OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 413 



CHAPTER III. 



SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP OF THE TURANIAN FAMILY— Continued. 



1. Chinese — Antiquity of the Chinese Nation — Immobility of their Civilization — Its tendency to arrest Changes 

 in their Domestic Institutions — Their System of Relationship — Fully Exhibited in the Table — Classificatory in 

 Character — Possesses a number of Turanian Characteristics — The System consists of Two Parts — First, the Terms 

 of Relationship — Second, Qualifying Terms to distinguish the Branches — lu the last respect it differs from all 

 other Forms — This part evidently Supplemented by Scholars — The " Nine Grades of Relations" — Elaborate and 

 Artificial Characters of the Chinese System — Lineal Line — Fraternal and Sororal Relationships — First Collateral 

 Line — Second and Third Collateral Lines — Reasons for placing the Chinese in the Turanian Family— Their 

 System midway between the Turanian and Malayan. 2. Japanese — Their System of Relationship — Details of 

 the System— Reasons for placing the Japanese provisionally in the Turanian Connection— Addenda : Observa- 

 tions of Hon. Robert Hart, upon the Chinese System — Table. 



The acknowledged antiquity of the Chinese nation invests their system of rela- 

 tionship with special importance. Notwithstanding the tendency of later opinion 

 has been to lessen the extravagant age claimed for their literature and civilization, 

 there can be no doubt whatever that the distinct political existence of this singular 

 people ascends to a period of time, in the past, coeval, at least, with the oldest 

 nations of which we have any knowledge. No existing nation has perpetuated 

 itself, with unbroken identity, through the same number of centuries, or developed 

 from one stem or stock an equal number of people. In numbers of the same 

 Uncage, and in years of political duration, the Chinese are the first among the 

 nations of mankind. 



Within the historical period immobiUty has been the characteristic of their civi- 

 lization. This hereditary jealousy of innovation has tended to preserve their 

 domestic institutions within the narrowest limits of change. If, then, there is 

 found among them a clearly defined and perfectly developed domestic institution, 

 which is founded upon fixed necessities of the social state, and jvhich satisfies as 

 weU as regvdates these necessities, it would be expected to partake of the perma- 

 nence and stability such immobility implies. It would also follow as a legitimate 

 inference, that the institution itself, in virtue of its identification with primary 

 needs, originated in the earliest periods of the national existence. 



The Chinese system of consanguinity and aifinity is a domestic mstitution of this 

 description. As a system it belongs to the classificatory division, and to the Tura- 

 nian branch of this division, although it falls below the highest type of the Tura- 

 nian form, and affiliates wherever it diverges with the Malayan. If the Dravidian 

 speaking people of India are placed in the centre of the Turanian family, the 

 Chinese nation is an outlying member. Their system of relationship possesses 

 some features which distinguish it from every other, but these will be seen, in the 

 end, to relate to external rather than to radical characteristics. In its method it 



