tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[2].” No man need draw a clearer line between anthropology and ethnology than this. Of the systematic classification, which philology has so especially promoted, no signs occur in his treatise; on the other hand, his appreciation of the effects of difference in physical conditions is well-founded in substance, and definitely expressed. To this he attributes the contrast between the Negro, the American, and the African, and, as a natural result, he commits himself unequivocally to the doctrine of the unity of the species.

Linnæus took less cognizance of the species to which he belonged; the notice in the first edition of the Systema Naturæ being as follows:—

Now both Buffon and Linnæus limit their consideration of the bodily structure of man to the phænomena of colour, skin, and hair; in other words, to the so-called soft parts.

From the Greek word osteon = bone, we have the anatomical term osteology = the study of the bony skeleton.

This begins with the researches of the contemporary and helpmate of Buffon. Daubenton first drew attention to the base of the skull, and, amongst the parts thereof, to the foramen ovale most especially. Through the foramen ovale the spinal chord is continued into the brain, or—changing the expression—the brain prolonged into the spinal chord; whilst by its attachments the skull is connected with the vertebral column. The more this point of junction—the pivot on which the head turns—is in the centre of the base of the skull, the more are the conditions of the erect posture of man fulfilled; the contrary being the case if the foramen lie backward, as is the case with the ape as compared with the Negro, and, in some instances, with the Negro as compared with the European. I say in some instances, because the backward position of the foramen ovale in the Negro is by no means either definite or constant. Now the notice of the variations of the position of the foramen ovale—one of the first specimens of ethnological criticism applied to the hard parts of the human body—is connected with the name of Daubenton.

The study of the skull—for the skeleton is now dividing the attention of investigators with the skin and hair—in profile is connected with that of Camper. This brings us to his well-known facial angle. It means the extent to which the forehead retreated; sloping backwards from the root of the nose in some cases, and in others rising perpendicularly above the face.

Now the osteology of Daubenton and Camper was the osteology that Blumenbach found when he took up the subject. It was something; but not much.

In 1790, Blumenbach published his anatomical description of ten skulls—his first decade—drawn up with the special object of showing how certain varieties of mankind differed from each other in the conformation of so important an organ as the skull of a reasonable being—a being thereby distinguished and characterized.

He continued his researches; publishing at intervals similar decades, to the number of six. In 1820, he added to the last a pentad, so that the whole list amounted to sixty-five.

It was in the third decade, published A.D. 1795, that an unfortunate skull of a Georgian female made its appearance. The history of this should be given. Its owner was taken by the Russians, and having been removed to Moscow died suddenly. The body was examined by Professor Hiltenbrandt, and the skull presented to De Asch of St. Petersburg. Thence it reached the collection of Blumenbach, of which it seems to have been the gem—“universus hujus cranii habitus tam elegans et venustus, ut et tantum non semper vel indoctorum, si qui collectionem meam contemplentur, oculos eximia sua proportionis formositate feriat.” This encomium is followed by the description. Nor is this all. A plaster cast of one of the most beautiful busts of the Townley Museum was in possession of the anatomist. He compared the two; “and so closely did they agree that you might take your oath of one having belonged to the other”—“adeo istud huic respondere vides, ut illud hujus prototypo quondam inhæsisse pejerares.” Lastly, he closes with an extract from Chardin, enthusiastically laudatory of the beauty of the women of Georgia, and adds that his skull verifies the panegyric—“Respondet ceteroquin formosum istud cranium, quod sane pro canone ideali habere licet, iis quæ de summa Georgianæ gentis pulcritudine vel in vulgus nota sunt.”

At the end of the decade in question he used the epithets Mongolian, Æthiopian, and Caucasian (Caucasia varietas).

In the next (A.D. 1808), he speaks of the excessive beauty—the ideal—the normal character of his Georgian skull; and speaks of his osteological researches having established a quinary division of the Human Species; naming them—1. The Caucasian; 2. The Mongolian; 3. The Æthiopic; 4. The American; and 5. The Malay.

Such is the origin of the term Caucasian; a term which has done much harm in Ethnology; a term to which Blumenbach himself gave an undue value, and his followers a wholly false import. This will be seen within a few pages. Blumenbach’s Caucasian class contained—

• 1. Most of the Europeans.
• 2. The Georgians, Circassians, and other families of Caucasus.
• 3. The Jews, Arabs, and Syrians.

In the same year with the fourth decade of Blumenbach, John Hunter gave testimony of the value of the study of Man to Man, by a dissertation with a quotation from Akenside on the title-page—