In this conclusion he is borne out by all analogy of nature, in which he finds frequent evidences of difference produced by variation, but no one solitary example of independent creation. Are not all the branches of a young tree parts of the same organism; and yet one will be seen to throw up its shoots with a vigorous and rapid growth, whilst another turns towards the ground and ultimately decays? Not to mention the variations produced by the breeding of animals, with which we are all more or less familiar, we see under our own eyes families of men diverging in this manner. One branch, owing to causes familiar to us in everyday life, will become highly cultivated, whilst another continues to live on in a low condition of life, so that in the course of a few years the disparity, mental and physical, between these two branches, bearing the same name, will be greater, in proportion to the time of separation, than that which, in the course of countless ages, has separated the black from the white man.
At the present time there is a tendency to rectify these inequalities, whether in regard to our own or to other races, and there can be little doubt that in the course of time, all that remains of the various races of mankind will be brought under the influence of one civilization. But as this progressive movement is often led by men who have not made the races of mankind their study, they are perpetually falling into the error of supposing, that the work of countless ages of divergence, is to be put to rights by Act of Parliament, and by suddenly applying to the inferior races of mankind laws and institutions for which they are about as much fitted as the animals in the Zoological Gardens.
In conclusion, I have only a few words to say upon the defects of our ethnographical collections generally. It will be seen that in order to exhibit the continuity and progression of form, I have been obliged to collect and put together examples from many different museums; and, as it is, it will have been noticed that many links of connexion are evidently wanting. This is owing, in a great measure, to the very short period during which the arts and customs of primaeval races have been made the subject of scientific investigation; but it also arises from the absence of system on the part of travellers and collectors, who in former times appear to have had but little knowledge of the evidence which these specimens of the industry of the aborigines are destined to convey, and who have, therefore, neglected to bring home from the various regions they visited all the varieties of the several classes of implements which each country is capable of affording, thinking that one good example of a tool or weapon might be taken as a sample of all the rest.
I am not so presumptuous as to suppose that the particular arrangement, which I have adopted, may not require frequent modification as our evidence accumulates; but I trust that I shall at least have made it apparent to those who have followed the course of my argument, that without the connecting links which unite one form with another, an ethnographical collection can be regarded in no other light than a mere toy-shop of curiosities, and is totally unworthy of science.
Owing to the wide distribution of our Army and Navy, the members of which professions are dispersed over every quarter of the globe and have ample leisure for the pursuit of these interesting studies, this Institution possesses facilities for forming a really systematic collection of savage weapons, not perhaps within the power of any other Institution in the world. The time is fast approaching when this class of prehistoric evidence will no longer be forthcoming. The collection is already what, for this country, must be regarded as a good one, and if I may venture to hope that the remarks I have now the honour of making will be of service in collecting the materials for the improvement of it, I trust it may be thought that my labours and your patience will not have been thrown away.
PRIMITIVE WARFARE
III
ON THE RESEMBLANCES OF THE WEAPONS OF EARLY RACES; THEIR VARIATIONS, CONTINUITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF FORM: METAL PERIOD.[184]
Having in two previous lectures upon ‘Primitive Warfare’, delivered at this Institution, spoken of the general principles to be observed in studying the development of the weapons of savages and early races, I need not preface the remarks I am about to offer by any detailed allusion to the generalizations which I have already ventured to make, but I will proceed at once to lay before you some additional facts which I have collected in continuation of the same subject.
This I do the more readily, because I hold strongly to the opinion that the value of a communication of this kind may, in a great degree, be measured by the attention which is paid to the accumulation of facts, and to the comparative brevity and simplicity of that portion of it which relates to theory. Without general principles, however, we should have no incentive to collect and systematize our facts, and they are therefore valuable even where they involve—and in a new field of study, such as I am now treating, with very scanty materials as yet at our disposal to assist conjecture, I can hardly hope they should not involve—a certain amount of error.