Anthropology / by Paul Topinard ; translated from the French.

  • Paul Topinard
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Anthropology / by Paul Topinard ; translated from the French. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/572
    master them with the depth and precision which imply a thorough acquaintance with them, he must abandon the idea of becoming a 'perfect anthropologist. Division of labour is more necessary here than anywhere else. In this vast domain each one pitches his tent in the spot where his special tastes, his peculiar bias, and his particular know¬ ledge invite him. But in order that these researches, so multiform, may not run the risk of becoming discursive, and may be directed to one and the same end, it is necessary that all labourers in the work should early become ac¬ quainted with the general principles of anthropology, with its tenets, and with the whole of the facts which it has established. This want has been sensibly felt for some years. From all sides a demand has sprung up for an elementary treatise on anthropology—a systematic resume where questions might be studied which are the subject of discussion in our societies or treated of in original papers; a work, in short, which should be at the same time a guide for students and a manual .of reference for others. Such a work has not appeared up to the present time. The remarkable “ Lemons sur fHomme,” by Carl Vogt, embraced only the subject in a general way: they were published, moreover, twelve years since, and do not give the latest information on the science. The excellent little treatise of Omalius d’Halloy, “ Sur les Races Humaines,” is purely ethnological; it embraces only one special part of anthro¬ pology, and does not supply the want to which we refer. An important gap had to be filled up. The founders of the Bibliotheque des Sciences Contemporaines have felt it incumbent upon them to step in, and have confided to Dr. Topinard the difficult task of elucidating, in a single