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The one task of primitive man was conquest. He had to assert his lordship over other animals, his inferiors, or succumb. This lordship was acquired after innumerable efforts and many failures, for the benefit of himself and his descendants. The victory gained was never lost. How it was kept we can barely apprehend, when we think of the efforts needed to be constantly put forth to secure and maintain it. After awhile he made them his servants. He tamed wild animals, and taught them how to become his auxiliaries in hunting and fishing. Some he took for companionship; for man's sociality has been largely promoted by his contact with animals. These he trained to be his co-helpers in the civilisation he was slowly, and under such enormous disadvantages, initiating for the human

race.

The desire to possess property in land, or what not, grew up slowly. While he was a mere nomad that desire was not lively-it became so later. Happy hunting grounds were common where men were few, and he could indulge his roving propensity. He shifted from place to place at will or whim, hardly feeling attachment to any one particular place.

When he changed this life, or rather when this life gradually became transformed into a pastoral one, then he needed large runs for his flocks and herds, and naturally preferred verdant and well-watered plains for the purpose; and to such spots he attached himself for certain seasons, until he began to feel, through use and wont, that he had a certain sort of property in them. He was driven by the number of his flocks and herds to select good places, and compelled by their breeding to restrain somewhat, much, doubtless, against his will, his roaming propensities. Further, he had to defend his flocks and pastures from the incursions and raids of others, like himself, in search of good pasturage for cattle. And when this defence had been successfully accomplished, both he and his family, or families, would naturally feel that they had conquered for themselves some right to the soil which they held.

The Zeitgeist passes over this mode of life, and when, by slow gradations, it, in its turn, had passed into an agricultural stage, then more than ever would man become attached to the soil to which he gave his energies, labour, and all his little wealth. In such case the sense of ownership would develop itself and grow strong. To dig and till

the soil, and make it fruitful, is not easy work at any time, even with the best of implements, and backed with the resources of modern agricultural chemistry. It is true that at that time the soil was not impoverished by frequent sowings and reapings. Still, ploughing with a bone-for with such a thing does the soil seem at first to have been scratched-is poor work, even if the soil be rich. Numerous enough are now the ills which wait on crops; it is, perhaps, not too much to say that they were vastly more numerous in primitive times. Now, moreover, long discipline has made man attached to the soil in a sense totally unknown then, and he labours on, even when it fails him, as a thing of course. Such is his acquired habit. But habits of regular industry were foreign to man then, and the temptation to give up his plot, and try elsewhere for one more fruitful, would be well-nigh irresistible. We know it was so in later times, and that it must have been so in earlier. The systems of land tenure which have prevailed in different countries show how ready are the supine and the indolent everywhere to yield their rights to others, and with them their duties, for a paltry payment in specie or in kind. Man has earned his bread by the sweat of his brow, or has had to give place for better men prepared to earn theirs in such a way.

In this way began Defence; and the having of something which needed defence fostered habits of industry, and originated the primitive notions of morality which grew up with the possession of property, whether that property was arms, lands, huts, rifles, wives, children, &c. The least civilised say that it is wrong for others to steal from them, but not wrong for them to steal from others. The association of families formed a tribe, clan, or town, and with the tribe, clan, or township, there came into existence social and political institutions of the last importance as educators and discipliners of man, the remains of which institutitions are distinctly traceable in Eastern and Western Village Communities. The religion of these small Communities would probably be Astrolatric-Fetichism, or nascent Polytheism, if their internal development was not modified or changed by pressure from without. Changes of belief, or modifications of that belief, whether the belief be in moral relations, or intellectual notions, are bound to tell on the social and political life at all times and in all places.

The heart and brain, which inspire and stimulate activity,

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transform its character in the long run. The life re-acts upon the belief, making opinions passions, and modifying passions into opinions. Action and re-action are to be found in the moral world as well as in the physical; in simple societies as well as in more complex ones. This is an abstract history of many of the earlier organisations of mankind. It is out of such organisations as these that Egypt, India, China, Japan, Mexico, and Peru were originally formed. Astrolatric-Fetichism requires a contemplative class to interpret the wills of the stars and planetary bodies, which became fetiches for large masses of men. This contemplative class formed in its turn a Theocratic Society of peaceful tendencies, and, within certain limits, of high civilisation. Theocracies beget the system of Castes, which system serves immense social uses by rendering trades, occupations, and professions hereditary in certain families, gives stability and order to the Society itself, and ensures peace and quiet where there might otherwise have been turbulence and unrest, unsettling all government. These Theocracies are to be seen in the civilisations of both East and West-remains of them, that is, more or less clearly traceable. They were premature systems of thought and life-individual and collective-and as such had to be broken up, so as to permit of man's whole nature being developed, which it could not have been had it not been variously, if more partially, disciplined in the Intellectual Polytheism of Greece, the Social Polytheism of Rome, and the affective Monotheism introduced by Catholicism. The founders of the organisations which grew afterwards to be Greece and Rome were colonies from the great Eastern Theocracies, who could not, in a peaceful society, find room for the play of their military activities which they did find elsewhere.

Comte regards the military civilisations of Greece and Rome, and especially that of Rome, as of paramount importance for the educating and disciplining of those peoples who were no longer content to remain satisfied with the Theocracies, those grand but premature attempts to discipline all the powers and capacities of man. Colonies from those Theocracies went out to establish communities on a newer and freer basis, carrying with them valuable traditions of the old order and mode of government, and, as was natural, many of the old religious rites, ceremonies, and practices. Both Hellenes and Latins were colonies

from Eastern Theocracies, as their religions bear witness; and both were indisposed to allow of the formation of large priestly organisations among them, being jealous of the power these might acquire and wield. Neither of them was disposed to undervalue religion or the functionaries of religion; and they did not believe in a religion without functionaries-on the contrary, they saw their vast importance, and recognised the marvellous power they exercised over man's thought and life. But having left a Society where the military was subordinate to the priestly or ruling class, they founded communities of their own, of a less peaceful nature, in which priests play a very important part, but did not occupy the chief place or become allpowerful. Intellect had been cramped in Theocracies, and the intelligence fettered by the many rules that had been made to guide and regulate it. Neither Poetry, Philosophy, Science, nor Medicine made great progress in Theocracies; although in these matters, as in much else, it is the first step which is the difficulty. The progress made was greater than is commonly supposed, and, once made, it was secured as a heritage to man; for, in order to ensure the knowledge obtained at so much cost, the Theocrats set a higher value on its preservation than on its accumulation. That knowledge became fixed in rules and axioms and observances. It was well they did this, for they prevented the early acquisitions and empirical observations of the wise and thoughtful in ages when the utility of wisdom was barely recognised by the many-such was the widespread lack of 'knowledge-from being undervalued or lost. Poetry, Philosophy, and Science attained a majesty, freedom, and expansiveness in Greece they could not have acquired in the Theocracies whether of Egypt or India. Free from Theocratic shackles and conventional rules-rules which had their value, inasmuch as they formulated and perpetuated whatever was ennobling in human culture-man's nature could develop itself on all sides unrestrained. And Greece showed that it did so develop, to the admiration and glory, and possibly also to the shame, of after ages. For this many-sidedness had its drawbacks. In the haste for intellectual, moral culture was sometimes forgotten; and there grew up together intellectual progress and moral retrogradation. (A sadly significant fact for those who think that culture of the intellect is almost sufficient of itself for the right conduct of man.) It was unavoidable,

perhaps, but it is no less lamentable. Henceforth we shall see one-sided development. Man's nature needed and has it. Nor shall we be much surprised if that nature is not so completely disciplined as it had been in Theocracies.

And not only had the intellect of man been "cabined, cribbed, and confined" in Theocracy, although, to be just, not to the extent it is commonly supposed; but his affections and activities (his social nature, in short) had suffered in this way also. Only one way seemed open to expand and discipline them, and that was by war. At any rate, if there was another way, we know it was only by and through war man was rendered a social being. Discussions of what might have, been if things or events had been or happened otherwise, are not only irrelevant; they are waste of time. We do know how man was educated, and that is enough for us. We have far other occupation than that "of dropping buckets down empty wells, and growing old in drawing nothing up." A priori reasonings must yield to d posteriori facts. Rome represents to us, by virtue of her military domination, her grand system of incorporation, and her success in establishing the Roman Pax, or peace, Social Polytheism. How well her system deserves the title will be evident to all thoughtful men who are familiar with the common facts, and know how to interpret them. Rome has left to us, her heirs, her policy, and her jurisprudence, with the unforgetable memories of her statesmen, soldiers, heroes, and patriots, among which must be counted the illustrious Julius Cæsar. Cæsar is the completest type of the ancient military civilisation, since he knew not only how to conquer, but how to rule; he not only widened the rule of Rome, but deepened and compacted it: he not only destroyed, but he built up a nobler social organisation than had ever existed before, upon sounder bases. Under him and his successor, the Roman military system became transformed from Conquest into Defence.

When Cæsar put himself at the head of the government, and used his soldierly and statesman-like qualities to consolidate the Roman power, he had a great task to perform such a task as falls to the lot of few men in the lifetime of Humanity. How he performed it-how he set to work to make one people of Patricians and Plebs, satisfying the due desires and aspirations of each-is known to the diligent student of history, who is guided by the light

Comte's works throw on the great crisis through which Rome successfully passed, in the main, under the lead and domination of the Cæsars. The wants of the great Latin peoples were not only more fully met than they had ever been before, but peace, order, protection, and the due administration of the laws were guaranteed. Society was endeavouring to settle itself upon a peaceful footing and an industrial basis. Cæsar made a great political whole possible when the various nationalities which formed the Roman Empire, and were proud of the Roman name, were welded together. St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, in founding Catholicism, stated that henceforth in the Universal Church there should be neither barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free, but Christ should be all and in all. This is the utterance of a Roman citizen who had had a Greek education. The language, aye, and even the thought, would be foreign to the tongue and thought of an exclusive Jew. Looking at the evolution of Humanity, one sees how inevitable it was that out of the Political Rome there should grow a Religious Rome. St. Paul was the complement to Cæsar, and completed his work. Contemplating the great city which he beheld in its decay, no wonder St. Augustine saw that its religious counterpart was the City of God.

The Roman Empire was, as the student of Gibbon knows, many hundreds of years in breaking up. Even during the break-up she civilised the warlike populations who conquered her outlying provinces, and who finally became absorbed in her. The great Catholic Church emerges into life as Rome dies, and for centuries she also controls the warlike activities of all the West, and defends Christian or semi-Christian peoples from being subjugated by barbarians, Fetichists, and Mussulman Mohammedans. The Church maintained the system of Defence, of which Rome left such a glorious tradition; meanwhile she was moulding and fashioning the rude tribes and clans who swept over Rome into Christians and citizens, and disciplining the lives and characters of her adherents, so as to make them doctors, saints, confessors, and martyrs. Feudalism, which is the temporal side of Catholicism, was a system of Defence, and by and through it alone was it possible for freedom and industrialism to grow up and flourish. In its decay it hindered human progress and became retrograde. The same may be said of Catholicism, the spiritual side of Feudalism. As the power of Catholicism declined, the

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