In 1885, Messrs. Howitt and Fison were aware of, and expressed their sense of this difficulty (that of dividing people out into arbitrary groups) in the case of ancient Attica. Speaking of the γένος, or clan, in Attica, they combat the opinion of Harpocration, that the people were ‘arbitrarily drafted into the γένη.[24] Our authors remark, ‘Ancient society--the more ancient--does not thus regulate itself. _Nascitur non fit_. One can understand a Kleisthenes redistributing into demes a civilised community which has grown into a State, but the notion of any such arbitrary distribution of men into γένη; in the beginning of things cannot be entertained for a moment.’[25] This being so, how can our authors maintain that, ‘in the beginning of things,’ given an ‘undivided commune,’ all its members were ‘drafted’ into one or other of two divisions, and again into totem groups. A subdivision of the ‘phratries’ into totem groups, by deliberate arrangement, is clearly as artificial and arbitrary as the scheme suggested by Harpocration, ‘which cannot be entertained for a moment.’ We are speaking of ‘the beginning of things,’ not of the present state of things, in which we know that modifications of the rules, e.g. the division into eight ‘classes,’ are being deliberately adopted.[26] In ‘the beginning of things,’ as Messrs. Howitt and Fison, in 1885, maintained, society _nascitur non fit_. Our effort is to show the process of the birth of society before conscious and deliberate modifications were made to prevent marriages, of ‘too near flesh.’ Our criticism of Messrs. Fison and Howitt’s theories may perhaps indicate that they are insufficient, or but dubiously intelligible. Something clear and consistent is required. [Footnote 1: Apparently, among the Kamilaroi, members of the same phratry may intermarry, avoiding unions in their own totems. Mathews (_Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W._ xxxi. 161, 162). Mr. Mathews calls a ‘phratry’ a ‘group.’] [Footnote 2: Second series, pp. 289-310.] [Footnote 3: I shall, for my own part, use ‘phratry’ for the two ‘primary exogamous divisions’ of a tribe, and ‘class’ for the divisions within the ‘phratry’ which do not appear to be of totemic origin. Mr. Fison applies ‘class’ to both the primary divisions and those contained in each of them, observing that ‘the Greek “phratria” would be the most correct term.’ He is aware, of course, that this employment of phratria is arbitrary, but it is convenient. While he applies ‘class’ both to ‘the primary divisions of a community, and their first subdivisions,’ to the latter I restrict ‘classes,’ using phratry for the former (_Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 24).] [Footnote 4: _Jour. and Proc. of the Roy. Soc. N.S.W._, xxviii, xxxii, xxxiv.] [Footnote 5: _Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W._ xxxiv. 120-122.] [Footnote 6: _Prov. Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S.W._, xxxiv. 127. Mr. Fison makes an exception for some Kamilaroi.] [Footnote 7: This view is discussed later.] [Footnote 8: P. 27 _et seq_.]