Ancient Times The earliest surviving expressions of thought on economic subjects have come down to us from the Oriental theocracies.
The general spirit of the corresponding type of social life consisted in taking imitation for the fundamental principle ofeducation,and consolidating nascent civilisation by heredity of the different functions and professions,or even by a systemof castes,hierarchically subordinated to each other according to the nature of their respective offices,under the commonsupreme direction of the sacerdotal caste.This last was charged with the traditional stock of conceptions,and theirapplication for purposes of discipline.It sought to realise a complete regulation of human life in all its departments on thebasis of this transmitted body of practical ideas.Conservation is the principal task of this social order,and its mostremarkable quality is stability,which tends to degenerate into stagnation.But there can be no doubt that the useful arts werelong,though slowly,progressive under this regime,from which they were inherited by the later civilisations --the system ofclasses or castes maintaining the degree of division of labour which had been reached in those early periods.The leadingmembers of the corporations which presided over the theocracies without doubt gave much earnest thought to the conductof industry,which,unlike war,did not imperil their political pre-eminence by developing a rival class.But,conceiving life asa whole,and making its regulation their primary aim,they naturally considered most the social reactions which industry isfitted to exercise.The moral side of economics is the one they habitually contemplate,or (what is not the same)theeconomic side of morals.They abound in those warnings against greed and the haste to be rich which religion andphilosophy have in all ages seen to be necessary.They insist on honesty in mutual dealings,on just weights and measures,onthe faithful observance of contracts.They admonish against the pride and arrogance apt to be generated by riches,againstundue prodigality and self-indulgence,and enforce the duties of justice and beneficence towards servants and inferiors.
Whilst,in accordance with the theological spirit,the personal acquisition of wealth is in general thesis represented asdetermined by divine wills,its dependence on individual diligence and thrift is emphatically taught.There is indeed in thefully developed theocratic systems a tendency to carry precept,which there differs little from command,to an excessivedegree of minuteness --to prescribe in detail the time,the mode,and the accompaniments of almost every act of everymember of the community.This system of exaggerated surveillance is connected with the union,or rather confusion,of thespiritual and temporal powers,whence it results that many parts of the government of society are conducted by directinjunction or restraint,which at a later stage are intrusted to general intellectual and moral influences.
