OF AKTS AND SCIENCES: MARCH 12, 1872. 413 



the other. Modern institutions plant their roots in the period of bar- 

 barism, into which their germs were transmitted from the previous 

 period of savagism ; and the experiences of both conditions, through 

 unnumbered ages, were a necessary prerequisite to their possible 

 realization. 



These facts, which, apart from inventions and discoveries, are crys- 

 tallized in domestic institutions, are so many results of the gradual 

 formation in the mind of man of certain ideas, passions, and aspira- 

 tions, and of their subsequent development through successive stages 

 of progress. Those holding the most prominent position may be gen- 

 erallized as growths of the particular ideas with which they severally 

 stand connected. 



They are the following : — 



I. The Growth of the Idea of the Family. 

 II. The Growth of the Idea of Government. 



III. The Growth of the Idea of Articulate Language. 



IV. The Growth of Religious Ideas, or of Religions. 

 V. The Growth of the Idea of Property. 



With respect to the first, the facts which preserve and reveal the 

 stages of its growth are embodied in systems of consanguinity and 

 affinity, and in marriage laws. 



With respect to the second, the germ of this idea must be sought in 

 the tribal organization, or totemic system, and followed down through 

 the stages of personal government perfect in every band into other 

 forms both personal and national, and lastly national and territorial. 



With respect to the third, human speech undoubtedly is a develop- 

 ment from the rudest and simplest forms of expression. Gesture 

 language must have preceded articulate language, and if so, thought 

 necessarily preceded speech. In like manner the monosyllabical form 

 preceded the syllabical, as the latter preceded the language of concrete 

 words. Thought also presided over each of these successive stages 

 of progressive development. As a growth from the human brain, it 

 is the most original, unique, and extraordinary of its products. 



The fourth subject is environed with such intrinsic difficulties that it 

 will probably never receive a perfectly satisfactory exposition. 



And, lastly, the idea of property was slowly formed in the human 

 mind, remaining feeble and nascent through immense periods of time. 

 It required all the experience of the ages of barbarism to nourish and 

 develop the germ, and to prepare the human brain to accept its mas- 



