Besides this principal point of the “squire-archical” psychology, a second distinguishing mark scarcely less characteristic is found in the piety of these folk whether it be of conviction or merely strongly accentuated in public.
It seems as though the same social ideas always force identical characteristics on the ruling class. This is illustrated by the form under which God, in their view, appears as their special National God and preponderatingly as a God of War. Although they profess God as the creator of all men, even of their enemies, and since Christianity, as the God of Love, this does not counteract the force with which class interests formulate their appropriate ideology.
In order to complete the sketch of the psychology of the ruling class, we must not forget the tendency to squander, easily understood in those “ignorant of the taste of toil,” which appears sometimes in a higher form as generosity; nor must we forget, as their supreme trait, that death-despising bravery, which is called forth by the coercion imposed on a minority, their need to defend their rights at any time with arms, and which is favored by a freedom from all labor which permits the development of the body in hunting, sport and feuds. Its caricature is combativeness, and a supersensitiveness to personal honor, which degenerates into madness.
At this point a small digression: Cæsar found the Celts just at that stage of their development, in which the nobles had obtained dominion over their fellow clansmen. Since that time, his classic narrative has stood as a norm—their class psychology appears as the race psychology of all Celts. Not even Mommsen escaped this error. The result is that now, in every book on universal history or sociology, one may read the palpable error, repeated until contradiction is of no avail, although a mere glance would have sufficed to show that all peoples of all races, in the same stage of their development, have showed the same characteristics; in Europe, Thessalians, Apulians, Campanians, Germans, Poles, etc. Meanwhile the Celts, and specifically the French, in different stages of their development, have showed quite different traits of character. The psychology belongs to the stage of development, not to the race!
Whenever, on the other hand, the religious sanctions of the “state” are weak, or become so, there develops as a group theory on the part of the subjects, the concept, either clear or blurred, of Natural Law. The lower class regards the race pride and the assumed superiority of the nobles as presumptuous, claims to be of as good race and blood as the ruling class—and from their standpoint again quite correctly, since according to their views, labor, efficiency and order are accounted the only virtues. They are skeptical also as to the religion which is the helper of their adversaries; and are as firmly convinced as are the nobles of the directly opposite opinion, namely, that the privileges of the master group violate law as well as reason. Later development is not able to add any essential point to the factors originally given.
Under the influence of these ideas, now clearly, now obscurely brought out, the two groups henceforth fight out their battles, each for its own interests. The young state would be burst apart under the strain of such centrifugal forces, were it not for the centripetal pull of common interests, of the still more powerful state-consciousness. The pressure of foreigners from without, of common enemies, overcomes the inner strain of conflicting class interests. An example may be found in the tale of the secession of the “Plebs” and the successful mission of Menenius Agrippa. And so the young state would, like a planet, swing through all eternity in its predetermined orbit, in accordance with the parallelogram of forces, were it not that it and its surrounding world is changed and developed until it produces new external and inner energies.
(d) THE PRIMITIVE FEUDAL STATE OF HIGHER GRADE
Growth in itself conditions important changes; and the young state must grow. The same forces that brought it into being, urge its extension, require it to grasp more power. Even were such a young state “sated,” as many a modern state claims to be, it would still be forced to stretch and grow under penalty of extinction. Under primitive social conditions Goethe’s lines apply with absolute truth: “You must rise or fall, conquer or yield, be hammer or anvil.”
States are maintained in accordance with the same principles that called them into being. The primitive state is the creation of warlike robbery; and only by warlike robbery can it be preserved.