438 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



warriors, are the common possessors of the undivided land, encroach- 

 ment on which by other tribes they resist. Though, in the earlier 

 pastoral state, especially where the barrenness of the region involves 

 wide dispersion, there is no definite proprietorship of the tract wan- 

 dered over ; yet, as is shown us in the strife between -the herdsmen 

 of Abraham and those of Lot respecting feeding-grounds, some claims 

 to exclusive use tend to arise ; and at a later half -pastoral stage, as 

 among the ancient Germans, the wanderings of each division fall 

 Avithin prescribed limits. I refer to these facts by way of showing 

 the identity established at the outset between the militant class and 

 the land-owning class. For, whether the group is one which lives by 

 hunting or one which lives by feeding cattle, any slaves its members 

 possess are excluded fi*om land-ownership the freemen, who are all 

 fighting men, become, as a matter of course, the proprietors of their 

 territory. This connection, in variously modified forms, long contin- 

 ues through subsequent stages of social evolution, and could scarcely 

 do otherwise. Land being, in early settled communities, the almost 

 exclusive source of wealth, it happens inevitably that, during times in 

 which the principle that might is right remains imqualitied, personal 

 power and possession of land go together. Hence the fact that, where, 

 instead of being held by the whole society, land comes to be parceled 

 out among component village communities, or among families, or 

 among individuals, possession of it habitually goes along with the 

 bearing of arms. In ancient Egypt " every soldier was a land-owner " 

 "had an allotment of land of about six acres." In Greece the in- 

 vading Hellenes, wresting the soil from its original holders, joined 

 military service with the land-ownership. In Rome, too, " every free- 

 holder, from the seventeenth to the sixtieth year of his age, was under 

 obligation of service, . . . so that even the emancipated slave had to 

 serve, who, in an exceptional case, bad come into possession of landed 

 property." The like happened in the early Teutonic community. 

 Joined with professional warriors, its army included "the mass of 

 freemen, arranged in families, fighting for their homesteads and 

 hearths " : such freemen, or markmen, owning land partly in common 

 and partly as individual proprietors. Similarly with the ancient Eng- 

 lish : " Their occupation of the land as cognationes resulted from their 

 enrollment in the field, where each kindred was drawn up under an 

 officer of its own lineage and appointment " ; and so close was this 

 dependence that " a thane forfeited his hereditary freehold by miscon- 

 duct in battle." 



Beyond the original connection between militancy and land-own- 

 ing, which naturally arises from the joint interest which those who 

 own the land and occupy it, either individually or collectively, have 

 in resisting aggressors, there arises later a further connection. As, 

 along with successful militancy, there progresses a social evolution 

 which gives to a dominant ruler increased power, it becomes his cus- 



