238 Distrust of Theories. 



Turanian. This presumption is, however, largely 

 founded on the assumption that the monogamous 

 family is developed from the punaluan. But we 

 have shown that there is no satisfactory evidence 

 of a punaluan family. Morgan adds, it is true, 

 that the &quot;impoverished condition of the original 

 nomenclature of the Aryan system,&quot; limited as it 

 was to &quot; father and mother, brother and sister, 

 and son and daughter, and a common term ap 

 plied indiscriminately to nephew, grandson, and 

 cousin &quot; (p. 481), could not possibly have been 

 the sole nomenclature of relationships used by a 

 people in so advanced a condition as the Aryans ; 

 and he therefore assumes that at that time the 

 Turanian system was just dying out among them. 

 But this is little better than begging the question. 

 What was there in the simple relations of primi 

 tive Aryan society that demanded a complex sys 

 tem of consanguinity ? There is no ground for 

 supposing, as there is absolutely no evidence, that 

 the beginnings of the Aryan system were syn 

 chronous with the disintegration of the Turanian. 

 This protracted examination of the theories 

 which have been furnished by Morgan and Mc 

 Lennan of the evolution of conjugal relations 

 cannot fail, I think, to induce a sceptical state of 

 mind in relation to all such speculations. The 



