Views and Reviews

Abstract

IN his most recent book Sir Harry Johnston has re-written several articles that have appeared in various journals and included some lectures on colonial subjects. Despite the diversity of subjects here treated there runs through all the broad views of a man who has seen much and travelled far, and an attempt to give an anthropological explanation to the matters dealt with. The foreign relations and colonial aspirations of Germany, however, do not concern us here. The opening chapter consists of an earnest appeal for the recognition of anthropology by the Government, and we hope that some of our legislators will take it to heart. The Royal Anthropological Institute has only one underpaid official, not “two paid officials” (p. 5), and the total membership is but 508; it will be a happy day when it “scarcely reaches to two thousand” (p. 8). The chapters on Ireland are of considerable interest, and contain some first-hand observations, but we doubt if portions of them will be acceptable to the Irish. Sir Harry, despite the almost universal opinion of British archaeologists to the contrary, accepts the occurrence of Palaeolithic man in Scotland and Ireland (p. 63), but in the following passage picturesqueness predominates over sober narration of ascertained facts:—“The westernmost Aryans, armed with iron weapons, first conquered, then intermarriedwith, a dark Iberian people, who in their turn had imposed a Mediterranean speech on the still earlier Mongoloids, Australoids, and Basques of Palaeolithic Ireland” (p. 74). There is scarcely a statement in this sentence which is not open to criticism. Many remarks, too, in the chapter on “Racial Problems” are on a par with this. Sir Harry is always interesting and suggestive, and the book should be widely read in spite of the fact that some of the statements do not represent the conclusions to which most anthropological investigators have arrived. Those in authority in our own Empire and in foreign countries should read the final chapter on “The Preservation of Fauna and Flora.”

Views and Reviews.

From the Outlook of an Anthropologist. By Sir Harry Johnston. Pp. v + 314. (London: Williams and Norgate, 1912.) Price 3s. 6d. net.