446 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they do in every act of exchange, whether of goods for money or of 

 services for pay, there is produced a mental attitude at variance with 

 that which accompanies subjection ; and, as fast as this happens, such 

 political distinctions as imply subjection lose more and more of that 

 respect which gives them strength. 



Class-distinctions, then, date back to the beginnings of social life. 

 Omitting those small wandering assemblages which are so incoherent 

 that th^ir component parts are ever changing their relations to one 

 another and to the environment we see that, wherever there is some 

 coherence and some permanence of relation among the parts, there 

 begin to arise political divisions. Relative superiority of power, first 

 causing a differentiation at once domestic and social, between the 

 activities and positions of the sexes, presently begins to cause a dif- 

 ferentiation among males, shown in the bondage of cajDtives ; a master- 

 class and a slave-class are formed. 



Where men continue the wandering life in pursuit of wild food for 

 themselves or their cattle, the groups they form are debarred from 

 doing more by war than appropriate one another's units individually ; 

 but, where men have passed into the agricultural or settled state, it be- 

 comes possible for one community to take possession bodily of another 

 community, along with the territory it occupies. When this happens, 

 there arise additional class-divisions. The conquered and tribute-pay- 

 ing community, besides having its head-men reduced to subjection, 

 has its people reduced to a state such that, while they continue to live 

 on their lands, they yield up, through the intermediation of their chiefs, 

 part of the produce to the conquerors ; so foreshadowing what eventu- 

 ally becomes a serf -class. 



From the beginning the militant class, being by force of arms the 

 dominant class, becomes the class which owns the source of food the 

 land. During the hunting and pastoral stages, the warriors of the 

 group hold the land collectively. On passing into the settled state, 

 their tenures become partly collective and partly individual in sundry 

 ways, and eventually almost wdiolly individual. But, throughout long 

 stages of social evolution, land-owning and militancy continue to be 

 associated. 



The class-differentiation, of which militancy is the active cause, is 

 furthered by the establishment of definite descent, and especially male 

 descent, and the transmission of position and property to the eldest son 

 of the eldest continually. This conduces to inequalities of position 

 and wealth between near kindred and remote kindred ; and such in- 

 equalities of wealth, once initiated, strengthen themselves by giving to 

 the superior increased means of maintaining their power by accumu- 

 lating appliances for offense and defense. 



Such differentiation is increased, at the same time that a new differ- 

 entiation is initiated, by the immigration of fugitives who attach 



