GILD REGULATION. 449 



!N&quot;on uninventiveness only, but conversatism too, prevents 

 conscious divergence from whatever is established. With 

 the savage the power of custom is overwhelming, and also 

 with the partially civilized. We may therefore be sure that 

 institutions of which we seek the origins have arisen not by 

 design but by incidental growth. Familiar as we are with 

 the formation of societies, associations, unions, and combina 

 tions of all types, we are led to think that the savage, simi 

 larly prompted, proceeds in analogous ways; but we are 

 wrong in thus interpreting his doings. 



Proof is furnished by the truth before pointed out, that 

 the initial step in social evolution is made in an unintended 

 way. Men never entered into any social contract, as Hobbes 

 and Rousseau supposed. Subordination began when some 

 warrior of superior prowess, growing conspicuous in battle, 

 gathered round him the less capable; and when, in subse 

 quent battles he again, as a matter of course, took the lead. 

 Though during intervals between \vars he was not at first 

 acknowledged as head, yet inevitably he exercised special 

 influence influence which eventually grew into chieftain 

 ship. And if the primary social institution arose in this 

 undesigned way, we may be sure that secondary institutions 

 also were undesigned. 



The implication is that gilds were not social inventions. 

 Another fact has the same implication : they are found all 

 over the world. Were they social inventions they would be 

 exceptional; whereas they exist, or have existed, among 

 many peoples of different types. In two ways then we are 

 prompted to ask out of what preceding social structures 

 they arose ; and to this the obvious reply is family-groups 

 developed into clusters of relatives. Urban influences and 

 urban occupations presently caused them to deviate from the 

 primitive type of structure ; but the primitive type was that 

 contemplated in the three preceding chapters. 



We have just seen that while still rural in its character, 

 the village community had begun to differentiate: certain 



