The Société Ethnologique de Paris was a short-lived French learned society set up by William Frédéric Edwards in 1839. At the time ethnology was a neologism (ethnologie in French), and the Société was the first association of scholars and travellers to have as its central concern race. It is considered a significant institution in the rise of the social sciences, though there had been earlier societies in the area in the first decades of the 19th century. It was formally dissolved in 1862, long after it had ceased to be active.