COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



dable sanctions which society could devise were 

 brought to bear. Hence the feeling of corporate 

 responsibility is universal among primitive soci- 

 eties. " Not only the mutilators of the Hermai, 

 but all the Athenians — not only the violator 

 of the rites of the Bona Dea, but all the Romans 

 — are liable to the curse engendered ; and so 

 all through ancient history." In such a stage 

 of mental development, the community as a 

 whole is beset with perpetual anxiety concerning 

 the words and deeds of its members ; and it is 

 to a great extent from this sense of corporate re- 

 sponsibility that persecution for heresy in opin- 

 ion or eccentricity in behaviour is ultimately de- 

 rived. 



The inference from all these considerations 

 is obvious. Tribes with the strongest sense of 

 corporate responsibility, with the most rigid 

 family relationships, the most despotic yoke of 

 custom, go on growing through long ages at the 

 expense of rival tribes in which the means for 

 securing concerted action over wide areas are 

 less perfect. Age after age some competing tribes 

 are exterminated or enslaved, while others are 

 absorbed by the victorious tribe and assimilated 

 to it ; and thus age after age the bond of tyran- 

 nical custom becomes stronger and more rigid, 

 while it extends over wider areas and constrains 

 a larger number of people to uniformity of be- 

 haviour. Such a process will naturally result in 



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