Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



simple organisation of the gens. He says (p. 124), 

 " Monarchy is incompatible with gentilism." Also 

 with regard to the relation of Property to Civilisa- 

 tion and Government he makes the following 

 pregnant remarks (p. 505) : " It is impossible to 

 over-estimate the influence of property in the 

 civilisation of mankind. It was the power that 

 brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of bar- 

 barism into civilisation. The growth of the idea of 

 property in the human mind commenced in feeble- 

 ness and ended in becoming its master passion. 

 Governments and Laws are instituted with primary 

 reference to its creation, protection and enjoyment. 

 It introduced human slavery as an instrument in 

 its production ; and after the experience of several 

 thousand years it caused the abolition of slavery 

 upon the discovery that a freeman was a better 

 property-making machine." And in another pasage 

 on the same subject, *' The dissolution of society 

 bids fair to become the termination of a career 

 of which property is the end and aim ; because 

 such a career contains the elements of self-destruc- 

 tion. Democracy is the next higher plane. It 

 will be a revival in a higher form of the liberty, 

 equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes." 



The institution of Government is in fact the 

 evidence in social life that man has lost his inner 

 and central control, and therefore must resort to 

 an outward one. Losing touch with the inward 

 Man — who is his true guide — he declines upon 

 an external law, which must always be false. If 

 each man remained in organic adhesion to the 



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