298 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



of county families, as well as by the portraits of family ances 

 tors, who are mostly represented in military costume. 



459. Setting out with the class of warriors, or men bear 

 ing arms, who in primitive communities are owners of the 

 land, collectively or individually, or partly one and partly the 

 other, there arises the question How does this class dif 

 ferentiate into nobles and freemen ? 



The most general reply is, of course, that since the state 

 of homogeneity is by necessity unstable, time inevitably brings 

 about inequalities of positions among those whose positions 

 were at first equal. Before the semi-civilized state is reached, 

 the differentiation cannot become decided ; because there cau 

 be no large accumulations of wealth, and because the laws of 

 descent do not favour maintenance of such accumulations as 

 are possible. But in the pastoral, and still more in the agri 

 cultural, community, especially where descent through males 

 has been established, several causes of differentiation come into 

 play. There is, first, unlikeness of kinship to the head man. 



Obviously, in course of generations, the younger descendants 

 of the younger become more and more remotely related to 

 the eldest descendant of the eldest ; and social inferiority 

 arises. As the obligation to execute blood-revenge for a mur 

 dered member of the family does not extend beyond a certain 

 degree of relations] lip (in ancient France not beyond the 

 seventh), so neither does the accompanying distinction. From 

 the same cause comes inferiority in point of possessions. 

 Inheritance by the eldest male from generation to genera 

 tion, works the effect that those who are the most distantly 

 connected in blood with the head of the group, are also the 

 poorest. Then there cooperates with these factors a 



consequent factor; namely, the extra power which greater 

 wealth gives. For when there arise disputes within the tribe, 

 the richer are those who, by their better appliances for 

 defence and their greater ability to purchase aid, naturally 

 have the advantage over the poorer. Proof that this is a 



