Footnote 96: _Trans. Lanc. and Cheshire Ant. Soc._, 1889. Footnote 97: _Journ. Anth. Inst._, xxi., 1891, p. 139. Footnote 98: _Evolution of Dec. Art._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER X. SOCIOLOGY AND RELIGION THOSE branches of cultural anthropology which deal with comparative sociology and magico-religious data are sometimes designated as “ethnology.” It frequently happens that students who have written upon these and closely allied subjects have in the same book treated the archæological, technical, and linguistic aspects of cultural anthropology or ethnology in the larger sense. It is therefore impossible to keep to a precise classification of the subject when dealing with it historically. [Sidenote: =Comparative Ethnology.=] The main stumbling-block in the way of comparative ethnology was the difficulty of establishing the study on a firm scientific basis. “Man cannot be secluded from disturbing influences, and watched, like the materials of a chemical experiment in a laboratory.”[99] Ethnologists were accused of basing their conclusions on the most fragile evidence, collected from most untrustworthy sources:— Footnote 99: Lang, 1898, p. 39. Anything you please ... you may find among your useful savages.... You have but to skim a few books of travel, pencil in hand, and pick out what suits your case.... Your testimony is often derived from observers ignorant of the language of the people whom they talk about, or who are themselves prejudiced by one or other theory or bias. How can you pretend to raise a science on such foundations, especially as the savage informants wish to please or to mystify inquirers, or they answer at random, or deliberately conceal their most sacred institutions, or have never paid any attention to the subject? (_l.c._, p. 41). To remove this reproach was the work of Professor Tylor. [Sidenote: =Edward Burnett Tylor.=]