3o6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Napoleon III concerning tlie unity of the Latin nations, and the 

 necessity of tlieir closer confederation under the hegemony of 

 France, was, like his Life of Csesar, an act of historical self-justi- 

 fication, a desperate endeavor to explain his own raison d'etre, and 

 thus set up a temporary prop to a rickety and rootless dynasty. 



Panslavism may continue, for a time, to please the imagination 

 and to fire the zeal of a people so peculiarly subjected, in many 

 respects, to primitive social conditions and so powerfully swayed 

 by primitive ideas as are the Russians ; but Germany has long 

 since outgrown the swaddling-clout of Panteutonism, and no rant- 

 ing of anti-Semitic agitators and men of that ilk about ur-devtsch 

 and rein-deidscli can permanently afl^ect the public mind or elicit 

 a favorable response in legislative enactments. 



There is no cry so foolish or pernicious that it will not find a 

 ringing echo in the empty brain-pan of some fanatic, no whimsey 

 so silly and absurd that it will not be caught up and preached as 

 a new gospel of universal redemption by a few pamphleteering 

 demagogues or ill-balanced apostles of reform. Impecunious own- 

 ers of poorly furnished and tenantless garrets are only too ready 

 to let them to the first vagrant that knocks at the door, however 

 seedy his appearance and doubtful his repute. Even the anti- 

 Semitic crusade, so far as it has succeeded in getting a hearing 

 and making any headway among sensible persons, has done so by 

 appealing to the liberal spirit of the age and representing itself as 

 a protest against the tribal exclusiveness of Judaism. 



The constitution of the aboriginal tribe as a compact body of 

 kinsmen, animated by feelings of hostility toward all other tribes, 

 necessitated the intermarriage of blood-relations. If, on account 

 of scarcity of females, or for any other reason, a man desired to 

 wed a woman of another tribe, instead of wooing her as a friend, 

 he waylaid her as a foe, stunned her with a blow of his war-club, 

 and carried her ofi^ as booty rather than beauty to his camp, where 

 she served him henceforth, not so much as his companion and 

 helpmate as his slave and beast of burden. 



Even after this tribal exclusiveness and isolation had ceased 

 and a certain amount of amicable intertribal intercourse had 

 grown up, it was still deemed more virtuous or, as we would say, 

 more patriotic for a man to marry his own kin than to take his 

 wife or wives from an alien people. The tribal religion also lent 

 its special sanction to such nuptials. Survivals of this sentiment 

 are found in the ancient customs and in the sacred scriptures and 

 traditions of many nations, especially in the Orient. 



Thus, in the Avesta, a marriage of next of kin {quaetvadatha) 

 is declared to be particularly praiseworthy and well-pleasing to 

 Ahuramazda, the Good Spirit (Visparad, iii, 18). This "kinship- 

 union " is a prominent article of faith in the Mazdayasnian creed 



