POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 443 



early Egyptian times is inferable from traditions and remains which 

 tell us both of local struggles which ended in consolidation and of 

 conquests by invading races ; whence would naturally result the nu- 

 merous divisions and subdivisions which Egyptian society presented : 

 an inference justified by the fact that under Roman dominion there 

 was a recomplication caused by superposing of Roman governing 

 agencies upon native governing agencies. Passing over other ancient 

 instances, and coming to the familiar case of our own country, we may 

 note how, from the followers of the conquering Norman, there arose 

 the two ranks of the greater and lesser barons, holding their land 

 directly from the king, while the old English thanes were reduced to 

 the rank of sub-feudatories. Of course, where perpetual Avars produce, 

 first, small aggregations, and then larger ones, and then dissolutions, 

 and then reaggregations, and then unions of them, various in their 

 extents, as happened in mediaeval Europe, there result very numerous 

 divisions. In the Merovingian kingdoms there were slaves having 

 seven different origins ; there were serfs of more than one grade ; 

 there were freedmen men who, though emancipated, did not rank 

 with the fully free ; and there were two other classes less than free 

 the liteu and the coloni. Of the free there were three classes inde- 

 pendent land-owners ; freemen in relations of dependence with other 

 freemen, of whom there were two kinds ; and freemen in special rela- 

 tions with the king, of whom there were three kinds. 



And here, while observing in these various cases how greater politi- 

 cal differentiation is made possible by greater political integration, we 

 may also observe that in early stages, while social cohesion is small, 

 greater political integration is made possible by greater political differ- 

 entiation. For the larger the mass to be held together, Avhile incohe- 

 rent, the more numerous must be the agents standing in successive 

 degrees of subordination to hold it together. 



The political differentiations which militancy originates, and which 

 for a long time acquire increasing definiteness, so that intermixture of 

 ranks by marriage is made a crime, are at later stages and under other 

 conditions interfered with, traversed, and partially or wholly destroyed. 



Where, throughout long periods and in ever-varying degrees, war 

 has been producing aggregations and dissolutions, the continual break- 

 ing up and reforming of social bonds obscures the original divisions 

 established in the ways described : instance the state of things in the 

 Merovingian kingdoms just named. And where, instead of conquests 

 by kindred adjacent societies, which in large measure leave standing 

 the social positions and properties of the subjugated, there are con- 

 quests by alien races carried on more barbarously, the original grades 

 may be practically obliterated, and in place of them there may arise 

 grades originating entirely by appointment of the despotic conqueror. 

 In parts of the East, where such overrunnings of race by race have 



