for the investigation of man. He took his degree at Edinburgh, afterwards reading for a year at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence, joining the Church of England, he migrated to St John’s College, Oxford, afterwards entering as a gentleman commoner at Trinity College, Oxford, but seeking no degree in either university. In 1810 he settled at Bristol as a physician, and in 1813 published his Researches into the Physical History of Man, in 2 vols., afterwards extended to 5 vols. The central principle of the book is the primitive unity of the human species, acted upon by causes which have since divided it into permanent varieties or races. Dr Prichard states that he was led into this inquiry by the diversity of races being alleged as a disproof of the Mosaic records; in argument, however, he endeavoured not to rely on theology, but to proceed “by the ordinary method of observation and experience.” The work is dedicated to Blumenbach, whose five races of man are adopted. But where Prichard excelled Blumenbach and all his other predecessors was in his grasp of the principle that people should be studied by combining all available characters, and he, accordingly discusses them at large with regard at once to bodily form, language, and state of civilization. One investigation begun in this work requires special mention, the bringing into view of the fact, neglected or contradicted by philologists, that the Celtic nations are allied by language with the Slavonian, German, and Pelasgian (Greek and Latin), thus forming a fourth European branch of the Asiatic stock (which would now be called Indo-European or Aryan). Prichard, whose own Celtic descent is shown by his name, was a fitting promulgator of this leading principle of Celtic research. His special treatise containing Celtic compared with Sanskrit words appeared in 1831 under the title Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations. It is remarkable that the essay by Adolphe Pictet, De V Affinité des Langues Celtiques avec le Sanscrit, which was crowned by the French Academy and made its author’s reputation, should have been published in 1837 in evident ignorance of the earlier and in some respects stricter investigations of Prichard. His work has been re-edited since by Dr R. G. Latham (London, 1857), with large additions of Celtic material. Prichard’s Analysis of Egyptian Mythology (London, 1819) had some popularity at the time, and was translated into German with a preface by A. W. v. Schlegel; its comparison of the Egyptian religion with Brahmanism is now obsolete, and its author was unwise in bringing out a new edition in 1838, after Champoilion’s Grammar and Dictionary had opened the actual Egyptian inscriptions to scholars. Dr Prichard’s last important book was a revision and condensation of his researches into a Natural History of Man (London, 1843), which has gone through several editions, and remains a standard work of the anthropologist’s library. Towards the end of his life, in recognition of his services, he was made a commissioner of lunacy, and in consequence removed from Bristol to London, where he died in 1848.

A memoir by his friend. Dr Hodgkin will be found in the Journal of the Ethnological Society, of which he was one of the early presidents.