we
could say that the same has been done with all the native populations
in various parts of the world which have been, to use a current phrase,
“disestablished and disendowed” by our own countrymen. We are, however,
now, as I have shown, not altogether unmindful of what is our duty to
posterity in this respect,--a duty, perhaps, more urgent than that of
any other branch of scientific investigation, as it will not wait. It
must be done, if ever, before the rapid spread of civilised man all over
the world, one of the most remarkable characteristics of the age in
which we live, has obliterated what still remains of the original
customs, arts, and beliefs of primitive races; if, indeed, it has not
succeeded--as it too often does--in obliterating the races themselves.
XVIII
ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES[44]
On the occasion of the Anniversary Meeting of the Institute last year I
endeavoured to sum up in a few words the principal aims and scope of the
science of Anthropology as now understood.
I then gave reasons for my belief that the discrimination and
description of the characteristics of the various races of men is one
of, if not the most practically important of the different branches into
which the whole of the great subject is divided. It was also stated that
although other characters, such as those derived from language, social
customs, traditions, religious beliefs, and from intellectual and moral
attributes, were by no means to be neglected, structural or anatomical
characters are those upon which in the end most reliance must be placed
in discriminating races.
I propose now to give a brief summary of the results attained up to the
present time by the study of the racial characters of the human species,
and to show what progress has been made towards arriving at a natural
classification of the varieties into which the species may be divided.
The most ordinary observation is sufficient to demonstrate the fact that
certain groups of men are strongly marked from others by definite
characters common to all members of the group, and transmitted regularly
to their descendants by the laws of inheritance. The Chinaman and the
Negro, the native of Patagonia and the Andaman Islander, are as
distinct from each other structurally as are many of the so-called
species of any natural group of animals. Indeed, it may be said with
truth that their differences are even greater than those which mark the
groups called genera by many naturalists of the present day.
Nevertheless, the difficulty of parcelling out all the individuals
composing the human species into certain definite groups, and of saying
of each man that he belongs to one or other of such groups, is
insuperable. No such classification has ever, or indeed can ever, be
obtained. There is not one of the most characteristic, most extreme
forms, like those I have just named, from which transitions cannot be
traced by almost imperceptible gradations to any of the other equally
characteristic, equally extreme, forms. Indeed, a large proportion of
mankind is made up, not of extreme or typical, but of more or less
generalised or intermediate, forms, the relative numbers of which are
continually increasing, as the long-existing isolation of nations and
races breaks down under the ever-extending intercommunication
characteristic of the period in which we live.
The difficulties of framing a natural classification of man, or one
which really represents the relationship of the various minor groups to
each other, are well exemplified by a study of the numerous attempts
which have been made from the time of Linnæus and Blumenbach downwards.
Even in the first step of establishing certain primary groups of
equivalent rank there has been no accord. The number of such groups has
been most variously estimated by different writers from two up to sixty
or more, although it is important to note that there has always been a
tendency to revert to the four primitive types sketched out by
Linnæus--the European, Asiatic, African, and American--expanded into
five by Blumenbach by the addition of the Malay,[45] and reduced by
Cuvier to three by the suppression of the last two. After a perfectly
independent study of the subject, extending over many years, I cannot
resist the conclusion, so often arrived at by various anthropologists,
and so often abandoned for some more complex system, that the primitive
man, whatever he may have been, has in the course of ages divaricated
into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the
Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing
individuals of the species can be ranged around these types, or
somewhere or other between them. Large numbers are doubtless the
descendants of direct crosses in varying proportions between
well-established extreme forms; for, notwithstanding opposite views
formerly held by some authors on this subject, there is now abundant
evidence of the wholesale production of new races in this way. Others
may be the descendants of the primitive stock, before the strongly
marked existing distinctions had taken place, and therefore present,
though from a different cause from the last, equally generalised
characters. In these cases it can only be by most carefully examining
and balancing all characters, however minute, and finding out in what
direction the preponderance lies, that a place can be assigned to them.
It cannot be too often insisted on that the various groups of mankind,
owing to their probable unity of origin, the great variability of
individuals, and the possibility of all degrees of intermixture of races
at remote or recent periods of the history of the species, have so much
in common that it is extremely difficult to find distinctive characters
capable of strict definition, by which they may be differentiated. It is
more by the preponderance of certain characters in a large number of
members of a group, than by the exclusive or even constant possession of
these characters, in each of its members, that the group as a whole must
be characterised.
Bearing these principles in mind, we may endeavour to formulate, as far
as they have as yet been worked out, the distinctive features of the
typical members of the three great divisions, and then show into what
subordinate groups each of them seems to be divided.
To begin with the Ethiopian, Negroid or Melanian, or “black” type. It is
characterised by a dark, often nearly black, complexion; black hair, of
a kind called “frizzly” or, incorrectly, “woolly,” _i.e._, each hair is
closely rolled up upon itself, a condition always associated with a more
or less flattened or elliptical transverse section; a moderate or
scanty development of beard; an almost invariably dolichocephalic
skull; small and moderately retreating malar bones (mesopic face); a
very broad and flat nose, platyrhine in the skeleton; moderate or low
orbits; prominent eyes; thick, everted lips; prognathous jaws; large
teeth (macrodont); a narrow pelvis (index in the male 90 to 100); a long
forearm (humero-radial index 80), and certain other proportions of the
body and limbs which are being gradually worked out and reduced to
numerical expression as material for so doing accumulates.
The most characteristic examples of the second great type, the Mongolian
or Xanthous, or “yellow,” have a yellow or brownish complexion; black,
coarse, straight hair, without any tendency to curl, and nearly round in
section, on all other parts of the surface except the scalp, scanty and
late in appearing; a skull of variable form, mostly mesocephalic (though
extremes both of dolichocephaly and brachycephaly are found in certain
groups of this type); a broad and flat face, with prominent,
anteriorly-projecting malar bones (platyopic face); nose small,
mesorhine or leptorhine; orbits high and round, with very little
development of glabella or supraciliary ridges; eyes sunken, and with
the aperture between the lids narrow; in the most typical members of the
group with a vertical fold of skin over the inner canthus, and with the
outer angle slightly elevated; jaws mesognathous; teeth of moderate size
(mesodont). The proportions of the limbs and form of the pelvis have yet
to be worked out, the results at present obtained showing great
diversity among different individuals of what appear to be well-marked
races of the group, but this is perhaps due to the insufficient number
of individuals as yet examined with accuracy.
The last type, which, for want of a better name, I still call by that
which has the priority, Caucasian or “white,” has usually a
light-complexioned skin (although in some, in so far aberrant cases, it
is as dark as in the Negroes); hair fair or black, soft, straight, or
wavy, in section intermediate between the flattened and cylindrical
form; beard fully developed; form of cranium various, mostly
mesocephalic; malar bones retreating; face narrow and projecting in the
middle line (pro-opic); orbits moderate; nose narrow and prominent
(leptorhine); jaws orthognathous; teeth small (microdont); pelvis broad
(pelvic index of male 80); forearm short relatively to humerus
(humero-radial index 74).
In endeavouring further to divide up into minor groups the numerous and
variously modified individuals which cluster around one or other of
these great types--a process quite necessary for many practical or
descriptive purposes--the distinctions afforded by the study of physical
characters are often so slight that it becomes necessary to take other
considerations into account, among which geographical distribution and
language hold an important place.
I. The Ethiopian or Negroid races maybe primarily divided as follows:--
A. African or typical Negroes--inhabitants of all the central portion of
the African continent, from the Atlantic on the west to the Indian Ocean
on the east, greatly mixed all along their northern frontier with
Hamitic and Semitic Melanochroi, a mixture which, taking place in
various proportions and under varied conditions, has given rise to many
of the numerous races and tribes inhabiting the Soudan.
A branch of the African Negroes are the Bantu--distinguished chiefly, if
not entirely, by the structure of their language. Physically
indistinguishable from the other negroes where they come in contact in
the equatorial regions of Africa, the Southern Bantu, or Kaffirs, as
they are generally called, show a marked modification of type, being
lighter in colour, having a larger cranial capacity, less marked
prognathism, and smaller teeth. Some of these changes may possibly be
due to crossing with the next race.
B. The Hottentots and Bushmen form a very distinct modification of the
Negro race. They formerly inhabited a much larger district than at
present; but, encroached upon by the Bantu from the north and the Dutch
and English from the south, they are now greatly diminished, and indeed
threatened with extinction. The Hottentots especially are much mixed
with other races, and under the influence of a civilisation which has
done little to improve their moral condition they have lost most of
their distinctive peculiarities. When pure-bred they are of moderate
stature, have a yellowish-brown complexion, with very frizzly hair,
which, being less abundant than that of the ordinary negro, has the
appearance of growing in separate tufts. The forehead and chin are
narrow, and the cheekbones wide, giving a lozenge shape to the whole
face. The nose is very flat, and the lips prominent. In their anatomical
peculiarities, and in almost everything except size, the Bushmen agree
with the Hottentots; they have, however, some special characters, for,
while they are the most platyrhine of races, the prognathism so
characteristic of the Negro type is nearly absent. This, however, may be
the retention of an infantile character so often found in races of
diminutive stature, as it is in all the smaller species of a natural
group of animals. The cranium of a Bushman, taken altogether, is one of
the best marked of any race, and could not be mistaken for that of any
other. Their relation to the Hottentots, however, appears to be that of
a stunted and outcast branch, living the lives of the most degraded of
savages among the rocky caves and mountains of the land of which the
comparatively civilised and pastoral Hottentots inhabited the plains.
Perhaps the Negrillos of Hamy, certain diminutive round-headed people of
Central and Western Equatorial Africa, may represent a distinct section
of the Negro race, but their numbers are few, and they are very much
mixed with the true Negroes in the districts in which they are found.
They form the only exceptions to the general dolichocephaly of the
African branch of the Negroid race.[46]
C. _Oceanic Negroes_ or _Melanesians_.--These include the Papuans of New
Guinea and the majority of the inhabitants of the islands of the Western
Pacific, and form also a substratum of the population, greatly mixed
with other races, of regions extending far beyond the present centre of
their area of distribution.
They are represented, in what may be called a hypertypical form, by the
extremely dolichocephalic Kai Colos, or mountaineers of the interior of
the Fiji Islands, although the coast population of the same group has
lost their distinctive characters by crossing. In many parts of New
Guinea and the great chain of islands extending eastwards and
southwards, ending with New Caledonia, they are found in a more or less
pure condition, especially in the interior and more inaccessible
portions of the islands, almost each of which shows special
modifications of the type recognisable in details of structure. Taken
altogether, their chief physical distinction from the African Negroes
lies in the fact that the glabella and supra-orbital ridges are
generally well developed in the males, whereas in Africans this region
is usually smooth and flat. The nose, also, especially in the northern
part of their geographical range, New Guinea, and the neighbouring
islands, is narrower (often mesorhine) and prominent. The cranium is
generally higher and narrower. It is, however, possible to find African
and Melanesian skulls quite alike in essential characters.
The now extinct inhabitants of Tasmania were probably pure, but
aberrant, members of the Melanesian group, which have undergone a
modification from the original type, not by mixture with other races,
but in consequence of long isolation, during which special characters
have gradually developed. Lying completely out of the track of all
civilisation and commerce, even of the most primitive kind, they were
little liable to be subject to the influence of any other race, and
there is, in fact, nothing among their characters which could be
accounted for in this way, as they were intensely, even exaggeratedly,
Negroid in the form of nose, projection of mouth, and size of teeth,
typically so in character of hair, and aberrant chiefly in width of
skull in the parietal region. A cross with any of the Polynesian or
Malay races sufficiently strong to produce this would, in all
probability, have also left some traces on other parts of their
organisation.
On the other hand, in many parts of the Melanesian region there are
distinct evidences of large admixture with Negrito, Malay, and
Polynesian elements in varying proportions, producing numerous physical
modifications. In many of the inhabitants of the great island of New
Guinea itself and of those lying around it this mixture can be traced.
In the people of Micronesia in the north, and New Zealand in the south,
though the Melanesian element is present, it is completely overlaid by
the Polynesian, but there are probably few, if any, of the islands of
the Pacific in which it does not form some factor in the composite
character of the natives.
The inhabitants of the continent of Australia have long been a puzzle to
ethnologists. Of Negroid complexion, features, and skeletal characters,
yet without the characteristic frizzly hair, their position has been one
of great difficulty to determine. They have, in fact, been a
stumbling-block in the way of every system proposed. The solution,
supported by many considerations too lengthy to enter into here, appears
to lie in the supposition that they are not a distinct race at all--that
is, not a homogeneous group formed by the gradual modification of one of
the primitive stocks, but rather a cross between two already formed
branches of these stocks. According to this view, Australia was
originally peopled with frizzly-haired Melanesians, such as those who
still do, or did before the European invasion, dwell in the smaller
islands which surround the north, east, and southern portions of the
continent, but that a strong infusion of some other race, probably a low
form of Caucasian Melanochroi, such as that which still inhabits the
interior of the southern parts of India, has spread throughout the land
from the north-west, and produced a modification of the physical
characters, especially of the hair. This influence did not extend across
Bass’s Straits into Tasmania, where, as just said, the Melanesian
element remained in its purity. It is more strongly marked in the
northern and central parts of Australia than on many portions of the
southern and western coasts, where the lowness of type and more curly
hair, sometimes closely approaching to frizzly, show a stronger
retention of the Melanesian element. If the evidence should prove
sufficiently strong to establish this view of the origin of the
Australian natives, it will no longer be correct to speak of a primitive
Australian, or even Australoid, race or type, or look for traces of the
former existence of such a race anywhere out of their own land. Absolute
proof of the origin of any race is, however, very difficult, if not
impossible to obtain, and I know nothing to exclude the possibility of
the Australians being mainly the direct descendants of a very primitive
human type, from which the frizzly-haired Negroes may be an offset.
This character of hair must be a specialisation, for it seems very
unlikely that it was the attribute of the common ancestors of the whole
human race.
D. The fourth branch of the Negroid race consists of the diminutive
round-headed people called Negritos, still found in a pure or unmixed
state in the Andaman Islands, and forming a substratum of the
population, though now greatly mixed with invading races, especially
Malays, in the Philippines, and many of the islands of the Indo-Malayan
Archipelago, and perhaps of some parts of the southern portion of the
mainland of Asia. They also contribute to the varied population of the
great island of Papua or New Guinea, where they appear to merge into the
taller, longer-headed and longer-nosed Melanesians proper. They show, in
a very marked manner, some of the most striking anatomical peculiarities
of the Negro race, the frizzly hair, the proportions of the limbs,
especially the humero-radial index, and the form of the pelvis; but they
differ in many cranial and facial characters, both from the African
Negroes on the one hand, and the typical Oceanic Negroes, or
Melanesians, on the other, and form a very distinct and
well-characterised group.
II.--The principal groups that can be arranged round the Mongolian type
are--
A. The Eskimo, apparently a branch of the typical North Asiatic Mongols,
who, in their wanderings northwards and eastwards across the American
continent, isolated almost as perfectly as an island population would
be, hemmed in on one side by the eternal Polar ice, and on the other by
hostile tribes of American Indians, with which they rarely, if ever,
mingled, have gradually developed characters most of which are
strongly-expressed modifications of those seen in their allies, who
still remain on the western side of Behring’s Straits. Every special
characteristic which distinguishes a Japanese from the average of
mankind is seen in the Eskimo in an exaggerated degree, so that there
can be no doubt about their being derived from the same stock. It has
also been shown that these special characteristics gradually increase
from west to east, and are seen in their greatest perfection in the
inhabitants of Greenland; at all events, in those where no crossing with
the Danes has taken place. Such scanty remains as have yet been
discovered of the early inhabitants of Europe present no structural
affinities to the Eskimo, although it is not unlikely that similar
external conditions may have led them to adopt similar modes of life. In
fact, the Eskimo are an intensely specialised race, perhaps the most
specialised of any in existence, and therefore probably of comparatively
late origin. In this case they were not as a race contemporaries with
the men whose rude flint tools found in our drifts excite so much
interest and speculation as to the makers, who have been sometimes,
though with little evidence to justify such an assumption, reputed to be
related to the present inhabitants of the northernmost parts of America.
B. The typical Mongolian races constitute the present population of
Northern and Central Asia. They are not very distinctly, but still
conveniently for descriptive purposes, divided into two groups, the
Northern and the Southern.
(_a_) The former, or Mongolo-Altaic group, are united by the affinities
of their language. These people, from the cradle of their race in the
great central plateau of Asia, have at various times poured out their
hordes upon the lands lying to the west, and have penetrated almost to
the heart of Europe. The Finns, the Magyars, and the Turks, are each the
descendants of one of these waves of incursion, but they have for so
many generations intermingled with the peoples through whom they have
passed in their migrations, or have found in the countries in which they
have ultimately settled, that their original physical characters have
been completely modified. Even the Lapps, that diminutive tribe of
nomads inhabiting the most northern parts of Europe, supposed to be of
Mongolian descent, show so little of the special attributes of that
branch that it is difficult to assign them a place in it in a
classification based upon physical characters. The Japanese are said by
their language to be allied rather to the Northern than to the following
branch of the Mongolian stock.
(_b_) The southern Mongolian group, divided from the former chiefly by
language and habits of life, includes the greater part of the population
of China, Thibet, Burmah, and Siam.
C. The next great division of Mongoloid people is the Malay sub-typical
it is true, but to which an easy transition can be traced from the most
characteristic members of the type.
D. The brown Polynesians, Malayo-Polynesians, Mahoris, Sawaioris, or
Kanakas, as they have been variously called, seen in their greatest
purity in the Samoan, Tongan, and Eastern Polynesian Islands, are still
more modified, and possess less of the characteristic Mongolian
features; but still it is difficult to place them anywhere else in the
system. The large infusion of the Melanesian element throughout the
Pacific must never be forgotten in accounting for the characters of the
people now inhabiting the islands, an element in many respects so
diametrically opposite to the Mongolian that it would materially alter
the characters, especially of the hair and beard, which has been with
many authors a stumbling-block to the affiliation of the Polynesian with
the Mongolian stock. The mixture is physically a fine one, and in some
proportions produces a combination, as seen, for instance, in the
Maories of New Zealand, which in all definable characters approaches
quite as near, or nearer, to the Caucasian type than to either of the
stocks from which it may be presumably derived. This resemblance has led
some writers to infer a real extension of the Caucasian element at some
very early period into the Pacific Islands, and to look upon their
inhabitants as the product of a mingling of all three great types of
men. Though this is a very plausible theory, it rests on little actual
proof, as the combination of Mongolo-Malayan and Melanesian characters
in different degrees, together with the local variations certain to
arise in communities so isolated from each other and exposed to such
varied conditions as the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, would
probably account for all the modifications observed among them.
E. The native populations (before the changes wrought by the European
conquest) of the great continent of America, excluding the Eskimo,
present, considering the vast extent of the country they inhabit and the
great differences of climate, and other surrounding conditions, a
remarkable similarity of essential characters, with much diversity of
detail.
The construction of the numerous American languages, of which as many as
twelve hundred have been distinguished, is said to point to unity of
origin, as, though widely different in many respects, they are all, or
nearly all, constructed on the same general grammatical principle--that
called _polysynthesis_--which differs from that of the languages of any
of the Old World nations. The mental characteristics of all the American
tribes have much that is in common; and the very different stages of
culture to which they had attained at the time of the conquest, as that
of the Incas and Aztecs, and the hunting or fishing tribes of the north
and south, which have been quoted as evidence of diversities of race,
were not greater than those between different nations of Europe, as
Gauls and Germans on the one hand, and Greeks and Romans on the other,
in the time of Julius Cæsar. Yet all these were Aryans, and in treating
the Americans as one race it is not intended that they are more closely
allied than the different Aryan people of Europe and Asia. The best
argument that can be used for the unity of the American race--using the
word in a broad sense--is the great difficulty of forming any natural
divisions founded upon physical characters. The important character of
the hair does not differ throughout the whole continent. It is always
straight and lank, long and abundant on the scalp, but sparse elsewhere.
The colour of the skin is practically uniform, notwithstanding the
enormous differences of climate under which many members of the group
exist. In the features and cranium certain special modifications prevail
in different districts, but the same forms appear at widely-separated
parts of the continent. I have examined skulls from Vancouver’s Island,
from Peru, from Patagonia, and from Jamaica, which were almost
undistinguishable from one another.
Naturalists who have admitted but three primary types of the human
species have always found a difficulty with the Americans, hesitating
between placing them with the Mongolian or so-called “yellow” races, or
elevating them to the rank of a primary group. Cuvier does not seem to
have been able to settle this point to his own satisfaction, and leaves
it an open question. Although the large majority of Americans have in
the special form of the nasal bones, leading to the characteristic high
bridge of the nose of the living face, in the well-developed
superciliary ridge and retreating forehead, characters which distinguish
them from the typical Asiatic Mongol, in many other respects they
resemble them so much that, although admitting the difficulties of the
case, I am inclined to include them as aberrant members of the Mongolian
type. It is, however, quite open to any one adopting the Negro,
Mongolian, and Caucasian as primary divisions to place the Americans
apart as a fourth.
Now that the high antiquity of man in America, perhaps as high as that
which he has in Europe, has been discovered, the puzzling problem, from
which part of the Old World the people of America have sprung has lost
its significance. It is quite as likely that the people of Asia may have
been derived from America as the reverse. However this may be, the
population of America had been, before the time of Columbus, practically
isolated from the rest of the world, except at the extreme north. Such
visits as those of the early Norsemen to the coasts of Greenland,
Labrador, and Nova Scotia, or the possible accidental stranding of a
canoe containing survivors of a voyage across the Pacific or the
Atlantic, can have had no appreciable effect upon the characteristics of
the people. It is difficult, therefore, to look upon the anomalous and
special characters of the American people as the effects of crossing, as
was suggested in the case of the Australians, a consideration which
gives more weight to the view of treating them as a distinct primary
division.
III. The Caucasian, or white division, according to my view, includes
the two groups called by Professor Huxley Xanthochroi and Melanochroi,
which, though differing in colour of eyes and hair, agree so closely in
all other anatomical characters, as far, at all events, as has at
present been demonstrated, that it seems preferable to consider them as
modifications of one great type than as primary divisions of the
species. Whatever their origin, they are now intimately blended, though
in different proportions, throughout the whole of the region of the
earth they inhabit; and it is to the rapid extension of both branches of
this race that the great changes now taking place in the ethnology of
the world are mainly due.
A. The Xanthochroi, or blonde type, with fair hair, eyes, and
complexion, chiefly inhabit Northern Europe--Scandinavia, Scotland, and
North Germany--but, much mixed with the next group, they extend as far
as Northern Africa and Afghanistan. Their mixture with Mongoloid people
has given rise to the Lapps, Finns, and some of the tribes of Northern
Siberia.
B. Melanochroi, with black hair and eyes, and skin of almost all shades
from white to black. They comprise the great majority of the inhabitants
of Southern Europe, Northern Africa, and South-west Asia, and consist
mainly of the Aryan, Semitic, and Hamitic families. The Dravidians of
India, the Veddahs of Ceylon, and probably the Ainos of Japan, and the
Maoutze of China, also belong to this race, which may have contributed
something to the mixed character of some tribes of Indo-China and the
Polynesian Islands, and, as before said, given at least the characters
of the hair to the otherwise Negroid inhabitants of Australia. In
Southern India they are probably mixed with a Negrito element, and in
Africa, where their habitat becomes conterminous with that of the
Negroes, numerous cross races have sprung up between them all along the
frontier line. The ancient Egyptians were nearly pure Melanochroi,
though often showing in their features traces of their frequent
intermarriages with their Ethiopian neighbours to the south. The Copts
and fellahs of modern Egypt are their little-changed descendants.
In offering this scheme of classification of the human species I have
not thought it necessary to compare it in detail with the numerous
systems suggested by previous anthropologists. These will all be found
in the general treatises on the subject. As I have remarked before, in
its broad outlines it scarcely differs from that proposed by Cuvier
nearly sixty years ago, and that the enormous increase of our knowledge
since that time should have caused such little change is the best
testimony to its being a truthful representation of the facts. Still,
however, it can only be looked upon as an approximation. Whatever care
be bestowed upon the arrangement of already acquired details, whatever
judgment be shown in their due subordination one to another, the
acquisition of new knowledge may at any time call for a complete or
partial rearrangement of our system.
Happily such knowledge is being abundantly brought in by workers in many
lands, and, among others, by members of our own Institute, whose
contributions, published in our _Journal_, form no mean addition to the
general advancement of the science.
This leads me to speak of some of our own more immediate affairs. During
the past year two members of our Council have been removed by death. Dr.
Allen Thomson was for many years an eminent and successful teacher of
human anatomy in the University of Glasgow. His researches into the
history of the early stages of development of the embryo gained him a
world-wide reputation, and he was beloved by all who knew him personally
for the singular modesty and gentleness of his nature. He had been a
Vice-President of the Institute, and a contributor to its proceedings.
Mr. Alfred Tylor, the brother of our distinguished former President, Dr.
E. B. Tylor, though greatly interested in many branches of Anthropology,
and a frequent attendant at our meetings, was better known as a
geologist. He died at his residence at Carshalton, on the last day of
1884, in the sixty-first year of his age.
At the conclusion of my address last year I announced that a critical
time was coming for the Institute, as circumstances had rendered a
change of domicile a necessity. The rooms in St. Martin’s Place, in
which the Institute had met since its foundation, were required for
Government purposes, and we were obliged to move elsewhere. I think it
will be generally admitted that the accommodation we have succeeded in
obtaining is in every way superior to that which we left behind, and the
annual cost will be but very trifling in excess of that we were paying
before. The expenses of moving and of new fittings have, however, made a
heavy inroad in our slender income, and notwithstanding the special
assistance of some of our members to meet it, it was necessary to sell
out a portion of our capital stock. We ought to replace this, if
possible; and, what is still more important, we ought to have the means
of spending more money upon our publications, especially in
illustrations, and more upon our library, for the increase of which we
are chiefly dependent upon donations. Binding our serial publications
is an item for which provision should especially be made. We should also
look forward to the time when the inevitable extension of our collection
of books will require additional accommodation. For all these
necessities, we need, as I have often said before, additional members.
At the present time, as you will have gathered from the Report of the
Council, we are stationary in this respect; but our change of abode
ought to be a starting point for acquiring a wider circle of interest in
our work.
Under the guidance of our able and painstaking Director, Mr. Rudler, and
presided over by the gentleman who, I trust, you will elect in my place,
the Institute cannot but flourish. Mr. Francis Galton is a man of most
versatile genius. He is well known as an explorer of regions where man
may be studied under conditions most opposite to those which obtain in
our island. In one of his early adventurous expeditions he visited
Khartoum, a place then as unknown to English ears as it is now unhappily
familiar. His subsequent journey in the opposite extremity of the
African continent led to the publication of very useful observations,
and also to the work called _The Art of Travel_. His ingenious
researches on the subject of characteristics transmitted by inheritance,
and his methods of testing physical capabilities, have frequently been
brought before the notice of the Institute. His anthropometric
laboratory, organised last year at the International Health Exhibition,
brought before thousands the interest and importance of the subject. I
have much satisfaction in resigning into his hands the office with which
you have honoured me for two consecutive years.
XIX
THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN[47]
It is well known that the nations of antiquity entertained a widespread
belief in the existence of a race or races of human beings of
exceedingly diminutive stature, who dwelt in some of the remote and
unexplored regions of the earth. These were called _Pygmies_, a word
said to be derived from πυγμή, which means a fist, and also a measure of
length, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles of an ordinary-sized
man, or rather more than 13 inches.
In the opening of the third book of the _Iliad_ the Trojan hosts are
described as coming on with noise and shouting, “like the cranes which
flee from the coming of winter and sudden rain, and fly with clamour
towards the streams of ocean, bearing slaughter and fate to the Pygmy
men, and in early morn offer cruel battle,” or, as Pope has it,
“So when inclement winters vex the plain,
With piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order through the midway sky,
To Pygmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.”
The combats between the pygmies and the cranes are often alluded to by
later classical writers, and are not unfrequently depicted upon Greek
vases. In one of these in the Hope Collection at Deepdene, in which the
figures are represented with great spirit, the pygmies are
dwarfish-looking men with large heads, negro features, and close woolly
or frizzly hair. They are armed with lances. Notices of a less poetical
and apparently more scientific character of the occurrence of races of
very small human beings are met with in Aristotle, Herodotus, Ctesias,
Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others. Aristotle places his pygmies in
Africa, near the sources of the Nile, while Ctesias describes a race of
dwarfs in the interior of India. The account in Herodotus is so
circumstantial, and has such an air of truthfulness about it, especially
in connection with recent discoveries, that it is worth quoting in
full.[48]
“I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from certain natives of
Cyrêné. Once upon a time, they said, they were on a visit to the
oracular shrine of Ammon, when it chanced that, in the course of
conversation with Etearchus, the Ammonian king, the talk fell upon the
Nile, how that its sources were unknown to all men. Etearchus upon this
mentioned that some Nasamonians had once come to his court, and when
asked if they could give any information concerning the uninhabited
parts of Libya, had told the following tale. (The Nasamonians are a
Libyan race who occupy the Syrtes, and a tract of no great size towards
the east.) They said there had grown up among them some wild young men,
the sons of certain chiefs, who, when they came to man’s estate,
indulged in all manner of extravagances, and among other things drew
lots for five of their number to go and explore the desert parts of
Libya, and try if they could not penetrate further than any had done
previously. The young men, therefore, dispatched on this errand by their
comrades with a plentiful supply of water and provisions, travelled at
first through the inhabited region, passing which they came to the wild
beast tract, whence they finally entered upon the desert, which they
proceeded to cross in a direction from east to west. After journeying
for many days over a wide extent of sand, they came at last to a plain
where they observed trees growing; approaching them, and seeing fruit on
them, they proceeded to gather it. While they were thus engaged, there
came upon them some dwarfish men, under the middle height, who seized
them and carried them off. The Nasamonians could not understand a word
of their language, nor had they any acquaintance with the language of
the Nasamonians. They were led across extensive marshes, and finally
came to a town, where all the men were of the height of their
conductors, and black-complexioned. A great river flowed by the town,
running from west to east, and containing crocodiles.”
It is satisfactory to know that the narrative concludes by saying that
these pioneers of African exploration,--forerunners of Bruce and Park,
of Barth, Livingstone, Speke, Grant, Schweinfurth, Stanley, and the
rest,--“got safe back to their country.”
Extension of knowledge of the natural products of the earth, and a more
critical spirit on the part of authors, led to attempts to account for
this belief, and the discovery of races of monkeys--of the doings of
which, it must be said, more or less fabulous stories were often
reported by travellers--generally sufficed the commentators and
naturalists of the last century to explain the origin of the stories of
the pygmies. To this view the great authority of Buffon was extended.
Still more recently-acquired information as to the actual condition of
the human population of the globe has, however, led to a revision of the
ideas upon the subject, and to more careful and critical researches into
the ancient documents. M. de Quatrefages, the eminent and veteran
Professor of Anthropology at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle of Paris,
especially, has carefully examined and collated all the evidence bearing
upon the question, and devoted much ingenuity of argument to prove that
the two localities in which the ancient authors appear to place their
pygmies, the interior of Africa near the sources of the Nile, and the
southernmost parts of Asia, and the characters they assign to them,
indicate an actual knowledge of the existence of the two groups of small
people which still inhabit these regions, the history of which will form
the subject of this lecture. The evidence which has convinced M. de
Quatrefages, and which, I have no doubt, will suffice for those who take
pleasure in discovering an underlying truth in all such legends and
myths, or in the more grateful task of rehabilitating the veracity of
the fathers of literature and history, will be found collected in a
very readable form in a little book published last year in the
“Bibliothèque scientifique contemporaine,” called _Les Pygmées_, to
which I refer my hearers for fuller information upon the subject of this
discourse, and especially for numerous references to the literature of
the subject, which, as the book is accessible to all who wish to pursue
it further, I need not give here.
It is still, however, to my mind, an open question whether these old
stories may not be classed with innumerable others, the offspring of the
fertile invention of the human brain, the potency of which as an origin
of myths has, I think, sometimes been too much underrated. I shall,
therefore, now take leave of them, and confine myself to giving you, as
far as the brief space of time at my disposal admits, an account of our
actual knowledge of the smallest races of men either existing, or, as
far as we know, ever having existed on earth, and which may, therefore,
taking the word in its current though not literal sense, be called the
“pygmies” of the species.
Among the various characters by which the different races of men are
distinguished from one another, size is undoubtedly one of considerable
importance. Not but what in each race there is much individual
variation, some persons being taller and some shorter; yet these
variations are, especially in the purer or less mixed races, restricted
within certain limits, and there is a general average, both for men and
women, which can be ascertained when a sufficient number of accurate
measurements have been recorded. That the prevailing size of a race is a
really deeply-seated, inherited characteristic, and depends but little
on outward conditions, as abundance of food, climate, etc., is proved by
well-known facts. The tallest and the shortest races in Europe are
respectively the Norwegians and the Lapps, living in almost the same
region. In Africa, also, the diminutive Bushmen and the tallest race of
the country, the Kaffirs, are close neighbours. The natives of the
Andaman Islands and those of many islands of the equatorial region of
the Pacific, in which the conditions are similar, or if anything more
favourable to the former, are at opposite ends of the scale of height.
Those not accustomed to the difficulties both of making and recording
such measurements will scarcely be prepared, however, to learn how
meagre, unsatisfactory, and unreliable our knowledge of the stature of
most of the races of mankind is at present, although unquestionably it
has been considerably increased within recent years. We must, however,
make use of such material as we possess, and trust to the future
correction of errors when better opportunities occur.
It is convenient to divide men, according to their height, into three
groups--tall, medium, and short; in Topinard’s system,[49] the first
being those the average height (of the men) of which is above 1·700
metres (5 feet 7 inches), the last those below 1·600 metres (5 feet 3
inches), and the middle division those between the two. In the short
division are included certain of the Mongolian or yellow races of Asia,
as the Samoyedes, the Ostiaks, the Japanese, the Siamese, and the
Annamites; also the Veddahs of Ceylon and certain of the wild
hill-tribes of Southern India. These all range between 1·525 and 1·600
metres--say between 5 feet and 5 feet 3 inches.
It is of none of these people that I am going to speak to-day. My
pygmies are all on a still smaller scale, the average height of the men
being in all cases below 5 feet--in some cases, as we shall see,
considerably below.
Besides their diminutive size, I may note at the outset that they all
have in a strongly-marked degree the character of the hair distinguished
as frizzly--_i.e._ growing in very fine, close curls, and flattened or
elliptical in section, and therefore, whatever other structural
differences they present, they all belong to the same primary branch of
the human species as the African negro and the Melanesian of the Western
Pacific.
I will first direct your attention to a group of islands in the Indian
Ocean--the Andamans--where we shall find a race in many respects of the
greatest possible interest to the anthropologist.
These islands are situated in the Bay of Bengal between the 10th and
14th parallels of north latitude, and near the meridian 93° east of
Greenwich, and consist of the Great and Little Andamans. The former is
about 140 miles long, and has a breadth nowhere exceeding 20 miles. It
is divided by narrow channels into three, called respectively North,
Middle, and South Andaman, and there are also various smaller islands
belonging to the group. Little Andaman is a detached island lying about
28 miles to the south of the main group, about 27 miles in length and 10
to 18 in breadth.
Although these islands have been inhabited for a very great length of
time by people whose state of culture and customs have undergone little
or no change, as proved by the examination of the contents of the old
kitchen-middens, or refuse heaps, found in many places in them, and
although they lie so near the track of civilisation and commerce, the
islands and their inhabitants were practically unknown to the world
until so recently as the year 1858. It is true that their existence is
mentioned by Arabic writers of the ninth century, and again by Marco
Polo, and that in 1788 an attempt was made to establish a penal colony
upon them by the East India Company, which was abandoned a few years
after; but the bad reputation the inhabitants had acquired for ferocious
and inhospitable treatment of strangers brought by accident to their
shores, caused them to be carefully avoided, and no permanent settlement
or relations of anything like a friendly nature, or likely to afford any
useful information as to the character of the islands or the
inhabitants, were established. It is fair to mention that this hostility
to foreigners, which for long was one of the chief characteristics by
which the Andamanese were known to the outer world, found much
justification in the cruel experiences they suffered from the
mal-practices, especially kidnapping for slavery, of the Chinese and
Malay traders who visited the islands in search of _bêche de mer_ and
edible birds’-nests. It is also to this characteristic that the
inhabitants owe so much of their interest to us from a scientific point
of view, for we have here the rare case of a population, confined to a
very limited space, and isolated for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
years from all contact with external influence, their physical
characters unmixed by crossing, and their culture, their beliefs, their
language, entirely their own.
In 1857, when the Sepoy mutiny called the attention of the Indian
Government to the necessity of a habitation for their numerous convict
prisoners, the Andaman Islands were again thought of for the purpose. A
commission, consisting of Dr. F. J. Mouat, Dr. G. Playfair, and
Lieutenant J. A. Heathcote, was sent to the islands to report upon their
capabilities for such a purpose; and, acting upon its recommendations,
early in the following year the islands were taken possession of in the
name of the East India Company by Captain (now General) H. Man, and the
British flag hoisted at Port Blair, near the southern end of Great
Andaman, which thenceforth became the nucleus of the settlement of
invaders, now numbering about 15,000 persons, of whom more than
three-fourths are convict prisoners, the rest soldiers, police, and the
usual accompaniments of a military station.
The effect of this inroad upon the unsophisticated native population,
who, though spread over the whole area of the islands, were far less
numerous, may easily be imagined. It is simply deterioration of
character, moral and physical decay, and finally extinction. The
newly-introduced habits of life, vices, and diseases are spreading at a
fearful rate and with deadly effect. In this sad history there are,
however, two redeeming features which distinguish our occupation of the
Andamans from that of Tasmania, where a similar tragedy was played out
during the present century. In the first place, the British governors
and residents appear to have used every effort to obtain for the natives
the most careful and considerate treatment, and to alleviate as much as
possible the evils which they have unintentionally been the means of
inflicting upon them. Secondly, most careful records have been preserved
of the physical characters, the social customs, the arts, manufactures,
traditions, and language of the people while still in their primitive
condition. For this most important work--a work which, if not done,
would have left a blank in the history of the world which could never
have been replaced--we are indebted almost entirely to the scientific
enthusiasm of one individual, Mr. Edward Horace Man, who most
fortunately happened to be in a position (as assistant superintendent of
the islands, and specially in charge of the natives) which enabled him
to obtain the required information with facilities which probably no one
else could have had, and whose observations “On the Aboriginal
Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,” published by the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, are most valuable, not only for
the information they contain, but as correcting the numerous erroneous
and misleading statements circulated regarding these people by previous
and less well-informed or less critical authors.
The Arab writer of the ninth century previously alluded to states that
“their complexion is frightful, their hair frizzled, their countenance
and eyes frightful, their feet very large, and almost a cubit in length,
and they go quite naked,” while Marco Polo (about 1285) says that “the
people are no better than wild beasts, and I assure you all the men of
this island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes
likewise; in fact, in the face they are just like big mastiff dogs.”
These specimens of mediæval anthropology are almost rivalled by the
descriptions of the customs and moral character of the same people
published as recently as 1862, based chiefly on information obtained
from one of the runaway sepoy convicts, and which represent them as
among the lowest and most degraded of human beings.
The natives of the Andamans are divided into nine distinct tribes, each
inhabiting its own district. Eight of these live upon the Great Andaman
Islands, and one upon the hitherto almost unexplored Little Andaman.
Although each of these tribes possesses a distinct dialect, these are
all traceable to the same source, and are all in the same stage of
development. The observations that have been made hitherto relate mostly
to the tribe inhabiting the south island, but it does not appear that
there is any great variation either in physical characters or manners,
customs, and culture among them.
With regard to the important character of size, we have more abundant
and more accurate information than of most other races. Mr. Man gives
the measurements of forty-eight men and forty-one women, making the
average of the former 4 feet 10¾ inches, that of the latter 4 feet 7¼
inches, a difference therefore of 3½ inches between the sexes. The
tallest man was 5 feet 4¼ inches, the shortest 4 feet 6 inches. The
tallest woman 4 feet 11½ inches, the shortest 4 feet 4 inches.
Measurements made upon the living subject are always liable to errors,
but it is possible that in so large a series these will compensate each
other, and that therefore the averages may be relied upon. My own
observations, based upon the measurements of the bones alone of as many
as twenty-nine skeletons, give smaller averages, viz. 4 feet 8½ inches
for the men, and 4 feet 6½ inches for the women; but these, it must be
recollected, are calculated from the length of the femur, upon a ratio
which, though usually correct for Europeans, may not hold good in the
case of other races. The hair is fine, and very closely curled--woolly,
as it is generally called, or rather, frizzly--and elliptical in
section, as in the negroes. The colour of the skin is very dark,
although not absolutely black. The head is of roundish (brachycephalic)
form, the cephalic index of the skull being about 82. The other cranial
characters are fully described in the papers referred to below. The
teeth are large, but the jaws are only slightly prognathous. The
features possess little of the negro type--at all events, little of the
most marked and coarser peculiarities of that type. The projecting jaws,
the prominent thick lips, the broad and flattened nose of the genuine
negro are so softened down in the Andamanese as scarcely to be
recognised; and yet in the relative proportions of the limb-bones,
especially in the shortness of the humerus compared with the forearm,
and in the form of the pelvis, negro affinities are most strongly
indicated.[50]
In speaking of the culture of the Andamanese, of course I only refer to
their condition before the introduction of European civilisation into
the islands. They live in small villages or encampments, in dwellings of
simple and rude construction, built only of branches and leaves of
trees. They are entirely ignorant of agriculture, and keep no poultry or
domestic animals. They make rude pots of clay, sun-dried, or partially
baked in the fire, but these are hand-made, as they are ignorant of the
use of the potter’s wheel. Their clothing is of the scantiest
description, and what little they have serves chiefly for decorative or
ornamental purposes, and not for keeping the body warm. They make no use
of the skins of animals. They have fairly well-made dug-out canoes and
outriggers, but fit only for navigating the numerous creeks and straits
between the islands, and not for voyages in the open sea. They are
expert swimmers and divers. Though constantly using fire, they are quite
ignorant of the art of producing it, and have to expend much care and
labour in keeping up a constant supply of burning or smouldering wood.
They are ignorant of all metals, but for domestic purposes make great
use of shells, especially a species of _Cyrene_ found abundantly on the
shores of the islands, also quartz chips and flakes, and bamboo knives.
They have stone anvils and hammers, and they make good string from
vegetable fibres, as well as baskets, fishing nets, sleeping mats, etc.
Their principal weapons are the bow and arrow, in the use of which they
are very skilful. They have harpoons for killing turtle and fish, but no
kind of shield or breastplate for defence when fighting. The natural
fertility of the island supplies them with abundance and variety of food
all the year round. This consists of pigs (_Sus andamanensis_), which
are numerous on the islands, paradoxures, dugongs, and occasionally
porpoises, iguanas, turtles, turtles’ eggs, many kinds of fish, prawns,
mollusks, larvæ of large wood-boring and burrowing beetles, honey, and
numerous roots (as yams), fruits, and seeds. The food, the purveying of
which affords occupation and amusement for the greater part of the male
population, is invariably cooked before eating, and generally taken when
extremely hot. They were ignorant of all stimulants or intoxicating
drinks--in fact, water was their only beverage; and tobacco, or any
substitute for it, was quite unknown till introduced by Europeans.
As with all other human beings existing at present in the world, however
low in the scale of civilisation, the social life of the Andamanese is
enveloped in a complex maze of unwritten law or custom, the intricacies
of which are most difficult for any stranger to unravel. The relations
they may or may not marry, the food they are obliged or forbidden to
partake of at particular epochs of life or seasons of the year, the
words and names they may or may not pronounce,--all these, as well as
their traditions, superstitions, and beliefs, their occupations, games,
and amusements, of which they seem to have had no lack, would take far
too long to describe here; but, before leaving these interesting people,
I may quote an observation of Mr. Man’s, which, unless he has seen them
with too _couleur-de-rose_ eyesight, throws a very favourable light upon
the primitive, unsophisticated life of these poor little savages, now so
ruthlessly broken into and destroyed by the exigencies of our
ever-extending empire.
“It has been asserted,” Mr. Man says, “that the ‘communal marriage’
system prevails among them, and that ‘marriage is nothing more than
taking a female slave’; but, so far from the contract being regarded as
a merely temporary arrangement, to be set aside at the will of either
party, no incompatibility of temper or other cause is allowed to
dissolve the union; and while bigamy, polygamy, polyandry, and divorce
are unknown, conjugal fidelity till death is not the exception but the
rule, and matrimonial differences, which, however, occur but rarely, are
easily settled with or without the intervention of friends.” In fact,
Mr. Man goes on to say, “One of the most striking features of their
social relations is the marked equality and affection which subsists
between husband and wife,” and “the consideration and respect with which
women are treated might with advantage be emulated by certain classes in
our own land.”
It should also be mentioned that cannibalism and infanticide, two such
common incidents of savage life, were never practised by them.
We must now pass to the important scientific question, Who are the
natives of the Andaman Islands, and where, among the other races of the
human species, shall we look for their nearest relations?
It is due mainly to the assiduous researches into all the documentary
evidence relating to the inhabitants of Southern Asia and the Indian
Archipelago, conducted through many years by M. de Quatrefages, in some
cases with the assistance of his colleague, M. Hamy, that the facts I am
about to put before you have been prominently brought to light, and
their significance demonstrated.
It is well known that the greater part of the large island of New
Guinea, and of the chain of islands extending eastwards and southwards
from it, including the Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, and New
Caledonia, and also the Fijis, are still inhabited mainly by people of
dark colour, frizzly hair, and many characteristics allying them to the
negroes of Africa. These constitute the race to which the terms
Melanesian, negroes, or Oceanic, are commonly applied in this country.
They are the “Papouas” of Quatrefages. Their area at one time was more
extensive than it is now, and has been greatly encroached upon by the
brown, straight-haired Polynesian race with Malay affinities, now
inhabiting many of the more important islands of the Pacific, and the
mingling of which with the more aboriginal Melanesians in various
proportions has been a cause, among others, of the diverse aspect of the
population on many of the islands in this extensive region. These
Papouas, or Melanesians, however, differ greatly from the Andamanese in
many easily-defined characters, which are, especially, their larger
stature, their long, narrow, and high skulls, and their coarser and more
negro-like features. Although undoubtedly allied, we cannot look to them
as the nearest relations of our little Andamanese.
When the Spaniards commenced the colonisation of the Philippines, they
met with, in the mountainous region in the interior of the Island of
Luzon, besides the prevailing native population, consisting of Tagals of
Malay origin, very small people, of black complexion, with the frizzly
hair of the African negroes. So struck were they with the resemblance
that they called them “Negritos del Monte” (little negroes of the
mountain). Their local name was Aigtas, or Inagtas, said to signify
“black,” and from which the word Aëta, generally now applied to them, is
derived. These people have lately been studied by two French travellers,
M. Marche and Dr. Montano; the result of their measurements gives 4 feet
8¾ inches as the average height of the men, and 4 feet 6½ inches the
average for the women. In many of their moral characteristics they
resemble the Andamanese. The Aëtas are faithful to their marriage vows,
and have but one wife. The affection of parents for children is very
strong, and the latter have for their father and mother much love and
respect. The marriage ceremony, according to M. Montano, is very
remarkable. The affianced pair climb two flexible trees placed near to
each other. One of the elders of the tribe bends them towards each
other. When their heads touch, the marriage is legally accomplished. A
great _fête_, with much dancing, concludes the ceremony.
It was afterwards found that the same race existed in other parts of the
archipelago, Panay, Mindanao, etc., and that they entirely peopled some
little islands--among others, Bougas Island, or “Isla de los Negros.”
As the islands of these eastern seas have become better known, further
discoveries of the existence of a small Negroid population have been
made in Formosa, in the interior of Borneo, Sandalwood Island (Sumba),
Xulla, Bourou, Ceram, Flores, Solor, Lomblem, Pantar, Ombay, the eastern
peninsula of Celebes, etc. In fact, Sumatra and Java are the only large
islands of this great area which contain no traces of them except some
doubtful cross-breeds, and some remains of an industry which appears not
to have passed beyond the Age of Stone.
The Sunda Islands form the southern limit of the Negrito area; Formosa,
the last to the north, where the race has preserved all its characters.
But beyond this, as in Loo Choo, and even in the south-east portion of
Japan, it reveals its former existence by the traces it has left in the
present population. That it has contributed considerably to form the
population of New Guinea is unquestionable. In many parts of that great
island, small, round-headed tribes live more or less distinct from the
larger and longer-headed people who make up the bulk of the population.
But it is not only in the islands that the Negrito race dwell. Traces of
them are found also on the mainland of Asia, but everywhere under the
same conditions; in scattered tribes, occupying the more inaccessible
mountainous regions of countries otherwise mainly inhabited by other
races, and generally in a condition more or less of degradation and
barbarism, resulting from the oppression with which they have been
treated by their invading conquerors; often, moreover, so much mixed
that their original characters are scarcely recognisable. The Semangs of
the interior of Malacca in the Malay peninsula, the Sakays from Perak,
the Moys of Annam, all show traces of Negrito blood. In India proper,
especially among the lowest and least civilised tribes, not only of the
central and southern districts, but almost to the foot of the Himalayas,
in the Punjab, and even to the west side of the Indus, according to
Quatrefages, frizzly hair, negro features, and small stature are so
common that a strong argument can be based on them for the belief in a
Negrito race forming the basis of the whole pre-Aryan, or Dravidian as
it is generally called, population of the peninsula. The crossing that
has taken place with other races has doubtless greatly altered the
physical characters of this people, and the evidences of such alteration
manifest themselves in many ways; sometimes the curliness of the hair is
lost by the admixture with straight-haired races, while the black
complexion and small stature remain; sometimes the stature is increased,
but the colour, which seems to be one of the most persistent of
characteristics, remains.
The localities in which the Negrito people are found in their greatest
purity, either in almost inaccessible islands, as on the Andamans, or
elsewhere in the mountainous ranges of the interior only, and their
social condition and traditions, wherever they exist,--all point to the
fact that they were the earliest inhabitants; and that the Mongolian and
Malay races on the east, and the Aryans on the west, which are now so
rapidly exterminating and replacing them, are later comers into the
land, exactly as, in the greater part of the Pacific Ocean, territory
formerly occupied by the aboriginal dark, frizzly-haired Negroid
Melanesians has been gradually and slowly invaded by the brown
Polynesians, who in their turn, but by a much more rapid process, are
being replaced by Europeans.
We now see what constitutes the great interest of the Andamanese
natives to the student of the ethnological history of the Eastern world.
Their long isolation has made them a remarkably homogeneous race,
stamping them all with a common resemblance not seen in the mixed races
generally met with in continental areas. For although, as with most
savages, marriages within the family (using the term in a very wide
sense) are most strictly forbidden, all such alliances have necessarily
been confined to natives of the islands. They are the least modified
representatives of the people who were, so far as we know, the primitive
inhabitants of a large portion of the earth’s surface, but who are now
verging on extinction. It is, however, not necessary to suppose that the
Andaman Islanders give us the exact characters and features of all the
other branches of the race. Differences in detail doubtless
existed--differences which are almost always sure to arise whenever
races become isolated from each other for long periods of time.
In many cases the characters of the ancient inhabitants of a land have
been revealed to us by the preservation of their actual remains.
Unfortunately we have as yet no such evidence to tell us of the former
condition of man in Southern Asia. We may, however, look upon the
Andamanese, the Aëtas, and the Semangs, as living fossils, and by their
aid conjecture the condition of the whole population of the land in
ancient times. It is possible, also, to follow Quatrefages, and to see
in them the origin of the stories of the Oriental pygmies related by
Ctesias and by Pliny.
We now pass to the continent of Africa, in the interior of which the
pygmies of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle have generally been placed.
Africa, as is well known, is the home of another great branch of the
black, frizzly-haired, or Ethiopian division of the human species, which
does, or did till lately, occupy the southern two-thirds of this great
continent, the northern third being inhabited by Hamite and Semite
branches of the great white or Caucasian primary division of the human
species, or by races resulting from the mixture of these with the
Negroes. But besides the true Negro there has long been known to exist
in the southern part of the continent a curiously modified type,
consisting of the Hottentots and the Bushmen--Bosjesmen (men of the
woods) of the Dutch colonists--the latter of whom, on account of their
small size, come within the scope of the present subject. They lead the
lives of the most degraded of savages, dwelling among the rocky and more
inaccessible mountains of the interior, making habitations of the
natural caves, subsisting entirely by the chase, being most expert in
the use of the bow and arrow, and treated as enemies and outcasts by the
surrounding and more civilised tribes, whose flocks and herds they show
little respect for when other game is not within reach. The physical
characters of these people are well known, as many specimens have been
brought to Europe alive for the purpose of exhibition. The hair shows
the extreme of the frizzly type; being shorter and less abundant than
that of the ordinary Negro, it has the appearance of growing in separate
tufts, which coil up together into round balls compared to
“peppercorns.” The yellow complexion differs from that of the Negro,
and, combined with the wide cheek-bones and form of the eyes, so much
recalls that of certain of the pure yellow races that some
anthropologists are inclined to trace true Mongolian affinities and
admixture, although the extreme crispness of the hair makes such a
supposition almost impossible. The width of the cheek-bones and the
narrowness of the forehead and the chin give a lozenge-shape to the
front view of the face. The forehead is prominent and straight; the nose
extremely flat and broad, more so than in any other race, and the lips
prominent and thick, although the jaws are less prognathous than in the
true Negro races. The cranium has many special characters by which it
can be easily distinguished from that of any other. It has generally a
very feminine, almost infantile, appearance, though the capacity of the
cranial cavity is not the smallest, exceeding that of the Andamanese. In
general form the cranium is rather oblong than oval, having straight
sides, a flat top, and especially a vertical forehead, which rises
straight from the root of the nose. It is moderately dolichocephalic or
rather mesaticephalic, the average index of ten specimens being 75·4.
The height is in all considerably less than the breadth, the average
index being 71·1. The glabella and supra-orbital ridge are little
developed, except in the oldest males. The malar bones project much
forwards, and the space between the orbits is very wide and flat. The
nasal bones are extremely small and depressed, and the aperture wide;
the average nasal index being 60·8, so they are the most platyrhine of
races.
With regard to the stature, we have not yet sufficient materials for
giving a reliable average. Quatrefages, following Barrow, gives 4 feet 6
inches for the men, and 4 feet for the women, and speaks of one
individual of the latter sex, who was the mother of several children,
measuring only 3 feet 9 inches in height, but later observations (still,
however, insufficient in number) give a rather larger stature; thus
Topinard places the average at 1·404 metres, or 4 feet 7½ inches; and
Fritsch, who measured six male Bushmen in South Africa, found their mean
height to be 1·444 metres, or nearly 4 feet 9 inches. It is probable
that, taking them all together, they differ but little in size from the
Andamanese, although in colour, in form of head, in features, and in the
proportions of the body, they are widely removed from them.
There is every reason to believe that these Bushmen represent the
earliest race of which we have, or are ever likely to have, any
knowledge, inhabiting the southern portion of the African continent, but
that long before the advent of Europeans upon the scene, they had been
invaded from the north by Negro tribes, who, being superior in size,
strength, and civilisation, had taken possession of the greater part of
their territories, and, mingling freely with the aborigines, had
produced the mixed race called Hottentots, who retained the culture and
settled pastoral habits of the Negroes, with many of the physical
features of the Bushmen. These, in their turn, encroached upon by the
pure-bred Bantu Negroes from the north, and by the Dutch and English
from the south, are now greatly diminished, and indeed threatened with
the same fate that will surely soon befall the scanty remnant of the
early inhabitants who still retain their primitive type.
At present the habitat of the Bushman race is confined to certain
districts in the south-west of Africa, from the confines of the Cape
Colony, as far north as the shores of Lake Ngami. Farther to the north
the great equatorial region of Africa is occupied by various Negro
tribes, using the term in its broadest sense, but belonging to the
divisions which, on account of peculiarities of language, have been
grouped together as Bantu. They all present the common physical
characteristics typical of the Negro race, only two of which need be
specially mentioned here--medium or large stature, and dolichocephalic
skull (average cranial index about 73·5).
It is at various scattered places in the midst of these that the only
other small people of which I shall have to speak, the veritable pygmies
of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle, according to Quatrefages, are still
to be met with.[51]
The first notice of the occurrence of these in modern times is contained
in “The strange adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex, sent by
the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who lived there and in the adjoining
regions near eighteen years” (1589 to 1607), published in _Purchas his
Pilgrimes_ (1625), lib. vii. chap. iii. p. 983:--
“To the north-east of _Mani-Kesock_ are a kind of little people, called
_Matimbas_; which are no bigger than Boyes of twelve yeares old, but
very thicke, and live only upon flesh, which they kill in the woods with
their bows and darts. They pay tribute to _Mani-Kesock_, and bring all
their Elephants’ teeth and tayles to him. They will not enter into any
of the _Maramba’s_ houses, nor will suffer any to come where they dwell.
And if by chance any _Maramba_ or people of _Longo_ pass where they
dwell, they will forsake that place and go to another. The women carry
Bows and Arrows as well as the men. And one of these will walk in the
woods alone and kill the Pongos with their poysoned Arrows.”
Battell’s narrative, it should be said, is generally admitted to have an
air of veracity about it not always conspicuous in the stories of
travellers of his time. In addition to the observations on the human
inhabitants, it contains excellent descriptions of animals, as the pongo
or gorilla, and the zebra, now well known, but in his day new to
Europeans.
Dapper, in a work called _Description de la Basse Ethiopie_, published
in Amsterdam in 1686, speaks of a race of dwarfs inhabiting the same
region, which he calls _Mimos_ or _Bakke-Bakke_, but nothing further was
heard of these people until quite recent times. A German scientific
expedition to Loango, the results of which were published in the
_Zeitschrift für Ethnologie_, 1874, and in Hartmann’s work, _Die
Negritier_, obtained, at Chinchoxo, photographs and descriptions of a
dwarf tribe called “Baboukos,” whose heads were proportionally large and
of roundish form (cephalix index of skull, 78 to 81). One individual,
supposed to be about forty years of age, measured 1·365 metres, rather
under 4 feet 6 inches.
Dr. Touchard, in a “Notice sur le Gabon,” published in the _Revue
Maritime et Coloniale_ for 1861, describes the recent destruction of a
population established in the interior of this country, and to which he
gives the name of “Akoa.” They seem to have been exterminated by the
M’Pongos in their expansion towards the west. Some of them, however,
remained as slaves at the time of the visit of Admiral Fleuriot de
Langle, who in 1868 photographed one (measuring about 4 feet 6 inches
high) and brought home some skulls, which were examined by Hamy, and all
proved very small and sub-brachycephalic.
Another tribe, the M’Boulous, inhabiting the coast north of the Gaboon
river, have been described by M. Marche as probably the primitive race
of the country. They live in little villages, keeping entirely to
themselves, though surrounded by the larger negro tribes, M’Pongos and
Bakalais, who are encroaching upon them so closely that their numbers
are rapidly diminishing. In 1860 they were not more than 3000; in 1879
they were much less numerous. They are of an earthy-brown colour, and
rarely exceed 1·600 metres in height (5 feet 3 inches). In the rich
collections of skulls made by Mr. R. B. Walker and by M. Du Chaillu,
from the coast of this region, are many which are remarkable for their
small size and round form. Of many other notices of tribes of negroes
of diminutive size, living near the west coast of Equatorial Africa, I
need only mention that of Du Chaillu, who gives an interesting account
of his visit to an Obongo village in Ashango-land, between the Gaboon
and the Congo; although unfortunately, owing to the extreme shyness and
suspicion of the inhabitants, he was allowed little opportunity for
anthropological observations. He succeeded, however, in measuring one
man and six women; the height of the former was 4 feet 6 inches, the
average of the latter 4 feet 8 inches.[52]
Farther into the interior, towards the centre of the region contained in
the great bend of the Congo or Livingstone River, Stanley heard of a
numerous and independent population of dwarfs, called “Watwas,” who,
like the Batimbas of Battell, are great hunters of elephants, and use
poisoned arrows. One of these he met with at Ikondu was 4 feet 6½ inches
high, and of a chocolate brown colour.[53] More recently Dr. Wolff
describes, under the name of “Batouas” (perhaps the same as Stanley’s
Watwas), a people of lighter colour than other negroes, and never
exceeding 1·40 metres (4 feet 7 inches) high, but whose average is not
more than 1·30 (4 feet 3 inches), who occupy isolated villages scattered
through the territory of the Bahoubas, with whom they never mix.[54]
Penetrating into the heart of Africa from the north-east, in 1870, Dr.
Schweinfurth first made us acquainted with a diminutive race of people
who have since attained a considerable anthropological notoriety. They
seem to go by two names in their own country, _Akka_ and _Tikki-tikki_,
the latter reminding us curiously of Dapper’s Bakke-bakke, and the
former, more singularly still, having been read by the learned
Egyptologist, Mariette, by the side of the figure of a dwarf in one of
the monuments of the early Egyptian empire.
It was at the court of Mounza, king of the Monbuttu, that Schweinfurth
first met with the Akkas. They appear to live under the protection of
that monarch, who had a regiment of them attached to his service, but
their real country was farther to the south and west, about 3° N. lat.
and 25° E. long. From the accounts the traveller received, they occupy
a considerable territory, and are divided into nine distinct tribes,
each having its own king or chief. Like all the other pygmy African
tribes, they live chiefly by the chase, being great hunters of the
elephant, which they attack with bows and arrows.
In exchange for one of his dogs, Schweinfurth obtained from Mounza one
of these little men, whom he intended to bring to Europe, but who died
on the homeward journey at Berber. Unfortunately all the measurements
and observations which were made in the Monbuttu country by Schweinfurth
perished in the fire which destroyed so much of the valuable material he
had collected. His descriptions of their physical characters are
therefore chiefly recollections. Other travellers--Long, Marno, and
Vossion--though not penetrating as far as the Akka country, have given
observations upon individuals of the race they have met with in their
travels. The Italian Miani, following the footsteps of Schweinfurth into
the Monbuttu country, also obtained by barter two Akka boys, with the
view of bringing them to Europe. He himself fell a victim to the
fatigues of the journey and climate, but left his collections, including
the young Akkas, to the Italian Geographical Society. Probably no two
individuals of a savage race have been so much honoured by the
attentions of the scientific world. First at Cairo, and afterwards in
Italy, Tebo (or Thibaut) and Chairallah, as they were named, were
described, measured, and photographed, and have been the subjects of a
library of memoirs, their biographers including the names of Owen,
Panceri, Cornalia, Mantegazza, Giglioli, Zannetti, Broca, Hamy, and de
Quatrefages. On their arrival in Italy, they were presented to the king
and queen, introduced into the most fashionable society, and finally
settled down as members of the household of Count Miniscalchi Erizzo, at
Verona, where they received a European education, and performed the
duties of pages.
In reply to an inquiry addressed to my friend, Dr. Giglioli, of
Florence, I hear that Thibaut died of consumption on 28th January 1883,
being then about twenty-two years of age, and was buried in the cemetery
at Verona. Unfortunately no scientific examination of the body was
allowed, but whether Chairallah still lives or not I have not been able
to learn. As Giglioli has not heard of his death, he presumes that he is
still living in Count Miniscalchi’s palace.
One other specimen of this race has been the subject of careful
observation by European anthropologists--a girl named Saida, brought
home by Romolo Gessi (Gordon’s lieutenant), and who is still, or was
lately, living at Trieste as servant to M. de Gessi.
The various scattered observations hitherto made are obviously
insufficient to deduce a mean height for the race, but the nearest
estimate that Quatrefages could obtain is about 4 feet 7 inches for the
men, and 4 feet 3 inches for the women, decidedly inferior, therefore,
to the Andamanese. With regard to their other characters, their hair is
of the most frizzly kind, their complexion lighter than that of most
negroes, but the prognathism, width of nose, and eversion of lips
characteristic of the Ethiopian branch of the human family are carried
to an extreme degree, especially if Schweinfurth’s sketches can be
trusted. The only essential point of difference from the ordinary negro,
except the size, is the tendency to shortening and breadth of the skull,
although it by no means assumes the “almost spherical” shape attributed
to it by Schweinfurth.
Some further information about the Akkas will be found in the work, just
published, of the intrepid and accomplished traveller, in whose welfare
we are now so much interested, Dr. Emin Pasha, Gordon’s last surviving
officer in the Soudan, who, in the course of his explorations, spent
some little time lately in the country of the Monbuttu. Here he not only
met with living Akkas, one of whom he apparently still retains as a
domestic in his service, and of whose dimensions he has sent me a most
detailed account, but he also, by watching the spots where two of them
had been interred, succeeded in obtaining their skeletons, which, with
numerous other objects of great scientific interest, safely arrived at
the British Museum in September of last year. I need hardly say that
actual bones, clean, imperishable, easy to be measured and compared, not
once only, but any number of times, furnish the most acceptable
evidence that an anthropologist can possess of many of the most
important physical characters of a race. There we have facts which can
always be appealed to in support of statements and inferences based on
them. Height, proportions of limbs, form of head, characters of the face
even, are all more rigorously determined from the bones than they can be
on the living person. Therefore, the value of these remains, imperfect
as they unfortunately are, and of course insufficient in number for the
purpose of establishing average characters, is very great indeed.
As I have entered fully into the question of their peculiarities
elsewhere,[55] I can only give now a few of the most important and most
generally to be understood results of their examination. The first point
of interest is their size. The two skeletons are both those of
full-grown people, one a man, the other a woman. There is no reason to
suppose that they were specially selected as exceptionally small; they
were clearly the only ones which Emin had an opportunity of procuring;
yet they fully bear out, more than bear out, all that has been said of
the diminutive size of the race. Comparing the dimensions of the bones,
one by one, with those of the numerous Andamanese that have passed
through my hands, I find both of these Akkas smaller, not than the
average, but smaller than the smallest,--smaller also than any Bushman
whose skeleton I am acquainted with, or whose dimensions have been
published with scientific accuracy. In fact, they are both, for they are
nearly of a size, the smallest normal human skeletons which I have seen,
or of which I can find any record. I say normal, because they are
thoroughly well grown and proportioned, without a trace of the deformity
almost always associated with individual dwarfishness in a taller race.
One only, that of the female, is sufficiently perfect for articulation.
After due allowance for some missing vertebræ, and for the
intervertebral spaces, the skeleton measures from the crown of the head
to the ground exactly 4 feet, or 1·218 metres. About three-quarters of
an inch more for the thickness of the skin of the head and soles of the
feet would complete the height when alive. The other (male) skeleton
was, judging by the length of the femur, about a quarter of an inch
shorter.
The full-grown woman of whom Emin gives detailed dimensions is stated to
be only 1·164 metres, or barely 3 feet 10 inches.[56] These heights are
all unquestionably less than anything that has been yet obtained based
upon such indisputable data. One very interesting and almost unexpected
result of a careful examination of these skeletons is that they conform
in the relative proportions of the head, trunk, and limb, not to dwarfs,
but to full-sized people of other races, and they are therefore
strikingly unlike the stumpy, long-bodied, short-limbed, large-headed
pygmies so graphically represented fighting with their lances against
the cranes on ancient Greek vases.
The other characters of these skeletons are Negroid to an intense
degree, and quite accord with what has been stated of their external
appearance. The form of the skull, too, has that sub-brachycephaly which
has been shown by Hamy to characterise all the small Negro populations
of Central Africa. It is quite unlike that of the Andamanese, quite
unlike that of the Bushmen. They are obviously Negroes of a special
type, to which Hamy has given the appropriate term of _Negrillo_. They
seem to have much the same relation to the larger long-headed African
Negroes that the small round-headed Negritos of the Indian Ocean have to
their larger long-headed Melanesian neighbours.
At all events, the fact now seems clearly demonstrated that at various
spots across the great African continent, within a few degrees north and
south of the equator, extending from the Atlantic coast to near the
shores of the Albert Nyanza (30° E. long.), and perhaps, from some
indications which time will not allow me to enter into now (but which
will be found in the writings of Hamy and Quatrefages), even farther to
the east, south of the Galla land, are still surviving, in scattered
districts, communities of these small negroes, all much resembling each
other in size, appearance, and habits, and dwelling mostly apart from
their larger neighbours, by whom they are everywhere surrounded. Our
information about them is still very scanty, and to obtain more would be
a worthy object of ambition for the anthropological traveller. In many
parts, especially at the west, they are obviously holding their own with
difficulty, if not actually disappearing, and there is much about their
condition of civilisation, and the situations in which they are found,
to induce us to look upon them, as in the case of the Bushmen in the
south and the Negritos in the east, as the remains of a population which
occupied the land before the incoming of the present dominant races. If
the account of the Nasamonians related by Herodotus be accepted as
historical, the river they came to, “flowing from west to east,” must
have been the Niger, and the northward range of the dwarfish people far
more extensive twenty-three centuries ago than it is at the present
time.[57]
This view opens a still larger question, and takes us back to the
neighbourhood of the south of India as the centre from which the whole
of the great Negro race spread, east over the African continent, and
west over the islands of the Pacific, and to our little Andamanese
fellow-subjects as probably the least modified descendants of the
primitive members of the great branch of the human species characterised
by their black skins and frizzly hair.
XX
FASHION IN DEFORMITY
AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE CUSTOMS OF BARBAROUS AND CIVILISED RACES[58]
What I here present you with is an Enditement framed against most
of the Nations under the Sun; whereby they are arraigned at the
tribunal of Nature, as guilty of High Treason, in Abasing,
Counterfeiting, Defacing, and Clipping her Coin instampt with her
Image and Superscription on the Body of Man.
J. BULWER, _Anthropometamorphosis_, 1650.
The propensity to _deform_, or alter from the natural form, some part of
the body is one which is common to human nature in every aspect in which
we are acquainted with it, the most primitive and barbarous, and the
most civilised and refined.
The alterations or deformities which it is proposed to consider in this
essay are those which are performed, not by isolated individuals, or
with definite motives, but by considerable numbers of members of a
community, simply in imitation of one another--in fact, according to
_fashion_, “that most inexorable tyrant, to which the greater part of
mankind are willing slaves.”
Fashion is now often associated with change, but in less civilised
conditions of society fashions of all sorts are more permanent than with
us; and in all communities such fashions as those here treated of are,
for obvious reasons, far less likely to be subject to the fluctuations
of caprice than those affecting the dress only, which, even in
Shakespeare’s time, changed so often that “the fashion wears out more
apparel than the man.” Alterations once made in the form of the body
cannot be discarded or modified in the lifetime of the individual, and
therefore, as fashion is intrinsically imitative, such alterations have
the strongest possible tendency to be reproduced generation after
generation.
The origins of these fashions are mostly lost in obscurity, all attempts
to solve them being little more than guesses. Some of them have become
associated with religious or superstitious observances, and so have been
spread and perpetuated; some have been vaguely thought to be hygienic in
motive; most have some relation to conventional standards of improved
personal appearance; but whatever their origin, the desire to conform to
common usage, and not to appear singular, is the prevailing motive which
leads to their continuance. They are perpetuated by imitation, which, as
Herbert Spencer says, may result from two widely divergent motives. It
may be prompted by reverence for one imitated, or it may be prompted by
the desire to assert equality with him.
Before treating of the subject in its application to the human body, it
will be well to glance, in passing, at the fact that a precisely similar
propensity has impelled man, at various ages of the world’s history, and
under various conditions of society, to interfere in the same manner
with the natural conformation of many of the animals which have come
under his influence through domestication.
The Hottentots, objecting to symmetry of growth in the horns of their
cattle, twist them while young and pliant, so that ultimately they are
made to assume various fantastic and unnatural directions. Sheep with
multiple horns are produced in some parts of Africa, by splitting with a
knife the budding horn of the young animal. Hotspur’s exclamation: “What
horse? a roan, a _crop-ear_, is it not?” points to a custom not yet
extinct in England. Docking horses’ tails--that is, cutting off about
half the length, not of the hair only, but of the actual flesh and bone,
and _nicking_, or dividing the tendons of the under side, so that the
paralysed stump is always carried in an unnatural or “cocked”
position--was common enough a generation ago, as seen in all equestrian
pictures of the period, and is still occasionally practised. In spite of
all warnings of common sense and experience, we continue, solely because
it is the fashion, to torture and deform our horses’ mouths and necks
with tight bearing-reins, which, though only temporarily keeping the
head in a constrained and unnatural, and therefore inelegant position,
produce many permanent injuries.[59] Dogs may still be seen with the
natural form of their ears and tails “improved” by mutilation.
Besides these and many other modifications of the form given by nature,
practised upon the individual animal, selective breeding through many
generations has succeeded in producing inherited structural changes,
sometimes of very remarkable character. These have generally originated
in some accidental, perhaps slight, peculiarity, which has been taken
advantage of, perpetuated, and increased. In this way the race of
bull-dogs, with their shortened upper jaws, bandy legs, and twisted
tails, have been developed. The now fashionable “dachshund” is another
instance. In this category may also be placed polled and humped cattle,
tailless cats of the Isle of Man and Singapore, lop-eared rabbits;
tailless, crested, or other strange forms of fowls, pouter, tumbler,
feather-legged, and other varieties of pigeons, and the ugly
double-tailed and prominent-eyed goldfish which delight the Chinese.
Thus the power which, when judiciously exercised, has led to the vast
improvement seen in many domestic species over their wild progenitors,
has also ministered to strange vagaries and caprices, in the production
and perpetuation of monstrous forms.
To return to man, the most convenient classification of our subject will
be one which is based upon the part of the body affected, and I will
begin with the treatment of the hair and other appendages of the skin as
the more superficial and comparatively trivial in its effects.
Here we are at once introduced to the domain of fashion in her most
potent sway. The facility with which hair lends itself to various
methods of treatment has been a temptation too great to resist in all
known conditions of civilisation. Innumerable variations of custom exist
in different parts of the world, and marked changes in at least all
more or less civilised communities have characterised successive epochs
of history. Not only the length and method of arrangement, but even the
colour of the hair, is changed in obedience to caprices of fashion. In
many of the islands of the Western Pacific the naturally jet black hair
of the natives is converted into a tawny brown by the application of
lime, obtained by burning the coral found so abundantly on their shores;
and not many years since similar means were employed for producing the
same result among the ladies of Western Europe--a fact which
considerably diminishes the value of an idea entertained by many
ethnologists, that community of custom is evidence of community of
origin or of race.
Notwithstanding the painful and laborious nature of the process, when
conducted with no better implements than flint knives, or pieces of
splintered bone or shell, the custom of keeping the head closely shaved
prevails extensively among savage nations. This, doubtless, tends to
cleanliness, and perhaps comfort, in hot countries; but the fact that it
is in many tribes practised only by the women and children shows that
these considerations are not those primarily engaged in its
perpetuation. In some cases, as among the Fijians, while the heads of
the women are commonly cropped or closely shaved, the men cultivate, at
great expense of time and attention, a luxuriant and elaborately
arranged mass of hair, exactly reversing the conditions met with in the
most highly civilised nations.
In some regions of Africa it is considered necessary to female beauty
carefully to eradicate the eyebrows, special pincers for the purpose
forming part of the appliances of the toilette; while the various
methods of shaving and cutting the beard among men of all nations are
too well known to require more than a passing notice. The treatment of
finger nails, both as to colour and form, has also been subject to
fashion; but the practical inconveniences attending the inordinate
length to which these are permitted to grow in some parts of the east of
Asia appear to have restricted the custom to a few localities. (See Fig.
13, p. 319.)
It may be objected to the introduction of this illustration here, that
such nails should not be considered deformities, but rather as natural
growth, and that to clip and mutilate them as we do is the departure
from nature’s intention. But this is not so. It is only by constant
artificial care and protection that such an extraordinary and
inconvenient length can be obtained. When the hands are subjected to the
normal amount of use, the nails break or wear away at their free ends in
a ratio equal to their growth, as with the claws or hoofs of animals in
a wild state.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Hand of Chinese ascetic. From Tylor’s
_Anthropology_.]
The exceedingly widespread custom of tattooing[60] the skin may also be
alluded to here, as the result of the same propensity as that which
produces the more serious deformations presently to be spoken of. The
rudest form of the art was practised by the now extinct Tasmanians and
some tribes of Australians, whose naked bodies showed linear or oval
raised scars, arranged in a definite manner on the shoulders and breast.
These were produced by gashes inflicted with sharp stones, into which
wood-ashes were rubbed, so as to allow of healing only under
unfavourable conditions, leaving permanent large and elevated
cicatrices, conspicuous from being of a lighter colour than the rest of
the skin. From this it is a considerable step in decorative art to the
elaborate and often beautiful patterns, wreaths, scrolls, spirals,
zigzags’ etc., sometimes confined to the face, and sometimes covering
the whole body from head to foot, seen in the natives of many of the
Polynesian Islands. These are permanently impressed upon the skin by
the introduction of colouring matter, generally some kind of lamp-black,
by means of an instrument made of a piece of shell cut into a number of
fine points, or a bundle of sharp needles. When the custom of the land
demands that the surface to be treated thus is a large one, the process
is not only very tedious, but entails an amount of suffering painful to
think of. When completed it answers part at least of the purpose of
dress with us, as an untattooed skin exhibited to society is looked upon
much as an unclothed one would be in more civilised communities. The
natural colour of the skin seems to have influenced the method and
extent of tattooing, as in the black races it is limited to such scars
as those spoken of above; which, variously arranged in lines or dots,
become tribal distinctions among African negroes. In Europe tattooing on
the same principle as that of the Polynesians is confined almost
exclusively to sailors, among whom it is kept up obviously by imitation
or fashion.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Australian native, with bone nose-ornament.]
The nose, the lips, and the ears have in almost all races offered great
temptations to be used as foundations for the display of ornament, some
process of boring, cutting, or alteration of form being necessary to
render them fit for the purpose. When Captain Cook, exactly one hundred
years ago, was describing the naked savages of the east coast of
Australia,[61] he says: “Their principal ornament is the bone which they
thrust through the cartilage which divides the nostrils from each other.
What perversion of taste could make them think this a decoration, or
what could prompt them, before they had worn it or seen it worn, to
suffer the pain and inconvenience that must of necessity attend it, is
perhaps beyond the power of human sagacity to determine. As this bone is
as thick as a man’s finger, and between five and six inches long, it
reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both the
nostrils that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath,
and snuffle so when they attempt to speak that they are scarcely
intelligible even to each other. Our seamen, with some humour, called it
their spritsail-yard; and indeed it had so ludicrous an appearance, that
till we were used to it we found it difficult to refrain from laughter.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 15.--Tortoise-shell lip ornament of the Moskito Indians. From
Dampier.
]
Eight years later, on his visit to the north-west coast of America,
Captain Cook found precisely the same custom prevailing among the
natives of Prince William’s Sound, whose mode of life was in most other
respects quite dissimilar to that of the Australians, and who belong
ethnologically to a totally different branch of the human race.
In 1681 Dampier[62] thus describes a custom which he found existing
among the natives of the Corn Islands, off the Moskito Coast, in Central
America: “They have a fashion to cut holes in the Lips of the Boys when
they are young, close to their Chin, which they keep open with little
Pegs till they are 14 or 15 years old; then they wear Beards in them,
made of Turtle or Tortoise-shell, in the form you see in the Margin.
(See Fig. 15, p. 321.) The little notch at the upper end they put in
through the Lip, where it remains between the Teeth and the Lip; the
under part hangs down over their Chin. This they commonly wear all day,
and when they sleep they take it out. They have likewise holes bored in
their Ears, both Men and Women, when young, and by continual stretching
them with great Pegs, they grow to be as big as a mill’d five Shilling
Piece. Herein they wear pieces of Wood, cut very round and smooth, so
that their Ear seems to be all wood, with a little Skin about it.”
[Illustration: FIG. 16.--Botocudo Indian. From Bigg-Wither’s _Pioneering
in South Brazil_ (1878).]
It is very remarkable that an almost exactly similar custom still
prevails among a tribe of Indians inhabiting the southern part of
Brazil--the Botocudos, so called from a Portuguese word (_botoque_),
meaning a plug or stopper. Among these people the lip-ornament consists
of a conical piece of hard and polished wood, frequently weighs a
quarter of a pound, and drags down, elongates, and everts the lower
lip, so as to expose the gums and teeth, in a manner which to our taste
is hideous, but with them is considered an essential adjunct to an
attractive and correct appearance.
In the extreme north of America, the Eskimo “pierce the lower lip under
one or both corners of the mouth, and insert in each aperture a
double-headed sleeve-button or dumb-bell-shaped labret, of bone, ivory,
shell, stone, glass, or wood. The incision when first made is about the
size of a quill, but as the aspirant for improved beauty grows older,
the size of the orifice is enlarged until it reaches the width of half
to three-quarters of an inch.”[63] These operations appear to be
practised only on the men, and are supposed to possess some significance
other than that of mere ornament. The first piercing of the lip, which
is accompanied by some solemnity as a religious feast, is performed on
approaching manhood.
But the people who, among the various American tribes, have carried
these strange customs to the greatest excess are the Thlinkeets, who
inhabit the south-eastern shores of Alaska.[64] “Here it is the women
who, in piercing the nose and ears, and filling the apertures with
bones, shells, sticks, pieces of copper, nails, or attaching thereto
heavy pendants, which drag down the organs and pull the features out of
place, appear to have taxed their inventive powers to the utmost, and,
with a success unsurpassed by any nation in the world, to produce a
model of hideous beauty. This success is achieved in their wooden
lip-ornament, the crowning glory of the Thlinkeet matron, described by a
multitude of eyewitnesses. In all female free-born Thlinkeet children a
slit is made in the under lip, parallel with the mouth, and about half
an inch below it. A copper wire, or a piece of shell or wood, is
introduced into this, by which the wound is kept open and the aperture
extended. By gradually introducing larger objects the required
dimensions of the opening are produced. On attaining the age of
maturity, a block of wood is inserted, usually oval or elliptical in
shape, concave on the sides, and grooved like the wheel of a pulley on
the edge in order to keep it in place. The dimensions of the block are
from two to six inches in length, from one to four inches in width, and
about half an inch thick round the edge, and it is highly polished. Old
age has little terror in the eyes of a Thlinkeet belle; for larger
lip-blocks are introduced as years advance, and each enlargement adds to
the lady’s social status, if not to her facial charms. When the block is
withdrawn, the lip drops down upon the chin like a piece of leather,
displaying the teeth, and presenting altogether a ghastly spectacle. The
privilege of wearing this ornament is not extended to female slaves.”
In this method of adornment the North Americans are, however, rivalled,
if not eclipsed, by the negroes of the heart of Africa.
“The Bongo women (says Schweinfurth[65]) delight in distinguishing
themselves by an adornment which to our notion is nothing less than a
hideous mutilation. As soon as a woman is married, the operation
commences of extending her lower lip. This, at first only slightly
bored, is widened by inserting into the orifice plugs of wood, gradually
increasing in size, until at length the entire feature is enlarged to
five or six times its original proportions. The plugs are cylindrical in
form, not less than an inch thick, and are exactly like the pegs of bone
or wood worn by the women of Musgoo. By this means the lower lip is
extended horizontally till it projects far beyond the upper, which is
also bored and fitted with a copper plate or nail, and now and then by a
little ring, and sometimes by a bit of straw, about as thick as a
lucifer-match. Nor do they leave the nose intact; similar bits of straw
are inserted into the edges of the nostrils, and I have seen as many as
three of these on each side. A very favourite ornament for the cartilage
between the nostrils is a copper ring, just like those that are placed
in the noses of buffaloes and other beasts of burden for the purpose of
rendering them more tractable. The greatest coquettes among the ladies
wear a clasp, or clamp, at the corners of the mouth, as though they
wanted to contract the orifice, and literally to put a curb upon its
capabilities. These subsidiary ornaments are not, however, found at all
universally among the women, and it is rare to see them all at once upon
a single individual; the plug in the lower lip of the married women is
alone a _sine quâ non_, serving, as it does, for an artificial
distinction of race.”
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Loobah woman. From Schweinfurth’s _Heart of
Africa_.]
The slightest fold or projection of the skin furnishes an excuse for
boring a hole, and inserting a plug or a ring. There are women in the
country whose bodies are pierced in some way or other in little short of
a hundred different places, and the men are often not far behind in the
profusion with which this kind of adornment is carried out.
“The whole group of the Mittoo exhibits peculiarities by which it may be
distinguished from its neighbours. The external adornment of the body,
the costume, the ornaments, the mutilations which individuals
undergo--in short, the general fashions--have all a distinctive
character of their own. The most remarkable is the revolting, because
unnatural, manner in which the women pierce and distort their lips; they
seem to vie with each other in their mutilation; and their vanity in
this respect, I believe, surpasses anything that may be found throughout
Africa. Not satisfied with piercing the lower lip, they drag out the
upper lip as well for the sake of symmetry[66].... Circular plates,
nearly as large as a crown piece, made variously of quartz, of ivory, or
of horn, are inserted into the lips that have been stretched by the
growth of years, and then often bent in a position that is all but
horizontal; and when the women want to drink they have to elevate the
upper lip with their fingers, and to pour the draught into their mouth.
“Similar in shape is the decoration which is worn by the women of
Maganya; but though it is round, it is a ring and not a flat plate; it
is called ‘pelele,’ and has no object but to expand the upper lip. Some
of the Mittoo women, especially the Loobah, not content with the circle
or the ring, force a cone of polished quartz through the lips as though
they had borrowed the idea from the rhinoceros. This fashion of using
quartz belemnites of more than two inches long is in some instances
adopted by the men.”
The traveller who has been the eye-witness of such customs may well add,
“Even amongst these uncultured children of nature, human pride crops up
amongst the fetters of fashion, which, indeed, are fetters in the worst
sense of the word; for fashion in the distant wilds of Africa tortures
and harasses poor humanity as much as in the great prison of
civilisation.”
It seems, indeed, a strange phenomenon that in such different races, so
far removed in locality, customs so singular--to our ideas so revolting
and unnatural, and certainly so painful and inconvenient--should either
have been perpetuated for an enormous lapse of time, if the supposition
of a common origin be entertained, or else have developed themselves
independently.
These are, however, only extreme or exaggerated cases of the almost
universal custom of making a permanent aperture through the lobe of the
ear for the purpose of inserting some adventitious object by way of
adornment, or even for utility, as in the man of the island of Mangea,
figured in Cook’s voyages, who carries a large knife through a hole in
the lobe of the right ear. The New Zealanders of both sexes, when first
visited by Europeans, all had holes bored through their ears, and
enlarged by stretching, and which in their domestic economy answered the
purpose of our pockets. Feathers, bones, sticks, talc chisels and
bodkins, the nails and teeth of their deceased relations, the teeth of
dogs, and in fact anything which they could get that they thought
curious or valuable, were thrust through or suspended to them. The iron
nails given them by the English sailors were at once conveyed to these
miscellaneous receptacles.[67] The Zulus lately exhibited in London
carried their cigars in the same manner. Mr. Wilfred Powell informs me
that he met with a man on one of the islands near New Guinea, the holes
in whose ears had been extended to such an extent that the lobes had
been converted into great pendent rings of skin, through which he could
easily pass his arms!
Among ourselves the custom of wearing earrings still survives, even in
the highest grades of society, although it has been almost entirely
abandoned by one-half of the community, and in the other the perforation
is reduced to the smallest size compatible with the purpose of carrying
the ornament suspended from it. Nose-rings are not now the fashion in
Europe, but the extent to which they are admired in the East may be
judged of by the frequency with which they are worn by the ayahs or
female servants who so often accompany English families returning from
India.
The teeth, although allowed by the greater part of the world to retain
their natural beauty and usefulness of form, still offer a field for
artificial alterations according to fashion, which has been made use of
principally in two distinct regions of the world and by two distinct
races. It is, of course, only the front teeth, and mainly the upper
incisors, that are available for this purpose. Among various tribes of
negroes of Equatorial Africa different fashions of modifying the natural
form of these teeth prevail, specimens of which may be found in any
large collection of crania of these people. One of the simplest consists
of chipping and filing away a large triangular piece from the lower and
inner edge of each of the central incisors, so that a gap is produced in
the middle of the row in front (Fig. 18, 1). Another fashion is to shape
all the incisors into sharp points by chipping off the corners, giving a
very formidable crocodilian appearance to the jaws (2); and another is
to file out either a single or a double notch in the cutting edge of
each tooth, producing a serrated border to the whole series (3).
[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Upper front teeth altered according to fashion.
1, 2, 3, African; 4, 5, 6, Malay.]
The Malays, however, excel the Africans both in the universality and in
the fantastic variety of their supposed improvements upon nature. While
the natural whiteness of the surface of these organs is always admired
by us, and by most people, the Malays take the greatest pains to stain
their teeth black, which they consider greatly adds to their beauty.
White teeth are looked upon with perfect disgust by the Dayaks of the
neighbourhood of Sarawak. In addition to staining the teeth, filing the
surface in some way or other is almost always resorted to. The nearly
universal custom in Java is to remove the enamel from the front surface
of the incisors, and often the canine teeth, hollowing out the surface,
sometimes so deeply as to penetrate the pulp cavity (Fig. 18, 4). The
cutting edges are also worn down to a level line with pumice-stone.
Another and less common, though more elaborate fashion, is to point the
teeth, and file out notches from the anterior surface of each side of
the upper part of the crown, so as to leave a lozenge-shaped piece of
enamel untouched; as this receives the black stain less strongly than
the parts from which the surface is removed, an ornamental pattern is
produced (5). In Borneo a still more elaborate process is adopted, the
front surface of each of the teeth is drilled near its centre with a
small round hole, and into this a plug of brass with a round or
star-shaped knob is fixed (6). This is always kept bright and polished
by the action of the lip over it, and is supposed to give a highly
attractive appearance when the teeth are displayed. A skull with the
teeth treated in this way may be seen in the Barnard Davis Collection,
now in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
The Javan practice appears also to prevail in fashionable circles in the
neighbouring parts of the mainland of Asia. The Siamese envoy who
visited this country in 1880 had his upper incisor teeth treated like
No. 4, Fig. 18, and one of his suite had them pointed.
Perhaps the strange custom, so frequently adopted by the natives of
Australia, and of many islands of the Pacific, of knocking out one or
more of the front teeth might be mentioned here, but it is usually
associated with some other idea than ornament or even mere fashion. In
the first-named country it constitutes part of the rites by which the
youth are initiated into manhood, and in the Sandwich Islands it is
performed as a propitiatory sacrifice to the spirits of the dead.
The projection forwards of the front upper teeth, which we think
unbecoming, is admired by some races, and among the negro women of
Senegal it is increased by artificial means employed in childhood.[68]
All these modifications of form of comparatively external and flexible
parts are, however, trivial in their effects upon the body to those to
be spoken of next, which induce permanent structural alterations both
upon the bony framework and upon the important organs within.
Whatever might be the case with regard to the hair, the ears, the nose,
and lips, or even the teeth, it might have been thought that the actual
shape of the head, as determined by the solid skull, would not have been
considered a subject to be modified according to the fashion of the time
and place. Such, however, is far from being the case. The custom of
artificially changing the form of the head is one of the most ancient
and widespread with which we are acquainted. It is far from being
confined, as many suppose, to an obscure tribe of Indians on the
north-west coast of America, but is found under various modifications at
widely different parts of the earth’s surface, and among people who can
have had no intercourse with one another. It appears, in fact, to have
originated independently in many quarters, from some natural impulse
common to the human race. When it once became an established custom in
any tribe, it was almost inevitable that it should continue, until put
an end to by the destruction either of the tribe itself, or of its
peculiar institutions, through the intervention of some superior force;
for a standard of excellence in form, which could not be changed in
those who possessed it, was naturally followed by all who did not wish
their children to run the risk of the social degradation which would
follow the neglect of such a custom. “Failure properly to mould the
cranium of her offspring gives to the Chinook[69] matron the reputation
of a lazy and undutiful mother, and subjects the neglected children to
the ridicule of their young companions, so despotic is fashion.”[70] A
traveller, who mentions that he occasionally saw Chinooks with heads of
the ordinary shape, sickness or some other cause having prevented the
usual distortion in infancy, adds that such individuals could never
attain to any influence or rise to any dignity in their tribe, and were
not unfrequently sold as slaves.[71]
It is related in the narrative of Commodore Wilkes’ United States
Exploring Expedition,[72] that “at Niculuita Mr. Drayton obtained the
drawing of a child’s head, of the Wallawalla tribe (Fig. 19), that had
just been released from its bandages, in order to secure its flattened
shape. Both the parents showed great delight at the success they had met
with in effecting this distortion.”
Endeavours have been made to trace the origin of this and many analogous
customs to a desire to intensify or exaggerate any prevailing natural
peculiarity of conformation. Thus races in which the forehead is
naturally low are supposed to have admired, and then to have
artificially imitated, those individuals in which the peculiarity was
most pronounced. But this assumption does not rest upon any strong basis
of fact. The motives assigned by the native Peruvians for their
interference with the natural form of their children’s heads, as
reported by the early Spanish historians, were very various. Some said
that it contributed to health, and enabled them to bear greater burdens;
others that it increased the ferocity of the countenance in war.[73]
These were all probably excuses for a blind adherence to custom or the
imperious demands of fashion.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.--Flat-headed Indian child.]
Many of the less severe alterations of the form to which the head is
subjected are undesigned, resulting only from the mode in which the
child is carried or dressed during infancy. Thus habitually carrying the
child on one arm appears to produce an obliquity in the form of the
skull which is retained to a greater or less degree all through life.
The practice followed by nomadic people of carrying their infants
fastened to stiff pillows or boards commonly causes a flattening of the
occiput; and the custom of dressing the child’s head with
tightly-fitting bandages, still common in many parts of the Continent,
and even used in England within the memory of living people, produces an
elongated and laterally constricted form.[74] In France this is well
known, and so common is it in the neighbourhood of Toulouse, that a
special form of head produced in this manner is known as the
“_déformation Toulousaine_.”
Of the ancient notices of the custom of purposely altering the form of
the head, the most explicit is that of _Hippocrates_, who in his
treatise _De Aëris, Aquis et Locis_, written about 400 B.C., says,[75]
speaking of the people near the boundary of Europe and Asia, near the
_Palus Mæotis_ (Sea of Azoff): “I will pass over the smaller differences
among the nations, but will now treat of such as are great either from
nature or custom; and first, concerning the _Macrocephali_. There is no
other race of men which have heads in the least resembling theirs. At
first, usage was the principal cause of the length of their head, but
now nature co-operates with usage. They think those the most noble who
have the longest heads. It is thus with regard to the usage: immediately
after the child is born, and while its head is still tender, they
fashion it with their hands, and constrain it to assume a lengthened
shape by applying bandages and other suitable contrivances, whereby the
spherical form of the head is destroyed, and it is made to increase in
length. Thus, at first, usage operated, so that this constitution was
the result of force; but in the course of time it was formed naturally,
so that usage had nothing to do with it.”
Here, Hippocrates appears to have satisfied himself upon a point which
is still discussed with great interest, and still not cleared up--the
possibility of transmission by inheritance of artificially-produced
deformity. Some facts seem to show that such an occurrence may take
place occasionally, but there is an immense body of evidence against its
being habitual.
Herodotus also alludes to the same custom as do, at later dates, Strabo,
Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and others, though assigning different localities
to the nations or tribes to which they refer, and also indicating
variations of form in their peculiar cranial characteristics.
Recent archæological discoveries fully bear out these statements. Heads
deformed in various fashions, but chiefly of the constricted, elongated
shape, have been found in great numbers in ancient tombs, in the very
region indicated by Herodotus. They have been found near Tiflis, where
as many as 150 were discovered at one time, and at other places in the
Caucasus, generally in rock tombs; also in the Crimea, and at different
localities along the course of the Danube; in Hungary, Silesia, in the
south of Germany, Switzerland, and even in France and Belgium. The
people who have left such undoubted evidence of the practice of
deforming their heads have been supposed by various authors to have been
Avars, Huns, Tartars, or other Mongolian invaders of Europe; but later
French authors who have discussed this subject are inclined to assign
them to an Aryan race, who, under the name of Cimmerians, spread
westward over the part of Europe in which their remains are now found,
in the seventh or eighth century before our era. Whether the French
habit, scarcely yet extinct, of tightly bandaging the heads of infants,
is derived from these people, or is of independent origin, it is
impossible to say.
There is no unequivocal proof that the custom of designedly altering the
form of the head ever existed in this country, but the singular shape of
a skull found in 1853 in a Saxon grave at West Harnham, in Wilts,
figured and described in Davis’s and Thurnam’s _Crania Britannica_, and
now in the museum of the College of Surgeons, is apparently due to such
a cause.
In Africa and Australia no analogous customs have been shown to exist,
but in many parts of Asia and Polynesia, deformations, though usually
only confined to flattening of the occiput, are common. Though often
undesigned, they are done purposely, I am informed by Mr. H. B. Low, by
the Dayaks, in the neighbourhood of Sarawak. Sometimes, in the islands
of the Pacific, the head of the new-born infant is merely pressed by the
hands into the desired form, in which case it generally soon recovers
that which nature intended for it. In one island alone, Mallicollo, in
the New Hebrides, the practice of permanently depressing the forehead is
almost universal, and skulls are even found constricted and elongated
exactly after the manner of the Aymaras of ancient Peru. The
extraordinary flatness of the forehead, by which the inhabitants of this
island differ from those of all around, was noticed by Captain Cook and
the two Forsters, who accompanied him as naturalists, but they were not
able to ascertain whether it was a natural conformation or due to art.
It is only within the last few years that crania have been sent to
England which abundantly confirm the old description of the great
navigator, and also prove the artificial character of the deformity.
[Illustration: A B C
FIG. 20.--Skulls artificially deformed according to similar
fashions. A, from an ancient tomb at Tiflis; B, from Titicaca,
Peru. C, from the island of Mallicollo, New Hebrides. (From
specimens in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.)
]
Though the Chinese usually allow the head to assume its natural form,
confining their attentions to the feet, a certain class of mendicant
devotees appear to have succeeded to a remarkable extent in getting
their skulls elongated into a conical form, if the figure in Picart’s
_Histoire des Religions_, vol. iv. plate 131, is to be trusted.
America is, however, or rather has been, the headquarters of all these
fantastic practices, and especially along the western coast, and mainly
in two regions, near the mouth of the Columbia River in the north and in
Peru in the south. The practice also existed among the Indians of the
southern parts of what are now the United States, and among the Caribs
of the West India Islands. In ancient Peru, before the time of the
Spanish conquest, it was almost universal. In an edict of the
ecclesiastical authorities of Lima, issued in 1585, three distinct
forms of deformation are mentioned. Notwithstanding the severe penalties
imposed by this edict upon parents persisting in the practice, the
custom was so difficult to eradicate that another injunction against it
was published by the Government as late as 1752.
[Illustration:
FIG. 21.--Deformed skull of an infant who had died during the
process of flattening; from the Columbia River. (Mus. Roy. Coll.
Surgeons.)
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 22.--Artificially flattened skull of ancient Peruvian. (Mus.
Roy. Coll. Surgeons.)
]
In the West Indies, and the greater part of North America, the custom
has become extinct with the people who used it; but the Chinook Indians,
of the neighbourhood of the Columbia River, and the natives of Vancouver
Island, continue it to the present day; and this is the last stronghold
of this strange fashion, though under the influence of European example
and discouragement it is rapidly dying out. Here the various methods of
deforming the head, and their effects, have been studied and described
by numerous travellers. The process commences immediately after the
birth of the child, and is continued for a period of from eight to
twelve months, by which time the head has permanently assumed the
required form, although during subsequent growth it may partly regain
its proper shape. “It might be supposed,” observes Mr. Kane, who had
large opportunities of watching the process, “that the operation would
be attended with great suffering; but I never heard the infants crying
or moaning, although I have seen their eyes seemingly starting out of
the sockets from the great pressure; but, on the contrary, when the
thongs were loosened and the pads removed I have noticed them cry until
they were replaced. From the apparent dulness of the children whilst
under the pressure, I should imagine that a state of torpor or
insensibility is induced, and that the return to consciousness
occasioned by its removal must be naturally followed by a sense of
pain.”
[Illustration:
FIG. 23.--Posterior view of cranium, deformed according to the
fashion of flattening, with compensatory lateral widening. (Mus.
Roy. Coll. Surgeons.)
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 24.--Posterior view of cranium deformed according to the
fashion of circular constriction and elongation. (Mus. Roy. Coll.
Surgeons.)
]
Nearly if not all the different fashions in cranial deformity, observed
in various parts of the world, are found associated within a very small
compass in British Columbia and Washington Territory, each small tribe
having often a particular method of its own. Many attempts have been
made to classify these various deformities; but as they mostly pass
insensibly into one another, and vary according as the intention has
been carried out with a greater or less degree of perseverance and
skill, it is not easy to do so. Besides the simple occipital and the
simple frontal compressions, all the others may be grouped into two
principal divisions. First (Figs. 21, 22, and 23), that in which the
skull is flattened between boards or pads made (among the Indians of the
Columbia River) of deer-skin stuffed with frayed cedar bark or moss,
applied to the forehead and back of the head; and as there is no lateral
pressure, it bulges out sideways, as seen in Fig. 23, to compensate for
the shortening in the opposite direction. This form is very often
unsymmetrical, as the flattening boards, applied to a nearly spherical
surface, naturally incline a little to one side or the other; and when
this once commences, unless great care is used, it must increase until
the very curious oblique flattening so common in these skulls is
produced. This is the ordinary form of deformity among the Chinook
Indians of the Columbia River, commonly called “Flat-heads.” It is also
most frequent among the Quichuas of Peru.
The methods by which this particular kind of deformity was produced
varied in detail in different tribes. One of the most effective is thus
described by Mr. Townsend: “The Wallamet Indians place the infant, soon
after birth, upon a board, to the edges of which are attached little
loops of hempen cord or leather; and other similar cords are passed
across and back, in a zigzag manner, through these loops, enclosing the
child and binding it firmly down. To the upper edge of this board, in
which is a depression to receive the back part of the head, another
smaller one is attached by hinges of leather, and made to lie obliquely
upon the forehead, the force of the pressure being regulated by several
strings attached to its edge, which are passed through holes in the
board upon which the infant is lying, and secured there.”
The second form of deformity (Figs. 20, 24, and 25) is produced by
constricting bandages of deer’s hide, or other similar material,
encircling the head behind the ears, usually passing below the occiput
behind, and across the forehead, and again across the vertex, behind the
coronal suture, producing a circular depression. The result is an
elongation of the head, but with no lateral bulging and with no
deviation from bilateral symmetry. This was the form adopted, with
trifling modifications, by the _Macrocephali_ of Herodotus, by the
Aymara Indians of Peru, and by certain tribes, as the Koskeemos, of
Vancouver Island. The “_déformation Toulousaine_” is a variation of the
same form. Another modification is thus described in Wilson’s
_Prehistoric Man_: “The Newatees, a warlike tribe on the north end of
Vancouver’s Island, give a conical shape to the head by means of a thong
of deer’s skin, padded with the inner bark of the cedar-tree frayed
until it assumes the consistency of very soft tow. This forms a cord
about the thickness of a man’s thumb, which is wound round the infant’s
head, compressing it gradually into a uniformly tapering cone. The
effect of this singular form of head is still further increased by the
fashion of gathering the hair into a knot on the crown of the head.” A
“sugar-loaf” form of skull has also been found in an ancient grave in
France, at Voiteur in the Department of Jura.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Cranium of Koskeemo Indian, Vancouver Island,
deformed by circular constriction and elongation. (Mus. Roy. Coll.
Surgeons.)]
The brain, of course, has to accommodate itself to the altered shape of
the bony case which contains it; and the question naturally arises,
whether the important functions belonging to this organ are in any way
impaired or affected by its change of form. All observations upon the
living Indians who have been subjected to it concur in showing that if
any modification in mental power is produced, it must be of a very
inconsiderable kind, as no marked difference has been detected between
them and the people of neighbouring tribes which have not adopted the
fashion. Men whose heads have been deformed to an extraordinary extent,
as Concomly, a Chinook chief, whose skull is preserved in the museum at
Haslar Hospital, have often risen by their own abilities to considerable
local eminence; and the fact that the relative social position of the
chiefs, in whose families the heads are always deformed, and the slaves
on whom it is never permitted, is constantly maintained, proves that the
former evince no decided inferiority in intelligence or energy.
Of the Newatees, mentioned above, Wilson says, “The process seems
neither to affect the intellect nor the courage of the people, who are
remarkable for cunning, as well as fierce daring, and are the terror of
surrounding tribes.”
Of the Mallicollese it is expressly stated by George Forster that “they
are the most intelligent people we have ever met with in the South Seas;
they understood our signs and gestures as if they had been long
acquainted with them, and in a few minutes taught us a great number of
words.... Thus what they wanted in personal attraction they made up in
acuteness of understanding.” Cook gives some remarkable instances of the
honesty of the “ape-like nation,” as he calls them.
Although the American Indians,--living a healthy life in their native
wilds, and under physical conditions which cause all bodily injuries to
occasion far less constitutional or local disturbance than is the case
with people living under the artificial conditions and the accumulated
predisposition to disease which civilisation entails,--thus appear to
suffer little, if at all, from this unnatural treatment, it seems to be
otherwise with the French, on whom its effects have been watched by
medical observers more closely than it can have been on the savages in
America. “Dr. Foville proves, by positive and numerous facts, that the
most constant and the most frequent effects of this deformation, though
only carried to a small degree, are headaches, deafnesses, cerebral
congestions, meningitis, cerebritis, and epilepsy; that idiocy or
madness often terminates this series of evils; and that the asylums for
lunatics and imbeciles receive a large number of their inmates from
among these unhappy people.”[76] For this reason the French physicians
have exerted all their influence, and with great success, to introduce a
more rational system in the districts where the practice of compressing
the heads of infants prevailed.”[77]
We may now pass from the head to the extremities, but there will be
little to say about the hands, for the artificial deformities practised
upon those members are confined to chopping off one or more of the
fingers, generally of the left hand, and usually not so much in
obedience merely to fashion, as part of an initiatory ceremony, or an
expiation or oblation to some superior, or to some departed person. Such
practices are common among the American Indians, some tribes of
Africans, the Australians, and Polynesians, especially those greatest of
all slaves of ceremonial, the Fijians, where the amputation of fingers
is demanded to appease an angry chieftain, or voluntarily performed as a
token of affection on the occasion of the death of a relative.
But _per contra_, the feet have suffered more, and altogether with more
serious results to general health and comfort, from simple conformity to
pernicious customs, than any other part of the body. And on this
subject, instead of relating the unaccountable caprices of the savage,
we have to speak only of people who have already advanced to a tolerably
high grade of civilisation, and to include all those who are at the
present time foremost in the ranks of intellectual culture.
The most extreme instance of modification of the size and
[Illustration:
FIG. 26.--Section of natural foot with the bones, and a
corresponding section of a Chinese deformed foot. The outline of
the latter is dotted, and the bones shaded.
]
form of the foot in obedience to fashion, is the well-known case of the
Chinese women, not entirely confined to the highest classes, but in some
districts pervading all grades of society alike. The deformity is
produced by applying tight bandages round the feet of the girls when
about five years old. The bandages are specially manufactured, Miss
Norwood[78] tells us, and are about two inches wide and two yards long
for the first year, five yards long for subsequent years. The end of the
strip is laid on the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over
the toes, under the foot, and round the heel, the toes being thus drawn
towards and across the sole, while a bulge is produced in the instep,
and a deep indentation in the sole. Successive layers of bandage are
wound round the foot until the strip is all used, and the end is then
sewn tightly down. After a month the foot is put in hot water to soak
some time; then the bandage is carefully unwound. Notwithstanding the
powdered alum and other appliances that are used to prevent it, the
surface of the foot is generally found to be ulcerated, and much of the
skin and sometimes part of the flesh of the sole, and even one or two of
the toes, may come off with the bandages, in which case the woman
afterwards feels repaid by the smallness and more delicate appearance of
her feet. Each time the bandage is taken off, the foot is kneaded to
make the joints more flexible, and is then bound up again as quickly as
possible with a fresh bandage, which is drawn up more tightly. During
the first year the pain is so intense that the sufferer can do nothing
but lie and cry and moan. For about two years the foot aches
continually, and is subject to a constant pain like the pricking of
sharp needles. With continued rigorous binding it ultimately loses its
sensibility, the muscles, nerves, and vessels are all wasted, the bones
are altered in their relative position to one another, and the whole
limb is reduced permanently to a stunted or atrophied condition.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Chinese woman’s foot, from the inside. A
photograph by Dr. R. A. Jamieson.[79]]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Sole of Chinese woman’s foot]
The alterations produced in the form of the foot are--1. Bending the
four outer toes under the sole of the foot, so that the first or great
toe alone retains its normal position, and a narrow point is produced in
front; 2. Compressing the roots of the toes and the heel downwards and
towards one another so as greatly to shorten the foot, and produce a
deep transverse fold in the middle of the sole (Fig. 28). The whole has
now the appearance of the hoof of some animal rather than a human foot,
and affords a very inefficient organ of support, as the peculiar
tottering gait of those possessing it clearly shows. When once formed,
the “golden lily,” as the Chinese lady calls her delicate little foot,
can never recover its original shape.
But strange as this custom seems to us, it is only a slight step in
excess of what the majority of people in Europe subject themselves and
their children to. From personal observation of a large number of feet
of persons of all ages and of all classes of society in our own country,
I do not hesitate to say that there are very few, if any, to be met with
that do not, in some degree, bear evidence of having been subjected to a
compressing influence more or less injurious. Let any one take the
trouble to inquire into what a foot ought to be. For external form look
at any of the antique models,--the nude Hercules Farnese or the
sandalled Apollo Belvidere; watch the beautiful freedom of motion in the
wide-spreading toes of an infant; consider the wonderful mechanical
contrivances for combining strength with mobility, firmness with
flexibility; the numerous bones, articulations, ligaments; the great
toe, with seven special muscles to give it that versatility of motion
which was intended that it should possess;--and then see what a
miserable, stiffened, distorted thing is this same foot when it has been
submitted for a number of years to the “improving” process to which our
civilisation condemns it. The toes all squeezed and flattened against
each other; the great toe no longer in its normal position, but turned
outwards, pressing so upon the others that one or more of them
frequently has to find room for itself either above or under its
fellows; the joints all rigid, the muscles atrophied and powerless; the
finely-formed arch broken down; everything which is beautiful and
excellent in the human foot destroyed,--to say nothing of the more
serious evils which so generally follow--corns, bunions, ingrowing
nails, and all their attendant miseries.
[Illustration:
FIG. 29.--A. Natural form of the sole of the foot, the great toe
parallel to the axis of the whole foot. B. The same, with outline
of ordinary fashionable boot. C. The modification of the form of
the foot, necessarily produced by wearing such a boot.
]
Now, the cause of this will be perfectly obvious to any one who compares
the form of the natural foot with the last upon which the shoemaker
makes the covering for that foot. This, in the words of the late Mr.
Dowie, “is shaped in front like a wedge, the thick part or instep rising
in a ridge from the centre or middle toe, instead of the great toe, as
in the foot, slanting off to both sides from the middle, terminating at
each side and in front like a wedge; that for the inside or great toe
being similar to that for the outside or little toe, as if the human
foot had the great toe in the middle and a little toe at each side, like
the foot of a goose!” The great error in all boots and shoes made upon
the system now in vogue in all parts of the civilised world lies in this
method of construction upon a principle of bilateral symmetry. A
straight line drawn along the sole from the middle of the toe to the
heel will divide a fashionable boot into two equal and similar parts, a
small allowance being made at the middle part, or “waist,” for the
difference between right and left foot. Whether the toe is made broad or
narrow, it is always equally inclined at the sides towards the middle
line; whereas in the foot there
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--English feet deformed by wearing
improperly-shaped shoes. From nature.]
is no such symmetry. The first or inner toe is much larger than either
of the others, and its direction is perfectly parallel with the long
axis of the foot. The second toe may be a little longer than the first,
as generally represented in Grecian art, but it is more frequently
shorter;[80] the others rapidly decrease in size (Fig. 29, A). The
modification which must have taken place in the form of the foot and
direction of the toes before a boot of the ordinary form can be worn
with any approach to ease is shown at Fig. 29, C. (p. 344). Often it
will happen that the deformity has not advanced to so great an extent,
but every one who has had the opportunity of examining many feet,
especially among the poorer classes, must have met with many far worse.
The two figured (Fig. 30), one (C) from a labouring man, the other (A
and B) from a working woman, both patients at a London hospital, are
very ordinary examples of the European artificial deformity of the foot,
and afford good subjects for comparison with the Chinese foot (Fig. 28).
It not unfrequently happens that the dislocation of the great toe is
carried so far that it becomes placed almost at a right angle to the
long axis of the foot, lying across the roots of the other toes.
In walking and especially running, the action of the foot is as follows:
The heel is first lifted from the ground, and the weight of the body
gradually transferred through the middle to the anterior end of the
foot, and the final push or impulse given with the great toe. It is
necessary then that these parts should all be in a straight line with
one another. Any deflection, especially of the great toe, from its
proper direction, or any weakening of its bones, ligaments, or muscles,
must be detrimental to the proper use of the foot in progression.
Against this it will perhaps be urged that there are many fairly good
walkers and runners among us whose great toes have been considerably
changed from the normal position in consequence of wearing pointed boots
while young. This may be perfectly true, but it is also well known that
several persons, as the late Miss Biffin, and an artist familiar to all
frequenters of the Antwerp picture gallery, have acquired considerable
facility in the use of the brush, though possessing neither hands nor
arms, the one painting only from the shoulder, and the other with the
feet. The compensating power of nature is very wonderful, and when one
part is absent or crippled, other means are found of doing its work, but
always at a disadvantage as compared with those best fitted for the
duty.
The loss of elasticity and motion in the joints of the foot, as well as
the wrong direction acquired by the great toe, are in most persons
seriously detrimental to free and easy progression, and can only be
compensated for by a great expenditure of muscular power in other parts
of the body, applied in a disadvantageous manner. The labouring men of
this country, who from their childhood wear heavy, stiff, and
badly-shaped boots, and in whom, consequently, the play of the ankle,
feet, and toes is lost, have generally small and shapeless legs and
wasted calves, and walk as if on stilts, with a swinging motion from the
hips. Our infantry soldiers also suffer much in the same manner, the
regulation boots in use in the service being exceedingly ill-adapted for
the development of the feet. Much injury to the general health--the
necessary consequence of any impediment to freedom of bodily
exercise--must also be attributed to this cause. Since some of the
leading shoemakers have ventured to deviate a little from the
conventional shape, those persons who can afford to be specially fitted
are better off as a rule than the majority of poorer people, who,
although caring less for appearance, and being more dependent for their
livelihood upon the physical welfare of their bodies, are obliged to
wear ready-made shoes of the form that an inexorable custom has
prescribed.
The changes that a foot has to undergo in order to adapt itself to the
ordinary shape of a shoe could probably not be effected unless commenced
at an early period, when it is young and capable of being gradually
moulded into the required form.
The English mother or nurse who thrusts the tender feet of a young child
into stiff, unyielding, pointed shoes or boots, often regardless of the
essential difference in form of right and left, at a time when freedom
is especially needed for their proper growth and development, is the
exact counterpart of the Chinook Indian woman, applying her bandages and
boards to the opposite end of her baby’s body, only with considerably
less excuse; for a distorted head apparently less affects health and
comfort than cramped and misshapen feet, and was also esteemed of more
vital importance to preferment in Chinook society. Any one who
recollects the boots of the late Lord Palmerston will be reminded that a
wide expanse of shoe leather is in this country, even during the
prevalence of an opposite fashion, quite compatible with the attainment
of the highest political and social eminence.
No sensible person can really suppose that there is anything in itself
ugly, or even unsightly, in the form of a perfect human foot; and yet
all attempts to construct shoes upon its model are constantly met with
the objection that something extremely inelegant must be the result. It
will perhaps be a form to which the eye is not quite accustomed; but
there is no more trite observation than the arbitrary nature of fashion
in her dealings with our outward appearance, and we all know how
anything which has received her sanction is for the time considered
elegant and tasteful, though a few years later it may come to be looked
upon as positively ridiculous. That our eye would soon get used to
admire a different shape may be easily proved by any one who will for a
short time wear shoes constructed upon a more correct principle, when
the prevailing pointed shoes, suggestive of cramped and atrophied toes,
become positively painful to look upon.
A glance at a series of pictures of costume at various periods of
English history will show how fashion has changed at different times
with respect to the coverings of the feet. The fact that the excessively
pointed, elongated toes of the time of Richard II., for instance, were
superseded by the broad, round toed, almost elephantine, but most
comfortable shoes seen in the portraits of Henry VIII. and his
contemporaries, shows that there is nothing in the former essential to
the gratification of the æsthetic instincts of mankind. Each form was
doubtless equally admired in the time of its prevalence.
It is not only leather boots and shoes that are to blame for producing
alterations in the form of the feet; even the stocking, comparatively
soft and pliable as it is, when made with pointed toes and similar form
for both sides, must take its share. The continual, steady, though
gentle pressure, keeps the toes squeezed together, and especially
hinders the recovery of its proper form and mobility, when attempts at
curing a misshapen foot are being made by wearing shoes of rational
construction. Socks adapted to the different form of the two feet, or
“rights and lefts,” are occasionally to be met with at hosiers, and it
would add greatly to comfort if they were more generally adopted. For
some cases it is well to have them made with distinct toes like gloves.
With such socks and properly constructed shoes, a much distorted foot,
even of a middle-aged person, will recover its power and freedom of
motion to a considerable extent.
Only one thing is needed to aggravate the evil effect of a pointed toe,
and that is the absurdly high and narrow heel so often seen now on
ladies’ boots, which throws the whole foot, and in fact the whole body,
into an unnatural position in walking, produces diseases well known to
all surgeons in large practice, and makes the nearest approach yet
effected by any European nation to the Chinese custom, which we
generally speak of with surprise and reprobation. And yet this fashion
appears just now on the increase among people who boast of the highest
civilisation to which the world has yet attained.
[Illustration:
FIG. 31.--Modern Parisian shoe, copied from a recent advertisement.
The nearest European representative of the Chinese deformity
depicted in Fig. 27, p. 342.
]
The practice of turning out the toes, so much insisted on by dancing
masters, when it becomes habitual, is a deformity. Although in standing
in an easy position the whole limb may be rotated outwards from the hip,
so as to give a broader basis of support, in walking or running the hip,
knee, ankle, and joints of the foot are simple hinges, and it is
essential for the proper co-ordination of their actions that they should
all work in the same plane, which can only be the case when the toes are
pointed directly forward, and the feet nearly parallel to one another.
Any deviation from this position must interfere with the true action of
the foot when raising and propelling the body, as explained at p. 346.
Turning out the toes is, moreover, a common cause of weak ankles, as it
throws the weight of the body chiefly on the inside, instead of
distributing it equally over all parts of the joint.
I must speak lastly of one of the most remarkable of all the artificial
deformities produced by adherence to a conventional standard, in
defiance of the dictates of nature and reason.
[Illustration:
FIG. 32.
Torso of the statue of Venus of Milo.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 33.
Paris fashion, May 1880.
]
Of all parts of the body, the elastic and mobile walls of the chest
would seem most to need preservation from external constriction, if they
are to perform efficiently the important purposes for which their
peculiar structure is specially designed. The skull is a solid case,
with tolerably uniform walls, the capacity of which remains the same,
whatever alteration is made in its shape. Pressure on one part is
compensated for by dilatation elsewhere; the body is not so, it may be
compared to a cylinder with a fixed length, determined by the vertebral
column, and closed above and below by a framework of bone. Circular
compression then must actually diminish the area which has to be
occupied by some of the most important vital organs. Moreover, the
framework of the chest is a most admirable and complex arrangement of
numerous pieces of solid bone and elastic cartilage, jointed together in
such a manner as to allow of expansion and contraction for the purposes
of respiration--expansion and contraction which, if a function so
essential to the preservation of life and health is to be performed in
an efficient manner, should be perfectly free and capable of variation
under different circumstances. So, indeed, it has been allowed to be in
all parts of the world and in all ages, with one exception. It was
reserved for mediæval civilised Europe to have invented the system of
squeezing together, rendering immobile, and actually deforming, the most
important part of the human frame; and the custom has been handed down
to, and flourishes in, our day, notwithstanding all our professed
admiration for the models of classical antiquity, and our awakened
attention to the laws of health.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Normal form of the skeleton of the chest.]
It is only necessary to compare these two Figures (Figs. 32 and
33),--one acknowledged by all the artistic and anatomical world to be a
perfect example of the natural female form,--to be convinced of the
gravity of the structural changes that must have taken place in such a
form before it could be reduced so far as to occupy the space shown in
the second figure, an exact copy of one of the models now held up for
imitation in the fashionable world. The actual changes that have taken
place in the bony framework of the chest are seen by comparing Figures
34 and 35, the one showing the normal form, the other the result of
long-continued tight-lacing. The alterations in the shape and position
of the organs within need not be dwelt upon here; they and the evil
effects arising from them are abundantly discussed in medical works.
When it is considered that the organs which are affected are those by
which the important functions of respiration, circulation, and digestion
are carried on, as well as those essential to the proper development and
healthy growth of future generations, it is no wonder that people suffer
who have reduced themselves to live under such conditions.[81]
[Illustration:
FIG. 35.--Skeleton of the chest of a woman, twenty-three years of
age, deformed by tight-lacing, from Rüdinger’s _Anatomie des
Menschen_. By no means an extreme case.
]
The true form of the human body is familiar to us, as just said, from
classic models; it is familiar from the works of our greatest modern
artists which adorn the Academy walls. It is, however, quite possible,
or even probable, that some of us may think the present fashionable
shape the more beautiful of the two. In such case it would be well to
pause to consider whether we are sure that our judgment is sound on the
subject. Let us remember that to the Australian the nose-peg is an
admired ornament; that to the Thlinkeet, the Botocudo, and the Bongo
negro, the lip dragged down by the heavy plug, and the ears distended by
huge discs of wood, are things of beauty; that the Malay prefers teeth
that are black to those of the most pearly whiteness; that the native
American despises the form of a head not flattened down like a pancake,
or elongated like a sugar-loaf,--and then let us carefully ask ourselves
whether we are sure that in leaving nature as a standard of the
beautiful, and adopting a purely conventional one, we are not falling
into an error exactly similar to that of all these people whose tastes
we are so ready to condemn.
The fact is, that in admiring such distorted forms as the constricted
waist and symmetrically pointed foot, we are opposing our judgment to
that of the Maker of our bodies; we are neglecting the criterion
afforded by nature; we are departing from the highest standard of
classical antiquity; we are simply putting ourselves on a level in point
of taste with those Australians, Botocudos, and Negroes. We are taking
fashion, and nothing better, higher, or truer, for our guide; and after
the various examples which have now been brought forward, may we not
well ask, with Shakespeare,
“SEEST THOU NOT, WHAT A DEFORMED THIEF THIS FASHION IS?”
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
XXI
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF PROFESSOR ROLLESTON[82]
George Rolleston’s death, which took place in Oxford on 16th June 1881,
may well be called premature, as he was in the prime of life, and but a
few months before seemed to all, except a few closely observant intimate
associates, still in the plentitude of his powers, and capable of much
good work in time to come.
The son of a Yorkshire clergyman, he was born at Maltby, on 30th July
1829, and had, therefore, not completed his fifty-second year. His early
aptitude for classical studies, carried on under the instruction of his
father, must have been most remarkable if, as has been stated in one of
his biographies, he was able at the age of ten to read any passage of
Homer at sight. He was not educated at one of the great public schools,
but entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, took a First Class in classics
in 1850, and was elected a Fellow of his college in 1851. He then
studied medicine at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, joined the staff of the
British Civil Hospital at Smyrna during the latter part of the Crimean
war, was appointed assistant-physician to the Children’s Hospital in
London, 1857, but took up his residence again at Oxford in the same year
on receiving the appointment of Lee’s Reader in Anatomy in Christchurch.
In 1860 he was elected to the newly-founded Linacre Professorship of
Anatomy and Physiology, which he held to the time of his death. He was
elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1862, and a Fellow of Merton
College, Oxford, in 1872. He was a member of the Council of the
University, and its representative in the General Medical Council, and
also an active member of the Oxford Local Board.
In 1861 he married Grace, daughter of Dr. John Davy, F.R.S., and niece
of Sir Humphrey Davy, and he leaves a family of seven children.
The duties of the Linacre professorship involved the teaching of a wide
range of subjects included under the terms of physiology and anatomy,
human and comparative, to which he added the hitherto neglected but
important subject of anthropology, as well as the care of a great and
ever-growing museum. In the present condition of scientific knowledge it
requires a man of very versatile intellect and extensive powers of
reading to maintain anything like an adequate acquaintance with the
current literature of any one of these subjects, much more to undertake
original observations on his own account. Even a man of Rolleston’s
powers felt the impossibility of any one person doing justice to the
chair as thus constituted, and strongly urged the necessity of dividing
it into three professorships,--one of physiology, one of comparative
anatomy, and one of human anatomy and anthropology. The work which he
did, however, contrive to find time to publish, and by which he will be
chiefly known to posterity, is remarkable for its thoroughness. He never
committed himself to writing without having completely mastered
everything that had been previously written upon the subject, and his
memoirs bristle with quotations from, and references to, authors of all
ages and all nations. The abundance with which these were supplied by
his wonderful memory, and the readiness with which, both in speaking and
writing, his thoughts clothed themselves with appropriate words,
sometimes made it difficult for ordinary minds to follow the train of
his argument through long and voluminous sentences, often made up of
parenthesis within parenthesis.
The work which was most especially the outcome of his professorial
duties is the _Forms of Animal Life_, published at the Clarendon Press
in 1870. Though written chiefly with a view to the needs of the
University students, it is capable of application to more general
purposes, and is one of the earliest and most complete examples of
instruction by the study of a series of types, now becoming so general.
As he says in the preface, “The distinctive character of the book
consists in its attempting so to combine the concrete facts of zootomy
with the outlines of systematic classification, as to enable the student
to put them for himself into their natural relations of foundation and
superstructure. The foundations may be wide, and the superstructure may
have its outlines not only filled up, but even considerably altered by
subsequent and more extensive labours; but the mutual relations of the
one as foundation and the other as superstructure which this book
particularly aims at illustrating, must always remain the same.”
Besides this work, Professor Rolleston’s principal contributions to
comparative anatomy and zoology are the following: “On the Affinities of
the Brain of the Orang-Utan,” _Nat. Hist. Review_, 1861; “On the
Aquiferous and Oviductal System in the Lamellibranchiate Molluscs” (with
Mr. C. Robertson), _Phil. Trans._, 1862; “On the Placental Structures of
the Tenrec (_Centetes ecaudatus_), and those of certain other Mammals,
with Remarks on the Value of the Placental System of Classification,”
_Trans. Zool. Soc._ 1866; “On the Domestic Cats of Ancient and Modern
Times,” _Journal of Anatomy_, 1868; “On the Homologies of certain
Muscles connected with the Shoulder-joint,” _Trans. Linn. Soc._ 1870;
“On the Development of the Enamel in the Teeth of Mammals,” _Quart.
Journ. Micros. Soc._ 1872; and “On the Domestic Pig in Prehistoric
Times,” _Trans. Linn. Soc._ 1877.
Latterly he did much admirable work in anthropology, for which he was
excellently qualified, being one of the few men who possessed the
culture of the antiquarian, historian, and philologist on the one hand,
and of the anatomist and zoologist on the other, and could make these
different branches of knowledge converge upon the complex problem of
man’s early history. The chief results of his work of this nature are
contained in his contributions to Greenwell’s _British Barrows_ (1877),
a book containing a fund of solid information relating to the early
inhabitants of this island. His last publication, and one which is, on
the whole, the most characteristic, as exhibiting his vast range of
knowledge on many different subjects, was a lecture delivered in 1879
at the Royal Geographical Society, on “The Modifications of the External
Aspects of Organic Nature produced by Man’s Interference.”
That Dr. Rolleston has not left more original scientific work behind him
is easily accounted for by the circumstances under which he lived at
Oxford. The multifarious nature of the subjects with which the chair was
overweighted; the perpetual discussions in which, during the whole term
of his office, he was engaged, consequent upon the transitional
condition of education, both at Oxford and elsewhere; the immense amount
of business thrust upon him, or voluntarily undertaken by him, of the
kind which always accumulates round the few men who are at the same time
capable and unselfish, such as questions pertaining to the local and
especially to the sanitary affairs of the town in which he lived, or
questions connected with the reform of the medical profession, arising
both within and outside the Medical Council, which latter business
constantly brought him to meetings in London; his own wide grasp of
interest in social subjects, his deep feeling of the responsibilities of
citizenship, and a sense of the duties of social hospitality, which made
his house always open to scientific visitors to Oxford,--all these
rendered impossible to him that intense concentration which is requisite
for carrying out any continuous line of research.
He was often blamed for undertaking so much and such divers kinds of
labour, so distracting to his scientific pursuits; but being by
constitution a man who could never see a wrong without feeling a burning
desire to set it right, who could never “pass by on the other side” when
he felt that it was in his power to help, nothing but actual physical
impossibility would restrain him. For several years past, when feeling
that his health and strength did not respond to the strain he put upon
them, he resorted to every hygienic measure suggested but one, and that
the one he most required--rest; but this he never would or could take.
During the last term he spent at Oxford, before his medical friends
positively forced him (though unfortunately too late) to give up his
occupations and seek change in a more genial climate, he was working at
the highest pressure, rising every morning at six o’clock, to get two
uninterrupted hours in which to write the revised edition of the _Forms
of Animal Life_, before the regular business of the day commenced.
It is impossible for those who had no personal knowledge of Rolleston to
realise what manner of man he was, and how great his loss will be to
those who remain behind him. No one can ever have passed an hour in his
company, or heard him speak at a public meeting, without feeling that he
was a man of most unusual power, of lofty sentiments, generous impulses,
marvellous energy, and wonderful command of language. In brilliant
repartee, aptness of quotation, and ever-ready illustration from poetry,
history, and the literature of many nations and many subjects, besides
those with which he was specially occupied, he had few equals. “In God’s
war slackness is infamy” might well have been his motto, for with
Rolleston there was no slackness in any cause which he believed to be
God’s war. He was impetuous, even vehement, in his advocacy of what
appeared to him true and right, and unsparing in denunciation of all
that was mean, base, and false. To those points in the faith of his
fathers which he believed to be essential he held reverently and
courageously, but on many questions, both social and political, he was a
reformer of the most advanced type. Often original in his views, always
outspoken in giving expression to them, he occasionally met with the
fate of those who do not swim with the stream, and was misunderstood;
but this was more than compensated for by the affection, admiration, and
enthusiasm with which he was regarded by those who were able to
appreciate the nobility of his character. The sentiment which guided his
life, and which he never lost an opportunity of impressing upon his
younger friends, was that contained in the beautiful lines of
Wordsworth--
We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love,
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.
When Huxley was spoken of in relation to himself, he at once expressed
the chivalrous and loyal feeling he bore towards worthy leaders in
science, by quoting the words in which Lancelot speaks of King Arthur--
In me there dwells
No greatness, save it be some far-off touch
Of greatness to know well I am not great:
There is the man.
The loss of the example afforded by such a nature, and of his elevating
influence on younger and weaker men, is to our mind a still greater
loss, both within and without the University in which he taught, than
the loss of what scientific work he might yet have performed.
Dr. Rolleston’s personal appearance corresponded with his character. Of
commanding height, broad-shouldered, with a head of unusual size,
indicating a volume of brain commensurate with his intellectual power,
clear penetrating blue eyes, and strongly-marked and expressive
features, in which refinement and vigour were singularly blended, in him
we saw just such a man as was described by the public orator at the late
Oxford Commemoration, in words with which we may conclude this notice:
“Virum excultissimi ingenii, integritatis incorruptissimæ, veritatis
amicum, et propugnatorem impavidum.”
XXII
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF SIR RICHARD OWEN[83]
Richard Owen was born at Lancaster on 20th July 1804. His father, whose
name was also Richard, was engaged in business connected with the West
Indies. His mother’s name was Catherine Parrin. He was educated at the
Grammar School at Lancaster (where one of his schoolfellows was W.
Whewell, afterwards Master of Trinity), was apprenticed to a surgeon of
the name of Harrison in that town, and studied surgery at the County
Hospital. No evidence can now be found for the statement which has
appeared in many biographical notices that when a boy he went to sea as
a midshipman, nor is there any that at a later period he had an
intention to enter the medical service of the Navy, or applied for and
obtained an appointment, as has also been stated.
In 1824 he matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, and had the good
fortune to attend the anatomical course of Dr. Barclay, then approaching
the close of a successful career as an extra-academical lecturer, whose
teaching was of a very superior order to that of the third Monro, who,
by virtue of hereditary influences, happened at that time to be the
University Professor of Anatomy. In his work _On the Nature of Limbs_,
Owen refers to “the extensive knowledge of comparative anatomy possessed
by my revered preceptor in anatomy, Dr. Barclay,” and always spoke of
him with affectionate regard.
He did not remain in Edinburgh to take his degree, but removed to St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, and passed the examination for the
membership of the Royal College of Surgeons on 18th August 1826.
His first published scientific works were in the direction of surgical
pathology, being on encysted calculus, and on the effects of ligature of
the internal iliac artery for the cure of aneurism.
At St. Bartholomew’s Hospital he soon attracted the attention of the
celebrated Abernethy, through whose influence he obtained the
appointment of Assistant Conservator to the Hunterian Museum of the
Royal College of Surgeons. This was in 1827, and it caused him to
abandon the prospect of private practice, to which he had begun to
devote himself while living in Serle Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, for
the more congenial pursuit of comparative anatomy. The Conservator of
the Museum at that time was William Clift, John Hunter’s last and most
devoted pupil and assistant, under whose faithful guardianship the
collection had been most carefully preserved during the long interval
between the death of its founder and its transference to the custody of
the College of Surgeons. From him Owen early imbibed an enthusiastic
reverence for the great master, which was continually augmented with the
closer study of his collection and works, which now became the principal
duty of his life. In 1830 and 1831 he visited Paris, where he attended
the lectures of Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, and worked in the
dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1835
he married Clift’s only daughter, Caroline, and in 1842 was associated
with him as joint Conservator of the Museum. On Clift’s retirement soon
after, he became sole Conservator, with Mr. J. T. Quekett as assistant.
He was appointed Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology in 1835, an office which he held until his retirement from
the College in 1856, and from which he took the title of “Professor
Owen,” by which he was far more widely known than by the knightly
addition of his later years.
Until the year 1852, when the Queen gave him the charming cottage called
Sheen Lodge, in Richmond Park, where he resided to the end of his life,
he occupied small apartments within the building of the College of
Surgeons; these, however inconvenient they might be in some respects,
furnished him with unusual facilities for pursuing his work by night as
well as day in the museum, dissecting rooms, and library of that
institution.
Owen’s life of scientific activity may be divided into two periods,
during each of which the nature of his work was determined to a
considerable extent by the circumstances by which he was environed. Each
of these periods embraces a term of very nearly thirty years. The first,
from 1827 to 1856, was spent at the Royal College of Surgeons; the
second, from 1856 to 1884, in the British Museum. It was in the first
that he mainly made his great reputation as an anatomist, having
utilised to the fullest possible extent the opportunities which were
placed in his way by the care of the Hunterian Museum. For many years he
worked in that institution under the happiest of auspices. From the
routine and drudgery which always take up so large a portion of the time
of a conscientious museum curator, he was relieved by the painstaking,
methodical William Clift; the far more gifted son-in-law being thus able
to throw himself to his heart’s content into the higher work of the
office. This at first mainly consisted in the preparation of that
monumental _Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological
Series of Comparative Anatomy_, founded upon Hunter’s preparations,
largely added to by Owen himself, which was published in five quarto
volumes between the years 1833 and 1840. This work, which has been taken
as a model for many other subsequently published catalogues, contains a
minute description of nearly four thousand preparations. The labour
involved in preparing it was greatly increased by the circumstance that
the origin of a large number of them had not been preserved, and even
the species of the animals from which they were derived had to be
discovered by tedious researches among old documents, or by comparison
with fresh dissections. It was mainly for aid in this work that he
engaged upon the long series of dissections of animals which died from
time to time in the Gardens of the Zoological Society, the descriptions
of which, as published in the Proceedings and Transactions of the
Society, form a precious fund of information upon the comparative
anatomy of the higher vertebrates. The series commences with an account
of the anatomy of an orang-utan, which was communicated to the first
scientific meeting of the Society, held on the evening of Tuesday, 9th
November 1830, and was continued with descriptions of dissections of the
beaver, suricate, acouchy, Thibet bear, gannet, crocodile, armadillo,
seal, kangaroo, tapir, toucan, flamingo, hyrax, horn-bill, cheetah,
capybara, pelican, kinkajou, wombat, giraffe, dugong, apteryx, wart-hog,
walrus, great ant-eater, and many others.
Among the many obscure subjects in anatomy and physiology on which Owen
threw much light by his researches at this period were several connected
with the generation, development, and structure of the Marsupialia and
Monotrema, groups which always had great interest for him. It is a
curious coincidence that his first paper, communicated to the Royal
Society (in 1832), “On the Mammary Glands of the _Ornithorhynchus
paradoxus_,” was one of a series which only terminated in almost the
last which he offered to the same Society (in 1887), being a description
of a newly excluded young of the same animal, published in the
_Proceedings_, vol. 42, p. 391.
On the completion of the _Catalogue of the Physiological Series_ his
curatorial duties led him to undertake the catalogues of the
osteological collections of recent and extinct forms. This task
necessitated minute studies of the modifications of the skeleton in all
vertebrated animals, and researches into their dentition, the latter
being finally embodied in his great work on _Odontography_ (1840-45), in
which he brought a vast amount of light out of what was previously
chaotic in our knowledge of the subject, and cleared the way for all
future work upon it. Although recent advances of knowledge have shown
that there are difficulties in accepting the whole of Owen’s system of
homologies and notation of the teeth of Mammals, it was an immense
improvement upon anything of the kind which existed before, and a
considerable part of it seems likely to remain a permanent addition to
our means of describing these organs. The close study of the bones and
teeth of existing animals was of extreme importance to him in his long
continued and laborious researches into fossil forms; and, following in
the footsteps of Cuvier, he fully appreciated and deeply profited by
the dependence of the study of the living in elucidating the dead, and
_vice versâ_. Perhaps the best example of this is to be seen in his
elaborate memoir on the Mylodon, published in 1842, entitled
_Description of the Skeleton of an Extinct Gigantic Sloth_ (_Mylodon
robustus_, Owen), _with Observations on the Osteology, Natural
Affinities, and Probable Habits of the Megatheroid Quadrupeds in
General_, a masterpiece both of anatomical description and of reasoning
and inference. A comparatively popular outcome of some of his work in
this direction was the volume on _British Fossil Mammals and Birds_,
published in 1844-46, as a companion to the works of Yarrell, Bell, and
others on the recent fauna of our island. He also wrote, assisted by Dr.
S. P. Woodward, the article “Palæontology” for the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, which, when afterwards published in a separate form,
reached a second edition in 1861.
To this first period of his life belong the courses of Hunterian
Lectures, given annually at the College of Surgeons, each year on a
fresh subject, and each year the means of bringing before the world new
and original discoveries which attracted, even fascinated, large
audiences, and did much to foster an interest in the science among
cultivated people of various classes and professions. They also added
greatly to the scientific renown of the College in which they were
given. To this period also belong the development and popularisation of
those transcendental views of anatomy--the conception of creation
according to types, and the construction of the Vertebrate
archetype--views which had great attractions and even uses in their day,
and which were accepted by many, at all events as working hypotheses
around which facts could be marshalled, and out of which grew a
methodical system, of anatomical terminology, much of which has survived
to the present time. The recognition of homology and its distinction
from analogy, which was so strongly insisted on by Owen, marked a
distinct advance in philosophical anatomy. These generalisations, first
announced in lectures at the College of Surgeons, were afterwards
embodied in two works: _The Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate
Skeleton_ (1848), and _The Nature of Limbs_ (1849).
The contributions which Owen made to our knowledge of the structure of
Invertebrate animals nearly all belong to the earlier period of his
career, one of the most important being his admirable and exhaustive
memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, founded on the dissection of a specimen
of this, at that time exceedingly rare, animal sent to him in spirit by
his friend Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney. This was illustrated by
carefully executed drawings by his own hand, and published in the year
1832, when he was only twenty-seven years of age. The Cephalopoda
continued to engage his attention, and the merits of a memoir on fossil
Belemnites from the Oxford Clay, published in the _Philosophical
Transactions_ in 1844, was the cause assigned for the award to him of
the Royal Medal in 1846. He contributed the article “Cephalopoda,” to
the _Cyclopædia of Anatomy and Physiology_ (1836), catalogued the
extinct Cephalopoda in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons
(1856), and wrote original papers on _Clavagella_ (1834), _Trichina
spiralis_ (1835), _Linguatula_ (1835), _Distoma_ (1835), _Spondylus_
(1838), _Euplectella_ (1841), _Terebratula_ (in the introduction to
Davidson’s classical _Monograph of the British Fossil Brachiopods_,
1853), and many other subjects, including the well-known essay on
“Parthenogenesis, or the Successive Production of Procreating
Individuals from a Single Ovum” (1849).
In 1843 his _Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the
Invertebrate Animals_, in the form of notes taken by his pupil, Mr. W.
White Cooper, appeared as a separate work. Of this, a second expanded
and revised edition was published in 1855. By this time, as the Royal
Society’s _Catalogue of Scientific Papers_ shows, he had been the author
of as many as 250 separate scientific memoirs.
In 1856, when Owen had reached the zenith of his fame, and was
recognised throughout Europe as the first anatomist of the day, a change
came over his career. Difficulties with the governing body of the
College of Surgeons, arising from his impatience at being required to
perform what he considered the lower administrative duties of his
office, caused him readily to take advantage of an offer from the
Trustees of the British Museum to undertake a newly-created post, that
of Superintendent of the Natural History Departments of the Museum. It
was thought that hitherto these departments, being under the direct
control of a chief who had been invariably chosen from the literary side
of the establishment, and whose title in fact was that of “Principal
Librarian,” had not obtained their due share of attention in the general
and financial administration, and that if they were grouped together and
placed under a strong administrator, who should be able to exercise
influence in advocating their claims to consideration, and who should be
responsible for their internal working, their relative position in the
establishment would be improved. Owen was accordingly placed in this
position, and bade farewell to the College of Surgeons, its museum, and
its lectures. At the British Museum, however, he encountered the
difficulties which are nearly always experienced by an outsider suddenly
imported into the midst of an existing establishment without any very
well-defined position. The Principal Librarian, Sir A. Panizzi, was a
man of strong will and despotic character, and little disposed to share
any of his authority with another. The heads of the departments,
especially Dr. J. E. Gray, Keeper of Zoology, preferred to maintain the
independence to which they were accustomed within their own sphere of
action, and to have no intermediary between them and the Trustees,
except the Principal Librarian, who, though perhaps with little
sympathy, had also, from lack of special knowledge, but little power of
interference in detail. Hence Owen found himself in a situation the
duties of which were little more than nominal, probably for him the best
that could have been, as it gave his indomitable industry full play in
the directions for which his talents were best fitted, and with the
magnificent material in the collections of the Museum at his command, he
set to work with great vigour upon a renewed series of researches, the
results of which for many years taxed the resources of most of the
scientific societies of London to publish. It followed from the nature
of the materials that came most readily to his hand, and the smaller
facilities for dissection now available than those afforded by the
College of Surgeons, that his original work was henceforth mainly
confined to osteology, and chiefly to that of extinct animals. The rich
treasures of the palæontological department were explored, named, and
described, as were also the valuable additions which poured in from
various parts of the world, attracted in many cases by Owen’s great
reputation. The long series of papers on the gigantic extinct Birds of
New Zealand, begun in the year 1839, at the College of Surgeons, with
the receipt of the fragment of a femur, upon which the first evidence of
their existence was based, was now continued at intervals as fresh
materials arrived.[84] The Marsupials of Australia, the Edentates of
South America, the Triassic Reptiles from South Africa, the
_Archæopteryx_ from Solenhofen, the Mesozoic Mammals from the Purbeck,
the Aborigines of the Andaman Islands, the Cave remains, human and
otherwise, of the South of France, the Cetacea of the Suffolk crag, the
gorilla and other Anthropoid apes, the dodo, great auk, and _Chiromys_,
and many other remarkable forms of animal life, were all subjects of
elaborate memoirs from his untiring pen. These were adorned in every
case with a profusion of admirable illustrations, drawn as often as
possible of the full size of nature. His contributions to the
publications of the Palæontographical Society, mainly upon the extinct
Reptiles of the British Isles, fill more than a thousand pages, and are
illustrated by nearly three hundred plates.
He now also found leisure to perform the pious duty of vindicating the
scientific reputation of his great predecessor, John Hunter, by
arranging and revising for publication a large collection of precious
manuscripts containing records of dissections of animals and
observations and reflections upon numerous subjects connected with
anatomy, physiology, and natural history in general. These were
published in 1861, in two closely-printed octavo volumes, entitled
_Essays and Observations in Natural History, Anatomy, Physiology,
Psychology, and Geology, by John Hunter, being his Posthumous Papers on
those subjects_. The original manuscripts had been destroyed by Sir
Everard Home in 1823, but fortunately not before William Clift had taken
copies of the greater part of them, and it was from these copies that
the work was compiled. Its publication shows that Hunter, while occupied
with a large and anxious practice--in itself labour enough for an
ordinary man--while cultivating with a passionate energy the sciences of
physiology and pathology, while collecting and arranging a museum such
as has never been formed before or since by a single individual, had
also carefully recorded a series of dissections of different species of
animals which, as his editor justly says, “if published _seriatim_,
would not only have vied with the labours of Daubenton, as recorded in
the _Histoire Naturelle_, of Buffon, or with the _Comparative
Dissections_ of Vicq d’Azyr, which are inserted in the early volumes of
the _Encyclopédie Méthodique_ and the _Mémoires de l’Académie Royale de
France_, but would have exceeded them both together.”
In 1866 were published the first and second volumes, and in 1868 the
third volume, of Owen’s own great book on the Anatomy and Physiology of
the Vertebrates.
This is the most encyclopædic work on the subject accomplished by any
one individual since Cuvier’s _Leçons d’Anatomie Comparée_, and contains
an immense mass of information mainly based upon original observations
and dissections. It is in fact a collection of nearly all his previous
memoirs arranged in systematic order, generally in the very words in
which they were originally written, and unfortunately sometimes without
the revision which advances made in the subject by the labours of others
would have rendered desirable. Very little of the classification adopted
in this work, either the primary division of the Vertebrates into
Hæmatocrya and Hæmatotherma, or the divisions into classes and
sub-classes, has been accepted by other zoologists. The division of the
Mammalia into four sub-classes of equivalent value, upheld by Owen, not
only in this work, but in various other publications issued about the
same time (Rede Lecture, etc.), founded upon cerebral characteristics,
was especially open to criticism. Though the separation of the
Monotremes and Marsupials from all the others as a distinct group
(Lyencephala) is capable of vindication, the three other sub-classes,
Lissencephala, Gyrencephala, and Archencephala, grade so imperceptibly
into each other that their distinction as sub-classes cannot be
maintained. The proposed definition of the distinguishing characters of
the brain of Man (Archencephala) from that of other Mammals gave rise to
a somewhat acute controversy, the echoes of which reached beyond the
realms of purely scientific literature. On the other hand, the radical
distinction between the two groups of Ungulates, the odd-toed and the
even-toed, first indicated by Cuvier, when treating of the fossil forms,
was thoroughly worked out by Owen through every portion of their
organisation, and remains as a solid contribution to a rational system
of classification.
The chapter called “General Conclusions” at the end of the third volume
is devoted to a summary of his views on the principal controverted
biological questions of the day, especially in relation to the teaching
of Darwin, just then coming into great prominence. Although from the
peculiarly involved style of Owen’s writing, especially upon these
subjects, it is sometimes difficult to define his real opinions, it
appears that before the publication of the _Origin of Species_, he had
“been led to recognise species as exemplifying the continuous operation
of natural law, or secondary cause, and that not only successively but
progressively.” Darwin’s special doctrine of “natural selection,”
however, he never appreciated, and his strong opposition to it caused
him, though quite erroneously, to be looked upon by those outside the
world of science as a supporter of the old-fashioned and then more
“orthodox” view of special creation. His most distinct utterance upon
this subject is contained in the following paragraph: “So, being unable
to accept the volitional hypothesis, or that of impulse from within, or
the selective force exerted by outward circumstances, I deem an innate
tendency to deviate from parental type, operating through periods of
adequate duration, to be the most probable nature, or way of operation,
of the secondary law, whereby species have been derived one from the
other.” (_Op. cit._ vol. iii. p. 807.)
His career as a lecturer did not entirely cease with his connection with
the College of Surgeons, as, by permission of the authorities of the
Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn Street, he gave several courses on
the fossil remains of animals, in the theatre of that institution, and
he held in the years 1859, 1860, and 1861, in conjunction with his
office at the British Museum, the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology
in the Royal Institution. On the revival of the annual lecture on Sir
Robert Rede’s foundation in the University of Cambridge, in 1859, he was
appointed to give the first, and took for his subject the Classification
of the Mammalia. He also occasionally lectured at the Royal Institution
on Friday evenings, his last appearance there being on 26th April 1861,
when he delivered the discourse, “On the Scope and Appliances of a
National Museum of Natural History,” to be presently referred to. In
April 1862 he gave four lectures on Birds at the London Institution.
While at the College of Surgeons he had been a member of a Government
Commission for inquiring into the health of the Metropolis; and
subsequently (1849) of one on Smithfield and the other meat markets, in
which he strongly advocated the entire suppression of intramural
slaughter-houses, and the concomitant evil of the passage of droves of
sheep and cattle through the streets of London. For the Great Exhibition
of 1851 he was on the Preliminary Committee of Organisation, and he
acted as chairman of the jury on raw materials, alimentary substances,
etc., and published an elaborate report on their awards. He also
delivered to the Society of Arts a lecture on “Raw Animal Products, and
their Uses in Manufacture.” Similar services were performed by him for
the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1858.
It has been already said that Owen took scarcely any part in the details
of the administration of the British Museum, but one subject relating to
that establishment did largely engage his attention from his first
connection with it. That the accommodation afforded by the rooms devoted
to natural history in the Museum at Bloomsbury was painfully inadequate
for the purpose was evident to him as well as to every one else. Space
must be obtained somewhere, even for the proper conservation and display
of the existing collections, to say nothing of the vast additions that
must be expected if the subject were to be represented in anything like
the way in which it deserved to be in his eyes, and Owen in this respect
had very large views. The scientific public, the officers of the Museum,
and the Trustees, were much divided as to whether it would be better to
endeavour to obtain this space in the neighbourhood of the existing
Museum, or to remove a portion of the collection to a totally distinct
locality. After some apparent hesitation, Owen threw himself strongly on
the side of those who took the latter view, being the one which seemed
to him to have the best chance of leading to a successful result, and he
strongly urged upon the Government, and upon the public generally, in
annual museum returns, lectures, and pamphlets, the desirability of the
scheme. In his address as President of the Biological Section of the
British Association at the York meeting in 1881, he has given a history
of the part he took in promoting the building of the new museum at South
Kensington, including his success in enlisting the sympathy of Mr.
Gladstone, by whose powerful aid the difficulties and opposition with
which the plan was met in Parliament were mainly overcome. His earlier
views upon the subject are fully explained in a small work entitled _On
the Extent and Aims of a National Museum of Natural History_, published
in 1862, being an expansion of the lecture he gave at the Royal
Institution in the previous year. Much controversy arose about this time
as to the best principle of museum organisation, Owen adhering to the
old view of a public exhibition on a very extensive scale, while the
greater number of naturalists of the time preferred the system of
dividing the collections into a comparatively limited public exhibition,
the bulk of the specimens being kept in a manner accessible only to the
researches of advanced students. The Royal Commission on the Advancement
of Science, of which the late Duke of Devonshire was chairman,
investigated the subject fully, and reported (in 1874) in favour of the
latter view; but in the new building in the Cromwell Road there was,
unfortunately, little provision made for carrying it out in a
satisfactory manner.
As long ago as 1859, in one of his reports on the subject to the
Trustees, Owen recommended that the new museum building, “besides giving
the requisite accommodation to the several classes of natural history
objects, as they had been by authority exhibited and arranged for public
instruction and gratification, should also include a hall or exhibition
space for a distinct department, adapted to convey an elementary
knowledge of the subjects of all the divisions of natural history to the
large proportion of public visitors not specially conversant with any of
those subjects.” The same idea, in a later publication, is thus
described: “One of the most popular and instructive features in a public
collection of natural history would be an apartment devoted to the
specimens selected to show type-characters of the principal groups of
organised and crystallised forms. This would constitute an epitome of
natural history, and should convey to the eye, in the easiest way, an
elementary knowledge of the sciences.” In every modification which the
plans of the new building underwent, a hall for the purpose indicated in
the above passages formed a prominent feature, being in the later stages
of the development of the building, called, for want of a better name,
the “Index Museum.” Though Owen gave the suggestion and designed the
general plan of the hall, the arrangement of its contents was left to
his successor to carry out.
In another part of his original scheme he was less successful. The
lecture theatre, which he had throughout urged with great pertinacity as
a necessary accompaniment to a natural history museum, was, as he says
in the address referred to above, “erased from my plan, and the
elementary courses of lectures remain for future fulfilment.”
On several other important questions of museum arrangement Owen allowed
his views, even when essentially philosophical as well as practical, to
be overruled. As long ago as December 1841, he submitted to the Museum
Committee of the Royal College of Surgeons the question of incorporating
in one catalogue and system of arrangement the fossil bones of extinct
animals with the specimens of recent osteology, and shortly afterwards
laid before the Committee a report pointing out the advantages of such a
plan. Strangely enough, though receiving the formal approval of the
Council, no steps were taken to carry it out as long as he was at the
College. He returned to the question in reference to the arrangement of
the new National Museum, and although no longer advocating so complete
an incorporation of the two series, apparently in consideration of the
interests of the division into “departments” which he found in existence
there, he says, “The department of Zoology in such a museum should be so
located as to afford the easiest transit from the specimens of existing
to those of extinct animals. The geologist specially devoted to the
study of the evidence of extinct vegetation ought, in like manner, to
have means of comparing his fossils with the collections of recent
plants.”[85] Provision for such an arrangement is clearly indicated in
all the early plans for the building, in which the space for the
different subjects is allocated, but not a trace of it remained in the
final disposition of the contents of the museum, as Owen left it in
1883.
Another essential feature of Owen’s original plan, without which, he
says, “No collection of zoology can be regarded as complete,” is a
gallery of physical ethnology, the size of which he estimated (in 1862)
at 150 ft. in length by 50 ft. in width. It was to contain casts of the
entire body, coloured after life, of characteristic parts as the head
and face, skeletons of every variety arranged side by side for facility
of comparison, the brain preserved in spirit showing its characteristic
size and distinctive structures, etc. “The series of zoology,” he says,
“would lack its most important feature were the illustrations of the
physical characters of the human race to be omitted.”
An adequate exhibition of the Cetacea, both by means of stuffed
specimens and skeletons, also always formed a prominent element in his
demand for space. “Birds, shells, minerals,” he wrote, “are to be seen
in any museum; but the largest, strangest, rarest specimens of the
highest class of animals can only be studied in the galleries of a
national one.” And again: “If a national museum does not afford the
naturalist the means of comparing the Cetacea, we never shall know
anything about these most singular and anomalous animals.”
When, however, the contents of the museum were finally arranged,
nominally under his direction, physical anthropology was only
represented by a few skeletons and skulls placed in a corner of the
great gallery devoted to the osteology of the Mammalia, and the fine
series of Cetacean skeletons could only be accommodated in a most
unsuitable place for exhibition in a part of the basement not originally
destined for any such purpose. The truth is that the division of the
museum establishment into four distinct departments, each with its own
head, left the “superintendent” practically powerless, and Owen’s genius
did not lie in the direction of such a re-organisation as might have
been effected during the critical period of the removal of the
collections from Bloomsbury and their installation in the new building.
Advancing age, also, probably indisposed him to encounter the
difficulties which inevitably arise from interference with time-honoured
traditions. At length, at the close of the year 1883, being in his
eightieth year, he asked to be relieved from the responsibilities of an
office the duties of which he had practically ceased to perform.
The nine remaining years of his life were spent in peaceful retirement
at Sheen Lodge, an ideal residence for one who had such a keen enjoyment
of the charms of Nature in every form, for, though so large a portion of
his active life had been passed among dry bones, anatomical specimens,
microscopes, and books, he retained a genuine love for out-door natural
history, and the sight of the deer and other animals in the park, the
birds and insects in the garden, the trees, flowers, and varying aspects
of the sky, filled him with enthusiastic admiration. He also had his
library around him, and it is needless to say that the habit of
strenuous work never deserted him till failing memory and bodily
infirmity made it no longer possible to continue that flow of
contributions to scientific literature which had never ceased during a
period of sixty-two years, his first and last papers being dated
respectively 1826 and 1888. His wife and only child had died some time
before, but the son (who had held an appointment in the Foreign Office)
left a widow and seven children, who, coming to reside with him at
Sheen, completely relieved his latter days of the solitude in which they
would otherwise have been passed. During the autumn of 1892 his strength
gradually failed, and he died on the 18th of December, literally of old
age. In accordance with his own expressed desire, he was buried in the
churchyard of Ham, near Richmond, in the same grave with his wife, a
large and representative assemblage of men of science being present at
the funeral ceremony.
It may be thought that the prodigious amount of work that Owen did in
his special subjects would have left him no time for any other
occupations or relaxations, but this was by no means the case. He was a
great reader of poetry and romance, and, being gifted with a wonderful
memory, could repeat by heart, even in his old age, page after page of
Milton and other favourite authors. For music he had a positive passion;
in the most busy period of his life he might constantly be seen at
public concerts, listening with rapt attention, and in his earlier days
was himself no mean vocalist, and acquired considerable proficiency in
playing the violincello. He was also a neat and careful draughtsman; the
large number of anatomical sketches he left behind him testify to his
industry in this direction. His handwriting was unusually clear and
finished, considering the vast quantity of manuscript that flowed from
his pen, for he rarely resorted to dictation or any labour-saving
process. Only those who have had to clear out rooms, official or
private, which have been long occupied by him can have any idea of the
quantity of memoranda and extracts which he made with his own hand, and
most of the books he was in the habit of using were filled with notes
and comments.
Owen’s was a very remarkable personality, both physically and mentally.
He was tall but ungainly in figure, with massive head, lofty forehead,
curiously round, prominent, and expressive eyes, high cheek bones, large
mouth and projecting chin, long, lank, dark hair, and during the greater
part of his life, smooth-shaven face, and very florid complexion. Though
in his general intercourse with others usually possessed of much of the
ceremonial courtesy of the old school, and when in congenial society a
delightful companion, owing to his unfailing flow of anecdote,
considerable sense of humour, and strongly-developed faculty of
imagination, he was not only an extremely adroit controversialist, but
could say as hard things as any one of an adversary or rival. It was to
Owen’s many-sided and very complex character that the remarkably
different estimates formed of him personally by his contemporaries was
due. Unfortunately he was often engaged in controversy, a circumstance
which led to a comparative isolation in his position among men who
followed kindred pursuits, which was doubtless painful to himself as
well as to others. It was this, combined with a certain inaptitude for
ordinary business affairs, which was the cause of his never having been
called to occupy several of the distinguished official positions in
science to which his immense labours and brilliant talents would
otherwise have fairly entitled him. Over the British Association he
presided at the meeting at Leeds in 1858, and he had his full share of
those honours and dignities to which a scientific man can aspire which
involve no corresponding duties or responsibilities. He was made a C.B.
in 1873, and a K.C.B. on his retirement from the Museum in 1884. He
received the Prussian Order “Pour le Mérite” in 1851, the Cross of the
French Legion of Honour in 1855, and was also decorated by the King of
Italy with the Order of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus, and by the Emperor
of Brazil with the Order of the Rose. He was chosen one of the eight
foreign Associates of the Institute of France in 1859. The Universities
of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin conferred upon him their honorary
degrees, and he was an honorary or corresponding member of nearly every
important scientific society in the world. The Geological Society
presented him with the Wollaston Medal in 1838, and the Royal College of
Surgeons with its Honorary Gold Medal in 1883. He was the first to
receive the gold medal established by the Linnean Society at the
centenary meeting of that body in 1888. The Royal Society, of which he
became a Fellow in December 1834, and on the Council of which he served
for five separate periods, awarded him one of the Royal Medals in 1846,
and the Copley Medal in 1851.
XXIII
REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY[86]
There is no intention in this paper of giving either a biographical
notice of Professor Huxley or an estimate of his position in science,
philosophy, or literature. Both have been done over and over again in
numerous journals and magazines that have appeared since his death. The
main facts of his career, and his great contributions to human
knowledge, must be perfectly familiar to the readers of this _Review_. I
have, however, in response to an appeal from the Editor, put down a few
personal reminiscences, gathered during a friendship of nearly forty
years, which may throw some additional light upon the character and
private life of one in whom all English-speaking people must take a deep
interest. In doing this I fear I have been obliged to introduce myself
to the notice of the reader more frequently than I should wish, but this
seems inevitable in an article of this nature, and I trust will be
forgiven for the sake of the main subject.
When Huxley returned to London from his four years’ surveying cruise in
H.M.S. _Rattlesnake_, under the command of Captain Owen Stanley, R.N.,
one of the first men of kindred pursuits who took him by the hand was
George Busk, then surgeon to the Seaman’s Hospital, the _Dreadnought_,
lying in the Thames off Greenwich. About this time Busk removed from
Greenwich to Harley Street, and although doing some practice as a
surgeon, and even attaining to the position of President of the Royal
College of Surgeons, his main occupation and chief pleasure were in
purely scientific pursuits, and his great interest in and familiarity
with microscopic manipulation, especially as applied to the structure of
lowly organised animal forms--then rather in its infancy--was a strong
bond of sympathy with Huxley. In 1852-54 they translated and edited
jointly Kölliker’s _Manual of Human Histology_, published by the
Sydenham Society. This fact shows that Huxley had already made himself
proficient in the German language, as he had also, while on board the
_Rattlesnake_, taught himself Italian, with the main object of being
able to read Dante in the original, so wide were his interests and
sympathies.
It was through Busk that I first became acquainted with Huxley. This was
shortly before his marriage, the incidents connected with which were of
a somewhat romantic character. When the _Rattlesnake_ was in Sydney
Harbour the officers were invited to a ball, and young Huxley among the
number. There for the first time he met his future wife, whose parents
resided at Sydney. A few days after they were engaged, and the ship
sailed for the Torres Straits to complete the survey of the north coast
of Australia, all communication being cut off for months at a time, and
then returned direct to England. At the end of seven years, on Huxley’s
appointment to the School of Mines, he was in a position to claim his
bride, and welcome her to their first home in St. John’s Wood. He often
used to say that to engage the affections of a young girl under these
circumstances, knowing that he would have to leave her for an indefinite
time, and with only the remotest prospect of ever marrying, was an act
most strongly to be reprobated, and he often held it out as a warning to
his children never to do anything of the kind, and yet they all married
young and all happily. Huxley’s love at first sight and constancy during
those seven long years of separation were richly rewarded, for it is
impossible to imagine a pair more thoroughly suited. I cannot help
relating a little incident which clings to my memory, though it happened
full thirty years ago. A rather cynical and vulgar-minded acquaintance
of mine said to me one day: “I saw Huxley in a box at the Drury Lane
Theatre last night. Can you tell me who was the lady with him?” After a
few words of description I said: “Oh, that was Mrs. Huxley.”--“Indeed,”
he said; “I thought it could not be his wife, he was so very attentive
to her all the evening.” As intimate friends knew, they had at first
many household troubles and cares to contend with, a large family of
young children, much ill-health, and not very abundant means, but
through it all Huxley’s patience and sweetness were admirable. The
fierce and redoubtable antagonist in the battlefield of scientific or
theological controversy was all love and gentleness at home.
The fact that he had sailed under Captain Owen Stanley, who died when in
command of the _Rattlesnake_ in Australia, brought him into very
friendly communication with the Captain’s brother, Arthur Stanley, the
late dean of Westminster, _the_ Dean, as many of us always used to, and
still do, call him, just as the first Duke of Wellington was always
called _the_ Duke. Notwithstanding the great differences of their
interests and pursuits, they remained intimate until Stanley’s death,
and to be with them when they met was a rare occasion of hearing much
delightful talk and many displays of playful wit. If I had the faculty
of a Boswell, I should have much worth narrating of many charming little
dinner parties at one or the other of our houses, when Huxley and the
Dean were the principal talkers. I remember a characteristic _rencontre_
between them which took place on one of the ballot nights at the
Athenæum. A well-known popular preacher of the Scotch Presbyterian
Church, who had made himself famous by predictions of the speedy coming
of the end of the world, was up for election. I was standing by Huxley
when the Dean, coming straight from the ballot boxes, turned towards us.
“Well,” said Huxley, “have you been voting for C?”--“Yes, indeed, I
have,” replied the Dean. “Oh, I thought the priests were always opposed
to the prophets,” said Huxley. “Ah?” replied the Dean, with that
well-known twinkle in his eye, and the sweetest of smiles. “But, you
see, I do not believe in his prophecies, and some people say I am not
much of a priest.”
Speaking of Dean Stanley, I am reminded of a very interesting meeting
which took place at my house, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, on 26th November
1878, just after his return from his visit to the United States. He had
a great wish to see Darwin, who was one of the few remarkable men of
the age with whom he was not personally acquainted. They moved in
totally different circles, Darwin having, owing to ill-health, long
given up going into general society. He had, however, a great admiration
for the Dean’s liberality, courage, and character, and was glad of the
opportunity of meeting him. So we arranged that they should both come to
lunch. They were mutually pleased with each other, although they had not
many subjects in common to talk about. Darwin was no theologian, and
Stanley did not take the slightest interest in nor had he any knowledge
of any branch of natural history, although his father was eminent as an
ornithologist and President of the Linnean Society. I once took him over
the Zoological Gardens. His remarks were, of course, original and
amusing, but the sole interest he appeared to find in any of the animals
was in tracing some human trait, either in appearance or character. The
Dean enjoyed intensely the broader aspects and beauties of nature as
shown in scenery, but the details of animal and plant life were entirely
outside his sympathies.
Another introduction consequent upon Huxley’s voyage in the
_Rattlesnake_ was to Dr. Vaughan, then Headmaster of Harrow. Mrs.
Vaughan was Captain Owen Stanley’s sister, and soon after Huxley’s
return he was asked to dine and pass the night at Harrow. This was a new
experience. The young, rough sailor-surgeon was at first quite out of
his element in the refined, scholastic, ecclesiastical society he found
himself plunged into. Among those who were present was an Oxford don
(the first of the class Huxley had ever met), whose great learning,
suave manner and air of superiority during dinner, greatly alarmed and
repelled him, as he afterwards confessed. Bed-time came, and both stood
upon the staircase, lighted candle in hand. They looked straight into
each other’s eyes, and the don addressed a few words directly to Huxley
for the first time. He was much interested, and an animated conversation
ensued. Instead of bidding each other “good night” they adjourned to a
neighbouring room, sat down and talked till two o’clock in the morning.
This was the beginning of Huxley’s life-long friendship with the late
Master of Balliol, Dr. Jowett.
It may surprise some people to know, but that he has told it himself in
an exceedingly interesting and delightfully written short
autobiographical sketch prefixed to his works, that Huxley was not in
early life anything of what is commonly called a naturalist. Most men
who have distinguished themselves in the field of zoology or
palæontology have loved the subject from their early boyhood, a love
generally shown by the formation of collections of specimens. Huxley
never did anything of the kind. His early tastes were for literature and
for engineering. He attributed the awakening of his interest in anatomy
to Professor Wharton Jones’s lectures at Charing Cross Hospital, where
he received his medical education. Wharton Jones was one of the pioneers
of microscopic research in this country; a great enthusiast in his work,
but a man of modest and exceedingly retiring disposition, and very
little known outside a small circle of friends. He published several
papers on histology in the _Philosophical Transactions_, and made a
specialty of ophthalmic surgery. Perhaps of his various contributions to
the advancement of his subject, not the least important was that of
making a scientific anatomist of Huxley.
The next man who had a real influence upon Huxley’s professional career
was Sir John Richardson, a very keen zoologist, at that time principal
medical officer at Haslar Hospital, near Portsmouth, where the naval
assistant surgeons first proceeded on appointment. It was through him
that Huxley was appointed to the surveying ship, _H.M.S. Rattlesnake_.
He was not naturalist to the expedition, as has been sometimes said;
indeed, he would at this time have been hardly qualified for such a
post, for, although he had published a short paper on the microscopic
structure of the human hair, he had as yet done no zoological work.
Moreover, the ship did carry an accredited naturalist, John
Macgillivray, who published a _Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S.
“Rattlesnake,” during 1846-50_, in two volumes (1852).
Huxley’s official duties were only with the health of the crew, and as
he had a surgeon above him, he had plenty of leisure at his command. How
this leisure was employed in laying the foundation upon which his
future distinction rested has often been told. He had his microscope
with him, and he threw himself with the greatest ardour into the
investigation of the structure of the lowly organised but beautiful
forms of animal life which abounded in the seas through which the ship
sailed, and which the surveying operations in which she was engaged gave
ample opportunities for observing under the most favourable conditions.
This was almost a new field of research. He became fascinated with it,
and his success in its pursuit was the main cause of his adopting
zoology as the principal subject to engage his energies during the rest
of his life.
As said before, Huxley, unlike many other zoologists, was never a
collector, and had not the slightest tincture of the spirit of a museum
curator. He cared for a specimen according to the facilities it afforded
for investigation. He cut it up, got all the knowledge he could out of
it, and threw it away. I believe he never made a preparation of any
kind, and he cared little for dissections sealed down in bottles.
When, in 1862, he was appointed to the Hunterian Professorship at the
College of Surgeons, he took for the subject of several yearly courses
of lectures the anatomy of the vertebrata, beginning with the primates,
and as the subject was then rather new to him, and as it was a rule with
him never to make a statement in a lecture that was not founded upon his
own actual observation, he set to work to make a series of original
dissections of all the forms he treated of. These were carried on in the
workroom at the top of the college, and mostly in the evenings, after
his daily occupation at Jermyn Street (the School of Mines, as it was
then called) was over, an arrangement which my residence in the college
buildings enabled me to make for him. These rooms contained a large
store of material, entire or partially dissected animals preserved in
spirit, which, unlike those mounted in the museum, were available for
further investigation in any direction, and these, supplemented
occasionally by fresh subjects from the Zoological Gardens, formed the
foundation of the lectures, afterwards condensed into the volume on the
Anatomy of Vertebrated Animals, published in 1871. On these evenings it
was always my privilege to be with him, and to assist in the work in
which he was engaged. In dissecting, as in everything else, he was a
very rapid worker, going straight to the point he wished to ascertain
with a firm and steady hand, never diverted into side issues, nor
wasting any time in unnecessary polishing up for the sake of
appearances, the very opposite, in fact, to what is commonly known as
“finikin.” His great facility for bold and dashing sketching came in
most usefully in this work, the notes he made being largely helped out
by illustrations. He might have been a great artist, some of his
anatomical sketches reminding me much of Sir Charles Bell’s, but he
never had time to cultivate his faculties in this direction, and, I
believe, never attempted any finished work. His power of drawing on the
black-board during the lectures was of great assistance to him and to
his audience, and his outdoor sketches, made during some of his travels,
as in Egypt, though slight were full of artistic feeling. His genius was
also conspicuously shown by the clever drawings, often full of playful
fancy, which covered the paper that happened to be lying before him when
sitting at a council or committee meeting. On such occasions his hand
was rarely idle.
It is very singular that although, as admitted by all who heard him, he
was one of the clearest and most eloquent of scientific lecturers of his
time, he always disliked lecturing; and the nervousness from which he
suffered in his early days was never entirely overcome, however little
apparent it might be to his audience. After his first public lecture at
the Royal Institution he received an anonymous letter, telling him that
he had better not try anything of the kind again, as whatever he was fit
for, it was certainly not giving lectures! Instead of being discouraged,
he characteristically set to work to mend whatever faults he had of
style and manner, with what success is well known. Nevertheless, he
often told me of the awful feeling of alarm which always came over him
on entering the door of the lecture-room of the Royal Institution, or
even the College of Surgeons, where the subject was most familiar and
the audience entirely sympathetic. He had a feeling that he must break
down before the lecture was over, and it was only by recalling to his
memory the number of times he had lectured without anything of the kind
happening, and then drawing conclusions as to the improbability of its
occurring now, that he was able to brace himself up to the effort of
beginning his discourse. When once fairly away on his subject all such
apprehensions were at an end. Such experiences are, of course, very
common, but they were probably aggravated greatly in Huxley’s case by
the ill health, that miserable, hypochondriacal dyspepsia which, as he
says himself, was his constant companion for the last half century of
his life. Bearing in mind the serious inroad this made in the amount of
time available for active employment, it is marvellous to think of the
quantity he was able to accomplish. When the time comes for forming a
just estimate of the value of his scientific work, and if quality as
well as quantity be fairly taken into account, it will, without doubt,
bear comparison with, if it will not exceed, that of any of his
contemporaries.
If, instead of taking up medicine and afterwards science as a
profession, he had gone to the bar, he must infallibly have achieved the
highest measure of success. As an advocate he could scarcely have been
surpassed. His clear, penetrating insight into the essentials of an
intricate question, the rapidity with which he swept aside all that was
irrelevant, and the forcible way in which he could state the arguments
for his own side of a case, and his brilliant power of repartee, would
have been irresistible in a court of justice. He was also free from a
quality which paralyses the effective action of many men of great mental
capacity--the faculty of seeing something at least of both sides of a
case at the same time. When he took up a cause he took it up in thorough
earnest, and it must be admitted that there was then very little chance
of his feeling any sympathy for the other side. He had some strong
prejudices against doctrines, against institutions, and against
individuals, and as his nature was absolutely honest and truthful, he
never cared to conceal them. On the other hand, no man was more loyal to
the causes he approved of or the people he liked. He could always be
relied upon to carry out to the uttermost of his power anything he had
undertaken to do. To the younger workers in his own fields of research
nothing could exceed his generous assistance, sympathy, and
encouragement. These qualities were, above all others, the main causes
of the devoted attachment he won from every one who was brought much
into personal contact with him.
In one of the recent biographical notices which have appeared of Huxley
it is said that “no man of more reverent religious feeling ever trod
this earth.” This statement has much of truth in it. If the term
“religious” be limited to acceptance of the formularies of one of the
current creeds of the world, it cannot be applied to Huxley, but no one
could be intimate with him without feeling that he possessed a deep
reverence for “whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report,” and an
abhorrence of all that is the reverse of these, and that, although he
found difficulty in expressing it in definite words, he had a pervading
sense of adoration for the infinite, very much akin to the highest
religion.
XXIV
EULOGIUM ON CHARLES DARWIN[87]
The Council of the Linnean Society has honoured me with the request that
I would say some words regarding the life and work of our illustrious
member Charles Darwin, whose name, it may be said with truth, is more
widely known throughout the civilised world than any other that has been
enrolled upon the list of Fellows of the Society.
Darwin has, moreover, special claims for consideration from us on such
an occasion as this, inasmuch as a large and very important portion of
his work was first communicated to the world by means of papers read at
our meetings and published in our Journal.
Here, on the 1st of July 1858, was read the celebrated essay “On the
Variation of Organic Beings in a State of Nature, on the Natural means
of Selection, on the Comparison of Domestic Races and True Species.”
Here also were first made known, in a succession of memoirs, extending
over many years, those remarkable investigations into the structure and
life-history of plants, “any one of which, taken on its own merits” (I
quote the words of one of our leading authorities in this department of
science), “would alone have made the reputation of any ordinary
botanist.”
Darwin’s life and Darwin’s work are, however, so familiar to every one
here, and have been so recently and so exhaustively treated of, in every
aspect in which they can be viewed, that to attempt to say anything new
upon them, or even to clothe what is well-known in any original form,
would be for me a hopeless task.
The brevity with which I will speak will therefore be not a measure of
our appreciation of the subject or of the man, but of a conviction that
few words are needed to express what we all know and all feel.
The recently published _Life and Letters_ has brought before a wide
circle of readers a most vivid presentiment of what Darwin really was.
A character so simple, so transparent, so unaffected, duly recognising
its own strength, and at the same time fully conscious of its own
imperfections, a life so singularly consistent, so steadily uniform
throughout in its aims, and so undeviatingly honest to all its
convictions: such a character and such a life, already well known to his
intimate friends, is now before the whole world revealed, as one may
say, to its very depths.
Nothing more of any importance, either of character or life, will ever
be known. Any additional detail of incident or adventure that can ever
be brought to light, any further publication of his voluminous
correspondence, would only fill in little vacuities that may be left in
the picture, but will never alter the outlines, or the colour, or the
tone. The picture, as already drawn in that book, will remain,
substantially, the same, for it is that of the man himself, and, as I
have said, of a man singularly free from the complexities and
contradictions which make up the composite character of many whose names
have risen conspicuous above those of their fellow-men. To the admirable
qualities of his domestic life, his modesty, his graciousness, his
geniality, his generous appreciation of the work and opinions of others,
justice has been fully rendered, even by the least sympathetic critics
of his scientific work. One of the most recent of these is constrained
to say, “To know Darwin was to feel attracted to him, to know much of
him was to love him.”[88]
It concerns us here to speak rather of the one great characteristic
which, throughout the whole of his lengthened career, dominated all
others, and made him what he was,--the consuming, irrepressible longing
to unravel the mysteries of living nature, to penetrate the shroud which
conceals the causes and methods by which all the wonders and all the
diversity, all the beauty--yes, and all the deformity too--which we see
around us in the life of animals and plants have been brought about.
Against our ignorance on these subjects his life was one long battle,
and in reading its history and seeing the gradual development of his
plan of operations, one is continually reminded of a great strategist
directing a vast army spread over a wide and varied field of operations;
now surveying the whole at a glance, now pressing on his various forces
wherever an opening presents itself anywhere along the line, now
carefully scrutinising the weak and the strong points of every position;
omitting no precaution where danger threatens, now bringing one branch
of the forces to bear, followed up and supported, if need be, by others
of a different kind, one after another, in close and telling array;
masses of facts, experiments, observations, and arguments thrown in to
stop a breach or strengthen any menaced or wavering post, and all
arranged, grouped, marshalled, and handled with the skill and vigilance
with which a successful general handles a living army in the conduct of
a great and complicated campaign.
To all this, most of the work which we others do is but irregular,
guerilla warfare, attacks on isolated points, mere outpost skirmishing,
while his was the indefatigable, patient, unintermittent toil, conducted
in such a manner and on such a scale that it could scarcely fail to
secure victory in the end.
The main victory gained by his work was, as we all know, the destruction
of the conception of species as being beyond certain narrow limits fixed
and unchangeable, a conception which prevailed almost universally before
his time. That this has been gained chiefly by means of Darwin’s work
and writing, there can be no doubt. Let us admit that others had
prepared the way, that the work was carried on simultaneously by many
others also, that if the present generally accepted view is true, it
must have made its way if Darwin had not lived or spoken; I say, grant
all this to the fullest, and the fact remains that he was the main agent
in the conversion of almost the whole scientific world from one to a
totally opposite conception of one of the most important operations of
nature.
Such a revolution as this, with all its momentous consequences to the
study of zoology and botany, effected in so short a space of time, is,
as has often been said, without a parallel in the history of science,
and it is one the full significance of which those who have not lived
through it, and been workers at biology in both the pre-Darwinian and
post-Darwinian epochs, must find difficulty in realising.
There is, moreover, no doubt but that this rapid conversion was much
facilitated by the fascinating nature of the theory of the operation of
natural selection in intensifying and fixing variation, as originally
propounded in these rooms independently and simultaneously by Darwin and
by Wallace. This theory has been subjected to keen criticism, and
difficulties have undoubtededly been shown in accepting it as a complete
explanation of many of the phenomena of evolution. That other factors
have been at work besides natural selection in bringing about the
present condition of the organic world, probably every one now admits,
as, I need not say, Darwin did himself. This, however, is not the
occasion to enter into a critical examination of this large and complex
subject. Indeed, the time seems scarcely yet come when we can do so with
the necessary calmness and impartiality. Prejudices on the one hand and
on the other, and the cloud of side-issues which were aroused when the
theory was first promulgated, and which prevented many from
understanding what was really implied by it, still hover around, and
many of us deem it best to rest with suspended judgment not only upon
this, but upon the various other hypotheses put forward to account for
the origin of species, and to turn again with increased interest and
zeal to investigate the facts upon which these hypotheses are based. No
one can deny that, whatever opinion may ultimately prevail regarding
Darwin and his works, the controversies that have gathered round them
have proved a marvellous stimulus to research, and have given new life
to investigations into a great variety of subjects,--subjects so diverse
as palæontology, morphology, embryology, the geographical distribution,
the habits, and the life-history of all living things,--into every
branch, in fact, of biological science.
They have made us also realise in fuller measure than ever before the
depth of the still unfathomed mysteries that confront us everywhere. The
endeavour to penetrate these mysteries, to solve some of these problems
which lie everywhere in our path in wandering through the field of
nature, is surely a most legitimate employment for the faculties of man;
and he who has devoted to this endeavour a life of patient, eager, and,
above all, honest toil, undaunted by constant physical weakness and
suffering, and has steadily persevered to the end in his one great aim,
alike through evil report and good report, deserves our gratitude and
our reverence.
Though Darwin did not tear down the curtain which obscures our gaze into
the past and lay bare to our vision the birth of life, and all its
various manifestations upon earth, as has been too rashly said by some
of his enthusiastic disciples, he lifted the veil here and there, and
gave us glimpses which will light the path of those who follow in his
steps, and, even more than this, he showed by his life and by his work,
beyond any one of the age in which we live, the true methods by which
alone the secrets of nature may be won.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement
of Science. Newcastle-on-Tyne Meeting, 11th September 1889.
[2] Presidential Address to the Museums Association at the Meeting in
London, 3rd July 1893.
[3] The corresponding figures for the year 1897-98 are: Class IV., Total
vote, £10,777,537--British Museum, £162,439.
[4] Presidential Address to the British Association for the Advancement
of Science. Report of Newcastle-on-Tyne Meeting, 1889.
[5] _Journal of the Society of Arts_, 18th December 1891.
[6] _Nature_, vol. xli. p. 177, and _infra_ p. 58.
[7] From a letter in support of the establishment of a County Museum for
Buckinghamshire (24th November 1891), and an address at the opening of
the Perth Museum (29th November 1895).
[8] Suggestions for the formation and arrangement of a museum of Natural
History in connection with a Public School. _Nature_, vol. xli. p. 177
(1889).
[9] Published under the title of “Natural History as a Vocation,” in
_Chambers’s Journal_, 10th April 1897.
[10] 3rd November 1890.
[11] Presidential Address to the Anatomical Section of the International
Medical Congress. London, 4th August 1881.
[12] By an Act of Parliament, passed in the 18th year of the reign of
George II., entitled, “An Act for making the Surgeons of London and the
Barbers of London two separate and distinct Corporations,” it was
enacted that the union and incorporation of the Barbers and Surgeons of
London, made by the Act of the 32nd year of King Henry VIII., should
from and after the 24th day of June, 1745, be dissolved, and that such
of the members of the said united Company who were Freemen of the said
Company, and admitted and approved Surgeons, within the Rules of the
said Company, and their successors, should from thenceforth be made a
separate and distinct Body Corporate and Commonalty Perpetual, which at
all times thereafter was to be called by the name of “The Master,
Governors, and Commonalty of the Art and Science of Surgeons of London.”
The first Charter of the Company dates from the first year of the reign
of King Edward IV. (A.D. 1461).
[13] _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_, vol. ix. May 1875.
[14] The hope expressed above was soon realised in the magnificent
bequest of Sir Erasmus Wilson, who died in 1884, leaving nearly the
whole of his property, amounting to upwards of £200,000, to the College
of Surgeons unfettered by any conditions. The part that I was permitted
to take in bringing about this great benefit to the Museum cause has
always been a source of unmitigated satisfaction to me.
[15] Delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 14th
February 1870.
[16] Owen in _Works of John Hunter_, Palmer’s edition, vol. iv. p. vi.
[17] An account of this transaction, with some important remarks upon it
by Mr. Clift, is appended to Professor Owen’s edition of Hunter’s
_Essays and Observations_, referred to above. The late Sir Benjamin C.
Brodie in his autobiography, prefixed to Mr. Charles Hawkins’ edition of
his works (1865, vol. i. p. 102), speaks of it in the following words:
“Some years before his [Sir Everard Home’s] death, he got great
discredit from having destroyed a considerable portion of John Hunter’s
manuscripts which had come into his possession as one of Hunter’s
executors. This act was equally unjustifiable and foolish. It was
unjustifiable because the manuscripts should have been considered as
belonging to the museum, which Parliament had purchased; and it was
foolish, because it has led to the notion that he had made use of John
Hunter’s observations for his own purposes much more than was really the
case. I had frequent opportunities of seeing these papers during nine or
ten years, in which I was accustomed, more or less, conjointly with Mr.
Clift, to assist him in his dissections. They consisted of rough notes
on the anatomy of animals, which must have been useful to Hunter
himself, or which would, I doubt not, have afforded help to Mr. Owen in
completing the catalogue of the museum; but they were not such as could
be used with much advantage by another person. In pursuing his own
investigations, Home sometimes referred to these; but I must say that,
while I was connected with him, I never knew an instance in which he did
not scrupulously acknowledge whatever he took from them, or do justice
to his illustrious predecessor. Unhappily, he was led afterwards to
deviate from this right course; and in his later publications I
recognise some things which he has given as the result of his own
observation, though they were really taken from Hunter’s notes and
drawings. One of these is a paper on the progressive motion of animals,
and another a series of engravings, representing the convolutions of the
intestinal canal, and neither of them of much scientific value.”--See
also a note on the same subject in the obituary notice of Sir B. Brodie
in the _Lancet_, 25th October 1862.
It is very possible that the extent to which Home made use of these
manuscripts had been much exaggerated; but Brodie certainly did not
fully appreciate either their value or the amount of Home’s plagiarism.
It is not in his latest writings, but in the first volume of his
lectures on Comparative Anatomy, published in 1814, that these chiefly
occur, as will be seen by the editorial notes appended by Professor Owen
to Hunter’s Essays. The only justification which can be set up for Home
is, that the observations quoted without acknowledgment were really made
by him when acting as Hunter’s pupil or assistant, and had become
incorporated in the papers of his master; but nothing of the kind
appears ever to have been alleged, and this, of course, would be no
excuse for first retaining possession of, and subsequently destroying
nearly the whole of the manuscripts.
[18] Baden Powell, _Unity of Worlds and of Nature_, 2nd edition, 1856,
p. 448.
[19] A work in many respects far in advance of the age in which it
appeared (1844). It was published anonymously, but is now known to have
been written by Robert Chambers of Edinburgh.
[20] Charles Darwin was grandson of Erasmus Darwin, mentioned above.
[21] _Natural Selection not inconsistent with Natural Theology: a Free
Examination of Darwin’s Treatise on the Origin of Species._ Boston,
1861.
[22] For the bearings of the Evolution theory of Creation on this
subject, see Baden Powell, _op. cit._
[23] Owen on the “Aye-Aye.” _Trans. Zool. Soc._ vol. v. p. 92.
[24] In New Guinea and North Australia there are actually species of
kangaroos, constituting the genus _Dendrolagus_, which habitually reside
in trees; not climbing among the smaller boughs, as is the manner of the
koalas and opossums, but sitting on the larger horizontal branches.
Their feet present a marked deviation from those of the common kangaroos
of the plains, the deviation being _in the direction_ of the feet of the
koala. They are shorter and broader; the lateral toes are relatively
more developed, and are on the same plane with the fourth or large toe,
and although they have no hallux or first toe, the bone of the tarsus
(internal cuneiform), which usually supports that digit, is of
relatively larger size.
The phalangers, a family of climbing vegetable-feeding marsupials, form
another link in the structure of their feet between the kangaroo and the
koala, though most nearly resembling the latter. On the other hand, in a
very remarkable little ground-dwelling animal, the _Chœropus_, the
kangaroo type of foot is modified in the opposite direction, all the
digits except the fourth being reduced to excessively rudimentary
proportions.
[25] In examining into the validity of the derivative hypothesis, much
is to be expected from the study of the geographical distribution of
animals and plants, both in present and in former times; but such study
will be quite in vain unless morphologists have first determined
correctly the affinities of the animals and plants treated of. It is
obvious that all inferences from geographical or palæontological
research are useless, unless the classification on which they are based
is at least approximately true to nature.
[26] The two great branches of the mammalia referred to are--(1) the
Monodelphous, or placental, comprising the great bulk of the animals of
the class; and (2) the Didelphous, or nonplacental. The latter, which
are the animals commonly known as _Marsupialia_, or pouched animals,
though varying extremely in the structure of the feet, teeth, etc., also
in their food and manner of life, all agree together, and differ from
the monodelphia in numerous important characters of the skeleton, brain,
heart, and especially of the reproductive organs and processes. The
marsupials are, at the present day, entirely confined to Australia, its
neighbouring islands, and the American continent, though, in former
times, they had a more extensive geographical range.
[27] Published originally in the _Month_, 1869.
[28] Paper read at the Church Congress (Reading Meeting), 2nd October
1883.
[29] Reply to an Address presented to the President of the British
Association by representatives of the various Trade Societies
constituting the Newcastle-on-Tyne, Gateshead, and District
Trades-Council at the Working Men’s Meeting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 14th
September 1889.
[30] Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th April 1873.
This essay represents the state of our knowledge twenty-five years ago.
The accumulation of facts since that date, especially through the
labours of the able palæontologists working in the rich fields of
discovery in America has been enormous. If the essay were recast now,
the scheme of classification at p. 144 would be crowded with additional
names, but the main outlines would remain the same. Many gaps would be
filled up, which would strengthen the argument, but it is perhaps more
easily followed in the comparatively simple form in which it is here
presented.
[31] Presidential address in the Department of Zoology and Botany.
British Association. Dublin Meeting, 15th August 1878.
[32] Address to the General Meeting of the Society, held in the
Zoological Gardens in celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of Her
Majesty’s reign, 16th June 1887.
[33] Who was present at the reading of this address.
[34] Lecture at the Royal Colonial Institute, 8th January 1895.
[35] All the figures which illustrate this paper are taken, with the
kind permission of the publishers, Messrs. A. & C. Black, from Flower &
Lydekker’s _Introduction to the Study of Mammals_.
[36] The skeleton is almost the only part of a whale which can be
satisfactorily preserved, but life-sized models of the principal species
will soon be exhibited in the British Natural History Museum.
[37] Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th May 1883.
[38] The muscles of the forearm of an allied species, _Balænoptera
rostrata_, were described by Macalister in 1868, and Perrin in 1870.
[39] British Association for the Advancement of Science (York Meeting),
1st September 1881.
[40] _Spectator_, 23rd April 1881.
[41] _Endymion_, vol. ii. p. 205.
[42] Webster’s _Dictionary_.
[43] British Association for the Advancement of Science (Oxford
Meeting), 9th August 1894.
[44] Address delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 27th January 1885.
[45] The Malay of Blumenbach was a strange conglomeration of the then
little known Australian, Papuan, and true Malay types.
[46] Further information upon the Negrillos and Bushmen, and later views
as to their relations to each other and to the true Negroes, will be
found in the article which follows “On the Pygmy Races of Men.”
[47] Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 13th April 1888.
[48] Herodotus, Book ii. 32, Rawlinson’s translation, p. 47.
[49] _Eléments d’Anthropologie Général_, p. 463. Paris, 1885.
[50] See “On the Osteology and Affinities of the Natives of the Andaman
Islands” (_Journal Anthropological Institute_, vol. ix. p. 108, 1879);
and “Additional Observations on the Osteology of the Natives of the
Andaman Islands” (_ibid._ vol. xiv. p. 115, 1884).
[51] The scattered information upon this subject was first collected
together by Hamy in his “Essai de co-ordination des Matériaux récemment
recueillis sur l’ethnologie des Négrilles ou Pygmées de l’Afrique
équatoriale,” _Bull. Soc. d’Anthropologie de Paris_, tome ii. (ser.
iii.), 1879, p. 79.
[52] _A Journey to Ashango-land_, 1867, p. 315.
[53] _Through the Dark Continent_, vol. ii.
[54] _La Gazette Géographique_, 1887, p. 153, quoted by Quatrefages.
[55] In a paper read before the Anthropological Institute of Great
Britain and Ireland, 14th February 1888, and published in the August
number of the Journal.
[56] In his letters Emin speaks of an Akka man as “3 feet 6 inches”
high, though this does not profess to be an observation of scientific
accuracy as does the above. He says of this man that his whole body was
covered by thick, stiff hair, almost like felt, as was the case with all
the Akkas he had yet examined.
[57] Since this was written indications of the existence of a dwarf
tribe in Mount Atlas have been collected and published by Mr. R. G.
Haliburton, and Sergi and Kollman have adduced evidence tending to show
the former extension of small races into several regions of Southern and
Central Europe.
[58] The substance of this essay was delivered as a lecture at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain, on the evening of Friday, 7th May 1880,
and subsequently published in the _Proceedings_ of that body. It was
republished as a separate work with additional illustrations (Macmillan
& Co., 1881).
[59] See _Bits and Bearing-Reins_, by Edward Fordham Flower: London,
1879.
[60] A word used by the natives of Tahiti, spelt _tattowing_ by Cook,
who gives a minute account of the method in which it is performed in
that island. _First Voyage_, vol. ii. p. 191.
[61] _First Voyage_, vol. ii. p. 633.
[62] _Voyage Round the World_, ed. 1717, vol. i. p. 32.
[63] H. H. Bancroft, _Native Races of the Pacific States of North
America_, vol. i. 1875.
[64] See Bancroft, _op. cit._ vol. i., for numerous citations from
original observers regarding these customs.
[65] _Heart of Africa_, vol. i. p. 297.
[66] The mutilation of both lips was also observed by Rohlfs among the
women of Kadje, in Segseg, between Lake Tsad and the Benwe.
[67] _Cook’s First Voyage_, vol. iii. p. 456.
[68] Hamy, _Revue d’Anthropologie_, January 1879, p. 22.
[69] A tribe of Indians inhabiting the neighbourhood of the Columbia
River, North America.
[70] Bancroft, _op. cit._ vol. i. p. 238.
[71] T. K. Townsend, _Journey to the Columbia River_, p. 175.
[72] Vol. iv. p. 388.
[73] Morton’s _Crania Americana_, p. 116.
[74] A gentleman of advanced age lately [1879] showed me a circular
depression round the upper part of his head, which he believed had been
produced in this manner, as the custom was still prevailing at the time
of his birth in the district of Norfolk, of which he was a native.
[75] Sydenham Society’s edition, by Dr. Adam, vol. i. p. 270.
[76] Gosse, “Essai sur les Déformations artificielles du Crane,”
_Annales d’Hygiene_, 2 ser. tom. iv. p. 8.
[77] Ample references to the literature of artificially produced
deformities of the cranium are given by Prof. Rolleston, in Greenwell’s
_British Barrows_ (1877), p. 596. To these may be added, Lenhossek, _Des
Déformations artificielles du Cranes_, etc., Budapest, 1878, and
Topinard, “Des Déformations ethniques du Crane,” in the _Revue d’
Anthropologie_, July 1879, p. 496.
[78] American missionary at Swatow; _Times_, 2nd September 1880.
[79] Dr. Jamieson says, “The fashionable length for a Chinese lady’s
foot is between 3½ and 4 inches, but comparatively few parents succeed
in arresting growth so completely. The above, taken from a woman in the
middle station of life, measures almost exactly 5 inches.”
[80] It seems to be a very common idea with artists and sculptors, as
well as anatomists, that the second toe ought to be longer than the
first in a well-proportioned human foot, and so it is conventionally
represented in art. The idea is derived from the Greek canon, which in
its turn was copied from the Egyptian, and probably originally derived
from the negro. It certainly does not represent what is most usual in
our race and time. Among hundreds of bare and therefore undeformed feet
of children I lately examined in Perthshire, I was not able to find one
in which the second toe was the longest. As in all apes--in fact, in all
other animals--the first toe is considerably shorter than the second, a
long great toe is a specially human attribute, and instead of being
despised by artists, it should be looked upon as a mark of elevation in
the scale of organised beings.
[81] See, among many others, the section headed “Improprieties of
Dress,” in Dr. Gaillard Thomas’s _Practical Treatise on the Diseases of
Women_ (5th edit. 1881, p. 45), for convincing proofs (not mere general
declamation) of the ill effects arising from tight-lacing.
[82] From the _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. xxxiii. 1882,
with slight alterations.
[83] From the _Proceedings of the Royal Society_, vol. lv. 1894, with
slight alterations.
[84] Much misconception as to the real nature of such researches exists
in the popular mind, and is perpetually reproduced in quasi-scientific
literature. It is commonly said that “Owen evolved a complete extinct
creature from the fragment of a single bone.” The “restoration” of
_Dinornis_ especially is quoted as a triumph of inductive reasoning,
whereas it was simply the empirical application of existing knowledge.
Direct comparison of the fragment with the bones already in the Museum
having shown that it most closely resembled the femur of the existing
ostrich, but was of larger size, all that was really “predicted” or
“evolved” was that a bird having a thigh bone like that of an ostrich,
but of larger size, had existed in New Zealand. Another well-known but
more daring instance of inference as to the general characters and
habits of an extinct animal from a very slender foundation was less
fortunate. A mutilated skull from Australia, with a tooth of very
remarkable form, was described in 1859, as indicating “one of the
fellest and most destructive of predatory beasts,” and named accordingly
_Thylacoleo carnifex_. Upon the same empirical principle as in the
former case, the tooth had been compared with various teeth of known
animals, and appeared to resemble one which is characteristic of many
recent carnivorous animals, especially lions and tigers. The
resemblance, however, was a very superficial one, and the search for its
nearest analogue was unfortunately not carried far enough, or it would
have been found in a group of Marsupials of which the existing members
are harmless, vegetable feeders. When the remainder of the dentition was
discovered it was seen that the famous _Thylacoleo_ really belonged to
this group, and had no claims to the attributes assigned to it.
Nevertheless, notwithstanding the abundant demonstration of its fallacy,
Owen continued, with characteristic tenacity, to maintain to the last
his original assumption, never acknowledging that, however valid his
reasoning might have been, it was entirely vitiated by its foundation
upon false premises.
[85] _On the Extent and Aims of a National Museum of Natural History_,
2nd edit. 1852, p. 7.
[86] _The North American Review_, September 1895.
[87] Centenary Meeting of the Linnean Society, 24th May 1888.
[88] The Duke of Argyll.
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