Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/754

726 Passing to more evolved societies, it must be observed, first, that the distinctive traits of the industrial type do not become marked, even where the industrial activity is considerable, so long as the industrial government remains identified with the political. In Phœnicia, for example, "the foreign wholesale trade seems to have belonged mostly to the state, the kings, and the nobles. . . . Ezekiel describes the King of Tyrus as a prudent commercial prince, who finds out the precious metals in their hidden seats, enriches himself by getting them, and increases these riches by further traffic." Clearly, where the political and military heads have thus themselves become the heads of the industrial organization, the traits distinctive of it are prevented from showing themselves. Of ancient societies, to be named in connection with the relation between industrial activities and free institutions, Athens will be at once thought of; and, by contrast with other Greek states, it showed this relation as clearly as can be expected. Up to the time of Solon, all these communities were under either oligarchs or despots. The rest of them, in which war continued to be the honored occupation, while industry was despised, retained this political type; but in Athens, where industry was regarded with comparative respect, where it was encouraged by Solon, and where immigrant artisans found a home, there commenced an industrial organization, which, gradually growing, distinguished the Athenian society from adjacent societies, as it was distinguished from them by those democratic institutions that simultaneously developed.

Turning to later times, the relation between a social régime predominantly industrial and a less coercive form of rule, is shown us by the Hanse Towns, by the towns of the Low Countries, out of which the Dutch Republic rose, and in high degrees by ourselves, by the United States, and by our colonies. Along with wars less frequent, and these carried on at a distance; and along with an accompanying growth of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, beyond that of Continental states more military in habit—there has gone in England a development of free institutions. As further implying that the two are related, as cause and consequence, there may be noted the fact that the regions whence changes toward greater political liberty have come are the leading industrial regions; and that rural districts, less characterized by constant trading transactions, have retained longer the earlier type, with its appropriate sentiments and ideas. In the form of ecclesiastical government we see parallel changes. Where the industrial activities and structures evolve, this branch of the regulating system, no longer, as in the predatory type, a rigid hierarchy, little by little loses strength, while there grows up one of a different kind; sentiments and institutions both relaxing. Right of private judgment in religious matters gradually establishes itself along with establishment of political rights. In place of a uniform belief imperatively enforced, there come multiform beliefs