Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/739

 THE CITY IN HISTORY 723

clearly to perceive the far-reaching importance of this factor in making possible concerted action and in establishing social order.' But custom presupposes the close association of a considerable number of persons, whether it be the primitive family or the more highly organized modern community.

The limitations of a civilization devoid of cities is well illus- trated in the history of the early Aryans, of which Ihering^ has given us a masterly analysis. Their slow advance was due to the peculiar economic conditions, which were distinctly unfavor- able to city growth. A people of shepherds cannot found cities; their occupation is inconsistent with the close aggregation of population necessary to city life. The fact that the parent stock of the Indo-Europeans did not even reach the agricultural stage explains their inability to advance beyond the village as the highest form of social organization. Even as late as the time of Tacitus the Teutons had not advanced to the city stage. Ihering truly says that no progressive people that has once made this tremendous stride toward a higher civilization would take the step backward to a lower type of organization. The word "city" is unknown to the Sanscrit tongue. Its nearest equiva- lent — vastJi — means "abode, domicile, place of habitation." Furthermore, each of the Indo-Germanic tongues has a different term for " city," which goes to show that the phenomenon of urban growth was subsequent to the splitting of the parent stock into separate nations.

We are apt to underrate the importance of the transition from the village to the city economy. It constitutes the last, the most important, and, to the minds of many, the final step in the progress of civilization. In all the nations of western Europe the city represents the highest type of social organiza- tion. The nature of the forces determining this transition from the village to the city economy has been the subject of endless dispute among historians. According to one school, led by Fustel de Coulanges,' the closer association necessary to the

'■ Physics and Politics, chap. v.

'Ihering, Evolution of the Aryan.

3FUSTEL DE CouLANGES, The Ancient City, English edition, p. 167.