Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/320

294 was known or understood was the difference in rank among the children. The children of the horde were those born to the mother by her tribal brother, or by a slave husband; the slave children were those borne by a slave mother, captured for work, to a male member of the horde.

In the next section, which deals with the influence of the family civilisation upon the life of the horde, we think Dr. Mucke is not at his best; for there appears a confusion of argument arising from the use of a terminology which belongs to a much later period than that under discussion. The jealousy with which encroachment upon the horde-space or territory was regarded, and the consequent growth of the law of revenge, is a very important handling of a subject which penetrates very deeply into the life of the horde.

The section on the horde mode of life brings us into touch with cave-dwelling; and of course one is reminded of the Cyclops of Homer, perhaps the most significant of all the horde-types of human society which have been noted.

Dr. Mucke's conclusion that order was in existence before any kind of right is the keynote to the whole of his thesis, and is certainly a very important point. We think Dr. Mucke is right, and shall be curious to see what effect, if any, the proposition may have upon future research. The cement which connects early man together has escaped identification up to the present. Religion was long held to be the influence at work; law and right against disruption and might were also held to; but now that Dr. Mucke's new suggestion of order has found expression it seems to answer for so much that has not been explainable under other suggestions that we think it will be found to contain the truth, if it is not the truth itself. The order here understood includes classification into ranks, rights of sections against the general body of the horde-group, methods of defence and attack, methods of food-supply, and other important details, the whole horde being bound together by the territory occupied. Such a society as this is necessarily stationary; and whenever it is forced into movement, it develops into the tribal group, bound together not by territory, but by kinship.

Our notice of this work is not perhaps so elaborate as it should be; but we have selected out of the mass of learning and observation the salient points of a subject which is of the greatest importance to studies dealing with the evolution of man.