anthropology

[In Ger. & Fr. anthro pologie; Port. an thro polo gio. From Gr. ἄνθρωπος ( anthropos ) = man; and λόγος ( logos ) = discourse.] I. Natural Science: 1. Gen. " The science of man in the widest sense of the terms. The word anthropology figures in Johnson's Dictionary with the signification, "The doctrine of anatomy; the doctrine of the form and structure of the body of man. The Glo ographia Nova , 2nd ed., explains it to be "a discourse or description of a man or of a man's body." Kant gave a much wider range than this to the subject in his An thropologie , published about the year 1798, as he had previously done orally in his university lectures. Finally, the Anthropological Society of London defined its aim to be "to study man in all his leading aspects, physical, mental, and historical, to investigate the laws of his origin and progre , to ascertain his place in nature, and his relation to the inferior forms of life." In this sense ethnology is a department of anthropology. "The science of Man, therefore, or, as it is sometimes called, Anthropology, must form the crown of all the natural sciences. -Max Müller : Science of Language, vol. ii. (6th ed., 1871), p. 7. 2. Spec.: The science which investigates the relation in which man stands to the inferior animals. In this sense ethnology is a cognate science to anthropology. Dr. Latham uses the word in this limited sense.