The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online

RECORD: Darwin, C. R. n.d. Abstract of Maine, Ancient law, 1861. CUL-DAR80.B56. Edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/)

REVISION HISTORY: Transcribed by Christine Chua and edited by John van Wyhe 10.2021. RN1

NOTE: See record in the Darwin Online manuscript catalogue, enter its Identifier here. Reproduced with permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library and William Huxley Darwin. The volumes CUL-DAR80-86 contain material for Darwin's book Descent of man (1871).

Darwin cited this in Descent 1: 159-60. n2: "After a time the members or tribes which are absorbed into another tribe assume, as Mr. Maine remarks ('Ancient Law,' 1861, p. 131), that they are the co-descendants of the same ancestors."

[B56]

Maine. Ancient Law. 1861. p. 22. Much the greatest part of mankind has never shown a particle of desire that its civil * institutions shd be improved.

p. 125 In Homer, judging from the account of the Cyclops, "men are first seen distributed in perfectly insulated groups, held together by obedience to the parent"

p. 131. "Men who formed the various political groups were certainly in the habit of meeting together periodically."

"it is not that all early societies were, by descent from the same ancestor, but all of them were so descended or assumed that they were.

p. 170. The movement of progressive societies has been from the structure of the family to contract betwen individuals.

Citation: John van Wyhe, ed. 2002-. The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/)