482 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



put under the direction of some experienced chief of the royal 

 blood, or, more frequently, headed by the Ynca in person.&quot; 



The widening civil functions of the political head, obviously 

 prompt this delegation of military functions. But while the 

 discharge of both becomes increasingly difficult as the nation 

 enlarges ; and while the attempt to discharge both is danger 

 ous ; there is also danger in doing either by deputy. At the 

 same time that there is risk in giving supreme command of a 

 distant army to a general, there is also risk in going with the 

 army and leaving the government in the hands of a vice 

 gerent ; and the catastrophes from the one or the other 

 cause, which, spite of precautions, have taken place, show us 

 alike that there is, during social evolution, an inevitable ten 

 dency to the differentiation of the military headship from the 

 political headship, but that this differentiation can become 

 permanent only under certain conditions. 



The general fact would appear to be that while militant 

 activity is great, and the whole society has the organiza 

 tion appropriate to it, the state of equilibrium is one in which 

 the political head continues to be also the militant head ; 

 that in proportion as there grows up, along with industrial 

 life, a civil administration distinguishable from the military 

 administration, the political head tends to become increas 

 ingly civil in his functions, and to delegate, now occasionally, 

 now generally, his militant functions ; that if there is a 

 return to great militant activity, with consequent reversion to 

 militant structure, there is liable to occur a re-establishment 

 of the primitive type of headship, by usurpation on the part 

 of the successful general either practical usurpation, where 

 the king is too sacred to be displaced, or complete usurpation 

 where he is not too sacred; but that where, along with 

 decreasing militancy, there goes increasing civil life and ad 

 ministration, headship of the army becomes permanently 

 differentiated from political headship, and subordinated to it. 



519. While, in the course of social evolution, there has 



