OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : FEBRUARY 11, 1868. 478 



dence. To raise mankind out of this condition could only be ac- 

 complished by a series of reformatory movements, resulting in the 

 development of a series of customs and institutions for the government 

 of their social life. The anchorage secured by each of these customs 

 and institutions tended to hold society in its advanced position, and to 

 prevent a relapse. 



2. Intermarriage, or Cohabitation, of Brothers and Sisters. — This 

 practice, which the previous condition necessarily involved, would tend 

 to regulate, as well as to check, the gregarious principle. It would 

 probably be the normal condition qf society under this principle ; and, 

 when once established, would be apt to perpetuate itself through in- 

 definite, or, at least, immensely long, periods of time. It gives the 

 starting-point and the foundation of the Malayan system of relation- 

 ship, which, in turn, is the basis of the Turanian and GanOwanian. 

 Without this custom it is impossible to explain the origin of the system 

 from the nature of descents. There is, therefore, a necessity for the 

 prevalence of this custom amongst the remote ancestors of all the 

 nations which now possess the classificatory system, if the system itself 

 is to be regarded as having a natural origin. 



4. The Hawaiian Custom. — The existence of this custom is not 

 necessary to an explanation of the origin of the Malayan system. All 

 it contains bearing upon this question is found in the intermarriage of 

 brothers and sisters, where the brothers live in polygynia and the 

 sisters in polyandria ; but it holds a material position in the series, for 

 the reason that it was an existing and still prevalent custom in the 

 Sandwich Islands at the epoch of their discovery. It finds its type 

 in the previous custom, out of which it naturally arose. So far as it 

 brought unrelated persons into the household, it was a positive advance 

 upon the previous condition, tending to check promiscuous intercourse, 

 and to relieve society from the evils of continuous intermarriage among 

 blood relatives. It also tended to develop still further the idea of the 

 communal family, and to move society in the direction of marriage be- 

 tween single pairs. Its reformatory character is implied from the fact, 

 that it imposed upon the several brothers, who shared their wives in 

 common, the joint obligation of their defence against the violence of 

 society, the necessity for which would naturally exist in such a state of 

 society as this custom presupposes. 



5. The Communal Family. — Such a family resulted necessarily 

 from the intermarriage of brothers and sisters. The union of effort 



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