LARGE COMMERCIAL HOUSES IN THE MODERN STATE. 359 



opening of new paths is on the contrary nearly always 

 troublesome and attended with great risk, requires 

 also a larger store of special knowledge and ex- 

 perience than is to be found in joint stock com- 

 panies, for the most part short-lived and often 

 changing their management. Such an aggregation of 

 capital, knowledge, and experience can only be formed 

 and maintained in long established commercial houses, 

 remaining by inheritance in the same family. Just 

 as the great commercial houses of the Middle Ages 

 were not only money -making institutions, but con- 

 sidered themselves called upon and bound to serve 

 their fellow- citizens and the state by seeking out new 

 commodities and new highways of commerce - - the 

 obligation being transmitted as a family tradition through 

 many generations so at the present day in this 

 awakened scientific age the large technical business- 

 houses are called upon to put forth their whole 

 strength, that the national industry may take the lead 

 in the great contest of the civilized world, or at 

 least the place assigned to it by the nature and 

 situation of the country itself. Our political institutions 

 still rest almost everywhere on the feudal system, 

 according to which the landed proprietor was almost 

 exclusively regarded and honoured as the supporter 

 and maintainer of the power of the State. Our time 

 can no longer recognize the validity of this privilege. 

 Not on possessions, be they what they may, will the 

 conservative force of society henceforth depend, but 

 on the spirit which animates and fertilizes them. Al- 



