This sequence, moreover, contravenes some of the conclusions of that body of eminent scholars who, in their speculations upon the origin of society, have adopted the patriarchal family of the Hebrew and Latin types as the oldest form of the family, and as producing the earliest organized society. The human race is thus invested from its infancy with a knowledge of the family under paternal power. Among the latest, and holding foremost rank among them, is Sir Henry Maine, whose brilliant researches in the sources of ancient law, and in the early history of institutions, have advanced so largely our knowledge of them. The patriarchal family, it is true, is the oldest made known to us by ascending along the lines of classical and Semitic authorities; but an investigation along these lines is unable to penetrate beyond the Upper Status of barbarism, leaving at least four entire ethnical periods untouched, and their connection unrecognized. It must be admitted, however, that the facts with respect to the early condition of mankind have been but recently produced, and that judicious investigators are justly careful about surrendering old doctrines for new.
Unfortunately for the hypothesis of degradation, inventions and discoveries would come one by one; the knowledge of a cord must precede the bow and arrow, as the knowledge of gunpowder preceded the musket, and that of the steam-engine preceded the railway and the steamship; so the arts of subsistence followed each other at long intervals of time, and human tools passed through forms of flint and stone before they were formed of iron. In like manner institutions of government are a growth from primitive germs of thought. Growth, development and transmission, must explain their existence among civilized nations. Not less clearly was the monogamian family derived, by experience, through the syndyasmian from the punaluan, and the still more ancient consanguine family. If, finally, we are obliged to surrender the antiquity of the monogamian family, we gain a knowledge of its derivation, which is of more importance, because it reveals the price at which it was obtained.
The antiquity of mankind upon the earth is now established by a body of evidence sufficient to convince unprejudiced minds. The existence of the race goes back definitely to the glacial period in Europe, and even back of it into the anterior period. We are now compelled to recognize the prolonged and unmeasured ages of man’s existence. The human mind is naturally and justly curious to know something of the life of man during the last hundred thousand or more years, now that we are assured his days have been so long upon the earth. All this time could not have been spent in vain. His great and marvelous achievements prove the contrary, as well as imply the expenditure of long protracted ethnical periods. The fact that civilization was so recent suggests the difficulties in the way of human progress, and affords some intimation of the lowness of the level from which mankind started on their career.
The foregoing sequence may require modification, and perhaps essential change in some of its members; but it affords both a rational and a satisfactory explanation of the facts of human experience, so far as they are known, and of the course of human progress, in developing the ideas of the family and of government in the tribes of mankind.
NOTE. - MR. J. F. McLENNAN’S “PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE.”
As these pages are passing through the press, I have obtained an enlarged edition of the above-named work. It is a reprint of the original, with several Essays appended; and is now styled “Studies in Ancient History Comprising a Reprint of Primitive Marriage.”
In one of these Essays, entitled “The Classificatory System of Relationships,” Mr. McLennan devotes one section (41 pages) to an attempted refutation of my explanation of the origin of the classificatory system; and another (36 pages) to an explanation of his own of the origin of the same system. The hypothesis first referred to is contained in my work on the “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family” (pp. 479-486). The facts and their explanation are the same, substantially, as those presented in preceding chapters of this volume (Chaps. II. and III., Part III.). “Primitive Marriage” was first published in 1865, and “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc., in 1871.
Having collected the facts which established the existence of the classificatory system of consanguinity, I ventured to submit, with the Tables, an hypothesis explanatory of its origin. That hypotheses are useful, and often indispensable to the attainment of truth, will not be questioned. The validity of the solution presented in that work, and repeated in this, will depend upon its sufficiency in explaining all the facts of the case. Until it is superseded by one better entitled to acceptance on this ground, its position in my work is legitimate, and in accordance with the method of scientific inquiry.