This memoir had been undertaken as preliminary to an ethnological inquiry which the author had proposed to institute into the aborigines of the British Islands. It was premised, that, in this endeavour to seek for ancient races in those which were modern, great caution is required.

It has been asked, if, at the present day, we can as readily distinguish an Iberian type from one that is Gaulish or Caledonian, as was done more than seventeen hundred years ago in the time of Tacitus? It is answered, that, by a conservative principle in our nature, directed to the persistency of types, the influences of Time, Climate, and Civilization, are rendered of little avail.