2 26 FORMULAS OF THE LAW OF EVOLUTION. 



shown by Mr. Bagehot,^ the chief difficulty of early 

 societies was that they had to bring wild men with 

 rudimentary social instincts to live together in 

 States. The caste-system effected this admirably, 

 and hence the early civilizations were all dis- 

 tinguished by the rigid and rigorous character of 

 the social organization. But subsequently, as the 

 structure consolidated and ossified, it became incom- 

 patible with the mobility requisite ; the ancient civil- 

 izations were, as it were, stifled in the armour which 

 had protected them ; their institutions became too 

 rigid to be adapted to the changing conditions of 

 life. And above all, the system depressed individ- 

 uality too completely. The time came when there 

 was need for it, when the individuals energy and 

 sense of responsibility alone could save the State, 

 and when they were not forthcoming. What 

 wonder then that the earliest civilizations decayed 

 and perished, and that their cumbrous organizations 

 collapsed for the same reasons as the State of the 

 Incas collapsed when Pizarro had seized its ruler ? 

 So, too, the Persians could not conquer Greece ; be- 

 cause the blind onset of slaves was no match for the 

 voluntary combination of intelligent men who knew 

 the value of individual effort. Again, Greek civiliz- 

 ation was in some ways more perfect than ours ; 

 their ideas of the formal perfection of science, of 

 ethics, and of a noble life generally, were higher 

 than any to which we dare to aspire. But the basis 

 of Greek civilization was extremely narrow, and so 

 it was fatally unstable. It developed the individual 

 to an unequalled perfection, but at a heavy cost. 

 The economic basis of the *' noble " life of social 

 leisure was slavery. The Greek ideal of life was 

 1 " Physics and Politics." 



