| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/AnthropologyAndTheClassics |
SIX LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE
THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
BY
ARTHUR J. EVANS
ANDREW LANG GILBERT MURRAY
F. B. JEVONS J. L. MYRES W. WARDE FOWLER
EDITED BY
R. R. MARETT
SECRETARY TO THE COMMITTEE FOR ANTHROPOLOGY
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MCMVIII
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
LONDON, EDINBURGH, NEW YORK
TORONTO AND MELBOURNE
Anthropology and the Humanities—on verbal grounds one might supposethem coextensive; yet in practice they divide the domain of humanculture between them. The types of human culture are, in fact,reducible to two, a simpler and a more complex, or, as we are wont tosay (valuing our own achievements, I doubt not, rightly), a lower and ahigher. By established convention Anthropology occupies itself solelywith culture of the simpler or lower kind. The Humanities, on the otherhand—those humanizing studies that, for us at all events, have theirparent source in the literatures of Greece and Rome—concentrate onwhatever is most constitutive and characteristic of the higher life of society.
What, then, of phenomena of transition? Are they to be suffered toform a no-man’s-land, a buffer-tract left purposely undeveloped,lest, forsooth, the associates of barbarism should fall foul of thefriends of civilization? Plainly, in the cause of science, a pacificpenetration must be tolerated, nay, encouraged, from both sides atonce. Anthropology must cast forwards, the Humanities cast back. Andthere is not the slightest reason (unless prejudice be accountedreason) why conflict should arise between the interests thus led to intermingle.[Pg 4]
Indeed, how can there be conflict, when, as in the case of eachcontributor to the present volume, the two interests in question,Anthropology on this side and Classical Archaeology and Scholarshipon that, are the joint concern of one and the same man? Dr. Evansboth is a leading authority on prehistoric Europe, and likewise, byrestoring the Minoan age to the light of day, has set Greek historyin a new and juster perspective. Dr. Lang is an anthropologist ofrenown, and no one, even amongst his peers, has enriched the sciencewith so many original and fertile hypotheses; nevertheless he has foundtime (and for how much else has he found time as well!) not only totranslate Homer, but also to vindicate his very existence. ProfessorMurray can turn his rare faculty of sympathetic insight now to thereinterpretation of the mu