MORGAN. | TRIBES AND GENTES CONTINUALLY FORMING. 19 
stock language. A coalescence of tribes into a nation had not occurred 
in any case in any part of America. 
A constant tendency to disintegration, which has proved such a hinder- 
ance to progress among savage and barbarous tribes, existed in the elements 
of the gentile organization. It was aggravated by a further tendency to 
divergence of speech, which was inseparable from their social state and the 
large areas of their occupation. An oral language, although remarkably 
persistent in its vocables, and still more persistent in its grammatical forms, 
is incapable of permanence. Separation of the people in area was followed 
in time by variation in speech; and this, in turn, led to separation in inter- 
ests and ultimate independence. It was not the work of a brief period, but 
of centuries of time, aggregating finally into thousands of years; and the 
multiplication of the languages and dialects of the different families of 
North and South America probably required for their formation the time 
measured by three ethnical periods. 
New tribes, as well as new gentes, were constantly forming by natural 
growth, and the process was sensibly accelerated by the great expanse of 
the American continent. The method was simple. In the first place there 
would oceur a gradual outflow of people from some overstocked geograph- 
ical center, which possessed superior advantages in the means of subsist- 
ence. Continued from year to year, a considerable population would thus 
be developed at a distance from the original seat of the tribe. In course 
of time the emigrants would become distinct in interests, strangers in feel- 
ing, and, last of all, divergent in speech. Separation and independence 
would follow, although their territories were contiguous. A new tribe was 
thus created. This is a concise statement of the manner in which the tribes 
of the American aborigines were formed, but the statement must be taken 
as general. Repeating itself from age to age in newly acquired as well as 
in old areas, it must be regarded as a natural as well as inevitable result of 
the gentile organization, united with the necessities of their condition. 
When increased numbers pressed upon the means of subsistence, the surplus 
removed to a new seat, where they established themselves with facility, 
because the government was perfect in every gens, and in any number of 
