CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



a complicated interlacing of the interests of 

 communities and individuals, but it has also en- 

 tailed a general widening and diversifying of in- 

 tellectual experiences, enabling men to realize 

 the desirableness of those remoter ends which 

 are indirectly secured by concerted action over 

 wide areas. Thus in a high state of civilization 

 a large amount of concerted action is ensured 

 by the operation of the ordinary incentives to 

 individual activity, without the aid of extraor- 

 dinary incentives especially embodied in govern- 

 mental edicts, political, sacerdotal, or ceremonial. 

 But in a primitive state of society it is quite 

 otherwise. It is notorious that uncivilized men 

 cannot be made to act in concert save under 

 the stimulus of loyalty to a chief, or of rever- 

 ence for some superstition, or of slavish obedi- 

 ence to time-honoured custom. Hence in early 

 times those communities are most likely to pre- 

 vail in which loyalty, reverence, and obedience 

 are most strongly developed. From a military 

 point of view there are hardly any other advan- 

 tages which can outweigh these. Rigidity in 

 family relationships is one instance in which 

 these advantages are manifested. A community 

 in which the patria potestas is thoroughly estab- 

 lished must inevitably subjugate those rival com- 

 munities in which kinship is reckoned through 

 females only. The common sense of the old 

 historians perceived and insisted upon the fact 



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