the society remained active for about 70 years. but the differing views of buxton and hodgkin on how to proceed caused some fundamental divisions in the early years. hodgkin was interested in a forum for both scientific discussion (of early ethnology, a discipline that hardly yet existed separately from the study of language), and protective activities based on lobbying. buxton shortly became caught up in the activist drive that led quickly to the niger expedition of 1841, the failure of which was a huge personal blow and also drove missionary considerations into the background for a time. hodgkin was unhappy with buxton's published criticism of elliott cresson, and the general british disregard for liberia as an abolitionist project. king issued a prospectus for the new ethnological society of london in 1842, following hodgkin's view that the humanitarian and scientific objectives should from then on be pursued separately.