But, when we consider the ancient European civilisations and compare them with our own, we realize that, in spite of all the circumstances which we have enumerated and briefly considered as factors stimulating the spirit of inquiry and making for progress of their intellectual tradition, and in spite of their brilliant and in some respects unapproachable achievements, they were nevertheless radically incapable of continued progress. Greek civilisation certainly progressed at a marvellous rate for some centuries; yet there is every reason to believe that it bore within itself the inevitable causes of its ultimate decay or stagnation. And, when we consider Roman civilisation, we see that, through all the long centuries of the greatness of Rome, it was essentially unprogressive. There was no continued evolution of the national mind and character. Save in respect to the single province of law, Roman civilisation, when it entered upon the period of its decay, had not appreciably progressed in any essential respects beyond the stage reached more than a thousand years earlier. Rome was in fact less truly a nation in its later than in its earlier age. It had superficially imitated rather more of Greek culture and it had incorporated a number of bizarre elements from the many peoples which had been brought under the sway of the Roman sceptre; but neither in religion, nor in philosophy, nor art, nor science, nor in any of the practical modes of controlling the forces of nature, had it made any substantial gains; and its social organisation tended more and more to the type of a centralised irresponsible bureaucracy[145].
On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in the last thousand years the nations of Western Europe have made immense progress; nor that this progress has been accelerating from century to century in a way which seemed to reach a climax in the wonderful century just closed; though there appears good prospect of continued progress and perhaps of continued acceleration throughout the century to come and perhaps for many more.
What then is the cause of this great difference between the civilisation of Western Europe and all preceding civilisations? The difference is, I think, essentially due to difference of social organisation. As argued in a previous chapter, social organisation was of less influence in the earlier ages, but has assumed a constantly increasing importance throughout the evolution of civilisation; and it is now predominant over all other conditions. We must, then, first define this difference of social organisation; secondly, we must show how it makes for progress; and thirdly, conjecture how the social organisation of Western Europe, so favourable to the continued development of nations, has been brought about.
The great difference which divides the social organisation of the modern progressive peoples from that of all the ancient European civilisations is that, under it, the individual enjoys greater liberty and more securely founded rights as against the community, and as against all other individuals. This change is summed up in Sir H. Maine’s dictum that “the movement of progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from status to contract.”
All the ancient civilised societies, Greece and Rome no less than all the others, rested upon the fundamental assumption of the absolute supremacy of the State, the assumption that the individual existed only for the State and that the welfare of the State was the supreme end to which all individual rights and liberties must be subordinated absolutely, was the end to the securing of which all custom, and all law, all social and family relations and institutions and religion itself were but the means. And the State was a politico-religious organisation, membership of which implied the blood-relationship of its citizens and a common participation in the state-religion; while the State gods were conceived as being themselves ancestors, or in some other way kinsmen, of the citizens[146]. This bond of blood or kinship between the members of the State and its gods went back to the earliest times. It is the rule of almost all savage peoples; and the religious rites of many include some rite symbolising or renewing this blood bond, such as smearing the blood of the kinsmen on the altars of the gods, or drinking the blood of some animal which is held to be the symbolic representative of the god. And the supreme end of the State itself was the increase of its own power and stability, through the exercise of military power and through military conquest.
All human beings outside the State, outside this moral-politico-religious-bond, were regarded as prima facie enemies of the State, without rights of any sort, without even the slightest claim to humane treatment. Hence, in war the slaughter of the conquered was the rule; and the practice of making slaves of prisoners of war and of conquered peoples only arose through its profitableness, and was regarded as a great concession to the victims, whose natural fate was sudden death. Under this system, which inevitably became to some extent a caste system, with a caste of freemen or citizens ruling over slaves, each individual was born to a certain status as a member of a particular family. His position and duties and rights in the family were rigidly prescribed by custom, and the law took account only of the relations of the family to the State.