THE BEGINNINGS OF SOCIAL EVOLUTION 149 



Fuegians, for there too no higher association than 

 the family seems to exist. Among some savages 

 customs are such as to prevent further organization. 

 The children, as they become adults, leave the family, 

 separate from each other, and then completely for- 

 get their early life, having no more thought or affec- 

 tion for the members of their original family than 

 for any other savages they may meet as enemies. 

 Among the Bushmen the organization of associa- 

 tions larger than the family is hardly possible, and, 

 at all events, does not occur. The members of the 

 family, with their descendants, live together for a 

 .while, but soon the body becomes too numerous to 

 continue to subsist upon the scanty support of the 

 country in which they live. Without more knowledge 

 of obtaining a living from the land than they possess 

 the organization of a large community is impossible 

 in the barren lands that form their home. The result 

 is that when the family grows large it breaks to 

 pieces and the groups separate at once. 



But the human family differs from that of the 

 animals in that the family is the lowest rather than 

 the highest stage of civilization. Except among the 

 few lowest tribes, there has been almost universally 

 a tendency among the human races to unite in groups 

 larger than the family. The method by which these 

 early groups were formed is still uncertain, but we 

 do know that nearly everywhere families organized 

 into clans. Within the clans all persons were re- 

 lated to each other, and clans should, therefore, be 

 regarded as the growth of single families. This 

 appears to be true of the Scottish clans. But clans 

 organized again into tribes, where two or more clans 

 might be associated with each other for some pur- 



