218 THE PATH OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



of nomadic tribes, which, living as they did in 

 tents, originated the conception. 1 



Among peoples where the system of marriage by 

 groups has existed, family nomenclatures continued 

 to persist long after the disappearance of the family 

 system to which they owed their origin. " The 

 family," says Morgan, " is an active element, never 

 stationary ; it keeps pace with the development of 

 society in the march of progress. On the other 

 hand, the reckoning of kinship changes very 

 slowly ; only after long lapses of time does it 

 register the progress actually made by the family 

 in the course of ages, and does not undergo any 

 radical transformation until long after the family 

 itself has been completely changed." " And," adds 

 Karl Marx, whose critical annotations on Morgan's 

 book were carefully preserved by Engels, "this also 

 applies to systems of politics, law, religion, or 

 philosophy." 



These systems, formed after the completion of 

 the social organization which they express, survive 

 after the organization itself has disappeared. Their 

 elimination is not of such importance to society 

 as is that of the economic or family institutions 

 themselves, as these, when they become useless and 

 disadvantageous, are a drag on future development. 



1 Viollet, Histoire du droit civil /r., p. 617. 



"Although houses were for centuries treated as moveable pro- 

 perty, they dbntinued to be legally treated as such for a still 

 longer period of time ; it is characteristic of judicial ideas that 

 they lag far behind economic progress." 



