HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 31 
ticular relationship would thus be impracticable. In overcoming this difti- 
culty two methods of designating relationships have come into use in the 
evolution of languages. The older method is that of classification, by 
which relationships are thrown into groups in various ways in different 
languages. The later method is the descriptive, in which some of the 
most fundamental relationships are named, and by the use of these names 
other relationships are described. This latter method is never the popular 
one in any language, and is only used when an attempt is made to desig- 
nate the degree of relationship with exactness. For example, in English 
there is a group of persons in a large body of kindred who are called 
- cousins. If one of these cousins should wish to be more exact in defining 
the relationships which existed between himself and the others, he would 
yi 
father’s sister’s son,” “‘my father’s sister’s daughter”; and so on with the 
say ‘my father’s brother's son,” “my father’s brother’s daughter,” “ 
cousins in his mother’s line. The system of designating these persons as 
cousins would be classificatory; the system of describing these persons by 
designating their genetic relations through the use of the fundamental terms 
’ constitutes the descriptive 
“father,” ‘‘ mother,” ‘son,” and ‘daughter,’ 
system. 
In all languages the classificatory system is the primary one, %. €¢., 
that in common use. But the methods of classification differ widely, and 
these differences are found to rest, to some extent, upon the social institu- 
tions of the people in such a manner that if the system of relationships or 
method of classifying kindred used by any tribe be known, we have a rev- 
elation of some of their most important social institutions. 
The characteristics upon which kinships are classified are as follows; 
1. Lineal generation, giving rise to father and son, grandfather and 
and grandson, great grandfather and great grandson, &c., father and 
daughter, &c., mother and son, &e., mother and daughter, &e. 
2. Collateral generation, giving rise to brothers and sisters, uncles and 
aunts, cousins, &c. 
3. Sex, by which we distinguish between father and mother, brother 
and sister, aunt and uncle, &e In some languages sex enters into the sys- 
tem of classification in a double way—that is, the sex of both parties of a 
