[“Australian Aborigines”, The Argus (Melbourne), Saturday 22 October 1910, page 6]
AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINES.
THE CAMBRIDGE EXPEDITION.
The Cambridge Exploring Expedition to Western Australia, which consists of Mr. Alfred R. Brown, ethnologist, and Mr. Grant Watson, zoologist, is likely to make important additions to our scientific knowledge of the aborigines. “The proper study of mankind is man,” and Mr. Brown, who has explained the purpose of the mission in a lecture at Perth, rightly recognises that their principal object is to investigate the social organisation, the manners, the customs, and beliefs of the natives of the Western State. Mr. Brown asks the question, why is it that anthropologists are so anxious to increase our knowledge of the Australian blacks, instead of confining their attention to the more civilised races? The reason is that they are the lowest, or nearly the lowest, division of mankind, and that we must find all that we can about them before we are in a position to understand the higher races and civilisations. Science proceeds from the simple to the complex and the easiest way is to begin by studying the humbler members of our species before we go on to the more advanced. Another reason is that there is no time to be lost if we are to gain any accurate knowledge of the Australian tribes. They are dwindling year by year, and will, in no long time, become extinct.
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AB notes:
Radcliffe-Brown’s rationale for studying Western Australian Aborigines?
“The reason is that they are the lowest, or nearly the lowest, division of mankind, and that we must find all that we can about them before we are in a position to understand the higher races and civilisations. Science proceeds from the simple to the complex...”
