Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/50

 38 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

place to local units which here constitute the minor divisions of the political aggregate. Turning, finally, to the political organizations with which Professor Teggart is primarily concerned, the demon- stration has never been made, if it ever will be, that all the peoples of ancient Eurasia were once divided into clans or gentes. Some of them, no doubt, were; but it is highly improbable that many of these should have preserved their kinship systems up to the late time of the inception of the great historic states. Most of these systems must have passed out long before, nor is the only possible alternative to be found in the assumption that they "could have been given up voluntarily or exchanged, after deliberation" (an assumption we might leave for J. G. Frazer to defend against the author).

The remaining part of the chapter on "The Human Factor" contains some of the most suggestive ideas of the book. One feels that in a future elaboration of his study, the author will be able to make an impressive case for his position with reference to the cul- tural significance of the detached individual and the nature and behavior of idea-systems. Some brief comments, at this time, will, however, not be amiss. Returning once more to those conflicts at the terminal points of migrations with which we are already familiar, the author proceeds:

The cardinal point is that the conflict, in breaking up the older organization, liberated the individual man, if but for a moment, from the dominance of the group, its observances, its formulae, and its ideas. Briefly, a situation was created in which the old rites and ceremonies could not be performed, one in which the old rules of action were manifestly inadequate, and hence one in which the individual became, in some measure, a law unto himself. This, at bottom, is the fact upon which all history turns (p. 84).

And again:

Most significant of all, the central feature of transition is not merely the substitu- tion of territory for blood relationship as the basis of unity in human groups, but the emergence of individuality and of personal self-assertion, and hence it follows that human advance rests ultimately upon the foundation of individual initiative and activity (p. 98).

As contrasted with this, the conditions in primitive society are sketched in the following words:

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