Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/762

742 hordes, belonging to different varieties of man, which are found here and there over the earth, they show us that, in the absence of political organization, little progress has taken place; and, if we contemplate those settled simple groups which have but nominal heads, we see that, though there is some development of the industrial arts and some coöperation, the degree of advance is but small. If, on the other hand, we glance at those ancient societies in which considerable heights of civilization were first reached, we see them under autocratic rule. In America purely personal government, restricted only by settled customs, characterized the Mexican, Central American, and Chibcha states; and in Peru the absolutism of the divine king was unqualified. In Africa, ancient Egypt exhibited in the most conspicuous manner this connection between despotic control and social evolution. Throughout the distant past it was repeatedly displayed in Asia, from the Accadian civilization downward, and the still extant civilizations of Siam, Burmah, China, and Japan reillustrate it. Early European societies, too, where not characterized by centralized despotism, were still characterized by diffused patriarchal despotism. Only among modern peoples, whose ancestors passed through the discipline given under this social form, and who have inherited its effects, is there arising an habitual dissociation of civilization from subjection to individual will.

The necessity there has been for absolutism is best seen on observing that, in the struggles for existence among societies, those have conquered which, other things equal, were the more subordinate to their chiefs and kings. And, since in early stages military subordination and social subordination go together, it results that, for a long time, the conquering societies continue to be the despotically governed societies. Such exceptions as histories appear to show us really prove the rule. In the conflict between Persia and Greece, the Greeks, but for a mere accident, would have been ruined by that division of councils which results from absence of subjection to a single head. And the habit of appointing a dictator, when in great danger from enemies, implies that the Romans had discovered that efficiency in war requires absoluteness of control.

So that, leaving open the question whether, in the absence of war, primitive groups could ever have developed into civilized nations, we conclude that, under such conditions as there have been, those struggles for existence, among societies which have gone on consolidating smaller into larger until great nations have been produced, necessitated the development of a social type characterized by personal rule of a stringent kind.

To make clear the genesis of this leading political institution, let us set down in brief the several influences which have conspired to effect it, and the several stages passed through.