PREDATORY AND INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES. 719 



is not always easy to decide when the groups into which they fall 

 become distinct. Here the descendants of common ancestors, inhab- 

 iting a barren region, have to divide while yet the constituent fami- 

 lies are near akin ; and there, in a more fertile region, the group may 

 hold together until clusters of families remotely akin are formed 

 clusters which, diffusing slowly, -are held by a common bond that 

 slowly weakens. By-and-by comes the complication arising from the 

 presence of slaves not of the same ancestry, or of an ancestry but dis- 

 tantly allied ; and these, though they may not be political units, must 

 be recognized as units sociologically considered. Then there is the 

 kindred complication arising where an invading tribe becomes a dom- 

 inant class. Our only course is to regard as a simple society one 

 which forms a single working whole, unsubjected to any other, and of 

 which the parts cooperate, with or without a regulating centre, for 

 certain public ends. Here is a table, presenting, with as much definite- 

 ness as may be, the chief divisions and subdivisions of such simple 

 societies. 1 . . . 



"We pass now to the classification based on unlikenesses between 

 the kinds of social activity which predominate, and on the resulting 

 unlikenesses of organization. The two social types thus essentially 

 contrasted are the predatory and the industrial. 



It is doubtless true that no definite separation of these can be 

 made. Excluding a few simple groups, such as the Esquimaux, inhab- 

 iting places where they are safe from invasion, all societies, simple 

 and compound, are occasionally or habitually in antagonism with 

 other societies ; and, as we have seen, tend to evolve structures for 

 carrying on offensive and defensive actions. At the same time sus- 

 tentation is necessary, and there is always an organization, slight or 

 decided, for achieving it. But while the two systems in social organ- 

 isms, as in individual organisms, coexist in all but the rudimentary 

 forms, they vary immense^ in the ratios they bear to one another. 

 In some cases the structures carrying on external actions are largely 

 developed; the sustaining system exists solely for their benefit, and 

 the activities are militant. In other cases there is predominance of 

 the structures carrying on sustentation; offensive and defensive 

 structures are maintained only to protect them ; and the activities 

 are industrial. At the one extreme we have those warlike tribes 

 which, subsisting mainly by the chase, make the appliances for deal- 

 ing with enemies serve also for procuring food, and have sustaining 

 systems represented only by their women, who are their slave-classes ; 

 while at the other extreme Ave have the type, as yet only partially 

 evolved, in which the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial 



1 Three elaborate tables are here given in the text of Spencer's work, classifying' the 

 social aggregates of mankind into "Simple Societies," "Compound Societies," and 

 " Doubly-Compound Societies." We are compelled to omit them and the accompanying 

 text for want of space. 



