THE PHILOSOPHY OF COMMERCIAL DEPRESSION. 161 



to tlie structural peculiarities of any given organism. It fol- 

 lows, therefore, that if the earliest human societies lived, like 

 the animal creation from which they were evolved, by an aggres- 

 sive struggle with their neighbors, the fundamental social struct- 

 ure must have been one adapted to war. 



Let us see if this is not the fact. 



The first differentiation traceable in the savage tribes of all 

 times is the rise to power of the strongest or ablest individual of 

 the group, and the growing subordination to his authority of his 

 followers. Along with this is traceable that change in the primi- 

 tive instincts by which the individual energies are directed to 

 the tribal, rather than the individual welfare, and the latter is 

 in a degree sacrificed to the general good — the germ, in fact, of 

 what we now call patriotism. What advantage to the tribe these 

 changes involve hardly needs stating. Complete subordination 

 to a directing head, like the rapidly co-ordinated muscular ac- 

 tions of a fighting animal, is an absolute necessity to the war- 

 like success of a co-operating group of men. And the willing- 

 ness of each individual to value the general triumph above his 

 own safety, is no less important to the same end. Out of these 

 two earliest structural adaptations there have grown, in the 

 course of social evolution, a vast complexity of others based upon 

 them, and tending to the successful performance of the same 

 great function — the prosecution of war. 



For the elaboration of this truth we refer all who may be 

 skeptical to Herbert Spencer's discussion of the " Militant Type 

 of Society." It suffices for our purpose to point out that this 

 " militant type " is the one in which social organization begins. 



In pursuing the ends of early militancy, the active brain of 

 man struck upon a course which has forever lifted him above all 

 other living things, the use and adaptation of external forces for 

 the furtherance of human ends. With the first weapon fash- 

 ioned by some prehistoric warrior was opened a new field for the 

 exercise of human energy. Work for the purpose of creating 

 was initialed in contrast to the destructive activities of the ani- 

 mal world. Step by step expanding intelligence led the labor of 

 brain and hand first to producing appliances for war, the prose- 

 cution of which against both man and beast was necessary to the 

 support of life, and then to supporting life directly by the crea- 

 tion from natural sources of its requirements. To manufacture 

 for man's wants out of Nature's resources began to take the place 

 of a mere sanguinary struggle over her raw materials. 



Labor became a partial substitute for fighting. 



It needs no demonstration that this new use of the energies 

 had nothing in common with the earlier animal instincts from 

 which the militant social structure evolved. What, then, could 



VOL. XXXIII. — 11 



