CONSTITUTION OF SOCIETY. 



The leaders of tribes in these pastoral regions 

 are now known by the title of Sheiks the word 

 sheik in Arabic signifying the elder or eldest. 



In this rudimentary state of society, the tribe has 

 usually no fixed residence, but wanders from place 

 to place in company with its flocks and herds, in 

 quest of pasture, or for the sake of hunting wild 

 animals. In making their long and toilsome 

 journeys through the wilderness, the families and 

 tents are carried on the backs of camels. From 

 leading this wandering life, the members of these 

 tribes are called Nomades ; or are said to be no- 

 madic in their habits, from a Greek word signifying 

 pastoral. 



From the accounts given of the patriarchal 

 ages in the Bible, a much more favourable idea is 

 formed of nomadic life than a close inspection 

 is found to warrant. Carried away with pleasing 

 fancies respecting pastoral simplicity and freedom 

 from the cares of civilisation, we are apt to forget 

 that human passions are the same in all ages and 

 countries, and that every condition of life has its 

 own peculiar difficulties and vexations. The truth 

 seems to be, that this roving, haphazard mode of 

 existence is full of miseries, and that force is the 

 only law. Mr Stephens, an American traveller, 

 who journeyed through Arabia Petrasa, under 

 the hired protection of a number of Bedouins, 

 headed by their sheik, thus destroys the gloss 

 which had been thrown over the nomadic social 

 system : 



' One by one I had seen the many illusions of 

 my waking dreams fade away ; the gorgeous pic- 

 tures of oriental scenes melt into nothing ; but 

 I had still clung to the primitive simplicity and 

 purity of the children of the desert, their temper- 

 ance and abstinence, their contented poverty and 

 contempt for luxuries, as approaching the true 

 nobility of man's nature, and sustaining the poetry 

 of the " land of the East." But my last dream was 

 broken ; and I never saw among the wanderers of 

 the desert any traits of character, or any habits of 

 life, which did not make me prize and value more 

 the privileges of civilisation.* I had been more 

 than a month alone with the Bedouins ; and to 

 say nothing of their manners excluding women 

 from all companionship ; dipping their fingers up 

 to the knuckles in the same dish ; eating sheep's 

 insides ; and sleeping under tents crawling with 

 vermin, engendered by their filthy habits their 

 temperance and frugality are from necessity, not 

 from choice ; for in their nature they are glutton- 

 ous, and will eat at any time till they are gorged 

 of whatever they can get, and then lie down and 

 sleep like brutes. I have sometimes amused 

 myself with trying the variety of their appetites, 

 and I never knew them refuse anything that could 

 be eaten. Their stomach was literally their god, 

 and the only chance of doing anything with them 

 was by first making to it a grateful offering ; in- 

 stead of scorning luxuries, they would eat sugar 

 as boys do sugar-candy ; and I am very sure if 

 they could have got pound-cake, they would never 

 have eaten their own coarse bread. 



'One might expect to find these children of 

 nature free from the reproach of civilised life the 

 love of gold. But, fellow-citizens and fellow-wor- 

 shippers of Mammon, hold up your heads ! this 

 reproach must not be confined to you. It would 

 have been a pleasing thing to me to find among 

 the Arabs of the desert a slight similarity of taste 



and pursuits with the denizens of my native city ; 

 and in the early developments of a thirst for 

 acquisition, I would have hailed the embryo spirit 

 which might one day lead to stock and exchange 

 boards, and laying out city-lots around the base of 

 Mount Sinai or the excavated city of Petra. But 

 the savage was already far beyond the civilised 

 man in his appetite for gold ; and though brought 

 up in a school of hungry and thirsty disciples, and 

 knowing many in my native city who regard it as 

 the one thing needful, I blush for myself, for my 

 city, and for them, when I say that I never saw 

 one among them who could be compared with the 

 Bedouin ; I never saw anything like the expression 

 of face with which a Bedouin looks upon silver or 

 gold. When he asks for bucksheesh, and receives 

 the glittering metal, his eyes sparkle with wild 

 delight, his fingers clutch it with eager rapacity, 

 and he skulks away like the miser, to count 

 it over alone, and conceal it from all other 

 eyes.' 



The same species of patriarchal society prevails, 

 as is well known, among the tribes of North 

 America ; each tribe being governed by its chief, 

 an arrangement which does not prevent it from 

 being exposed to all the calamities of a state of 

 untutored nature. 



Out of the patriarchal condition of society 

 in the East, sprung the system of clanship, long 

 prevalent among Celtic nations after they had 

 ceased to be nomadic. The word clan signifies 

 family, and is applied to a tribe claiming to be 

 descended from one head ; the lineal descend- 

 ant of which is the chief. All the members of 

 the clan consider him as a common father and 

 protector, to whom they owe an implicit obe- 

 dience. This form of society was brought into 

 Western Europe by the Celts in exceedingly early 

 times, and disappeared slowly before the en- 

 croachments of the Teutonic races. The last of 

 its strongholds were the Highlands of Scotland, 

 where it was finally abolished by law in 1748, and 

 where it is now only known as matter of tradition 

 or private feeling. The error of the patriarchal 

 system, in point of principle, consists in the fact, 

 that it relies on the paternal element in the social 

 relations, to the exclusion of the fraternal. It thus 

 prevents the development of individual character, 

 and the formation of separate households. In 

 this respect it is the antithesis of the democratic 

 system, which recognises the fraternal to the 

 exclusion of the paternal element, and thus, whilst 

 stimulating individuality, breaks up the family, 

 annihilates authority, silences tradition, and finally 

 tends to destroy the historical character of a 

 people. The patriarchal system is unprogressive, 

 but its relation to barbarism seems accidental ; 

 and it cannot be shewn, in principle, to be retro- 

 gressive, like the systems which, resting on the 

 supremacy of numbers, subject the higher to the 

 lower social influences. All civilised nations have 

 arisen out of a modification cf the paternal system, 

 but history as yet affords no example of a nation 

 which has been held together by means of what is 

 called ' fraternity.' It is only in subordination to 

 the paternal that the fraternal bond retains its 

 coherence, and becomes operative as a social force. 

 It is from the relations of the family that we learn 

 our relations as citizens of the state, and the first 

 and most important family relation is that of 

 parent and child. 



