The explanation of these ethno-juristic parallel phenomena is in part not very difficult, inasmuch as many of them can be traced back to fixed forms of social organisation. Thus, for example, a whole group of universally recurring legal customs is associated with the peculiar formation of the clan-constitutions and clan-law which regularly appears among uncivilised peoples and characteristically differs from the form of political organisation familiar to the present age. Many legal customs are also based on religious conceptions and social customs, and their explication in such cases is frequently very difficult. A complete explanation of all the legal customs of all the peoples of the earth with respect to their social causes would exhaust the work of ethnological jurisprudence as an ethnological discipline. But in the same way that the acquisitions of ethnology are in their turn utilisable towards the constitution of a universal philosophy, to which they will impart perhaps an entirely different character, so will the results of ethnological jurisprudence be in their turn utilisable towards the constitution of a universal science of law and for the philosophy of law, in which probably, through its means also, a powerful change will be inaugurated. These are the ideas, traced in their most general characters, that may be regarded as the fundamental ones in “ethnological jurisprudence.” ALBERT HERMANN POST. FOOTNOTES: [4] Translated from the manuscript of Dr. Albert Hermann Post by Thomas J. McCormack. [5] Bastian. [6] The reader will find a brief survey of the ethno-juristic parallels appearing among the various peoples of the earth, in a treatise of mine entitled _Ueber die Aufgaben einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft_ (1891), pp. 27 to 72. AMERICAN POLITICS. Nothing in this country appears to the stranger more intricate and inexplicable than our politics. The different parties, two big ones and several little ones, the various machines, county, state, and national, the “bosses,” “heelers,” and “workers” present such a confusion of ideas and a terminology so varied, that it is only after many years that the foreigner begins to comprehend our system of government and the principles underlying our political movements. Indeed, the majority of Americans themselves are no better off and have no clear perception of the part they are playing in the administration of affairs or the ethical effects of the ballot which they cast. Ask the ordinary voter why he supports the candidates of a certain party and you will find that his reasons are reducible to a few concrete facts, and are rarely governed by any general principles.