there must either be no ethnology at all, or it must be of the minute kind, since the primary and fundamental questions, which constitute nine-tenths of our inquiries elsewhere, are already answered. Minute ethnology must be more or less speculative--the less the better. It must be so, however, to some extent, because it attempts new problems. Critical too it must be--the more the better. It often works with unfamiliar instruments, whose manipulation must be explained, and whose power tested. Again, although the field in which it works be wide, the tract in which it moves may be beaten. An outlying question may have been treated by many investigators, and the results may be extremely different. In British ethnology, the history of opinions only, if given with the due amount of criticism, would fill more than one volume larger than the present. The above has been written to shew that any work upon such a subject as the present must partake, to a great degree, of the nature of a disquisition: perhaps indeed, the term _controversy_ would not be too strong. The undeniable and recognized results of previous investigators are truisms. That the Britons and Gaels are Kelts, and that the English are Germans is known wherever Welsh dissent, Irish poverty, or English misgovernment are the subjects of notice. What such Kelticism or Germanism may have to do with these same characteristics is neither so well ascertained, nor yet so easy to discover. On the contrary, there is much upon these points which may be well _un_-learnt. Kelts, perchance, may not be so very Keltic, or Germans so very German as is believed; for it may be that a very slight preponderance of the Keltic elements over the German, or of the German over the Keltic may have determined the use of the terms. Such a point as this is surely worth raising; yet it cannot be answered off-hand. At present, however, it is mentioned as a sample of minute ethnology, and as a warning of the disquisitional character which the forthcoming pages, in strict pursuance to the nature of the subject, must be expected to exhibit.