774 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



the same; and that therefore this intense conservatism of 

 ecclesiastical institutions is not without a justification. 



Even irrespective of the relative fitness of the inherited 

 cult to the inherited social circumstances, there is an advan 

 tage in, if not indeed a necessity for, acceptance of traditional 

 beliefs, and consequent conformity to the resulting customs 

 and rules. For before an assemblage of men can become 

 organized, the men must be held together, and kept ever 

 in presence of the conditions to which they have to become 

 adapted ; and that they may be thus held, the coercive 

 influence of their traditional beliefs must be strong. So 

 great are the obstacles which the anti-social traits of the 

 savage ( 33-38) offer to that social cohesion which is 

 the first condition to social progress, that he can be kept 

 within the needful bonds only by a sentiment prompting 

 absolute submission submission to secular rule reinforced 

 by that sacred rule which is at first in unison with it. And 

 hence, as I have before pointed out, the truth that in what 

 ever place arising Egypt, Assyria, Peru, Mexico, China 

 social evolution throughout all its earlier stages has been 

 accompanied not only by extreme subordination to living 

 kings, but also by elaborate worships of the deities originating 

 from dead kings. 



