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their proper size and limits of growth are determined, not merely by external agencies, but by the exigencies of their internal organism. In the last place, public power and public consciousness, answering the vital interests of any given society, can increase and assert themselves with growing effect only so long as the possibilities of intercourse and mutual interaction between the members of that society exist. For, as soon as it oversteps these boundaries, the society, the vital interest and common bond of which is deficient in due strength, becomes enfeebled, and breaks up into parts. The external limits of a society depend, accordingly, upon the nature of the vital interest forming its common bond, upon the character of its organism, and upon the degree of its development, and, besides, upon the efficiency of the means of material and mental intercourse it has at its disposal at a given time; but at no time can its sphere be enlarged to such an extent as to swallow up every other society devoted to the same principle which it acknowledges. It is owing to this, that history always presents dominant societies of an identical character, and which acknowledge the same vital principle, and that not singly, but in clusters.

Every dominant society is therefore surrounded by two different kinds of societies, both such as stand upon the very same foundation upon which it is itself built, and such as differ from it in principle. Between these societies the external form of intercourse is regulated by international law, but at the core of all these relations, in whatever guise they appear, there is sure to lurk some jealousy and matter for contention. Where the vital interests of neighbouring societies are not of a kindred nature, their opposition must grow irreconcilable and absolute, and the struggle can only terminate with the subjection of one of the contending societies, that is, with the reconstruction of the one worsted, in conformity with the principle of that neighbouring dominant society, which has proved the stronger of the two. The rivalry of such neighbouring societies as own the same principles, on the contrary, finds

its limits in the consideration of those principles common to all of them, which form the cherished common property of a certain period of civilization, and are publicly proclaimed as ideals of higher standing than the single objects of the several kindred societies, states, and nations, and as dominant ideas of mankind. Hence arise the different standards applied by international law in struggles of a various character; and hence, also, the attempt to maintain an international balance of forces within the precincts of a system of civilization which embraces states and societies founded upon identical vital principles, whenever the public conviction becomes general that, in endeavouring to expand to the injury of the others, they expose themselves to the danger of possibly undermining their own internal order, and of imperilling their common conditions of existence.

§ 78. The unavoidableness of internal and external struggles, as indicated above, produces also a great effect upon the inner life of societies. It imposes upon every society the fulfilment of a twofold task; firstly, the care of providing the means, the employment of which should enable it to secure the vital interests of its members; and next, the keeping up of its strength, and rendering it available for the purpose of maintaining its organism against other societies.

The former function embraces the industries of peace and the production of material and moral resources, whilst the latter necessitates measures of defence and eventually of attack, thus embracing the arts of war.

Both these functions are indispensable to every society, in whatever condition and at all times, but their respective importance varies considerably. This must be especially noted, for the performance of these different functions entails upon the society results widely differing in their character.

Military activity demands an organization which can be subordinated to the guidance of a single will, which will render it possible for its inherent forces to be concentrated at any moment and to be employed on any side; an

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organization which requires strict external discipline, and which, necessitating as it does commands conscious in every respect-absolute directions issued from above and blind obedience rendered from below-necessarily leads to the centralization of the government of the society. The activity of the central power, accordingly, continually expands in a society of a preponderatingly military character. Even the tasks of production, which have to be fulfilled according to the exigencies of war, are subjected to immediate official control. Such a society always endeavours to find within its own limits, so far as possible, all the means of satisfying its own wants, and, fencing itself off against its neighbours, becomes more and more exclusive. Moreover, owing to the fact that the authorities absorb all important business, and that individual activity is thus restrained in every respect, the spirit of initiative wanes in individuals, whilst the inequality of the social classes goes on increasing and is ossified in a hierarchy of military grades. A society, on the contrary, in the life of which military activity plays but a subordinate part, and where the economical activity of the members predominates, attempts to assert the conditions of natural competition from the standpoint of the cheapest possible production, and of the most advantageous disposal. Such a society, moreover, by affording securities to public liberty, develops the inclination for individual initiative, and brings into prominence the features of individual self-reliance, and thus does not permit any expansion of the central power beyond the point at which this might be indispensable to the preservation of the society. In this way it affords room for self-government, whilst, owing to the various individual efforts continually counterbalancing each other, its order is being established almost unconsciously on an ever broadening basis of equal rights.

Thus two antagonistic types of social organization become formed, to each of which every society conforms in turn, according to the stages of its development, and indeed even at one or another period of its ruling stage, according

to its requirements as an independent state. The circumstances which are decisive in this respect turn upon the questions, whether a society is larger or smaller in extent for the larger the sphere of a society, the fewer will be the points at which its foreign wars immediately effect the mass of its members-what character its intercourse bears to neighbouring societies, whether its vital interest is identical with theirs or differs from it, whether these societies are of equal or unequal strength, and, finally, what is the kind of organic structure with whose postulates its own form of government is in closest harmony. But as all these agencies mutually interact upon each other, it follows that the explanation of the actual phenomena of any society always presupposes a precise knowledge of the degree of development of that society, of its dominant or subordinate relations to other contemporary societies, of its form of government, of its connection with surrounding external societies, and of the organic type of its structure.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SOCIETIES IN HISTORY.

§ 79. THE historical application of the theory of societies demands, in the first place, an indication of those several vital interests around which mankind has grouped itself, and towards the realization of which its strength is employed. This, however, would seem to imply the enumeration of all the principal wants and wishes, and of all their possible groupings. These groupings are apparently innumerable, and yet, for theoretical as well as practical purposes, a comprehensive classification, embracing them all, is not so difficult as might appear at first sight. The great mass of human wants and wishes, although continually appearing in new forms and combinations, has in one or another form been immanent in man, ever since the first dawn of history, and remains unchanged in its ultimate elements to the end, through all the phases of civilization. Moreover, human nature itself undergoes a transformation, though only by slow degrees, and in the course of this process new wants arise, or rather pass from an inchoate and dormant state into full consciousness. Hence it becomes obvious that vital interests and fundamental principles of societies must not be understood as meaning merely single and isolated human aims, but that they are in reality connected clusters of interests, differing from each other less in their number and variety than in the mutual proportion of the elements entering into their composition, and owe their peculiar significance and colouring rather to the relative preponderance of one or the other of these elements, than to their positive number,