Let us now turn to Sir J. Lubbock's theory, as expressed in the extract above, in which he shows us how marriage by capture would quite naturally have arisen out of the state of communal marriage. But if natural, it would have been natural from the commencement, _quid vetat_? There must then have been a system also in operation from the commencement, the inevitable tendency of which, by making paternity distinct and recognisable, would have been to substitute inheritance through males; and this system, by introducing a more robust posterity, would rapidly have gained upon the other system. Male inheritance, it would then appear, commenced and established itself at the outset, and to the displacement of inheritance through females. How, then, do we find traces of the latter custom so prevalent? From this point of view the more instances Sir J. Lubbock accumulates, the more he will excite our incredulity and surprise. This theory again, equally with Mr M'Lennan's, supposes mankind originally in a state of hetairism, in which case it is futile to talk of tribes and of marriage out of the tribe; for how did they emerge into this tribal separation out of the state of promiscuity? The difficulty gets more complicated since, _ex hypothesi_, after emerging from, they still remain within the tribal limits, in the state of hetairism. These preliminaries must be settled before the argument can be carried further. The usual philosophic formula is, of course, at hand--these changes must have required an indefinite lapse of ages! Into this swamp we shall see one philosopher after another disappear, leaving a delusive light behind him! If we could only, Dante like, recall one of these philosophers to life, after he has passed into his state of Nirvana, we would ask, as in this instance, why, supposing the state of promiscuity, it would require an indefinite lapse of ages to pass from it, according to the conditions of Sir John Lubbock's argument (_i.e._ to the state of exogamy); considering that, _vide supra_, "it is obvious that, even under communal marriage, a warrior who had captured, &c., would claim a peculiar right to her, and, when possible, would set custom at defiance." Clearly, then, it only required the man and the opportunity. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER III. The view at p. 26 substantially coincides with the lines laid down by Blackstone (compare Plato; Grote's Plato, iii. 337), which are the subject of Bentham's attack, and to which the recent contributions of Sir Henry Maine to our knowledge in these matters would seem to run counter. Blackstone, "Comm." i. 47, said--