726 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



On the other hand compulsory co-operation is exemplified by 

 an army not so much by our own army, the service in which is 

 under agreement for a specified period, but in a continental army, 

 raised by conscription. Here, in time of peace the daily duties 

 cleaning, parade, drill, sentry work, and the rest and in time of 

 war the various actions of the camp and the battle-field, are done 

 under command, without room for any exercise of choice. Up 

 from the private soldier through the non-commissioned officers 

 and the half-dozen or more grades of commissioned officers, the 

 universal law is absolute obedience from the grade below to the 

 grade above. The sphere of individual will is such only as is 

 allowed by the will of the superior. Breaches of subordination 

 are, according to their gravity, dealt with by deprivation of leave, 

 extra drill, imprisonment, flogging, and, in the last resort, shoot- 

 ing. Instead of the understanding that there must be obedience 

 in respect of specified duties under pain of dismissal, the under- 

 standing now is " Obey in everything ordered under penalty of 

 inflicted suffering and perhaps death." 



This form of co-operation, still exemplified in an army, has in 

 days gone by been the form of co-operation throughout the civil 

 population. Everywhere, and at all times, chronic war generates 

 a militant type of structure, not in the body of soldiers only, but 

 throughout the community at large. Practically, while the con- 

 flict between societies is actively going on, and fighting is regarded 

 as the only manly occupation, the society is the quiescent army 

 and the army the mobilized society : that part which does not 

 take part in battle, composed of slaves, serfs, women, etc., consti- 

 tuting the commissariat. Naturally, therefore, throughout the 

 mass of inferior individuals constituting the commissariat, there- 

 is maintained a system of discipline identical in nature if less 

 elaborate. The fighting body being, under such conditions, the 

 ruling body, and the rest of the community being incapable of 

 resistance, those who control the fighting body will, of course, 

 impose their control upon the non-fighting body ; and the regime 

 of coercion will be applied to it with such modifications only as 

 the different circumstances involve. Prisoners of war become 

 slaves. Those who were free cultivators before the conquest of 

 their country, become serfs attached to the soil. Petty chiefs 

 become subject to superior chiefs ; these smaller lords become 

 vassals to over-lords ; and so on up to the highest : the social 

 ranks and powers being of like essential nature with the ranks 

 and powers throughout the military organization. And while 

 for the slaves compulsory co-operation is the unqualified system, 

 a co-operation which is in part compulsory is the system that per- 

 vades all grades above. Each man's oath of fealty to his suzerain 

 takes the form " I am your man." 



