EVOLUTION OF MODERN SOCIETY. 509 



and the tiny livnlet, swelled to a mighty river, " loses itself in the 

 infinite main." It is diflQcnlt for ns to realize that the man of the pres- 

 ent day — the bridger of ocean and air, the transcendental stndent of 

 the infinite, the scientific explorer of the universe — is " the selfsame 

 being, the same in form, in mind, in destination, as the poor, creeping, 

 untutored savage who ages ago, in his weakness and ignorance, looked 

 upon the little earth around him as the whole of creation, upon the 

 ocean as he knew not what, reaching he knew not where; and who 

 stood gazing with mingled fear and admiration as the fires of heaven 

 alternately rose and set, glimmered, and faded away." 



This is the conception of man — the individual, the protoplasm of 

 society — with which we enter upon our investigation; in the present 

 instance, a mere sketch. 



Originating in the individual, society is rei)resented in its first stage 

 by the family. This, as we know, formed the basis of the Hindoo com- 

 munity, the (Irecian State, the Roman State; and we have analogous 

 evidence to prove that it was the foundation of all other earlier com- 

 munities besides. This was society in its patriarchal stage. 



In our present investigation it is advisable to proceed upon certain 

 definite lines. We shall better attain our object now by tracing, by 

 general indication, the gradual growth and development of manners, 

 customs, religion, laws, industry, arts, learning, literature, scientific 

 knowledge, and institutions. These, in the order enumerated, I con- 

 ceive to be the outcome of social evolutiou. In its earliest stage — the 

 patriarchal — only the first two or three of these characteristics existed 

 or could exist in any definite form. Manners, customs, and religion, in 

 however crude a form, exist wherever we have the nucleus of a society. 

 Laws, as such, were a later development, their jdace in early comnnmi- 

 ties being filled by custom — an arbitrary code sometimes marvelously 

 allied to natural justice, at other times subverting all modern concep- 

 tions of that moral law. The rule of life at this period was, generally, 

 "might is right," the only rule practicable in an age when, according 

 to the philosopher Hobbes, all men were in a state of hostility to each 

 other, and each man took as he was able, by the strength of his arm. 



The nature and general treatment of our subject enable us to pass 

 over the first beginnings of anything like a concrete society, and take up 

 the thread at that point where laws and commerce, being added to cus- 

 toms, manners, and religion,- were beginning to mold the whole body of 

 society into something like a definite form. Arbitrary customs, prim 

 itive manners, religious forms and ceremonies are now modified and 

 improved. The unwritten law of custom is now expressly stated as law, 

 and the first real step is taken in the practical organization of society. 

 We find this situation realized in Rome at the time of the republic, at 

 and for some time after the publication of the famous Decemviral Code 

 known as the Twelve Tables. At the same time intercourse with aliens, 

 for sale and barter and exchange of commodities, begins to exercise a 



