THE TIDES. 271 



extinct American kingdoms, primitiv^e groups of less evolved struct- 

 ures and characterized by another type of family may form compound 

 societies of considerable size and complexity, yet the patriarchal 

 group with its higher family type is inductively proved to be that out 

 of which the largest and most advanced societies arise. 



Into communities produced by multiplication of it, the patriarchal 

 group, carrying its supremacy of the eldest male, its system of inher- 

 itance, its laws of property, its joint worship of the common ancestor, 

 its blood-feud, its complete subjection of women and childi-en, long 

 retains its individuality. But with these communities, as with com- 

 munities otherwise constituted, combined action slowly leads to fu- 

 sion ; the lines of division become gradually less marked ; and, at 

 lenoth, as Sir Heniy Maine shows, societies which have the family for 

 their unit of composition pass into societies which have the individual 

 for their unit of composition. 



This disintegration, first separating compound family groups into 

 simpler ones, eventually aifects the simplest: the members of the 

 family proper more and more acquire individual claims and individ- 

 ual responsibilities. And the wave of change, conforming to the 

 general law of rhythm, has among ourselves partially dissolved the 

 relations of domestic life, and substituted for them the relations of 

 social life. Not simply have the individual claims and responsibili- 

 ties of young adults in each family come to be recognized by the 

 state ; but the state has, to a considerable degree, usurped the pa- 

 rental functions in respect of children, and, assuming their claims upon 

 it, exercises coercion over them. 



On looking back to the general laws of life, however, and observ- 

 ing the essential contrast between the principle of family life and the 

 principle of social life, we conclude that this degree of family disinte- 

 gration is in excess, and will hereafter be followed by partial reinte- 

 gration. 







THE TIDES. 



By Pkofessob ELIAS SCHNEIDEE. 



THERE has always been a difficulty in the minds of teachers, as 

 well as in the minds of learners, to comprehend the theory of 

 the tides as presented in our text-books. This theory fails to give a 

 satisfactory account of the cause of the tides on the side of the earth 

 most remote from the sun and the moon. According to this theory, 

 at that part of the earth's surface which is turned away from the moon 

 or from the sun, a less amount of attraction is felt by her waters than 

 anywhere else on her surface ; and the whole earth is therefore, in 



