Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/749

Rh of rank in the community, and complete submission of each rank to the ranks above it. We see this in the society already instanced, as showing, among advanced savages, the development of the militant type. In Feejee six classes are enumerated, from king down to slaves, as sharply marked off. Similarly in Madagascar, where despotism has been in late times established by war, there are several grades and castes. Among the Dahomans, given in so great a degree to bloodshed of all kinds, "the army, or, what is nearly synonymous, the nation," says Burton, "is divided, both male and female, into two wings;" and then, of the various ranks enumerated, all are characterized as legally slaves of the king. In Ashantee, too, where his officers are required to die when the king dies, we have a kindred condition. Of old, among the aggressive Persians, grades were strongly marked. So was it in warlike ancient Mexico. Besides three classes of nobility, and besides the mercantile classes, there were three agricultural classes down to the serfs—all in precise subordination. In Peru, also, below the Inca there were grades of nobility—lords over lords. Moreover, according to Garcilasso, in each town the inhabitants were registered in decades under a decurion, five of these under a superior, two such under a higher one, five of these centurions under a head, two of these under one who thus ruled a thousand men, and for every ten thousand there was a governor of Inca race; the political rule being thus completely regimental. Till lately, another illustration was furnished by Japan. That there were kindred, if less elaborate, structures in ancient militant states of the Old World, scarcely needs saying; and that like structures were repeated in mediæval times, when a large nation, like France, had under the monarch several grades of feudal lords, vassals to those above, and suzerains to those below, with serfs under the lowest, again shows us that everywhere the militant type has sharply-marked social gradations, as it has sharply-marked military gradations.

Corresponding to this natural government, there is a like form of supernatural government. I do not mean merely that, in the ideal other-worlds of militant societies, the ranks and powers are conceived as like those of the real world around, though this also is to be noted; but I refer to the militant character of the religion. Ever in antagonism with other societies, the life is a life of enmity, and the religion a religonreligion [sic] of enmity. The duty of blood-revenge, most sacred of all with the savage, continues to be the dominant duty as the militant type of society evolves. The chief, balked of his vengeance, dies enjoining his successors to avenge him; his ghost is propitiated by fulfillment of his commands; the slaying of his enemies becomes the highest action; trophies are brought to his grave in token of fulfillment; and, as tradition grows, he becomes the god worshiped with bloody sacrifices. Everywhere we find evidence. The Feejeeans offer the bodies of their victims killed in war to the gods before cooking