Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/82

64 laid under more direct contribution. Union and coöperation spring up for purposes of protection and aggression, for the accomplishment of purposes beyond the capacity of the individual. Gradually manufactures and commerce increase; the products of one body of laborers are exchanged for the products of another, and thus the aggregate comforts produced are doubled to each. Absolute power is taken from the hands of the many and placed in the hands of one, who becomes the representative power of all. Men are no longer dependent upon the chase for a daily supply of food; even agriculture no longer is a necessity which each must follow for himself, for the intellectual products of one person or people may be exchanged for the agricultural products of another. With these changes of occupation new institutions spring up, new ideas originate, and new habits are formed. Human life ceases to be a purely material existence; another element finds exercise, the other part of man is permitted to grow. The energies of society now assume a different shape; hitherto the daily struggle was for daily necessities, now the accumulation of wealth constitutes the chief incentive to labor. Wealth becomes a power and absorbs all other powers. The possessor of unlimited wealth commands the products of every other man's labor.

But in time, and to a certain extent, a class arises already possessed of wealth sufficient to satisfy even the demands of avarice, and something still better, some greater good is yet sought for. Money-getting gives way before intellectual cravings. The self-denials and labor necessary to the acquisition of wealth are abandoned for the enjoyment of wealth already acquired and the acquisition of a yet higher good. Sensual pleasure yields in a measure to intellectual pleasure, the acquisition of money to the acquisition of learning.

Where brute intelligence is the order of the day, man requires no more governing than brutes, but when