The Evolution of Morality. 231 



themselves. &quot; They stand to each other in a logi 

 cal sequence &quot; (p. 413), says Morgan ; and, indeed, 

 that is just why we suspect them. They seem 

 the creatures of successive logical determination, 

 rather than the footprints of infant humanity. 

 Some such acknowledgment is implied in Mor 

 gan s confession that promiscuous intercourse has 

 not been practised &quot; within the time of recorded 

 human observation, 7 and that it can only be &quot; de 

 duced theoretically as a necessary condition ante 

 cedent to the consanguine family&quot; (p. 502). 

 And, again, the Malayan system, which expresses 

 the relationships existing under the consanguine 

 family, is pronounced the oldest form because it 

 is the simplest (p. 403). Thus the consanguine 

 family is really the starting-point of the whole 

 system ; from it promiscuity is inferred to have 

 preceded, and without it the punaluan family 

 could not emerge in the sequel. I proceed, there 

 fore, to examine this crucial point the evidence 

 for the existence of the consanguine family, on 

 which the whole theory depends. 



As a family organization, Morgan himself tells 

 us it nowhere existed in historic times. The 

 marriage of sisters and brothers, own and collat 

 eral, in a group, is, as we saw, solely an infer 

 ence from the Malayan system of consanguinity 



