EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL STRUCTURES 851 



on the earth. But whatever its length, that period is long past, 

 and the period of social integration has been at least as long. All 

 the cases of simple assimilation had run their course ages before 

 there were any records of any kind, and human history acquaints 

 us only with types of a far higher order. 



In other words, the only cases of which we have any actual 

 knowledge are cases of compound social assimilation. Compound 

 assimilation results when peoples or nations that have already 

 been formed in the manner described out of lower social elements 

 again amalgamate on a higher plane and repeat the process. When 

 one perfectly integrated nation conquers and subjugates another, 

 the same steps have to be taken as in the case of simple groups. 

 The struggle is as much more intense as it is higher in the scale 

 of social structure. But the new structures developed through it, 

 although they have the same names and the same general char- 

 acter, become, when formed, more powerful and capable of accom- 

 plishing much more. The new society is of a higher grade and a 

 more potent factor in the world. The new state, the new people, 

 the new nation, are on a higher plane, and a long step is taken 

 toward civilization. 



But all the nations of which history tells us anything have 

 undergone much more still than two social assimilations. Most of 

 them have undergone many, and represent highly complex struc- 

 tures. With every fresh assimilation they rise in the scale of civil- 

 ization. What they acquire is greater and greater social efficiency, 

 and the principal differences between races, peoples, and nations 

 are differences in the degree of social efficiency. Not only are the 

 same social structures acquired in the first assimilation greatly 

 increased and strengthened, but a large number of other, more 

 or less derivative, but highly socializing, structures are added. 

 The system of law, which was at first only a sort of police regula- 

 tion, becomes a great system of jurisprudence. Government, which 

 at first had but one branch, viz., the executive, acquires a judicial 

 and finally a legislative branch. The state becomes a vast system- 

 atized organization. Industry, which at the beginning consisted 

 wholly of slave labor under a master, and later included the sim- 

 plest forms of trade, develops into a system of economic produc- 

 tion, exchange, transportation, and general circulation. Property, 

 which primarily meant only oxen, spears, bows and arrows, and 

 primitive agricultural implements, now takes varied forms, the 

 most important being those symbols of property which go by the 

 name of money. Under the protection of the state, wealth be- 

 comes possible to a large number who possess the thrift to acquire 

 it, and this takes the form of capital, which is the condition to all 

 industrial progress and national wealth. 



