It has been my aim in this work to ascertain the nature of the primitive family, and to point out the ideas on which it is based, as well as the germ of moral growth which it contains. The family, however, exists within a larger community, by which it is influenced, so that such a task impels us at every turn to exceed its narrow limits. The difficulty of resisting this impulse is increased by the fact that it has been necessary to give a mainly critical character to this work. The theories previously set forth, to which we are opposed, have, generally speaking, neither admitted nor defined the border-line between the clan and the family, so that we were compelled to adapt our criticism to these theories. Since, however, we had no desire to increase the size of our work, and the number of the problems on which it touches, beyond measure, we decided only to enter into these questions so far as criticism demands, and to restrict ourselves within narrower limits whenever it was possible. Hence there may be a certain want of proportion in the course taken in these inquiries, and we ask our readers' forgiveness, wherever this is the case. C. N. STARCKE.