Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/174

162 be more natural than to find that, with its growth, a structural readaptation of the social organism has been taking place? Such a readaptation has been, and is, in constant progress; and the great authority, to whom we have above referred, traces out, under the title "Industrial Type of Society," the character and tendencies of the structures it is producing.

Thus, starting with the dictum of modern sociology that society is an organism living by constant adaptation to surrounding conditions, we find that its earliest structure is the "militant," fitting it for the predatory life of war; and that a new structure, suited to living by the fruits of productive labor, is being constantly developed by it. Let us briefly contrast these two social structures as they appear in our highly evolved life of to-day.

"Militancy," as is shown in its early development of a chief or tribal leader, entails, above all, autocratic government. A nation, to fight well, must act under one centralized control. It necessitates, furthermore, the existence of the individual for the benefit of the state; as, the more complete the subordination of the part to the whole becomes, the more will the combined energies be concentrated for national ends, and freed from waste in the direction of mere personal requirements. In its completeness, "militancy" means the absolute monarch ruling unquestioning subjects; the development of tyranny in the superior, slavishness in the subordinate, and all those harder and more savage traits which are best suited to the needs of war. It means the worship of might, and the creation of rigid social classes based upon it, such as survive even to-day in the aristocracies of civilized Europe. If "militancy" could be complete in its sway, the word "freedom" would not exist in language, for freedom denotes the assertion of individuality, and "militancy" the merging of all individualities save those of rulers. In a word, society under unqualified "militancy" is very naturally best typified by an army and the system which governs it.

What under this régime would be meant by the word prosperity? When is a militant society prosperous? Obviously, when the end for the achievement of which its structure has been evolved is completely attained; or, to specify, when the maintenance of the liver, of its component individuals has been assured by the forcible destruction of competitors, and the acquisition by capture of all coveted fruits of the earth.

To illustrate by an example: Rome was a community in which the militant organization immensely predominated, and whose unchallenged mastery of the ancient world justifies, as applied to her condition, the word prosperous. This prosperity was achieved through the gradual acquisition, by force of arms, of nearly all the territory of the known world; through an