6th Nov.
Proressor Ratzzt has, in his History of Mankind collected a very large number of facts regarding the races of mankind. The English edition, translated by A. J. Butler, comes out with an introduction by Professor B. R. Tyler of Oxford. It is particularly full on the history of the lower races of mankind. Allusions are occasionally made to the Chinese, the Hindus, and the Japanese, but it resembles on the whole the works of the English ethnologists in the circumstances that it treats more of the savage than of the civilised portion of mankind. The illustrations are very numerous and excellent in their manipulation; the art of pictorial illustration has made great progress since Prichard's time. His works had not the great advantage possessed in this respect by authors of to-day. There is no small additional pleasure felt by readers of books of travels and geographical trea-rises like this, in the truthful pictures rendered possible by the advance recently made in-the art of book illustration.
Ratzel believes, as Darwinian thinking obliges us to believe, in the unity of the human race. Yet he notes that for thousands of years certain races have remained the same in place, in speech, and in physical appearance, while other races have gone forward wonderfully in knowledge, in religion, and in useful invertions. What has made the amazing difference between the Troglodytes of Herodotus, swift-fonted, speaking a peculiar tongue, and isolated in their mountain home in Africa, the same during two millenniums, and the never-resting Europeans who, on the highway of progressing intellect, in politics, and in a lofty social and religious ideal, are ever pressing forward with a noble emulation Dr. Ratzel does not state the reasons as distinctly as one could wish, but they really are to be sought in change of locality, in collision of ideas, in the mixing of races, and in the influence of inspired men on whose thought has shone a ray from the uncreated light above. Mountain tribes and islanders are condemned to stagnation, till they are visited and elevated by the more favoured people among whom civilisation has flourished. Here then appears to be a defect in the mode of working pursued by Dr. Ratzel and other eminent ethnologists. he most interesting part of the history of mankind is that where civilisation has operated powerfully. This is not sufficiently considered by some influential writers. Dr. Ratzel's first volume gives his general views on Ethnology, and contains a particular account of American, Malay, Polynesian, and Australian races. These are all on the outskirts of humanity, and have migrated to their present homes from the old continent where man began his career. Unquestionably we are at a disadvantage if we desire to know from islanders the earliest history of mav, They become degraded by isola~ tion. Stone architecture and sculpture as Dr. Ratzel tells us are now lost arts in the Pacific. As in the middle ages the Europeans, when the intellectual progress of Greece and Rome decayed, sank to a lower stage, so it was with the Australians and Polynesians, they sank to their present level. The Australian are farthest away and they have a quinary arithmetic. The Malays are near Asia and partly in Asia, and they maintain a decimal system. The quinary arithmetic is a drop down from the decimal arithmetic. 'I'he oldest arithmetic we know is decimal and it was used by the earliest races, such as the Babylonians, Bzyptians, and Chinese, The true theory of anthropology then rests on the antiquity of civilisation, Man's reason wasa fresh gift from heaven at the first and the result is seen in the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.