LOCAL GOVERNING AGENCIES. 469 



by a despotic head or by a council, as there is now within the 

 local clusters of the Hindoo castes ; and in like manner the 

 ordinances of gilds extended to the regulation of personal 

 habits. Lastly, this family or caste government, as still 

 shown us in India, includes in its punishments excommuni 

 cation ; and so, too, was there outlawry from the gild.* 



It is inferable, then, that the gild was evolved from the 

 family. Continuance of a business, art, or profession, among 

 descendants, is, in early stages, almost inevitable. Acquisi 

 tion of skill in it by early practice is easy ; the cost of teaching 

 is inappreciable ; and retention of the &quot; craft &quot; or &quot; mystery &quot; 

 within the family is desirable : there being also the reason 

 that while family -groups are in antagonism, the teaching of 

 one another s members cannot usually be practicable. But 

 in course of time there come into play influences by which 

 the character of the gild as an assemblage of kindred 

 is obscured. Adoption, which, as repeatedly pointed out, 

 is practised by groups of all kinds, needs but to become 

 common to cause this constitutional change. We have seen 

 that among the Greeks, &quot;pupil&quot; and &quot;son&quot; had the same name. 

 At the present time in Japan, an apprentice, standing in the 

 position of son to his master, calls him &quot; father ;&quot; and in our 

 own craft-gilds &quot;the apprentice became a member of the 

 family of his master, who instructed him in his trade, and 

 who, like a father, had to watch over his morals, as well as 

 his work.&quot; The eventual admission of the apprentice 

 into the gild, when he was a stranger in blood to its mem 

 bers, qualified, in so far, its original nature; and where, 

 through successive generations, the trade was a prospeious 



* A friend who has read this chapter in proof, points out to me passages 

 n \vhirh Brentano draws from these parallelisms a like inference. Ke- 

 ferring to the traits of certain fully- developed gilds, he says : &quot; If we con 

 nect them with what historians relate about the family in those days, we 

 inay still recognize in them the germ from which, in later times, at a certain 

 stage of civilization, the Gild had necessarily to develop itself , . . the family 

 appears as the pattern and original type, after which all the later Gilds were 

 formed.&quot; 



