Similar fundamental factors underlie the last great cultural change. This we have already touched upon in our discussion of agriculture, namely, the rise of private property. Following inevitably upon the appearance of private property are distinctions in wealth; these lead to differences in social position. In the totemic age, the contrasting conditions of rich and poor are, on the whole, not in particular evidence; even towards the decline of the period, indeed, they are only beginning to arise. Every man is the equal of the other. Only the chiefs and a small number of the older men have a superior rank. This rank, moreover, is not due to property but to the services which ability and experience enable them to render, or to the reverence which custom metes out to them. It is not until the heroic age that a propertied class becomes differentiated from a class owning little or nothing. This change is due in an important measure to the folk migrations that inaugurate the beginning of the new age. The propertied class derives from the victorious conquerors; the original inhabitants are without property. In the warfare connected with these migrations, slaves are captured; these are employed particularly in the cultivation of the soil. Thus, the more aristocratic are exalted by their greater possessions above those who have less property. As free individuals, however, both of these classes are superior to the slaves, who, similarly to the animals used in agriculture, are themselves regarded as the possession of the free and the rich.
Bound up with these social distinctions is the division of labour which now arises. The landowner no longer himself manufactures the tools which he needs or the weapons with which he goes to war. A class of artisans is formed, consisting partly of those who have little property, and partly of slaves. This differentiation of labour leads to two phenomena which long continue to influence the development of culture. I refer to trade and colonization. The former consists in the transmission of the products of labour; the latter, in the migration of a part of the people itself into distant places, where the same conditions that led to the founding of the mother State result in daughter States. In the totemic age, there were no colonies. Extensive as were the wanderings of the Papuans, the Malays, the Polynesians, and of some of the American and African tribes, these peoples never established colonies; moreover, the group which settled in distant places always lost its connection with the mother group. True, new living conditions were sought and found, and, through mixture with the native populations, new races were produced. Nevertheless, it was not until the political age that those parts of a particular people which settled down in foreign lands continued to retain a consciousness of connection with the mother race.
Of the two above-mentioned elements of the newer culture, commerce naturally preceded colonization. Of all civilized peoples, the Semitic race was the first to open up great channels of trade. Phœnician commerce dates back to the earliest records of history. Even the Mycenian graves of Greece contain gold jewelry of Phœnician workmanship. Spacially, the trade relations of the ancient Phœnicians extended over the whole of the known Occident. It is characteristic of the Semitic race, however, that they rarely undertook actual colonization. Trade and all that is connected with it, the industrial ardour necessary to supply the objects of trade and to exchange them for grain and other natural products, has always been their chosen sphere. The Indo-Germanic races, on the other hand, have naturally inclined to colonization from early times on. In the foremost rank were the Greeks, with their colonies in Thrace, Asia Minor, Southern Italy, and Sicily. These colonial groups, moreover, always retained their connection with the mother people. Thus, the earliest culture of the Greeks was that of the colonies in Asia Minor. Later, the colonies of southern Italy exercised a strong reaction on the mother country in science and art. It was not until relatively late that the highest cultural development of the mother country followed upon that of these outposts of Greek culture.
[3. THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL SOCIETY.]
The fundamental characteristics of totemic society appear to be purely a product of nature. This is especially true of totemic tribal organization. Its simple regularity and the constant recurrence of essentially the same characteristics are the natural result of original conditions of life that were universally prevalent. A horde split up into two halves. In the simplest cases, such as we have noticed in our account of the Australians, tribal organization remained limited to this dual division. The condition that brought about this organization arose as soon as a horde that spoke the same language spread out over a fairly broad territory. The same process of division might then repeat itself in the case of each of the two halves. This gave rise to a clan organization of four or eight divisions, as found among most of the Australian tribes, and frequently also in Melanesia. Such an organization was developed also by the original inhabitants of North America, although the totemic basis here degenerated and became essentially an external form. Totemic tribal organization is unquestionably a phenomenon that arises with immanent necessity; indeed, one might almost say that its appearance involves no co-operation on the part of man himself. The division takes place of itself; it is a result of the natural conditions underlying the propagation and growth of society.
From the very beginning of the heroic age on, the development of political society gave rise to phenomena that were fundamentally different from those of earlier times. The irreconcilability of this fact with the view, still held by historians and philosophers, that the State represents the earliest form of an ordered community life, is evident. Such theories were possible only when the whole of totemic culture was as yet a terra incognita. Totemic tribal organization cannot possibly be interpreted as an incomplete and undeveloped form of the State. Rather is it true that totemic and political societies are completely different in kind. Essentially different characteristics and conditions of origin demarcate them from one another, even though there are certain hybrid forms, representing primarily a partial survival of older tribal customs within the newly established political society. Now, in so far as mental history always involves a regular order of development, one would, of course, be justified in maintaining that human society also necessarily eventuates in the State—that is, in a political society. Indeed, this may perhaps be the meaning of Aristotle's statement that man is a "political animal." This statement may be interpreted to refer to a predisposition rather than to an inherited characteristic. Nevertheless, Aristotle's view that the State gradually developed out of the family and the village community is in contradiction with the actual facts. To read back a tendency toward political development into the very beginnings of human society, moreover, results in a failure to give proper emphasis to those essential differences which distinguish the great periods of this development—differences which at the crucial points assume the form of antitheses. Furthermore, we must not overlook the fact that there are peoples who have even as yet not progressed beyond totemic tribal organization and who will very possibly never advance to the formation of a State, particularly in case this depends upon their own initiative. On the other hand, it is doubtless to be assumed that those peoples who later acquired a political organization at one time possessed a totemic tribal structure. The higher stage of political organization, however, obviously differs fundamentally from that which preceded it. The older motives have been superseded by such as are connected with the great folk migrations and tribal fusions, and with the changes consequent upon them. True, when the time was ripe, these migrations and fusions of peoples came to pass with the same necessity as did the original division of the primitive horde into two halves. Nevertheless, a new set of conditions became operative. These, of course, arose in a regular course of development out of the most primitive modes of life, and yet they were not directly derived from them. The creative power characteristic of all mental activity here manifested itself, not in the performance of miracles, but in a constant engenderment of new motives out of the interaction of existing motives with changing external conditions of life. In consequence of this constant change of motives and of existing conditions, even totemic culture made numerous attempts in the direction of political organization. Such steps were taken particularly by the semi-cultural peoples of America, who possess a relatively high civilization. It is precisely in the case of these peoples that it is instructive to notice the contrast between this political tendency and the original tribal organization.
The difference between the two fundamental forms of society, the totemic and the political, is most strikingly evident in the case of their most external characteristic—namely, in the numbers according to which society as a whole, as well as in its parts, is organized and divided. These numbers are the expression of inner motives; hence they form a basis from which we may draw conclusions concerning the latter. In the case of totemic tribal organization, these motives are apparently very simple; natural expansion over a broader territory leads to separation into groups, and this of itself gives rise to the customary division into two, four, and eight parts. How different and more complicated from its very beginnings is the organization of political society! Here also the development proceeds according to law, and yet there is not a constant recurrence of the same motive as is in the case of totemic tribal organization. On the contrary, we find a continuous fluctation between contradictory phenomena, and the frequent appearance of new motives. Early, and still partly legendary, tradition tells us of an organization of society on the basis of the number twelve. This mode of organization seems to have emanated from the Babylonians. They were the people who first attempted to govern human affairs in accordance with celestial phenomena. These they observed, not in the unsystematic, imaginative, mythological manner of the natural peoples of Polynesia and America, but with the aid of astronomical instruments. True, the science of the Babylonians was also still based on mythological foundations. These mythological features, however, were combined with the idea of an all-embracing, divine rule of law. The endeavour to find this law and order in the starry sky, the greatest and most sublime sight that the human eye may behold, resulted in observations that were scientific and exact. Thus, the union of the two ideas led with a sort of inner necessity to the acceptance of the number twelve as a norm. The application of this norm to human relations was a direct result of the belief that it was of divine origin. The Babylonian calendar, whose fundamental principles, in spite of numerous reforms, have retained their authority even down to the present, was the first to emphasize the principle of bringing the courses of the sun and moon into an ordered numerical relation for the purpose of reckoning time. Taking as their point of departure the position of the sun at the vernal equinox, and following the movements of the moon until the sun returned to the same position, the Babylonians found that twelve revolutions of the moon were equivalent to one of the sun. While this observation is in reality, of course, only approximately true, to the first astronomers it might have appeared sufficiently exact to be regarded as the law of a divine world order. Thus, the year came to be divided into twelve months; and, since the moon presents four phases in each month, first quarter, full moon, last quarter, and new moon—an observation which long antedates astronomical calculation—the month was at once divided into four parts. Since the month has approximately twenty-eight days, the result was a week, comprising seven days. This number, therefore, was not, as has sometimes been erroneously assumed, derived from the seven planets. Rather is it true, conversely, that the number of the planets was, with a certain arbitrariness, first fixed at seven after this number, as well as twelve, had come to be regarded as sacred, because of its relation to the movements of the sun and moon. These numbers were believed to be written by the gods themselves in flaming letters on the sky. To the Babylonian, the sky furnished a revelation of the laws that should govern terrestrial life. The number twelve, especially, was adopted as the basis of the organization of human society. Of this oldest form of division, however, only meagre and occasional survivals have remained. We may refer to the legendary twelve tribes of pre-exilic Israel—later a source of much difficulty to Talmudic scholars, inasmuch as these tribes are not to be found in history—and also to the twelve gods of Greece, the twelve Apostles, etc. But the number twelve has not merely left its traces in legend; it has also inscribed itself in the records of history. Thus, the Athenian population originally comprised twelve divisions, there being four clans (phyles), each of which was composed of three phratries. Similarly, the colonial territory of the Greeks in Asia Minor is said to have included twelve Ionic cities. Moreover, even in later times, the Amphictyonic League, which undertook the protection of the Delphic oracle, consisted of twelve amphictyons, though this, it is true, was also connected with the division of time, each of the twelve tribal groups being entrusted with the guardianship of the shrine for one month in the year. With few unimportant exceptions, however, the number twelve, which was at one time probably very widely regnant, has lost its influence. Its place in the organization of society as well as in the regulation of other aspects of human life has been taken by a numerical system that still dominates our entire culture—the decimal system. Even prior to the age of Columbus, the decimal system made its appearance in certain more civilized parts of the Western world where the duodecimal system was never known. That the former originated independently in different places, is rendered all the more likely by the fact that even primitive man used his ten fingers as an aid in counting, in spite of the fact that he had not as yet formed words for numbers greater than three or four. But, however natural this method of counting may be, its application to the organization of the group and the division of peoples nevertheless represents a deliberately adopted plan. If possible, this is even more true here than in the case of the duodecimal system. We are now face to face with the wide difference that separates political society from totemic tribal organization. In developing on the principle of dual division, the latter resembles a natural process which runs its own course apart from any operation of conscious intention, even though directly influenced, of course, by the general conditions of human life. The organization of society according to the number ten, on the other hand, can be interpreted only as an intentional act. Hence history not infrequently brings this form of organization into direct association with the names of individual lawgivers, with Clisthenes of Athens or Servius Tullius of Rome. No doubt, a basis for this new order had been prepared by the general conditions of a society which had progressed beyond the totemic stage. Its systematic introduction, however, and the series of decimal subdivisions that ensued, are only conceivable as a legislative act emanating from a personal will. In the formation of social groups, no less than in the classification and enumeration of external objects of nature, there may at times have been some vacillation of choice between the duodecimal and the decimal systems. In its application to human society, however, the decimal system finally prevailed. Indeed, the simple means of counting afforded by our ten fingers supplanted the system suggested by the firmament in every field of use, except in connection with celestial phenomena themselves and with the reckoning of time, which was directly based on the observation of these phenomena. That the victory of the decimal principle was due merely to the practical necessity of choosing the principle that was simplest and most convenient, is shown by the fact that ten was never a sacred number, as was twelve. It has a purely terrestrial and human origin. In the field of the practical necessities of life, man was victorious over the gods. Perhaps, therefore, the organization of society on the decimal principle reflects also the triumph of the secular State over theocracy. The decimal principle likewise exercised a certain influence upon the division of time, and it is surely not accidental that such influence coincides with epochs that are strongly characterized by a secularization of human interests. As early as the sixth century B.C., the great political organizer of Athens, Clisthenes, made an attempt to divide the year into ten months instead of twelve. The attempt miscarried, just as did the analogous one on the part of the first French Republic to introduce a week of ten days. As a matter of fact, objective measurements of time are derived from the heavens and not from man. On the other hand, our measurement of terrestrial spaces and our grouping of populations depend entirely upon ourselves, and therefore naturally conform to human characteristics. In these cases, it is the decimal system that is used. In view of the fact that the number ten was deliberately adopted, this number has been thought to represent an idea that emanated from a single source. Since the organization effected by Clisthenes and that of Servius Tullius in Rome fall approximately within the same century, it has been believed that in these cases, especially, we may assume this fundamental idea of division to have been borrowed. The very extensive distribution of the decimal system, however, militates against the probability of this supposition. Thus, the Book of Exodus no longer speaks of the legendary twelve tribes of Israel but tells of only ten tribes. We likewise hear of groups of one hundred, and of more extensive groups consisting of one thousand. These divisions also recur among the Germanic peoples, and in the far-distant realm of the Peruvian Incas. Among the latter, however, there are also distinct traces of a totemic tribal organization that antedated the invasion of the Incas. This was the foundation upon which the Inca kings and their officials finally reared an organization consisting of groups of ten, one hundred, and one thousand—indeed, the latter were even brought together to form groups of ten thousand. In certain cases, such systems may perhaps have been introduced from without or may, in part, have been acquired through imitation. Nevertheless, the supposition that they all emanated from a single region is doubtless just as improbable as is the view that the decimal system in general had but a single origin. This new grouping of the population is closely bound up with the conditions of political society. It is dependent upon two motives, which, though not universally operative at first, became so the very moment that political society took its rise. The first motive is of a subjective nature. It consists in an increased facility in the use of the decimal mode of counting, as a result of which larger groups, consisting of multiples of ten, are formed: besides the single group of ten, it must have become possible to conceive of groups of one hundred, one thousand, and, in rare cases, even of one hundred thousand. The other motive is objective in character. There are changes in the external conditions of life such as to demand more comprehensive and at the same time more highly organized divisions than prevailed in the natural tribal organization of the preceding age. In two distinct directions does the decimal system prove readily applicable. One is in the distribution of landed property. With the appearance of plough-culture, land gradually came to be largely converted into personal property. It was all the more necessary, therefore, for the individual to unite with others for the sake of protection and aid. Thus arose the mark-community. This naturally centred about that part of the territory which, because it was not put under the plough but was reserved for common use as well as common care, temporarily remained common property—namely, the pasture and woodland. Thus, the mark-community was inevitable: it resulted from the new method of cultivating the soil, which brought with it a combination of personal property with common ownership. The size of the community was, of course, determined by the relation which these two forms of ownership sustained to each other, being dependent upon the fact that the amount of common property had to correspond with the number of individual owners who shared its use. The right proportion of these two sorts of property could be determined only by experience and reflection. Once ascertained, it was but natural to adopt this proportion more generally, in connection with more extensive groups of people. Here the decimal organization into groups of tens and hundreds, to which subjective influences naturally tended, promised to be convenient also from the standpoint of objective conditions.
Independently of other factors the mark-community might have permitted certain diversities in size. The groups were rendered uniform, however, through the influence of another organization, whose divisions, on the one hand, were necessarily identical with the mark-communities but, on the other hand, possessed by their very nature a strong inherent tendency toward regularity of size. I refer to the military organization, which was created by the political society in the interest of self-protection. In the early part of the heroic period, the individual champion was doubtless of such pre-eminent importance that the masses formed but a somewhat unorganized background. Homer presents such a picture, though his account is perhaps not so much a faithful representation of actual conditions as the result of the individualizing tendency of poetic narrative. But just as the masses very soon gain greater prominence in political life, so also do they in warfare. This encourages tactical organization. At this stage of political and military development, therefore, companies of one hundred, and soon afterwards groups of one thousand, are formed, and are organized as the chief divisions of the army. That these groups be always of approximately equal size is required by military tactics; that the group of one hundred is the tactical unit of which the other divisions are composed, is due to the circumstance that such a group is not too large to permit of being directed by a single leader; that the number is an even one hundred results solely from the tendency toward decimal enumeration. Since the political society is composed of individuals who are, as a rule, both mark-associates and companions in war, the two groups coalesce. The distribution of property and territorial and military organization are the determining factors in political society.