A Century of Science 33 



higher stages. The units of composition in sav 

 age and barbarous societies are always the clan, 

 the phratry, and the tribe. In the lower stages 

 of barbarism we see such confederacies as those of 

 the Iroquois ; in the highest stage, at the dawn of 

 civilization, we begin to find nations imperfectly 

 formed by conquest without incorporation, like 

 aboriginal Peru or ancient Assyria. In the lower 

 stages we see captives tortured to death, then at 

 a later stage sacrificed to the tutelar deities, then 

 later on enslaved and compelled to till the soil. 

 Through the earlier stages of culture, as in Aus 

 tralasia and aboriginal America, we find the mar 

 riage tie so loose and paternity so uncertain that 

 kinship is reckoned only through the mother ; but in 

 the highest stage of barbarism, as among the ear 

 liest Greeks, Romans, and Jews, the more definite 

 patriarchal family is developed, and kinship begins 

 to be reckoned through the father. It is only 

 after that stage is reached that inheritance of pro 

 perty becomes fully developed, with the substitu 

 tion of individual ownership for clan ownership, 

 and so on to the development of testamentary suc 

 cession, individual responsibility for delict and 

 crime, and the substitution of contract for status. 

 In all such instances and countless others might 

 be cited we see the marks of an intelligible pro- 



