COMPOUND POLITICAL HEADS. 215 



the experiences of other nations throughout the past, prevented the 

 French from lately making Marshal MacMahon executive head ; and 

 even the Americans, in more than once choosing General Grant for 

 President, proved that, predominantly industrial though their society 

 is, militant activity promptly caused an incipient change toward the 

 militant type, of which an essential trait is the union of civil headship 

 with military headship. 



From the influences which tend to narrow compound political 

 headships, or change them into single ones, let us pass to the influences 

 which tend to widen them. The case of Athens is, of course, the first 

 to be considered. To understand this we must remember that, up to 

 the time of Solon, democratic government did not exist in Greece. 

 The only known forms were the oligarchic and the despotic ; and in 

 those early days, before political speculation began, it is certain that 

 there was not recognized in theory a social form wholly unknown in 

 practice. We have, therefore, to exclude the notion that popular gov- 

 ernment arose in Athens under the guidance of any preconceived idea. 

 As having the same implication should be added the fact that Athens 

 being governed by an oligarchy at the time the Solonian legislation 

 served but to qualify and broaden the oligarchy and remove crying 

 injustices. In seeking the causes which worked through Solon, and 

 also made practicable the reorganization he initiated, we shall find 

 them to lie in the direct and indirect influences of trade. Grote com- 

 ments on " the anxiety, both of Solon and of Drako, to enforce among 

 their fellow-citizens industrious and self-maintaining habits " a proof 

 that, even before Solon's time, there was in Attica little or no reproba- 

 tion of " sedentary industry, which in most other parts of Greece was 

 regarded as comparatively dishonorable." Moreover, Solon was him- 

 self in early life a trader; and his legislation "provided for traders 

 and artisans a new home at Athens, giving the first encouragement to 

 that numerous town-population, both in the city and in the Peiraeus, 

 which we find actually residing there in the succeeding century." The 

 immigrants who flocked into Attica because of its greater security, 

 Solon was anxious to turn rather to manufacturing industry than to 

 cultivation of a soil naturally poor ; and one result was " a departure 

 from the primitive temper of Atticism, which tended both to cantonal 

 residence and rural occupation " ; while another result was to increase 

 the. number of people who stood outside those gentile and phratric 

 divisions, which were concomitants of the patriarchal type and of per- 

 sonal rule. And then the constitutional changes made by Solon were 

 in leading respects toward industrial organization. The introduction 

 of a property-qualification for classes, instead of a birth-qualification, 

 diminished the rigidity of the political form, since acquirement of 

 wealth by industry, or otherwise, made possible an admission into the 

 oligarchy, or among others of the privileged. By forbidding self- 

 enslavement of the debtor, and by emancipating those who had been 



