160 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



But empires built under the patriarchal system 

 lacked the element of permanency. They were easily 

 built and as easily destroyed. They were created 

 almost at the command of a victorious general, and 

 they were, with equal ease, overthrown. Nothing 

 bound them into a firm unit, and their permanency 

 was slight. They were not even founded upon law, 

 for in a strictly patriarchal system law was a prac- 

 tical impossibility, and attempts to rule such nations 

 by law generally failed. For example, the great 

 Persian empire had been built by the sword of Cyrus ; 

 his successor, Darius, tried to unite under a system 

 of laws the gigantic structure built by the sword. 

 But although a system of laws could be inaugurated 

 by a wise and farseeing leader, it could not exist long 

 under patriarchal rule. From the nature of the case 

 law is here dependent upon the will of the monarch. 

 It is the monarch who makes the laws and has the 

 power of changing them. In a system that looks 

 upon the monarch not only as a father but as the reli- 

 gious head of the nation nothing can be superior to 

 his will. The power that makes the laws can unmake 

 them and, if the law is simply dependent upon the 

 will of the king, he can at will exempt any favorite or 

 any class of favorites from its action. Hence each 

 strives for the favor of the king in order to free him- 

 self from the laws which rule the rest of the nation. 

 Absolute monarchy is thus fatal to the enforcement 

 of law, for no laws can long withstand the submission 

 of the people to the will of one absolute ruler. 



Hence it is that in a patriarchal nation competi- 

 tion based upon excellence is crushed out of exist- 

 ence. There is one person at the head and there is no 

 second. The subordinate officers have power only in 



