HUMAN FACULTIE.S. Ill ?bcrates and the master spirits of Ihh time the hiimai] miuil has advanced,^ Bhakspeare and a few othera comfort us ^yith the thout];ht that it has not retrograded, but no other land can show the flood of Hgbt that shone in Gi^eece, when her scanty freemen raised painting, sculpture, archi- tecture, literature, and philosopliy to heights perpetually aimed at, h^ehloni reached, arul never surpassed. Leavhii^^ as beyond discuBsion in these pa*;;e« the unspeakalde Idess- ings conferred upon man by Cin'istianity, the world has little to sbow except in mecbanical contrivances and dis- coveries, flowiuf]; from the inductive system. Becorded gains indeed are never lost. Material advantages are innumerable, but mental transformation, by way of heightene<l faculty, no one will ventuie to claim as the result of maii^s exertions. The bare idea of John Sttiart Mill confronted by the easy superiority of Socrates would drive such a thought from the most boastful.
Mr. Howitt, reflecting on the condition of a grou^j of persons all connected by lilood, has evolved a theory that originally "brothers had their wives incouimon, or a grou[> of sisters their luisbands in common,"*^ and that from this promiscuous intercourse the savage mind engendered an elaborate code wbich made such intercourse impossible. It was common to many Australian tiiljes to have a compre- hensive term which included many relations. Thus a father's brother's child and a mother's sister's child on the River Peake in South Australia bore the same relative term to their cousin. At Lake Alexandriria, in the same colony, the cousin bore one appellation if male, and another if female. As there were terms to comprehend a grandfather's or grandmuther's brothers and sisters* and as every living relation bore a significant term reciprocated by another, the
- The jiidgineut of Mr. Lecky fHUtory *>f Eiirapeau Momls) and Mr.
Galtoii (Hereditary (ieiiiua) go far l>eyond the affinnation in the text. ^"^ He tidopta the terminology of Di Morgan (Ancient Society). A
- consanguine fandly" signltiea intermarriage of Urothera and sisters in
groupB. A 'Punaluau family" indicates intenuarriage of several brothers to each other's wives in a t^oup. A ** Syiidiasinian famity" indicates *'tbe pairing of a male and femnle, but without exclusive cohabitation." Not one of these forms was extant in Australia, and yet it ta attempted to derivts the intricate and unswerving mairiagt! laws of the tribes from them I
