Title Page & Introduction

Prichard provides a brief introduction in his Natural History of Man in order to provide some context as to the purpose of his book. He outlines that the purpose of his book is to answer the overarching question of anthropological study at the time "what separates man from animals and man from his fellow man?". He states that it is believed that man is unique from beast in that man has the capacity to have a soul. It is man's soul that allows him to feel "desire, aversion, love and hatred, fear and revenge".[1] He also discusses that another characteristic that separates the “lower tribes” from man is man’s ability to utilize nature to his own benefit rather than being completely subjected the to will of nature. He also breifly mentions the role of environment on this method of determining quality of life in that the harsher environments could prohibit the development of such a race. Throughout this whole introduction, Prichard maintains his idea of the unity of mankind as a species as a whole rather than each individual race as an individual species.

The title page pictured to the left provides basic publication information

The binding and spine of the book is also represented in an image to the left

The Third image portrays a glimsp at the research of his predecessors that he provides in his introduction. The image is a table intended to portray the population of each race known up to that time. Although many races are excluded, it portrays the populations of races within North American and South America.