So long as the brain remains too feeble
for sustained original thought, and man therefore lacks the energy to
rebel against routine, this condition of existence must continue, and its
inevitable tendency is toward rigid distinctions of rank, and as a
necessary consequence toward the limitation of the range of ambition, by
the conventional lines dividing the occupations of the classes. Such at
least in a general way was the progression of the Jews, and in a less
marked degree of the barbarians who overran the Roman Empire. Yet even
these, when they acquired permanent abodes, gravitated strongly enough
toward caste to produce a social system based on monopoly and privilege
which lasted through many centuries. On the other hand, the democratic
formula of "equality before the law" best defines the modern conception of
human relations, and this maxim indicates a tone of thought directly the
converse of that which begot status; for whereas the one strove to raise
impassable barriers against free competition in the struggle for
existence, the ideal of the other is to offer the fullest scope for the
expansion of the faculties.
As in Western Europe church and state alike rested upon the customs of the
Middle Ages, a change so fundamental must have wrought the overthrow, not
only of the vastest vested interests, but of the profoundest religious
prejudices, consequently, it could not have been accomplished peaceably;
and in point of fact the conservatives were routed in two terrific
outbreaks, whereof the second was the sequence of the first, though
following it after a considerable interval of time.
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