Till now I have been dealing with relatively small variations of the classificatory system. The varieties I have so far considered are such as would arise out of a common system if in one place there came into vogue the cross-cousin marriage, in another place marriage with the wife of the mother’s brother, in another that with the granddaughter of the brother or with the wife of the grandfather, and in yet other places combinations of these forms of marriage. I have now to consider whether it is possible to refer the main varieties of the classificatory system to social conditions; as an example with which to begin, I choose one which is so definite that it attracted the attention of Morgan, viz., the variety of the classificatory system which Morgan called “Malayan”. It is now generally recognised that this term was badly chosen. The variety so called was known to Morgan through the terminology of the Hawaiian Islands, and as the system of these islands was not only the first to be recorded, but is also that of which even now we have the most complete record, I propose to use it as the pattern and to speak of the Hawaiian system where Morgan spoke of the Malayan. If now we compare the Hawaiian system with the forms of the classificatory system found in other parts of Oceania, in Australia, India, Africa or America, we find that it is characterised by its extreme simplicity and by the fewness of its terms. Distinctions such as those between the father’s brother and the mother’s brother, between the father’s sister and the mother’s sister, and between the children of brothers or of sisters and the children of brother and sister, distinctions which are so generally present in the more usual forms of the classificatory system, are here completely absent. The problem before us is to discover whether the absence of these distinctions can be referred to any social factors. If not, we may be driven to suppose that there is something in the structure of the Polynesian mind which leads the Hawaiian and the Maori to see similarities where most other peoples of rude culture see differences. The first point to be noted is that in Oceania the distinction between the Hawaiian and the more usual forms of the classificatory system does not correspond with the distinction between the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples. Systems are to be found in Melanesia, as in the western Solomons, which closely resemble that of Hawaii, while there are Polynesian systems, such as those of Tonga and Tikopia, which are so like those of Melanesia that, if they had occurred there, they would have attracted no special attention. The difference between the two kinds of system is not to be correlated with any difference of race.