i62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be more natural than to find that, with its growth, a structural 

 readaptation of the social organism has been taking place ? 

 Such a readajjtation has been, and is, in constant progress ; and 

 the great authority, to whom we have above referred, traces out, 

 under the title " Industrial Type of Society," the character and 

 tendencies of the structures it is producing. 



Thus, starting with the dictum of modern sociology that soci- 

 ety is an organism living by constant adaptation to surrounding 

 conditions, we find that its earliest structure is the " militant," 

 fitting it for the predatory life of war ; and that a new structure, 

 suited to living by the fruits of productive labor, is being con- 

 stantly developed by it. Let us briefly contrast these two social 

 structures as they appear in our highly evolved life of to-day. 



" Militancy," as is shown in its early development of a chief 

 or tribal leader, entails, above all, autocratic government. A 

 nation, to fight well, must act under one centralized control. It 

 necessitates, furthermore, the existence of the individual for the 

 benefit of the state ; as, the more complete the subordination of 

 the part to the whole becomes, the more will the combined ener- 

 gies be concentrated for national ends, and freed from waste in 

 the direction of mere personal requirements. In its complete- 

 ness, " militancy " means the absolute monarch ruling unques- 

 tioning subjects ; the development of tyranny in the superior, 

 slavishness in the subordinate, and all those harder and more 

 savage traits which are best suited to the needs of war. It 

 means the worship of might, and the creation of rigid social 

 classes based upon it, such as survive even to-day in the aristoc- 

 racies of civilized Europe. If '' militancy " could be complete 

 in its sway, the word " freedom " would not exist in language, for 

 freedom denotes the assertion of individuality, and " militancy " 

 the merging of all individualities save those of rulers. In a 

 word, society under unqualified " militancy " is very naturally 

 best typified by an army and the system which governs it. 



What under this regime would be meant by the word pros- 

 perity ? When is a militant society prosperous ? Obviously, 

 when the end for the achievement of which its structure has 

 been evolved is completely attained; or, to specify, when the 

 maintenance of the liver, of its component individuals has been 

 assured by the forcible destruction of competitors, and the acqui- 

 sition by capture of all coveted fruits of the earth. 



To illustrate by an example : Rome was a community in 

 which the militant organization immensely predominated, and 

 whose unchallenged mastery of the ancient world justifies, as 

 applied to her condition, the word prosperous. This prosperity 

 was achieved through the gradual acquisition, by force of arms, 

 of nearly all the territory of the known world ; through an en- 



