Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/372

 SCIENCE.

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��113 over hia slaves. The Hocks and herds of the children are the flocks and herds of the father. These he holds in a representative rather than in a. proprietary character."

Siibseqnenlly ' Village-communities in the east and west,' ' Lectures on the eaily history of institutions,' and ' Dissertations on early law and custom,' were published, in which Maine stil! advocated the ])atriarchal theory. Argumeots for this supposed ojigiti of society were derived from the history of the Romans, Greeks, Hindoos, Celts, Teutons, .Slavonians, and Hebrews.

In I8G8 the .Smithsonian institution published Morgan's great work on ' Systeraa of cousan- guinity and allioity of the human family;' and in 1877 his work on 'Ancient society" appeared. \n the^e, and in miscellaneous articles published in the reviews, Morgan clearly and fully established the existence of more primitive forms of social organization than those exhibited in the Scriptures and early Koman history. Thus the patriarchal theory fell to the ground. Moi^an'a investigations extended far and wide among tiio lower tribes of mankind, and his work altogether conslituled a masterpiece of inductive research- But we now know that Morgan's work had one blemish. .Seeing that the growth of family institutions, which constitute a large part of primitive sociology, was iu the main toward a higher state of society' as measured by the standard of civilized ethics, he accredited savage peoples with modern opinions relating to physiology, and with a high degree of moral purity, and held that the growth of institutions wasdue to a conscious effort at reform. While, therefore, Morgan's theory of the structure of primitive society was established on abundant facts, his theory of the origin of this structure and the cause of its development was unsound. Thus it occurred that a theory of the structure of society resting u]X)n an inductive basis was to some extent discredited because of a priori theories of social and moral reform. Induc- tive conclusions sniFerecl by reason of their association with deductive errors. For these reasons certain scholars in Europe, and espe- cially in England, have to some extent ignored Morgan, and have gone on to re-affirm and elaborate the patriarchal theory. Chief among these is Sir Henry Maine.

J. F. McLennan, the author of ' Primitive 'marriage,' and other works on tribal society, collected a great body of facta relating to marriage by capture, and the interesting for- malities which supervene upon that institution', and from them deduced the theory of exogamy

��and endogamy, by which he classified the tribea of mankind into exogauious and endogamouSt and thus failed to discover that exogamy and endogamy are correlative parts of the same in- stitution. McLennan was evidently dealing with facts more primitive than those with which Maine was dealing, and, soon discovering the errors into which biir Henry had fallen in his patriarchal theory, he finally commenced the preparation of a critical treatise ou that subject, probably for the purpose of clearing the ground for the more elaborate treatment of bis theory of marriage and concomitant theories of tribal kinship. He died before his work was con*- ploted. Ilia brother, Donald Mclennan, hoa taken up the subject, and edited the papersi adding now material. The book which we noiT have before us is the result, and is a very fioQ piece of destructive criticism. The entire Oeld occupied by Sir Henry Maine is reviewed ; and the facta from Aryan and Semitic history are carefully examined, and shown to be quite con- tradictory of Maine's theory. lie shows, further, that the particular form of patriarchy discovered among the Romans, and whioh Maine claimed to have been the uuivei-sal fonD( was exceptional, and that the Roman trilrM' presented the sole instance. To American anthropologists this work may seem one of supererogation ; but it will serve a good purpose by clearing the ground of false theories which have had deep root, and have been continually sprii^ing up to choke the grontli of sonnder doctrines.

In this new book by the McLennan brothers, the destructive part is much moi-e salisfactory than the constitictive : in fact, the criUcal portion is somewhat marred by erroneoos theories relating to primitive marriage, and by some strange blunders relating to kinship,— blunders common to many writers on sociolt^.

It seems probable tljat a form of social organization based upon communal maniagfl was primordial; but, be that as it may, it must here be neglected. It has been estab- lished that a yery early form of sodety was based upon kinship, and that kinship was used to organize peoples into groups of dilTerent orders. In the very simplest form, there ia always a larger group including two or more smaller groups. In this grouping, kinship of one kind is used to combine the individuals of a smaller group into a minor body politic, and kinship of another kind to combine the groups into the larger body politic. Thus the groap in its various orders depends uiwn the leoog* nition of different kinds of kinship. To make this plain, it becomes necessary to defiM

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