THE ETHICS OF TRIBAL SOCIETY. 307 



(Yasna, xiii, 38) ; and in the Book of Arda Viraf (ii, 1, 2) Viraf is 

 said to liave had seven sisters, who were to him as wives {cliigun 

 neshman), and this circumstance is adduced as evidence of his ex- 

 traordinary piety. The connubial relations of this model of a re- 

 ligious man were both polygamous and incestuous. 



Herodotus states (iii, 88) that Cambyses, the son and successor 

 of Cyrus, was wedded to his own sister Atossa ; and when, in the 

 Hebrew story, Tamar rebukes Amnon for his guilty passion and 

 tells him that " no such thing ought to be done in Israel," she re- 

 fers solely to her brother's folly and wickedness in seeking a secret 

 and illicit connection, and suggests that, if he will only speak to 

 the king on the subject, there would be no obstacle to their union. 

 That such marriages were common in the earlier history of the 

 Jews is evident from the fact that Abram took to wife his half- 

 sister Sarah, and this event is not recorded as an unusual occur- 

 rence. 



Among the Persians this custom seems to have been confined, 

 for the most part, to priests and kings, who constitute always and 

 everywhere the two most conservative classes of society. Thus it 

 came to be regarded as a mark of distinction or an enviable privi- 

 lege, of which wealthy persons of inferior rank sometimes en- 

 deavored to avail themselves; but there is no evidence that it 

 remained, within historical times, a law for the entire nation or 

 was generally practiced by the people at large. The Magians 

 continued to wive their sisters in conformity to ancient usage and 

 holy tradition, for the same reason that stone knives and hatchets 

 are used in sacrificial rites and fire for the altar is kindled by 

 laboriously rubbing two sticks together long after these clumsy 

 methods have been superseded in secular life by steel implements 

 and lucif er matches. 



A THEORY of Dr. Maurel, of the French marine, that the Khmers of Cambodia 

 represent the leaders of the easternmost wave of migration of the Aryan or Indo- 

 European stock, is noticed with approval by Dr. Brinton in Science. The ruins 

 around Ang-kok decorated with bas-reliefs of scenes from the Ramayana give 

 evidence of their having had an Aryan culture. They are supposed to have 

 reached Cambodia about the third or fourth century of the Christian era, having 

 apparently come from the delta of the Ganges across lower Burmah and Siarn. 

 Even at this time most of their followers may have been non-Aryan, and the 

 leaders rarely of pure blood. In later generations they received a large infusion 

 of Mongolian blood from the tribes they found in Cambodia. These conclusions, 

 according to Dr. Brinton, are borne out by a close study of the existing popula- 

 tion and of the history and archaeology of the country. 



Darwin's theory of the formation of coral reefs is not as near obsolete as 

 some students have supposed. It had several friends in the discussion of the sub- 

 ject at the recent meeting of the British Association. 



