392 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mentality that volition reaches its highest phase. Whosoever 

 has attained those " shining table-lands " of human character 

 where force, courage, endurance, and a due degree of altruism 

 perennially abide is in his own person an apotheosis of power, 

 the power whose beginnings we have traced to the muscular 

 activities. 



It then appears that in the twofold nature of man the physi- 

 cal and the psychical exist not merely in the relation of simple 

 contiguity, but rather as involved in " the one and indivisible 

 whole " of human existence, and that the psychical — the so-called 

 spiritual — qualities are developed through the physical agents 

 known as the bodily organs, by means of the activities which 

 constitute the functions of those organs. 



Said the great Spinoza, whose far-reaching vision penetrated 

 depths beyond the ken of the common mind : " We do not desire 

 or strive after anything because we think it good; we think it 

 good because we are moved to strive after and desire it" 



KINSHIP IN POLYNESIA.* 



By C. N. STAECKE, Ph. D., 



OF THE UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN. 



IN Polynesia, the distinct classes constitute a similar state of 

 things to the family group in the peoples of Asia, since they 

 form an exclusive organization, holding property in common. It 

 is not very clear how these classes arose, but we may assume that 

 they are connected with an earlier distribution into clans, so that 

 the chief represents the eldest line of the posterity of their com- 

 mon ancestor. In some cases this ancestor is supposed to be of 

 divine origin ; but we lay no stress on such a supposition, since it 

 probably arose after the chief's position was established. The 

 people are usually in possession of small plots of ground, either 

 as comparatively independent proprietors, or as serfs ; the nobles 

 are owners or rulers of small districts, and the king is ruler of the 

 whole. The conditions are in many respects confused and in- 

 definite, yet the type is undoubtedly that of the joint family, or 

 village community. 



The classes differ from clans in a natural way. The nobles of 

 different clans belong to one class, and while the clan is usually 

 exogamous, the class always tends to become endogamous. In 

 Polynesia, the definition of the class depends upon the line of 

 kinship, and the classes are not isolated with the exclusiveness of 



* From " The Primitive Family," by Dr. C. N. Starcke, " International Scientific Series," 

 vol. lxv, just published by D. Appleton & Co. 



