202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fall into regions permitting considerable growth of population, but 

 having physical structures which impede the centralization of power, 

 compound political headships will arise, and for a time sustain them- 

 selves, through cooperation of the two factors independence of local 

 groups and need for union in war. Let us consider some examples. 



The island of Crete has numerous his^h mountain-valleys containingr 

 good pasturage, and provides many seats for strongholds seats which 

 ruins prove that the ancient inhabitants utilized. Similarly with the 

 mainland of Greece. A complicated mountain system cuts off its parts 

 from one another and renders each difficult of access. Especially is 

 this so in the Peloponnesus ; and, above all, in the part occupied by 

 the Spartans. It has been remarked that the state which possesses 

 both sides of Taygetus has it in its power to be master of the penin- 

 sula : " It is the Acropolis of the Peloponnese, as that country is of 

 the rest of Greece." 



When, over the earlier inhabitants, there came the successive waves 

 of Hellenic conquerors, these brought with them the type of nature 

 and organization common to the Aryans, displaying the united traits 

 above described. Such a people, taking possession of such a land, 

 inevitably fell in course of time " into as many independent clans as 

 the country itself was divided by its mountain-chains into valleys and 

 districts." From separation there resulted alienation ; so that those 

 remote from one another, becoming strangers, became enemies. In 

 early Greek times the clans, occupying mountain villages, were so 

 liable to incursions from one another that the planting of fruit-trees 

 was a waste of labor. There existed a state like that seen at present 

 among such Indian hill tribes as the Kagas. 



Though preserving the tradition of a common descent, and owning 

 allegiance to the oldest male representative of the patriarch, a people 

 spreading over a region which thus cut off from one another even 

 adjacent small groups, and still more those remoter clusters of groups 

 arising in course of generations, would inevitably become disunited in 

 government : subjection to a general head would be more and more 

 difficult to maintain, and subjection to local heads would alone con- 

 tinue practicable. Moreover, there must arise, under such conditions, 

 increasing causes of insubordination, as well as great difficulties in 

 maintaining subordination. When the various branches of a common 

 family spread into localities so shut off from one another as to prevent 

 intercourse, their respective histories, and the lines of descent of their 

 respective heads, must become unknown, or but partially known, to 

 one another ; and claims to supremacy made now by this local head 

 and now by that are certain to be disputed. AVhen we remember 

 how, even in settled societies having records, there have been perpetual 

 conflicts about rights of succession, and how, down to our own day, 

 there are frequent lawsuits to decide on heirships to titles and proper- 



