Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/254

 242 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

manager of the soil and people, as well as the divider and dis- tributor of the materials and results of production. This was, on the whole, in its absolute form a very harmonious organization in all of its parts a static form strongly equilibrated. The soil itself was divided into three parts, of which one was for the Tnca and his family, one for the Sun, that is for the priests, and one for the people. Was this not, on the whole, in effect, though through a partly different process, a repartition analogous to that found existing in France before 1789, at the time when the king and his nobility possessed a third, the clergy a third, and the people likewise about a third of the territory? But in France upon the eve of the Revolution this division was less stable, less symmetrical, and still less the result of an authoritative reparti- tion. The original communal regime had evolved under different conditions, more complex than in Peru. In the latter this reparti- tion of the soil was absolute like the monarchy itself. The mon- archy had complete economic, religious, and political sovereignty. Annually an equal allotment was accomplished by means of authority. The conquered people, being the sole laborers, were obliged to cultivate, besides their own lots, those of the royal family and of the clergy. The laborer was attached to the soil like a serf, but not to any particular tract. He passed from one lot to another administratively, for the reason that all of the economic boundaries, as well as the frontiers and political divi- sions, were likewise administrative. The individual no longer belonged to his genetic group and was no longer attached to the territory of this group. He had become an element of the great community which was in the hands of a chief. Occupation alone was obligatorily hereditary, as it was for a long time also, at least in practice, in Europe. The laborer was forbidden to change his locality or condition without authority. The whole internal organization was, in a word, strictly determined by means of authority, as were the administrative and external limits of the empire. The latter needed to take no account of the natural or geographical boundaries, if they were not within the limit of the state's own forces and external reactions. There are no other