Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/84

 72 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Congo are some striking examples. One is always lowered by the mere fact of having anything to do with an inferior, and especially if, instead of raising them, one degrades them still more. Conquest and exploitation destroy at the same time the victor and the vanquished, the exploits and the exploited.

We have seen that war for territory is not limited to hunting tribes; it extends to all peoples. The quarrel between the shepherds of Abraham and those of Lot was a conflict relating to pasture. Here we are in the stage of transition between the life of hunting and that of domestication and utilization of ani- mals; that life, though still nomad, becomes more stable, and from that time the pasture lands become better defined. In pas- toral groups the tendency toward extension, toward development, and toward displacement is produced as well by the increase of population as by that of cattle in comparison to the available pasturage. The need creates the desire of aggrandizement, and, unfortunately, too often the desire continues when the need disappears. Thus, generally, the conquerors are weakened and exhausted, as licentious old men who continue to follow their pas- sion when, normally, their vital budget is exhausted. It is thus that great empires are never nearer decay than at the moment of their most wide expansion. The Russian empire, which ought to be considered as an excessive and monstrous development of society, where the pastoral and patriarchal forms have continued in the governing structure, when the internal conditions of its existence have already been in great part modified, is a remark- able example of the persistent tendency of a society, primitively pastoral, to extend its boundaries excessively, when in reality it has passed that stage of development and attained that of vigor- ous culture and intensive industry.

Is it possible, however, to determine in an accurate and abso- lute manner the number of people which a tribe of hunters or of herdsmen allows ? M. Gumplowicz, in his Contest of the Races, seems to affirm wrongly that in normal conditions a tribe is com- posed of from five hundred to one thousand five hundred persons. In fact, the total number may vary between limits much wider apart. It is a question of social conditions. The number of