328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thus in the heart of the old vague social group there grew up inti- 

 mately associated family groups of increasing size and importance. 

 The double link of property and blood-relationship rendered this asso- 

 ciation a strong one, and we seem to see the old social group gradu- 

 ally breaking up into its elements, with diversity of interests and a 

 degree of hostility between the separate family groups. Each of 

 these, in its turn, grew larger and larger, until it became a community 

 in itself, held together by a strongly-felt sense of blood-relationship, 

 and quite able to hold its own against other similar groups. 



The most archaic of these communal groups is the patriarchal, that 

 still found throughout nomadic Asia. It is distinctly based on family 

 relations, recognizes a common ancestor, is governed by the living 

 representative of this ancestor, and strongly holds to the fiction of 

 blood relationship, even in adopted members of the tribe. Again, all 

 property is held and all labor performed in common, and for the good 

 of the community, while the sentiment of individualism is very greatly 

 reduced. Phis is not now so strictly the case as it probably was of 

 old, yet the principle of communalism is still strongly maintained. 



Yet, as in the beavers, so in the patriarchal horde, there are minor 

 groups within the group, tent-families like the lodge-family of the 

 beavers, with more immediate family links than those of the larger 

 group. Among the primitive Aiyans this minor division had made 

 great progress. The separation of the patriarchal community into 

 minor family groups, with special interests and common property, had 

 become strongly marked, and a reverse process of development, from 

 communalism toward individualism, had fairly set in. The Aryan 

 village community had still many interests in common, and held the 

 fiction of a common ancestor. Yet it had taken a step in advance of 

 the stage reached by the communal animals, toward the higher and 

 special development of modern human society. 



Between the patriarchal and the Aryan systems of association 

 stands that of the Indian clan, which possessed features of both. The 

 general family group was broken up into smaller family groups, as 

 well defined as the Aryan, yet the division of property had not ad- 

 vanced so far. And not only property was held to a considerable ex- 

 tent in common, but common habitation existed among many tribes, 

 of which we have the most marked and striking instance in the great 

 common habitations of the Pueblo Indians of to-day. 



In the later stages of human development there has been a strongly 

 declared progress toward individualism, at least in property and politi- 

 cal relations. The family association has vanished, and has been re- 

 placed by the territorial^ which is the link of connection in all modern 

 civilized societies, and the latest outgrowth of the principle of ani- 

 mal association. Yet industrially the communal principle holds good, 

 though it has assumed a new and wider phase than that of old. 

 Though the idea of community in property has lost its force, the scnti- 



