Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/209

196 garchy—the rule of the nobility over the plebeian class; sometimes a despotocratic oligarchy—the rule of masters over their slaves. In all these four cases, the mass of men were deemed of no value except as servants to the oligarch. He was " born to eat up the com/' to wear the flowers in the garland round his brow ; the mass of men were only born to create coen for him to eat, and rear flowers for him to wear. But if you "drive out Nature with a pitch-fork, still nevertheless she comes back." And so the people tended to rebellion, casting off the yoke of priest, king, noble, master. To check this revolutionary spirit, the ruling power spreads abroad the idea that such rebellion is the greatest offence which man can commit; it is high treason. So in the theocratic oligarchy it was high treason to doubt or deny the exclusive rule of the priest; in the monarchic, the exclusive rule of the king; in the aristocratic, the exclusive rule of the nobilitary class; and, in the despotocratic, the exclusive rule of the master. It was taught there was np natural right of men above the conventional privilege of the priest, king, noble, and master; no law of God above the enactment of earthly rulers. This characteristic mark of the old civilization is somewhat effaced in France and England ; but still even there the handwriting is yet so plain that h6 may read who runs.

That is the first characteristic. Here is the next. Therein, civilization was military, not industrial; the art to produce was put below the art to destroy. Productive industry was counted " an illiberal art;" it was despised; destructive fighting was "liberal" work; it was honoured. Working was for the mass of the people, and must be degraded; fighting, the rulers* business, and held honourable. "It is the business of a man to fight, of a slave to work," quoth Homer. Besides, fighting was indispensable for these unnatural rulers, not only to stave off a foreign foe, but at home to keep the mass of the people down. This characteristic mark of all the governments of the old world is likewise somewhat effaced in mercantile England and France, but still writ in letters of fire, most savagely plain. Such oligarchies do not rest on the permanent moral nature of man, but only on the transient selfishness incident to a low stage of development. Their