LXX ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



are not so manifest. In such cases they may yet be consid- 

 ered as autogenous from different centers, but many of them 

 doubtless are syngenous. The people among which they are 

 found can be traced back by linguistic or other evidence to 

 common progenitors, and in such cases the institutions are 

 syngenous by inheritance. Again, we have abundant evi- 

 dence, in relation to institutions, that they are borrowed from 

 time to time, and such institutions are syngenous by accult- 

 uration. 



The study of linguistic similarities has been largely carried 

 on, and important lessons may be derived therefrom. Func- 

 tional similarities are very general, because certain classes of 

 ideas are universal. Wherever the relation of father and son 

 exists and is recognized, there must be words corresponding 

 to "father" and "son." Wherever men have recognized that 

 some things must be high and others low, corresponding terms 

 must be used. Wherever anger is observed it is named; and 

 wherever men walk, a term signifying "to walk" must be 

 used. But it is not with functional similarities that we now 

 deal, but only with the means or instrument by which func- 

 tions are performed — that is, with organic similarities. Many 

 languages have been studied and compared, and out of this 

 comparison has resulted the establishment of many groups of 

 cognate languages, called "families" or "stocks." But, as lan- 

 guages have been grouped into families where evidence of 

 common origin has been discovered, so the families have been 

 separated from each other for want of such evidence. They 

 are considered to be autogenous — that is, to have been devel- 

 oped from distinct centers. During the course of this research 

 certain rules have been established for the interpretation of 

 linguistic similarities. To a large extent, similar words per- 

 forming similar functions are believed to establish the relation 

 of cognation between them. It is on this basis that the various 

 languages of the Aryan family, stretching from Asia westward 

 over Europe, and of course spoken by Europeans in America, 

 are so related that they are believed to have had a common 

 origin in some primitive language, now lost as such, but from 

 which the peoples who speak the several languages composing 



