THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 383 



134. The successive phases through which societies 

 pass, very obviously display the progress from indetermi- 

 nate arrangement to determinate arrangement. A wan- 

 dering tribe of savages, being fixed neither in its locality 

 nor in its internal distribution, is far less definite in the 

 relative positions of its parts than a nation. In such a tribe 

 the social relations are similarly confused and unsettled. 

 Political authority is neither well established nor precise. 

 Distinctions of rank are neither clearly marked nor im- 

 passable. And save in the different occupations of men and 

 women, there are no complete industrial divisions. Only 

 in tribes of considerable size, which have enslaved other 

 tribes, is the economical differentiation decided. 



Any one of these primitive societies, however, that 

 evolves, becomes step by step more specific. Increasing in 

 size, consequently ceasing to be so nomadic, and restricted 

 in its range by neighbouring societies, it acquires, after pro- 

 longed border warfare, a settled territorial boundary. The 

 distinctions between the royal race and the people, eventual- 

 ly amounts in the popular apprehension to a difference of 

 nature. The warrior-class attains a perfect separation from 

 classes devoted to the cultivation of the soil, or other 

 occupations regarded as servile. And there arises a 

 priesthood that is defined in its rank, its functions, its 

 privileges. This sharpness of definition, growing 



both greater and more variously exemplified as societies 

 advance to maturity, is extremest in those that have reached 

 their full development or are declining. Of ancient Egypt 

 we read that its social divisions were precise and its cus- 

 toms rigid. Recent investigations make it more than ever 

 clear, that among the Assyrians and surrounding peoples, 

 not only were the laws unalterable, but even the minor 

 habits, down to those of domestic routine, possessed a 

 sacredness which insured their permanence. In India at 

 the present day, the unchangeable distinctions of caste, 

 not less than the constancy in modes of dress, industrial 



