Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/558

 542 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

as much as possible, the forces of the empire. But is not even that the confirmation of our theory, according to which the frontiers are always the line of equilibrium resulting from nature and the composition of the internal forces of society, in correlation with nature and the composition of the external forces? The geo- graphical and ethnic factors are only the constituent primordial elements of the combination whence results every social phe- nomenon, and especially that which we call a frontier. Therefore the frontier may be physical, but in all cases it must be social, and its demarkation may consist only in symbolical and even conven- tional signs. The essential thing is that it is always the point at which the equilibrium between the inside and outside is effected. And in this respect it may have an infinity of internal as well as external demarkations, as well as differences, according to the several social forces which may more or less reciprocally penetrate each other. For example, this will be the case for the religious, artistic, scientific, and economic frontiers, which may be much more extensive than the military and political frontiers properly speaking. The latter are always narrower and higher by reason of the necessity of defending the group, according as the nature of the group is or is not military and authoritative.

Some Persian legends themselves very clearly show, in a sym- bolic fashion, the still very confused conception that the limits of a state are always in correlation with its internal forces and the external resistance. For instance, according to one of these legends Menondjer, a young son of Fenydoux, vanquisher of Afrasiab, chief of the Turanians, offered to the latter a permanent peace by proposing to him to trace a frontier separating Turan and Iran. The treaty was arranged except upon the question of knowing up to what limit Hyrcania and Irania should extend to the east. "The prince who reigned over Hyrcania, being con- sulted, said that he would climb to the summit of Demavend, and that he would shoot an arrow from the eastern side, and that wherever the arrow fell there should be the frontier. Prince Areck took an arrow made of light and short wood, bent his bow, and the dart went whistling and sailing through the air from sun- rise until noon, and fell upon the bank of the Oxus." Thus it was