The descent of the gentes from common ancestors has caused the "schoolbred philistines," as Marx has it, much worry. Representing this descent as purely mythical, they are at a loss to explain how the gentes developed out of independent and wholly unrelated families. But this explanation must be given, if they wish to explain the existence of the gentes. They then turn around in a circle of meaningless gibberish and do not get beyond the phrase: the pedigree is indeed a fable, but the gens is a reality. Grote finally winds up--the parenthetical remarks are by Marx: "We rarely hear about this pedigree, because it is used in public only on certain very festive occasions. But the less prominent gentes had their common religious rites (very peculiar, Mr. Grote!) and their common superhuman ancestor and pedigree just like the more prominent gentes (how very peculiar this, Mr. Grote, in less prominent gentes!); and the ground plan and the ideal fundament (my dear sir! Not ideal, but carnal, anglice "fleshly") was the same in all of them." Marx sums up Morgan's reply to this as follows: "The system of consanguinity corresponding to the archaic form of the gens--which the Greeks once possessed like other mortals--preserved the knowledge of the mutual relation of all members of the gens. They learned this important fact by practice from early childhood. With the advent of the monogamous family this was gradually forgotten. The gentile name created a pedigree by the side of which that of the monogamous family seemed insignificant. This name had now the function of preserving the memory of the common descent of its bearers. But the pedigree of the gens went so far back that the gentiles could no longer actually ascertain their mutual kinship, except in a limited number of more recent common ancestors. The name itself was the proof of a common descent and sufficed always except in cases of adoption. To actually dispute all kinship between gentiles after the manner of Grote and Niebuhr, who thus transform the gens into a purely hypothetical and fictitious creation of the brain, is indeed worthy of "ideal" scientists, that is book worms. Because the relation of the generations, especially on the advent of monogamy, is removed to the far distance, and the reality of the past seems reflected in phantastic imaginations, therefore the brave old philistines concluded and conclude that the imaginary pedigree created real gentes!"