Descriptive historiography has no higher object than that of offering materials to this science. It can, however, but very inadequately fulfil this task. The written evidences of history do not reach far into antiquity. They give us information about times when the scale of civilization was already comparatively high—but scarcely anything more. As to the origin and early development of social institutions, they leave us entirely in the dark. The sociologist cannot rest content with this. But the information which historical documents are unable to afford him, may be, to a great extent, obtained from ethnography. The admirable works of Dr. Tylor, Sir John Lubbock, and Mr. Herbert Spencer have already made us familiar with the idea of a history of primitive civilization, based on ethnographical grounds. This new manner of treating history has, since the publication of their writings on the subject, gained adherents day by day. Immeasurable expanses have thus been opened to our knowledge, and many important results have been reached. But it must, on the other hand, be admitted that the scientific value of the conclusions drawn from ethnographical facts has not always been adequate to the labour, thought, and acumen bestowed on them. The various investigators have, in many important questions, come to results so widely different, that the possibility of thus getting any information about the past might easily be doubted. These differences, however, seem to me to be due, not to the material, but to the manner of treating it. “The chief sources of information regarding the early history of civil society,” says Mr. McLennan, “are, first, the study of races in their primitive condition; and, second, the study of the symbols employed by advanced nations in the constitution or exercise of civil rights.”[1]