570 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



there is given the indirect aid of all who cannot fight. Sup 

 posing them otherwise similar, those communities will sur 

 vive in which the efforts of combatants are in the greatest 

 degree seconded by those of non-combatants. In a purely 

 militant society, therefore, individuals who do not bear arms 

 have to spend their lives in furthering the maintenance of 

 those who do. Whether, as happens at first, the non-com 

 batants are exclusively the women ; or whether, as happens 

 later, the class includes enslaved captives; or whether, as 

 happens later still, it includes serfs ; the implication is the 

 same. For if, of two societies equal in other respects, the 

 first wholly subordinates its workers in this way, while the 

 workers in the second are allowed to retain for themselves 

 the produce of their labour, or more of it than is needful for 

 maintaining them ; then, in the second, the warriors, not 

 otherwise supported, or supported less fully than they might 

 else be, will have partially to support themselves, and will be 

 so much the less available for war purposes. Hence in the 

 struggle for existence between such societies, it must usually 

 happen that the first will vanquish the second. The social 

 type produced by survival of the fittest, will be one in which 

 the fighting part includes all who can bear arms and be 

 trusted with arms, while the remaining part serves simply as 

 a permanent commissariat. 



An obvious implication, of a significance to be hereafter 

 pointed out, is that the non-combatant part, occupied in sup 

 porting the combatant pa it, cannot with advantage to the 

 self-preserving power of the society increase beyond the limit 

 at which it efficiently fulfils its purpose. For, otherwise, 

 some who might be fighters are superfluous workers ; and the 

 fighting power of the society is made less than it might be. 

 Hence, in the militant type, the tendency is for the body of 

 warriors to bear the largest practicable ratio to the body of 

 workers. 



550. Given two societies of which the members are all 



