3 70 . Heredity. 



there he must remain : the caste absorbed the individual. The 

 westerns lengthened out this over-short ladder, and increased the 

 number of degrees, and we might even say that in many countries 

 this process has neutralized itself. Between these two extremes 

 the seven-stepped ladder on the one hand, and on the other the 

 almost inappreciable gradient of modern times stands the true 

 period of nobility, Rome and mediaeval Germany. 



The great families which were to be perpetuated for cen- 

 turies by heredity arose in many ways, of which history alone can 

 give the full details. Some conquering race, inferior in numbers, 

 superior in force, often formed a privileged class, and held the 

 vanquished down such were the Normans in England, the Incas 

 in Peru, the Franks in Gaul. The latter were the only nation that 

 possessed the ' terre salique,' ' alleu ' or ' franc-alleu ' hereditary 

 domain, which became later the fief. They were ennobled by the 

 very fact of conquest. Oftener, nobility was conferred by the 

 prince, in recompense for some brilliant action. There were also 

 certain charges and functions that gave nobility, and even some 

 kinds of commerce. Nobility was either transmissible or intrans- 

 missible, personal or territorial, of the gown or of the sword; in 

 short, there were so many denominations, varieties, distinctions, 

 and categories, that an author in the last century who tries to 

 classify them reckons more than sixty. 



But whatever its origin, nobility was always hereditary. This is 

 its first law. It must perpetuate itself from its own resources; it 

 must have a past history, and must preserve its memories and its 

 traditions. In the state it represents stability. This character of 

 continuousness and permanence, which is the essence of heredity, is 

 also the essence of nobility. It has therefore always been careful 

 to keep itself pure; this is its first duty. ' Nobility,' says the Comte 

 de Boulainvilliers, ' is a natural privilege, incommunicable by any 

 way other than that of birth.' There is no greater stain on cha- 

 racter than to act in a manner derogatory to birth. To derogate 

 from nobility is to deny ancestry and to ruin descendants ; it is 

 to break the golden chain and to let them fall down below the 

 commonalty, into a categoiy apart to make them outcasts, for 

 whom society has neither name nor place. Hence those genea- 

 logical trees, so carefully drawn and blazoned, extending back- 



