OP THE HUMAN FAMILY. 13 



responding terms exist, their application to particular persons is founded upon very 

 different generalizations, and they are used in an apparently arbitrary manner. In 

 Sencca-Iroquois, for example, my father's brother is my father. Under the system 

 he stands to me in that relationship and no other. I address him by the same 

 term, Ila-nth', which I apply to my own father. My mother's brother, on the con- 

 trary, is my uncle, Hoc-no'-seh, to whom, of the two, this relationship is restricted. 

 Again, with myself a male, my brother's son is my son, Ila-aJi'-ivuk, the same as my 

 own son ; while my sister's son is my nephew, Ha-ya' -wan-da ; but with myself a 

 female, these relationships are reversed. My brother's son is then my nephew; while 

 my sister's son is my son. Advancing to the second collateral line, my father's 

 brother's son and my mother's sister's son are my brothers, and they severally 

 stand to me in the same relationship as my own brother ; but my father's sister's 

 son and my mother's brother's son are my cousins. The same relationships are 

 recoo-nized imder the two forms, but the generalizations upon which they rest are 

 different. 



In the system of relationship of the Aryan, Semitic, and Tralian families, the 

 collateral lines are maintained distinct and perpetually divergent from the lineal, 

 which results, theoretically as well as practically, in a dispersion of the blood. 

 The value of the relationships of collateral consanguinei is depreciated and finally 

 lost under the burdensomeness of the descriptive method. This divergence is one 

 of the characteristics of the descriptive system. On the contrary, in that of the 

 Turanian, American Indian, and Malayan families, the several collateral lines, 

 near and remote, are finally brought into, and merged in the lineal line, thus 

 theoretically, if not practically, preventing a dispersion of the blood. The 

 relationships of collaterals by this means is both appreciated and preserved. This 

 mergence is, in like manner, one of the characteristics of the classificatory system. 

 How these two forms of consanguinity, so diverse in their fundamental concep- 

 tions and so dissimilar in their structure, came into existence it may be wholly 

 impossible to explain. The first question to be considered relates to the nature 

 of these forms and their ethnic distribution, after the ascertainment of which their 

 probable origin may be made a subject of investigation. While the existence of 

 two radically distinct forms appears to separate the human family, so far as it is 

 represented in the tables, into two great divisions, the Indo-European and the Indo- 

 American, the same testimony seems to draw closer together the several families 

 of which these divisions are composed, without forbidding the supposition that a 

 common point of departure between the two may yet be discovered. If the 

 evidence deposited in these systems of relationship tends, in reality, to consolidate 

 the families named into two great divisions, it is a tendency in the direction of 

 vmity of origin of no inconsiderable importance. 



After the several forms of consanguinity and affinity, which now prevail in the 

 different families of mankind, have been presented and discussed, the important 

 question will present itself, how far these forms become changed with the pro- 

 gressive changes of society. The uses of systems of relationship to estabhsh the 

 genetic connection of nations will depend, first, upon the structure of the system, 

 and, secondly, upon the stability of its radical forms. In form and feature they 



