Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/617

 EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES 601

of economic production, exchange, transportation, and general circulation. Property, which primarily meant only oxen, spears, bows and arrows, and primitive agricultural implements, now takes varied forms, the most important being those symbols of property which go by the name of money. Under the protection of the state, wealth becomes possible to a large number who possess the thrift to acquire it, and this takes the form of capital, which is the condition to all industrial progress and national wealth.

The existence of wealth i. e., of a large number of wealthy citizens creates another kind of leisure class, and many, freed from the trammels of toil, turn their attention to various higher pursuits. Art and literature arise, and civilizing and refining influences begin. Voluntary organizations of many kinds, all having different objects, are formed. Besides innumerable busi- ness combinations and corporations, there spring up associations for mutual aid, for intellectual improvement, for social inter- course, for amusement and pleasure, and also eventually for charitable and benevolent purposes. Educational systems are established, and the study of human history, of art and letters, and finally of nature, is undertaken. The era of science at last opens, invention and discovery are stimulated, and the conquest of nature and the mastery of the world begin.

Every one of these civilizing agencies is a social structure, and all of them are the products of the one universal process. They represent the products of that intensive activity which results from the primary clash and conflict of the social forces in the fierce grapple of hostile hordes and clans, and the far fiercer battles of developed nations bent on each other's conquest and subjugation. To see all this one has only to read the history of any of the great nations of the world that are leading the civiliza- tion of today. Everyone is familiar with the history of England, for example. No less than four typical social assimilations have taken place on English soil since the earliest recorded annals of that country began. Think of the animosities and hostilities, the bitter race-hatred, the desperate struggles, the prolonged wars, that characterize the history of England. What has become of