Evolution of Society. 213 



from which they lapsed. But we may still allude to the 

 claims to that effect, handed down to and recently dominant 

 among us, as interesting and as tending to confirm the 

 teaching of Evolution, if it be considered as in the nature 

 of aspiration, the expressed hope of a condition yet to be 

 realized. 



We have seen that the initial force, out of which order 

 was to come, was a centripetal one, and apparently directly 

 antagonistic to that order — but that, at the very beginning, 

 as we recognize it, a principle was established at the very 

 core of things, by and through which balance of forces and 

 harmony of motion were the result of tendencies that 

 seemed to necessarily destroy them. The study of so- 

 ciety discloses another instance of the same kind, and 

 the principle runs through vegetal and animal life. Nothing 

 could well be more selfish and centripetal than the original 

 sexual impulse. Yet, initiating the family, it becomes the 

 creator of society through the development of the altruistic 

 or centrifugal tendencies, whose origin may be traced di- 

 rectly to it. 



At the beginning of historic times the family was already 

 in a comparatively advanced stage. Co-ordinately with 

 human development everywhere, according to archaeological 

 and historical evidences, a development of religious ideas 

 has taken place. Indeed, societary development seems to 

 have been largely dependent on religious development, if 

 not governed thereby. The whole family life of the ancients, 

 their society, and eventually the State itself, as it took shape 

 among them, grew and developed around their domestic 

 gods, and were limited thereby. They worshiped the 

 manes, or shades of their fathers, as we worship a Father- 

 God. Their ideas of creation did not go back of generation. 

 The fathers were to them their creators, because through 

 and by them alone, as they understood it, came the spark 

 of life. The tombs of the fathers were located near the 

 house, to give access for frequent worship. Their gods 

 were therefore ever present to the ancients, and had to do 

 with all their acts as they went out and came in. Annual 

 religious banquets, or feasts, were held in worship of these 

 manes, the eldest son being the high-priest, and the wife, 

 daughters and other women of the house being only com- 

 petent to worship through him as such. The manes of 

 their dead ancestors were, we are told, supposed to say, 



