Society in its first and lowest stage is a homogeneous assemblage of individualshaving like powers and like functions: the only marked difference of functionbeing that which accompanies difference of sex. Every man is warrior, hunter,fisherman, tool-maker, builder; every woman performs the same drudgeries;every family is self-sufficing, and, save for purposes of companionship,aggression, and defence, might as well live apart from the rest. Very early,however, in the course of social evolution, we find an incipient differentiationbetween the governing and the governed. Some kind of chieftainship soon arisesafter the advance from the state of separate wandering families to that ofa nomadic tribe. The authority of the strongest and cunningest makes itselffelt among savages, as in a herd of animals or a posse of schoolboys: especiallyin war. At first, however, it is indefinite, uncertain; is shared by othersof scarcely inferior power; and is unaccompanied by any difference in occupationor style of living: the first ruler kills his own game, makes his own weapons,builds his own hut, and, economically considered, does not differ from othersof his tribe. Along with conquests and the massing of tribes, the contrastbetween the governing and the governed grows more decided. Supreme powerbecomes hereditary in one family; the head, first military and then political,ceasing to provide for his own wants, is served by others; and he beginsto assume the sole office of ruling. At the same time there has been arisinga co-ordinate species of government -- that of Religion. Ancient recordsand traditions show that the earliest conquerors and kings came to be regardedas divine personages. The maxims and commands they uttered during their liveswere held sacred after their deaths, and were enforced by their divinely-descendedsuccessors; who in their turns were promoted to the pantheon of the race,there to be worshipped and propitiated along with their predecessors. Fora long time these connate forms of government -- civil and religious -- remainclosely associated. For many generations the king continues to be the chiefpriest, and the priesthood to be members of the royal race. For many agesreligious law continues to contain more or less of civil regulation, andcivil law to possess more or less of religious sanction; and even among themost advanced nations these two controlling agencies are by no means completelydifferentiated from each other. Having a common root with these, and graduallydiverging from them, we find yet another controlling agency -- that of Mannersor ceremonial usages. Titles of honour were originally the names of the god-king;afterwards of God and the king; still later of persons of high rank; andfinally came, some of them, to be used between man and man. Forms of complimentaryaddress were at first expressions of propitiation from prisoners to theirconqueror, or from subjects to their ruler, either human or divine -- expressionsthat were afterwards used subordinate authorities, and slowly descended intoordinary intercourse. Modes of salutation were once signs of subjection toa victor, afterwards obeisances made before the monarch and used in worshipof him when dead. Presently others of the god-descended race were similarlysaluted; and by degrees some of the salutations have become the due of all.*<*For detailed proof see essay on "Manners and Fashion" in Essays,etc., Vol. III.> Thus, no sooner does the originally homogeneous socialmass differentiate into the governed and the governing parts, than this lastexhibits an incipient differentiation into religious and secular-Church andState; while at the same time or still earlier there begins to take shape,that less definite species of government which rules our daily intercourse-- a species of government which, as we may see in heralds' colleges, inbooks of the peerage, in masters of ceremonies, is not without a certainembodiment of its own. Each of these kinds of government is itself subjectto successive differentiations. In the course of ages, there arises, as amongourselves, a highly complex political organization of monarch, ministers,lords and commons, with their subordinate administrative departments, courtsof justice, revenue offices, etc., supplemented in the provinces by municipalgovernments, county governments, parish or union governments -- all of themmore or less elaborated. By its side there grows up a highly complex religiousorganization, with its various grades of officials from archbishops downto sextons, its colleges, convocations, ecclesiastical courts, etc.; to allwhich must be added the ever-multiplying independent sects, each with itsgeneral and local authorities. And simultaneously there is developed a complicatedsystem of customs, manners, and temporary fashions, enforced by society atlarge, and serving to control those minor transactions between man and manwhich are not regulated by civil and religious law. Moreover, it is to beobserved that this increasing heterogeneity in the governmental appliancesof each nation, has been accompanied by an increasing heterogeneity in thegovernmental appliances of different nations. All peoples are more or lessunlike in their political systems and legislation, in their creeds and religiousinstitutions, in their customs and ceremonial usages.
同类推荐
热门推荐
玄天升龙记
玄天新诞,东方天界道祖鸿钧携诸天仙圣序数重生,作为天庭下界的地星有份分得一定名额。而伏军,一个自小在福利院长大的孤儿,稀里糊涂之下搭上了这趟前途未知的重生之旅。幸运的是,重生之后的伏军虽然记忆不全,但凭着一番努力,在娘胎中便修出先天元气,接着在出生之后一举修成混生灵元,前景可谓一派光明。然而,世事弄人,伏军出生的部族恰和玄天地界众多弱小部族一般,正遭逢前所未有的异人入侵,更悲剧的是,一番曲折遭遇之后,伏军中了异人盗自大司母不周圣山禁封的噬魂咒焰,万般折磨之后,所有混生灵元被吞噬一空,而赖以为根本的先天一气也消耗殆尽····而似乎更糟糕的情况出现了,那噬魂咒焰之中,一抹异种能量意识借助先天一气的温养质性悄然生成·····