Pasts beyond memories : the evolutionary museum, liberal government and the politics of prehistory

This article is concerned with the relationships between late-nineteenth century developments in geology, palaeontology, natural history, ethnology, and archaeology on the one hand, and, on the other the changing concerns of liberal government It is argued that the key to understanding these relationships consists in new understandings of the person as an archaeologically layered entity and its role in contemporary debates concerning the ambiguous role of habit in the mechanisms of progress. The need for cultural and moral mechanisms that would both preserve the legacy of the past that had been passed on to the present as a series of archaeological layers in the person while also breaking with the restraining force of that legacy was a key factor in the emergence of moral reform liberalism and, later, new liberalism. These issues are considered with special reference to the writings of Walter Bagehot, Thomas Huxley and Patrick Geddes considered with reference to their implications for the practices of evolutionary museums. The theoretical context for the discussion is provided by Foucauldian accounts of liberal government. This supplies a perspective from which the classed, raced, and gendered aspects of the relations between late-nineteenth-century museum practices, liberal government and the archaeological structure of the person are considered.