164 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



almost universally a second power — the priesthood 



independent of the political head. In these nations 



we commonly find these two ruling forces in conflict 

 with each other; the temporal and the spiritual 

 authorities have, from the very first, been contending 

 forces in the development of the communal nations. 



Centralizing Force Weak. — The communal system was 

 poorly adapted for creating nations. A centralizing 

 force was lacking and the power of the leader was 

 always uncertain. The leader never knew the extent 

 of his power ; since obedience to him was fundamen- 

 tally a matter of volition, he never knew how far he 

 could call upon his subjects to obey his will. More- 

 over, he never could know whether his power would 

 be permanent, and it was practically certain that it 

 would end with his death, even if it did not end long 

 before that time. Hence there was originally no 

 permanent bond to unite such people. With them 

 the conquering of a king did not conquer the king- 

 dom. Under the patriarchal system as soon as one 

 monarch was overthrown by another the conqueror 

 naturally became the monarch of the combined race, 

 but under the communal system, when one leader 

 was overthrown there was nothing to bind together 

 the victor and the vanquished. The conquered tribe 

 simply felt that their leader had been overthrown, 

 but inasmuch as their leader was voluntarily elected, 

 they could easily elect another. Thus, in the com- 

 munal system there was less tendency toward the 

 growth of nations by accretion. The feelings under- 

 lying the development of these tribes led to individ- 

 ualism, and the union of tribes for temporary pur- 

 poses only. The allegiance to the leader was recog- 

 nized as a matter of expediency and not a religious 



