Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/552

 536 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

in the face of purely physical limits. This is true even in the case of oceans and deserts, for when the group does not succeed in crossing them, sooner or later a foreign group traverses them and establishes communication.

The evolution of China, the eccentricities of which we mis- takenly delight to point out, is, on the contrary, in its fundamental characteristics, analogous to that which characterizes the forma- tion of all great empires. We find again in China the same subdivisions which we have already observed, and which we shall have occasion again to note elsewhere. From five to seven adult individuals form a family ; five families constitute a group with a patriarch ; five groups form a section, with an assistant of the sec- tion ; four sections or one hundred families represent a commune, with a head-man of the same, the designation " people of the hun- dred families" here reminding us that the commune or primitive community is at the base and at the beginning of the empire. Families and sections owe each other reciprocal aid and assistance. This obligation is more rigorous in the family than in the section, and more rigorous in the section than in the commune.

The extra-European empires, like China, Egypt, ancient Peru and Mexico, India, Persia, etc., have followed the same evolu- tion as the European empires, such as Turkey and Russia and all the other states of Europe. But all have not evolved into equally advanced stages; and special conditions have modified their par- ticular evolutions, but solely from the point of view of secondary and accessory peculiarities. For instance, the Chinese mir which persisted for twenty generations, during the Chinese feudalism, is the analogue of the Russian mir, although the Russian and Chinese feudalism and the organization of the nobility are not absolutely identical.

In China, as elsewhere, at no moment of its evolution did the rivers or creeks serve as frontiers between social groups, com- munities, tribes, and principalities, or feudal kingdoms. So also as to mountains, which were always finally colonized upon both slopes by populations of the same group. Sometimes, as elsewhere, isolation was brought about between groups, but it was accom- plished by reason of the cessation of the intercourse through the