306 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



original conception of nobility was in the course of time so 

 much widened that its primitive relation to the possession of 

 a fief is no longer recognizable, and the whole institution 

 seems changed.&quot; These, with kindred instances which our 

 own country and other European countries furnish, show ug 

 both how the original class-divisions become blurred, and 

 how the new class-divisions are distinguished by being de- 

 localized. They are strata which run through the integrated 

 society, having, many of them, no reference to the land and 

 no more connexion with one place than with another. It is 

 true that of the titles artificially conferred, the higher are 

 habitually derived from the names of districts and towns : so 

 simulating, but only simulating, the ancient feudal titles ex 

 pressive of actual lordship over territories. The other modern 

 titles, however, which have arisen with the growth of political, 

 judicial, and other functions, have not even nominal references 

 to localities. This change naturally accompanies the growing 

 integration of the parts into a whole, and the rise of an or 

 ganization of the whole which disregards the divisions among 

 the parts. 



More effective still in weakening those primitive political 

 divisions initiated by militancy, is increasing industrialism. 

 This acts in two ways firstly, by creating a class having 

 power derived otherwise than from territorial possessions or 

 official positions ; and, secondly, by generating ideas and 

 sentiments at variance with the ancient assumptions of class- 

 superiority. As we have already seen, rank and 

 wealth are at the outset habitually associated. Existing 

 uncivilized peoples still show us this relation. The chief of 

 a kraal among the Koranna Hottentots is &quot; usually the per 

 son of greatest property.&quot; In the Bechuana language &quot; the 

 word Jcosi . . . has a double acceptation, denoting either a 

 chief or a rich man.&quot; Such small authority as a Chinook 

 chief has, &quot;rests on riches, which consists in wives, children, 

 slaves, boats, and shells.&quot; Paide European peoples, like the 

 Albanians, vield kindred facts: the heads of their communes 



