Suppose male kinship (which must come with the growth of the family) introduced among tribes such as have been spoken of, containing different stocks. First, the stocks existing within the tribe would be fixed, stereotyped, within it; secondly, the growth of the family would be greatly promoted, and the influence of the idea of stock proportion ately diminished. The family would in time rise to the importance originally possessed by the stock; and at length the tribe, still divided into stocks, would become, politically, an aggregate of families. The tribe would thus assume the exact shape which it had in the early ages of Greece and Italy, when it was an aggregate of families included in clans or bodies considered kindred (genies); the exact shape which it now has among the most advanced of existing tribes. Since a tribe of the Australian type might thus develop into a tribe of the classical type, is it not probable that the latter really was the result of such a process of development? Regarded as a hypothesis, this view will he found to fulfill all the conditions of a good hypothesis. And if the circumstances of tribes which have what is popularly termed the marriage law of caste—among the greatest of which a division corresponding to the Roman gens prevails—can be reconciled with it, or with an extension of it, we shall have got a hypothesis capable of explaining the formation of tribes in general. The tribes above referred to, whether divided into clans or not, con sider themselves of a common stock. They restrict marriage to the stock; but they al ways forbid marriage within certain degrees of relationship; and in numerous cases— among them, those of the most numerous caste peoples—they also forbid marriage within the clan or body considered peculiarly kindred. It will be convenient, for want of a better word, to speak of this marriage law as caste. And by caste tribes, in what fol lows, are to he understood tribes which have this marriage law.
Seeing that the law forbidding marriage within the tribe, and the law restrict ing marriage to the tribe have both been widely prevalent among human races, both must be conventional, produced by circumstances; and if in their origin they are equally ancient, men, at the first, in respect of their circumstances, must long have been divided into two bodies very differently placed. This, how ever, is very improbable. There is no evidence for it; there is some evidence against it. The circumstances, too, capable of producing caste must have been isolating circumstances. The effect of an isolated position in producing an approach to caste may be seen in the case of the royal houses of Europe. Excepting, perhaps, mere physical isolation, it is difficult to conceive of isolating circumstances which could oper ate in the earliest times. Those which can be conceived of, and which are also known to have operated among caste peoples—the pride of conquerors, peculiarities of religion, the sentiment of an artistocracy or a priesthood, hereditary occupations—could only exist when society is somewhat advanced. It thus becomes highly probable that caste did not prevail in the earliest times—was not the original law of any tribes. There is strong corroboration of this in the fact, that it is found imperfectly established—in the course of being established—among not a few existing tribes; and in the fact, that it became the law of peoples—for example, the Hebrews—whose ancestors, according to tradition, followed a different practice. In connection with these considerations, there
is conclusive reason for holding that caste was not an original law, in the law of incest which prevails among the greatest of caste peoples, by which marriage is forbidden, not only within certain degrees of relationship, but also within the clan or body of kindred denoted by a family name. The existence of any law of incest among a caste people requires explanation. But how could a prohibition of marriage within the clan arise among people, whose principle it was to marry within the kindred? This can only be referred to circumstances which preceded the origin of caste. Does it not, then, sug gest the establishment, thrr ugh the force of isolating circumstances, of caste—the restriction of marriage to the tribe, or to particular tribes—among tribes divided into stocks which had forbidden marriage within the stock? This would, at any rate, account for the facts. The original prohibition, upon this view, is still represented by the prohibition of marriage within the clan. But as tribes advanced, the family usurped the place of the stock; there sprung up a belief in the common origin of the tribe; and the law of succession to family property gave a new importance to near relationships. The.law of incest would naturally tend to follow the practically important limits of rela tionships: and it might, being still applicable to the stock, be held specially binding within those limits; or it might be confined to them, for in the case of small and simply constituted bodies, within which the differences of condition and of employment were few and slight, the stocks—pressed, on the one hand, by the growth of the family, on the other, by the growing belief in the common descent of the tribe—would be apt to diQappear altogether. The absence of the stock or clan in the case of some of the smaller caste tribes, and the two laws of incest found ,among caste peoples—one of which, at least, seems otherwise inexplicable—can thus be accounted for consistently with the hypothesis of such peoples having progressed from the organization of the Aus tralian tribe. And it having been shown that caste is not an original law, all other cir cumstances of caste tribes will be found consistent -with that hypothesis. The belief which many tribes have had in their descent from one progenitor, is not corroborated in any case. It cannot prove its own truth. In many cases it can be shown to be a fiction; it is presumably so in all cases, and it does not afford an argument for or against any theory of the origin of tribes. — — The hypothesis of development, as it may be called, is thus capable of connecting together all the varieties of the tribe, the simplest with the most advanced; and it gives us, as the earliest and simplest idea formed of the tribe, that it was a body of persons who conceived themselves to be of a common stock. It is in the favor of this hypothesis that it affords an easy and natural explanation of the peaceable political union and fusion into one people of neighboring tribes; and of the fact, that a population is divided into a greater or less number of tribes, according as it is less or more advanced. tribes would contain the same stocks; they would thus be really homo geneous, and related; they would be ready for union as soon as their circumstances brought them into close contact, and made a political union desirable.