474 



SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



concrete was the growth of experience. It has been seen that such special terms 

 as were subsequently brought into use were employed in accordance with the 

 principles of the descriptive system. The truth of the general proposition is Sj 

 far manifest that it does not require further discussion except to remark, that the 

 adoption and maintenance of this system required an exercise of intelligence. It 

 seems probable, also, that marriage between single pairs and the descriptive 

 system of relationship had become established institutions in the Aryan and Semitic 

 families prior to or simultaneous with the commencement of the civilization of 

 tlicir several branches. Neitlier is it improbable that in the preceding ages of 

 barbarism they possessed a classificatory system. 



IV. Can the origin of the classificatory system be accounted for, and explained 

 from the nature of descents, upon the assumption of the existence of a series of 

 customs and institutions antecedent to a state of marriage between single pairs, of 

 which the Hawaiian custom is one ? 



It is perfectly evident that the origin of the classificatory system cannot be 

 explained from the nature of descents as they now exist amongst ci\ ilized nations. 

 And yet a state of society might have existed in the primitive ages, and might 

 exist at the present time, in which this system would be in strict accordance with 

 the nature of descents, and explainable as the product of natural suggestion. It is 

 for this reason, among others, that it becomes important to inquire whether in any 

 portion of uncivilized society, as now organized, there are at present operating 

 causes adequate to the production and therefore to the constant reproduction of 

 this remarkable system of relationship ; and secondly, if no such causes are now 

 foui^d to exist, whether its origin can be explained by any supposable antecedent 

 condition of society, however contrary that condition may be to our conceptions 

 of the early state of mankind. Should the first hypothesis become established, the 

 possession of this system by different nations of the same fiimily Avould lose much 

 of its significance, since it might have sprung up spontaneously in each under the 

 operating force of these causes. On the other hand, should the last hypothesis be 

 sustained it must be treated as a transmitted system from the earliest epoch of its 

 complete establishment, and its origin would be contemporaneous Avith the intro- 

 duction of the customs, or the birth of the institutions, from which it sprung. A 

 presumption would arise, from the fact of its possession by difi"erent nations of the 

 same family, that it was derived by each from a common source ; and a like pre- 

 sumption where it was found in diff"erent families ; provided the system could be 

 shown to be stable in its forms, and capable of self-perpetuation. That such causes 

 do not now exist will be made to appear in the discussion of the second hypothesis, 

 which will supersede the necessity of considering the first. 



There are two external causes which might be supposed to have exercised some 

 infiuence upon the formation of the system, the bearing of which should be con- 

 sidered before those are taken up which spring from the nature of descents. 

 These are the uses of the bond of kin for mutual protection, and the tribal organi- 

 zation. 



In the primitive ages the uses of the blood tic for the mutual protection of 

 related persons could not fail to arrest attention, and to rise to pre-eminent import- 



