68 "THE COMING OF MAN 



querors. The two may gradually mingle and even fuse, or 

 they may long remain as distinct as oil and water. The con- 

 servative mass has on its side the weight of numbers, of more 

 rapid increase, of endurance and stability. In the end it will 

 maintain itself and win recognition. This struggle of the mass 

 of the people for its place and rights, and toward a real and 

 workable democracy seems to be the important feature of 

 political history. 



The individual played a very subordinate part in the rise 

 of Neolithic culture and civilization. It was a tribal move- 

 ment in lock-step and there could be no straggling from the 

 ranks. There was uniformity and monotony. Different tribes 

 differed comparatively little from one another. It was a 

 stage of civilizing the savage by compelling him to till the 

 ground, common to all civilized peoples, though different tribal 

 units may have advanced with different degrees of rapidity 

 according to innate endowment and surrounding conditions. 

 It was a great tidal wave of human advance impelled by world 

 forces, and creeping slowly and relentlessly with a broad and 

 comparatively even front. 



In the Bronze and earlier Iron Ages there was great diver- 

 sity. Every people or city-state tried its own peculiar experi- 

 ment under its own leader. Egypt, Greece, different parts of 

 Europe, go every one its own way to a certain extent; and 

 near neighbors may differ markedly. We are living not in the 

 age of the " totem," but of the " hero ": ^ not of reactionary 

 old men but of revolutionary, adventurous young leaders who 

 care little for the past, and rule under new conditions. The 

 experiment is largely one devised or shaped by the individual 

 leader, and its trend and results are less the expression of 

 deep and universal human tendencies, and more that of his 

 individual thought and will. The advance or deterioration 

 depends largely upon him and the weight of responsibility 

 begins to make itself felt. The advance, if it be so, begins to 

 show the variety and uncertainties of modern so-called prog- 

 ress. It is more rapid but less sure in its form and direction. 



