Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/501

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442 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., I, 1899

ernment of the people by the people for the people. Thus, four stages in demotic development seemed to be clearly defined : (1} Savagery, with clan and tribal organization based on kinship traced in the female line, dominated by mysticism and shaman- ism ; (2) Barbarism, with gentile institutions based on kinship traced in the male line, dominated largely by priestcraft ; (3} Civilization, with national organization based on property-right, (especially territorial), initiated and controlled by a beneficent cult ; (4) Enlightenment, with national institutions based on material and intellectual rights and the recognition of individual- ity. Throughout, the key-note of institutional activity is hunger for association for mutual pleasure and welfare ; the primitive method is biotic association for the preservation of the kind ; the higher and essentially human method is combination in ever increasing groups, with the ancillary exaltation of strength and knowledge, and growing recognition of the value of life. The main lines of progress are easily traced ; the early law of might yields gradually to the higher law of right ; hereditary despotism gives way to popular will ; knowledge passes from the mystical to the real ; tribes grow into nations, and nations into alliances ; judgment is strengthened by exercise, and life grows easier and happier as needless bonds are broken and as equality blossoms neath liberty's rays.

So the function of the institution is the control and regulation of individual activity for the benefit of the group ; and the qual- ity of the institution is at first kindly and at last charitable. The tendency of the institution is to expand with the extension of pleasures and industries ; and its effect is to combine humanity in larger and larger groups as the generations pass, yet ever to • lighten its own chains with the growth of individual knowledge and kindliness.

Philology. — Language appears to arise spontaneously among the brutes in the form of inarticulate cries of fright or pain, or per- chance expressing the mere joy of living or the glory of virile

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