If the simple excellence of a book were a sufficient reason for making it the only one belonging to the sciences which it professed to illustrate, few writers would be desirous of attempting a systematic work upon the Natural History of their species, after the admirable Physical History of Mankind, by the late and lamented Dr. Prichard,—a work which even those who are most willing to defer to the supposed superior attainments of Continental scholars, are not afraid to place on an unapproached eminence in respect to both our own and other countries. The fact of its being the production of one who was at one and the same time a physiologist amongst physiologists, and a scholar amongst scholars, would have made it this; since the grand ethnological desideratum required at the time of its publication, was a work which, by combining the historical, the philological, and the anatomical methods, should command the attention of the naturalist, as well as of the scholar. Still it was a work of a rising rather than of a stationary science; and the very stimulus which it supplied, created and diffused a spirit of investigation, which—as the author himself would, above all men, have desired—rendered subsequent investigations likely to modify the preceding ones. A subject that a single book, however encyclopÆdic, can represent, is scarcely a subject worth taking up in earnest.

Besides this, there are two other reasons of a more special and particular nature for the present addition to the literature of Ethnology.

I. For each of the great sections of our species, the accumulation of facts, even in the eleventh hour, has out-run the anticipations of the most impatient; indeed so rapidly did it take place during the latter part of Dr. Prichard's own lifetime, that the learning which he displays in his latest edition, is, in its way, as admirable as the bold originality exhibited in the first sketch of his system, published as early as 1821; rather in the shape of a university thesis than of a full and complete production. Thus—

For Asia, there are the contributions of Rosen to the philology of Caucasus; without which (especially the grammatical sketch of the Circassian dialects) the present writer would have considered his evidence as disproportionate to his theory. Then, although matters of ArchÆology rather than of proper Ethnography, come in brilliant succession, the labours of Botta, Layard, and Rawlinson, on Assyrian antiquity, to which may be added the bold yet cautious criticism and varied observations of Hodgson, illustrating the obscure Ethnology of the Sub-Himalayan Indians, and preeminently confirmatory of the views of General Briggs and others as to the real affinities of the mysterious hill-tribes of Hindostan. Add to these much new matter in respect to the Indo-Chinese frontiers of China, Siam, and the Burmese Empire; and add to this the result of the labours of Fellowes, Sharpe, and Forbes, upon the monuments and language of Asia Minor. I do not say that any notable proportion of these latter investigations have been incorporated in the present work; their proper place being in a larger and more discursive work. Nevertheless, they have helped to determine those results to the general truth of which the present writer commits himself.

Africa has had a bright light thrown over more than one of its darkest portions by Krapff for the eastern coast, by Dr. Beke for Abyssinia, by the Tutsheks for the Gallas and Tumalis, by the publications of the Ethnological Society of Paris, and the researches of the American and English Missionaries for many other of its ill-understood and diversified populations, especially those to the south and west.

The copious extract from Mr. Jukes's Voyage of the Fly, show at once how much has been added; yet, at the same time, how much remains to be learned in respect to our knowledge of New Guinea; whilst the energy of the Rajah Brooke has converted Borneo, from a terra incognita, into one of the clear points of the ethnological world.

In South America, although many of the details of Sir Robert Schomburgk were laid before the world previous to the publication of the fifth volume of the Physical History, many of them, though now published, were at that time still in manuscript.

The great field, however, has been the northern half of the New World; and the researches which have illustrated this have illustrated Polynesia and Africa as well. What may be called the personal history of the United States Exploring Expedition, was published in 1845. The greatest mass, however, of philological data ever accumulated by a single enquirer—the contents of Mr. Hale's work on the philology of the voyage—is recent. The areas which this illustrates are the Oregon territory and California; and the proper complements to it are Pickering's work on the Races of Man, the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, and the last work of the venerable Gallatin on the Semi-civilized nations of America.

Surely these are elements pregnant with modifying doctrines!

II. For each of the great sections of our species, the present classification presents some differences, which if true, are important. Whether such novelties (so to say) are of a value at all proportionate to that of the fresh data, is a matter for the reader rather than the writer to determine—the latter is satisfied with indicating them. The extension of the Seriform group, so as to include the Caucasian Georgians and Circassians on the one side, and the Indians of Hindostan on the other; the generalization of the term Oceanic so as to include the Australians and Papuans—the definitude given to the Micronesian origin of the Polynesians—the new distribution of the Siberian SamÖeids, Yeniseians, and Yukahiri—the formation of the class of Peninsular MongolidÆ, so as to affiliate the Americans (previously recognised as fundamentally of one and the same stock) with the north-eastern Asiatics—the sequences in the way of transition from the Semitic Arab to the Negro—the displacement of the Celtic nations, and the geographical extension given to the original Slavonians, are points for which the present writer is responsible; not, however, without previous minute investigation. The proofs thereof lie in tables of vocabularies, analyses of grammars, and ethnological reasonings, far too elaborate to be fit for aught else than a series of special monographs; not for a general view of the human species, as classified according to its varieties.

This classification is the chief end of his work; and, more than anything else, it is this attempt at classification which has given a subordinate position to certain other departments of his subject. Where such is not the case, one of three reasons stands in its place to account for the matters enlarged upon, apparently at the expense of others.

1. The novelty of the information acquired.

2. The extent to which the subject has been previously either overlooked or thrown in the back-ground.

3. And, finally (though perhaps the plea is scarcely a legitimate one), the degree of attention which has been paid to the particular question by its expositor.

London, July 25th, 1850.

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