MILITARY SYSTEMS. 477 



then a levying of dues, such as those called scutages, in place 

 of special compositions. Evidently, industrial growth made 

 this change possible ; both by increasing the population from 

 which the required numbers of substitutes could be obtained, 

 and by producing the needful floating capital. 



So that whereas in savage and semi-civilized communities 

 of warlike kinds, the incidence of military obligation is such 

 that each free man has to serve personally, and also to pro 

 vide his own arms and provisions ; the progress from this 

 state in which industry does but occupy the intervals between 

 wars, to a state in which war does but occasionally break the 

 habitual industry, brings an increasing dissociation of mili 

 tary obligation from free citizenship : military obligation at 

 the same time tending to become a pecuniary burden levied 

 in proportion to property of whatever kind. Though where 

 there is a conscription, personal service is theoretically due 

 from each on whom the lot falls, yet the ability to buy a sub 

 stitute brings the obligation back to a pecuniary one. And 

 though we have an instance in our own day of universal 

 military obligation not thus to be compounded for, we see 

 that it is part of a reversion to the condition of predominant 

 militancy. 



517. An aspect of this change not yet noted, is the 

 simultaneous decrease in the ratio which the fighting part of 

 the community bears to the rest. With the transition from 

 nomadic habits to settled habits, there begins an economic 

 resistance to militant action, which increases as industrial life 

 develops, and diminishes the relative size of the military body. 



Though in tribes of hunters the men are as ready for war 

 ut one time as at another, yet in agricultural societies there 

 obviously exists an impediment to unceasing warfare. In 

 the exceptional case of the Spartans, the carrying on of rural 

 industry was not allowed to prevent daily occupation of all 

 freemen in warlike exercises ; but, speaking generally, the 

 Bowing and reaping of crops hinder the gathering together 



