Address delivered at the second annual meeting of the Anthropological Society of London / by James Hunt.

  • Hunt, James, 1833-1869.
Date:
[1865]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the second annual meeting of the Anthropological Society of London / by James Hunt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    scientific writers have attached to the word anthropology. M. Flourens observes,'* “ There never was a scholar, author, or philosopher who seemed more adapted to endow us with the admirable science of anthropology.” I need go no further in tracing the meaning of this word, as we must all agree that it is admirably exemplified in the writings of the father of the science, the illustrious Blumenbach. I will now examine the origin and different meanings attached to the word ethnograjrhy. - Mr. Bendyshe thinks it was first used by Niebuhr, but in France it is generally considered that M. Balbi invented the word. I think, however, that the word was first used in Germany ; for we find both the words ethnographie and ethnographe are used in Campe’s edition of A delung, 1807-12, with an explanation, Volksbeschreibung, description of peoples. Nearly twenty years later, Balbi, in the introduction to his Atlas Ethnographique, Paris, 1826, p. 69, says : 11 Ethnographie and ethno- graphe—These two terms should, strictly speaking, be only applied to the science having for its object the classification of peoples, as ethnos signifies in the Greek, people. But as the study of languages, especially that part which treats of their classification, has, as yet, no name generally adopted ; that the term linguistique, borrowed from the German, is displeasing to some savants, and as the terms glosso- grapliie and glossographe, which are more appropriate, cannot be em- ployed in the sense we require, we thought that we might venture to further extend the terms ethnographie and ethnographe, and include in them the classification of languages. In point of fact, if people are only people because they speak different languages, the classifica- tion of peoples will correspond to the classification of languages, and thus the term ethnographie may, it appears to us, supplant those of linguistique and glossographie, or that of idiomographie, as proposed by Malte-Brun. For want of better terms, we consider ourselves autho- rised to use the terms ethnographie and ethnographe in the sense indi- cated, in order to avoid circumlocution.” A very lucid definition of ethnography is given by Cardinal Wise- man in his lecture in 1836 :—“I mean ethnography, or the classifica- tion of nations from the comparative study of languages, a science born, I may say, almost within our memory.f “ This science is also called by the French linguistique, or the study of language; it is also known by the name of comparative philology. These names will sufficiently declare the objects and methods of * Loc. cit., p. 58. + Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, London, p. 0.