The inheritance in the male line, the beginnings of individual property in slaves, the tightening of the marriage bond, accompanied by the condemnation of sundry irregularities heretofore tolerated, are phenomena which we might expect to find associated together. They are germs of the upper status of barbarism, as well as of the earliest status of civilization more remotely to follow. The common cause, of which they are the manifestations, is an increasing sense of the value and importance of personal property. In the Old World this sense grew up during a pastoral stage of society such as the New World never knew, and by the ages of Abraham and Agamemnon[138] it had produced results such as had not been reached in Mexico at the time of the Discovery. Still the tendency in the latter country was in a similar direction. Though there was no notion of real estate, and the house was still clan-property, yet the number and value of articles of personal ownership had no doubt greatly increased during the long interval which must have elapsed since the ancestral Mexicans entered upon the middle status. The mere existence of large and busy market-places with regular and frequent fairs, even though trade had scarcely begun to emerge from the stage of barter, is sufficient proof of this. Such fairs and markets do not belong to the Mohawk chapter in human progress. They imply a considerable number and diversity of artificial products, valued as articles of personal property. A legitimate inference from them is the existence of a certain degree of luxury, though doubtless luxury of a barbaric type. [Footnote 138: I here use these world-famous names without any implication as to their historical character, or their precise date, which are in themselves interesting subjects for discussion. I use them as best symbolizing the state of society which existed about the northern and eastern shores of the eastern Mediterranean, several centuries before the Olympiads.] [Sidenote: Mr. Morgan's rules.] It is at this point, I think, that a judicious critic will begin to part company with Mr. Morgan. As regards the outward aspect of the society which the Spaniards found in Mexico, that eminent scholar more than once used arguments that were inconsistent with principles of criticism laid down by himself. At the beginning of his chapter on the Aztec confederacy Mr. Morgan proposed the following rules:-- "The histories of Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates to the acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristics of the Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons, implements and utensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a similar character.