384: THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 



processes, and religious observances, show us how fixed are 

 the arrangements where the antiquity is great, ^or does 

 China, with its long-settled political organization, its elabo- 

 rate and precise conventions, and its unprogressive litera- 

 ture, fail to exemplify the same truth. 



The successive phases of our own and adjacent societies, 

 furnish facts somewhat different in kind but similar in 

 meaning. Originally, monarchical authority was more ba- 

 ronial, and baronial authority more monarchical, than after- 

 wards. Between modern priests and the priests of old times, 

 who while officially teachers of religion were also warriors, 

 judges, architects, there is a marked difference in defi- 

 niteness of function. And among the people engaged in 

 productive occupations, the like contrasts would be found 

 to hold: the industrial class has become more distinct 

 from the military; and its various divisions from one 

 another. A history of our constitution, reminding 



us how the powers of King, Lords, and Commons, have 

 been gradually settled, would clearly exhibit analogous 

 changes. Countless facts bearing the like construction, 

 would meet us were we to trace the development of legis- 

 lation; in the successive stages of which, we should find 

 statutes gradually rendered more specific in their appli- 

 cations to particular cases. Even now we see that each 

 new law, beginning as a vague proposition, is, in the course 

 of enactment, elaborated into specific clauses; and further 

 that only after its interpretation has been established by 

 judges' decisions in courts of justice, does it reach its final 

 definiteness. From the annals of minor institu- 



tions like evidence may be gathered. Religious, charitable, 

 literary, and all other societies, starting with ends and meth- 

 ods roughly sketched out and easily modifiable, show us 

 how, by the accumulation of rules and precedents, the pur- 

 poses become more distinct and the modes of action more 

 restricted ; until at last decay follows a fixity which admits 

 of no adaptation to new conditions. Should it be objected 



