6 4 



more or less differentiated according as the 

 degree of social evolution is raised. 



Just as a protozoon is composed almost ex- 

 clusively of albuminous gelatine whilst a 

 mammal is composed of very diverse tissues ; 

 so a chiefless tribe of primitive savages is 

 composed of only a few families whose 

 aggregation results simply from propinquity, 

 whilst a civilised society of an historical 

 or contemporary epoch is composed of social 

 classes which differ one from the other, be 

 it by the physio -psychical constitution of 

 their components, or by the sum of their 

 habits, their tendencies, their personal, family 

 or social life. 



These different classes can be arranged in 

 a rigorous fashion. In ancient India they go 

 from the Brahman to the Sudra ; in Europe of 

 the middle ages from the Emperor and the 

 Pope to the feudatory, the vassal and the 

 artisan, and an individual cannot pass from 

 one class to the other. Chance of birth alone 

 determines his social condition. It may hap- 

 pen that the legal etiquette will disappear, as 

 it happened in Europe and America after the 

 French Revolution, and exceptionally an in- 

 dividual may find his way from one class to 

 another, as molecules do by exosmosis and 

 endosmosis or, according to the expression of 

 M. Dumont, by a sort of social capillarity. 

 But in all cases these different classes- exist 

 as an assured reality, and they will resist 

 every attempt at levelling by laws as long as 

 the fundament reason for their difference 

 remains. 



