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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    _ THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 17 As many of the terms of modern ethnography have not yet found their way into the dictionaries, I shall offer a short explanation of the meaning of this word, for the benefit of those readers who have not paid particular attention to that science.”*' “ These remarks on the ethnography of the Bible.”f Infact, nothing can he more incomplete, contradictory, and unsa- tisfactory than the ethnography of Genesis. . . . All this shows that we can rely no more upon its ethnography than upon its geography, astronomy, cosmogony, geology, zoology, etc.”J From an attentive perusal of the writings of Dr. Prichard it will be gathered, that he was greatly perplexed as to the meaning which should be given to the words ethnology and ethnography. In the second edition of his Natural History of Man, § he thus uses the term ethnology, Our contemporaries are becoming more and more con- vinced that the history of nations termed ethnology, must be mainly founded on the relations of their languages.” In the same work|| he writes a chapter on American Ethnology, in which he says, Galla- tin is still the chief work of authority on the ethnology of the Northern Americans, and the only work in which these races are classified ac- cording to the extent of knowledge as yet acquired by the distinc- tions and affinities of their languages.” There is a chapter On Indian Ethnography” and one entitled Ethnography of the ancient Egyptians.” This chapter opens with the following sentence:—A most interesting and really important addition has lately been made to our knowledge of the physical character of the ancient Egyptians.” In his preface to the same work^j he speaks thus :—Very brief indeed must necessarily be a summary of universal ethnography.” An examination of this and other passages in Dr. Prichard’s writings, leads to the opinion that ethnology was used chiefly in connection with lan- guage, and ethnography with physical character. Dr. Prichard was well aware that such a distinction was not accepted by his fellow workers; and there was published by a student of anthropology, the ‘ accomplished Dr. S. G. Morton, a paper entitled Observations on Egyptian Ethnology, derived from Anatomy, History, and the Monu- Sments.” The word ethnology does not occur in the seventh edition of the Encyclopaedia Dritannica, 1842; nor in the Encyclopaedia Metropoli- fi tana; nor in Todd’s Johnson; nor in the Penny Cyclopcedia; nor in Brande’s Dictionary of Science, 1842, although in all these works {i the word anthropology occurs. * Hotze, p. 457. f Pago 512. 1 Loc. cit., p. 611. § Published in 1845, p. 152. || Loc. cit., p. 584. H Loc. cit., p. vii. c