OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : FEBRUARY 11, 1868. 477 



It was of slow growth, planting its roots far back in the ages of bar- 

 barism, — a final result, to which the experience of the ages had 

 steadily tended. The family, which in this view of the case is essen- 

 tially modern, is the offspring of this vast and varied experience of 

 the ages of barbarism. 



Since the family was reached, it has also had its stages of progress, 

 and a number of them. The rise of family names, as distinguished 

 from the single personal name common in barbarous nations, is com- 

 paratively modern in the Aryan family. The Roman Gens is one of 

 the earliest illustrations. This people produced the triple formula to 

 indicate the name of the individual, of the Gens or great family, and 

 of the particidar family within the Gens. Out of this arose, in due 

 time, the doctrine of agnation, to distinguish the relationship of the 

 males, who bore the family name, from that of the females of the same 

 family. Agnatic relationship was made superior to cognatic, since the 

 females were transferred, by marriage, to the families of their hus- 

 bands. This overthrew the last vestige of tribalism, and gave to the 

 family its complete individuality. 



15. The Overthrow of the Classificatory System of Relationship 

 and the Substitution of the Descriptive. — Without attempting to dis- 

 cuss the fragments of evidence tending to show that the Aryan, Semitic, 

 and Uralian families once possessed the classificatory system, it will be 

 sufficient to remark, that, if such were the fact, the rights of property 

 and the succession to estates would have insured its overthrow. These 

 are the only conceivable agencies sufficiently potent to accomplish so 

 great a change. Without such a change the family, as now constituted, 

 would have remained impossible. 



In conclusion I may remark, that the probable truth of this solution 

 cannot be fully appreciated from the limited presentation of the facts 

 contained in this article. At most it will but serve to invite attention 

 to the great sequence of customs and institutions which seem to mark 

 the successive stages of man's progress through the periods of barbar- 

 ism, and to indicate the intimate relations which this remarkable sys- 

 tem of consanguinity appears to sustain to the condition, experience, 

 and advancement of mankind during the primitive ages. The manu- 

 script containing the body of the evidence is now in course of publica- 

 tion by the Smithsonian Institution. 



