POLITICAL DIFFERENTIATION. 307 



* sont en general les gens les plus riches.&quot; Indeed it is 

 manifest that before the development of commerce, and while 

 possession of land could alone give largeness of means, lord 

 ship and riches were directly connected; so that, as Sir 

 Henry Maine remarks, &quot;the opposition commonly set up 

 between birth and wealth, and particularly wealth other than 

 landed property, is entirely modern.&quot; When, however, with 

 the arrival of industry at that stage in which wholesale 

 transactions bring large profits, there arise traders who vie 

 with, and exceed, many of the landed nobility in wealth ; 

 r,nd when by conferring obligations on kings and nobles, such 

 traders gain social influence ; there comes an occasional 

 removal of the barrier between them and the titled classes. 

 In France the process began as early as 1271, when there 

 were issued letters ennobling Eaoul the goldsmith &quot; the 

 first letters conferring nobility in existence&quot; in France. The 

 precedent once established is followed with increasing fre 

 quency; and sometimes, under pressure of financial needs, 

 there grows up the practice of selling titles, in disguised 

 ways or openly. In France, in 1702, the king ennobled 200 

 persons at 3.000 livres a-head ; in 1706, 500 persons at 

 6,000 livres a-head. And then the breaking down of the 

 ancient political divisions thus caused, is furthered by that 

 weakening of them consequent on the growing spirit of 

 equality fostered by industrial life. In proportion as men 

 are habituated to maintain their own claims while respect 

 ing the claims of others, which they do in every act of 

 exchange, whether of goods for money or of services for pay, 

 there is produced a mental attitude at variance with that 

 which accompanies subjection ; and, as fast as this happens, 

 such political distinctions as imply subjection, lose more and 

 more of that respect which gives them strength. 



463. Class-distinctions, then, date back to the beginnings 

 of social life. Omitting those small wandering assemblages 

 which are so incoherent that their component parts are 



