Lectures on Man, his Place in Creation and in the
History of the Earth. By Dr. C. Vogt. Edited by Dr. J. Hunt. (Longman and Co.)—Two of a trade never agree, and it is not to be expected that the President of the An- thropological Society can edit (why not translate?) a book for the learned body over which he presides without having a dig at the rival Ethno- logical Society. It seems the ethnologicals determined to admit ladies to their meetings, and this was obviously inconsistent with that "free and serious discussion on anatomical and physiological topics" which the souls of Dr. Hunt and Captain R. F. Burton panted after. What exactly anthropology is Dr. Hunt does not here state, but it is "a com- prehensive science," of which ethnology "merely constitutes a part." This being so, it is impossible not to share Dr. Hunt's shame at recog- nition having been denied to anthropology as a science by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. From a rather super- ficial acquaintance with the Anthropological Society's proceedings, we feel safe in saying that it han all the pugnacity, which is the most salient characteristic of pure science, in a very marked degree, and Dr. Vogt, who is an honorary fellow, has not only the pugnacity of the anthropologist, but the bitterness of the theolo- gian superinduced. He hits out at everybody, and especially everybody who believes in the Christian religion, as if he enjoyed it. Even Dr.Hunt admits this, and will do no more than apologize for it ; and three of the most offensive passages he has omitted, though only to put them in an appendix at the end, just as the classical indecencies used to be printed, so that there might be no trouble in finding them. It would seem, however, that in a volume in which the faults of this kind are so numerous the editor would have done well to assume a much larger discretion than he has taken. The excision of the personalities and expressions of opinion on theological matters would have improved the book, which is over-bulky, and without them, as we freely testify, a valuable contribution to our knowledge. The amount of information contained in these lectures is remarkable, and it is arranged with great clearness. But we have only space for results, which are mainly those— that the differences between the human races are original, and are not seriously affected by external changes ; —that new races may be formed, which by pure in-breeding may after a very great lapse of time attain the same constancy of character as the original races ;—and that a large proportion of mankind are merely mongrels without fixed characters, and which at their points of contact become confluent. Dr. Vogt also takes the opposite side to Mr. Disraeli, and is "for the apes." But he does not derive man from the ape, but Americans from American apes, neg,roes from African apes., and so forth. As there are no European apes, we presume that Europeans may still believe that there is a race Interposed between them and the chimpanzee or gorilla. Gorilla-ty is the grandfather, not the father, of the Caucasian.
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