348 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



cock and a beifcr, and offered a prayer at the tomb of Andria-Masina, 

 his most renowned ancestor." And in ilhistration of the other truth 

 may be cited the fact that, among the Hebrews, whose priests accom- 

 panied the army to battle, we read of Samuel, a priest from childhood 

 upward, as conveying to Saul God's command to " smite Amalek," and 

 as having himself hewed Agag in pieces. More or less active partici- 

 pation in war by priests we everywhere find in savage and semi-civil- 

 ized societies ; as among the Dakotas, Mundrucus, Abipones, Khonds, 

 whose priests decide on the time for war, or give the signal for attack ; 

 as among the Tahitians, whose priests " bore arms, and marched with 

 the warriors to battle " ; as among the Mexicans, whose priests, the 

 habitual instigators of wars, accompanied their idols in front of the 

 army, and " sacrificed the first-taken prisoners " at once ; as among 

 the ancient Egyptians, of whom we read that " the priest of a god was 

 often a military or naval commander." And the naturalness of the 

 connection, thus common in rude and in ancient societies, is shown by 

 its revival in later societies, notwithstanding an adverse creed. After 

 Christianity had passed out of its early extra-political stage into the 

 stage in which it became a state religion, its priests, during actively 

 militant periods, reacquired the primitive militant character. " By the 

 middle of the eighth century [in France], regular military service on 

 the part of the clergy was already fully developed." In the early 

 feudal period, bishops, abbots, and priors, became feudal lords, with 

 all the powers and responsibilities attaching to their j)ositions : they 

 had bodies of troops in their pay, took towns and fortresses, sustained 

 sieges, led or sent troops in aid of kings. And Orderic, in 1094, de- 

 scribes the priests as leading their parishioners to battle, and the abbots 

 their vassals. Though in recent times Church dignitaries do not 

 actively participate in war, yet their advisatory function respecting it 

 often prompting rather than restraining has not even now ceased, 

 as among ourselves was lately shown in the vote of the bishops, who, 

 with one exception, approved the invasion of Afghanistan. 



That the consultative body habitually includes ecclesiastics, does 

 not, therefore, conflict with the statement that, beginning as a war- 

 council, it grows into a permanent assembly of minor military heads. 



Under a different form there is here partially repeated what was 

 set forth when treating of oligarchies : the difference arising from in- 

 clusion of the king as a cooperative factor. Moreover, much that was 

 before said respecting the influence of war in narrowing oligarchies 

 applies to that narrowing of the primitive consultative assembly by 

 which there is produced from it a body of land-owning military nobles. 

 But that consolidation of small societies into large ones effected by 

 war brings other influences which join in working this result. 



In early assemblies of men similarly armed it must hai")pen that 

 though the inferior many will recognize that authority of the superior 



