OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 471 



terms. The Erse and Gaelic systems were never carried beyond this stage. After 

 a descriptive system was adopted it would have a form, a method of distinguishing 

 relatives one from another, and, as a consequence, an arrangement of kindred into 

 lines of descent. The application of this method involves a series of conceptions 

 which become, at the same time, clothed with definite forms. If this simple plan 

 of consanguinity became permanently introduced into practical use, its transmission, 

 through a few generations, would convert it into an indurated system capable of 

 resisting radical innovations. The Erse and Gaelic are illustrations in point. The 

 ideas embodied are few in number, but their association in fixed relations creates 

 a system, as well as organizes a family. In its connection with the family, and in 

 its structure as a system, its power of self-perpetuation resides. By these con- 

 siderations it is raised to the rank of a domestic institution. 



The invention of terms for collateral relationships must of necessity have been 

 extremely difficult under the descriptive system. This is shown by the present 

 condition of these forms in the several Aryan and Semitic nations, none of "which 

 developed their system far beyond the Erse. In process of time the relationship 

 of paternal and maternal uncle and aunt might be turned from the descriptive into 

 the concrete form by the invention of special terms, making each of the four dis- 

 tinct. This is the extent of the advance made in the Arabic and Hebraic forms. 

 The discrimination of the relationships of nephew and niece in the concrete would 

 be still more difficult, since it involves a generalization of the children of an indi- 

 vidual's brothers and sisters into one class, and the turning of two descriptive 

 phrases into a single concrete term with a masculine and feminine form. These 

 relationships, as now used, were reached among such of the Aryan nations as 

 possess them within the modern period. That of cousin was still more difficult of 

 attainment, as it involved a generalization of four different classes of persons into 

 a single class, and the invention of a term to express it in the concrete. Amongst 

 the nations of the Aryan family the Roman and the German alone reached this, 

 the ultimate stage of the system. Such of the remaining nations as possess 

 this relationship borrowed it, with the term, from the Roman source ; and it is 

 probable that the Germans derived the conception from the same quarter, although 

 their term was indigenous in the German speech. These terms were designed to 

 relieve the inconvenience of the descriptive method as far as they applied. In so 

 far as they were founded upon generalizations they failed, with some exceptions, to 

 indicate with accuracy the manner of the relationships ; whence it became necessary 

 to resort to explanatory words, or to the descriptive method, to be specific. These 

 considerations tend still further to show the stability of the system as a domestic 

 institution, although the ideas which it embodies are limited in number. 



In marked contrast with the descriptive is the classificatory system, which is 

 complex in its structure, elaborate in its discriminations, and opulent in its nomen- 

 clature. A very different and more striking series of ideas and principles here 

 present themselves, without any existing causes adequate for their interpretation or 

 explanation. With marriage between single pairs, with the family in a modified 

 sense, with the tribal organization still unimpaired in certain nations and abandoned 

 in others, with polygamy polyandria and the Hawaiian custom either unknown or 



