OF ARTS AND SCIENCES; FEBRUARY 11, 1868. 471 



sons and daughters. Such is the classification in the nations of South- 

 India. Unless I cohabit with all my female cousins, and am excluded 

 from cohabitation with the wives of my male cousins, these relation- 

 ships cannot be explained from the nature of descents. In the Ameri- 

 can Indian family this classification is reversed ; the children of my 

 male cousins, myself a male, are my sons and daughters, and of my fe- 

 male cousins are my nephews and nieces. The latter are explainable 

 from the analogy of the system. It is a singular fact that the deviation 

 upon these relationships is the only one of any importance between the 

 Tamil and the Seneca-Iroquois. It has undoubtedly a logical expla- 

 nation of some kind. If it is attributable to the slight variation upon 

 this privilege of barbarism above indicated, a singular solution of the 

 difference in the two systems is thereby afforded, 



XI. All the brothers of my grandfather and of my grandmother are, 

 without distinction, my grandfathers and gi'andmothers. Reasons as 

 to former same as in the Malayan ; as to the latter, the analogy of the 

 system. 



The same course of explanation can be applied to the more remote 

 collateral lines, and to several of the marriage relationships, with sub- 

 stantially the same results ; but the solution has been carried far 

 enough for my present purpose. All of the indicative relationships of 

 the classificatory system have now been explained, and are seen to be 

 the relationships which existed in the communal family, as constituted 

 first under the Malayan system, and ultimately under the Turanian. 

 If the progressive conditions of society in the ages of barbarism, from 

 which this solution is drawn, are in part hypothetical, the system itself, 

 as thus explained, is found to be of organic growth, as well as simple 

 and natural. In any other view it must be regarded as an artificial 

 and arbitrary creation of human intelligence. The probable existence 

 of this series of customs and institutions, so far as their existence is 

 assumed, is greatly strengthened by the simplicity of the solution 

 which they affoi-d of the origin of the classificatory system in two great 

 stages of development. 



An exposition of the entire series of customs and institutions named 

 together with a discussion of the historical evidence relating to each of 

 them, are necessary to a full appreciation of the probable correctness 

 of this solution. But they cover too wide a field, and embrace too 

 many considerations, to be treated at the present time. I have pre- 

 sented the naked outline, and what seemed to be the controlling propo- 

 sitions. This discussion, at most, is but the introduction of the subject. 



