Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/827

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 797

real money, and circulate long after the tradition of the old right of redemption has been lost and the original deposit dissipated. Often it is by an imperceptible process that lordship ripens into property. In India minor officers, courtiers, and servants "were provided for by being allowed to take, in individual villages, the

whole or part of the Raja's grain In time these claims

always develop into a landlord right over the village. The change from revenue-manager to landlord was accomplished in about a century." An ethical religion tends to become external and perfunctory, owing to the fact that its spirit is more quickly altered in transmission than its form. The force of gravity which makes even the glacier flow has its analogue in human indolence, which will unwittingly deform the most sacred commands and the most authoritative ideals, if they run counter to natural inclination and have not been fixed in writing.

EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross.

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA.

\To be concluded^