SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
If an explorer visits a savage tribe with intent to get at the true
meaning of their life, his first duty, as every anthropologist will
tell him, is to acquaint himself thoroughly with the social
organization in all its forms. The reason for this is simply that only
by studying the outsides of other people can we hope to arrive at what
is going on inside them. "Institutions" will be found a convenient
word to express all the externals of the life of man in society, so
far as they reflect intelligence and purpose. Similarly, the internal
or subjective states thereto corresponding may be collectively
described as "beliefs." Thus, the field-worker's cardinal maxim can
be phrased as follows: Work up to the beliefs by way of the
institutions.
Further, there are two ways in which a given set of institutions can
be investigated, and of these one, so far as it is practicable, should
precede the other. First, the institutions should be examined as so
many wheels in a social machine that is taken as if it were standing
still. You simply note the characteristic make of each, and how it
is placed in relation to the rest. Regarded in this static way, the
institutions appear as "forms of social organization." Afterwards,
the machine is supposed to be set going, and you contemplate the parts
in movement. Regarded thus dynamically, the institutions appear as
"customs."
In this chapter, then, something will be said about the forms of social
organization prevailing amongst peoples of the lower culture. Our
interest will be confined to the social morphology. In subsequent
chapters we shall go on to what might be called, by way of contrast,
the physiology of social life. In other words, we shall briefly
consider the legal and religious customs, together with the associated
beliefs.
How do the forms of social organization come into being? Does some
one invent them? Does the very notion of organization imply an
organizer? Or, like Topsy, do they simply grow? Are they natural
crystallizations that take place when people are thrown together? For
my own part, I think that, so long as we are pursuing anthropology
and not philosophy--in other words, are piecing together events
historically according as they appear to follow one another, and are
not discussing the ultimate question of the relation of mind to matter,
and which of the two in the long run governs which--we must be prepared
to recognize both physical necessity and spiritual freedom as
interpenetrating factors in human life. In the meantime, when
considering the subject of social organization, we shall do well, I
think, to keep asking ourselves all along, How far does force of
circumstances, and how far does the force of intelligent purpose,
account for such and such a net result?
If I were called upon to exhibit the chief determinants of human life
as a single chain of causes and effects--a simplification of the
historical problem, I may say at once, which I should never dream of
putting forward except as a convenient fiction, a device for making
research easier by providing it with a central line--I should do it
thus. Working backwards, I should say that culture depends on social
organization; social organization on numbers; numbers on food; and
food on invention. Here both ends of the series are represented by
spiritual factors--namely, culture at the one end, and invention at
the other. Amongst the intermediate links, food and numbers may be
reckoned as physical factors. Social organization, however, seems to
face in both directions at once, and to be something half-way between
a spiritual and a physical manifestation.
In placing invention at the bottom of the scale of conditions, I
definitely break with the opinion that human evolution is throughout
a purely "natural" process. Of course, you can use the word "natural"
so widely and vaguely as to cover everything that was, or is, or could
be. If it be used, however, so as to exclude the "artificial," then
I am prepared to say that human life is preeminently an artificial
construction, or, in other words, a work of art; the distinguishing
mark of man consisting precisely in the fact that he alone of the
animals is capable of art.
It is well known how the invention of machinery in the middle of the
eighteenth century brought about that industrial revolution, the
social and political effects of which are still developing at this
hour. Well, I venture to put it forward as a proposition which applies
to human evolution, so far back as our evidence goes, that history
is the history of great inventions. Of course, it is true that climate
and geographical conditions in general help to determine the nature
and quantity of the food-supply; so that, for instance, however much
versed you may be in the art of agriculture, you cannot get corn to
grow on the shores of the Arctic sea. But, given the needful inventions,
superior weapons for instance, you need never allow yourselves to be
shoved away into such an inhospitable region; to which you presumably
do not retire voluntarily, unless, indeed, the state of your arts--for
instance, your skill in hunting or taming the reindeer--inclines you
to make a paradise of the tundra.
Suppose it granted, then, that a given people's arts and inventions,
whether directly or indirectly productive, are capable of a certain
average yield of food, it is certain, as Malthus and Darwin would remind
us, that human fertility can be reckoned on to bring the numbers up
to a limit bearing a more or less constant ratio to the means of
subsistence.
At length we reach our more immediate subject--namely, social
organization. In what sense, if any, is social organization dependent
on numbers? Unfortunately, it is too large a question to thrash out
here. I may, however, refer the reader to the ingenious classification
of the peoples of the world, by reference to the degree of their social
organization and culture, which is attempted by Mr. Sutherland in his
_Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_. He there tries to show that
a certain size of population can be correlated with each grade in the
scale of human evolution--at any rate up to the point at which
full-blown civilization is reached, when cases like that of Athens
under Pericles, or Florence under the Medici, would probably cause
him some trouble. For instance, he makes out that the lowest savages,
Veddas, Pygmies, and so on, form groups of from ten to forty; whereas
those who are but one degree less backward, such as the Australian
natives, average from fifty to two hundred; whilst most of the North
American tribes, who represent the next stage of general advance, run
from a hundred up to five hundred. At this point he takes leave of
the peoples he would class as "savage," their leading characteristic
from the economic point of view being that they lead the more or less
wandering life of hunters or of mere "gatherers." He then goes on to
arrange similarly, in an ascending series of three divisions, the
peoples that he terms "barbarian." Economically they are either
sedentary, with a more or less developed agriculture, or, if nomad,
pursue the pastoral mode of life. His lowest type of group, which
includes the Iroquois, Maoris, and so forth, ranges from one thousand
to five thousand; next come loosely organized states, such as Dahomey
or Ashanti, where the numbers may reach one hundred thousand; whilst
he makes barbarism culminate in more firmly compacted communities,
such as are to be found, for example, in Abyssinia or Madagascar, the
population of which he places at about half a million.
Now I am very sceptical about Mr. Sutherland's statistics, and regard
his bold attempt to assign the world's peoples each to their own rung
on the ladder of universal culture as, in the present state of our
knowledge, no more than a clever hypothesis; which some keen
anthropologist of the future might find it well worth his while to
put thoroughly to the test. At a guess, however, I am disposed to accept
his general principle that, on the whole and in the long run, during
the earlier stages of human evolution, the complexity and coherence
of the social order follow upon the size of the group; which, since
its size, in turn, follows upon the mode of the economic life, may
be described as the food-group.
Besides food, however, there is a second elemental condition which
vitally affects the human race; and that is sex. Social organization
thus comes to have a twofold aspect. On the one hand, and perhaps
primarily, it is an organization of the food-quest. On the other hand,
hardly less fundamentally, it is an organization of marriage. In what
follows, the two aspects will be considered more or less together,
as to a large extent they overlap. Primitive men, like other social
animals, hang together naturally in the hunting pack, and no less
naturally in the family; and at a very rudimentary stage of evolution
there probably is very little distinction between the two. When,
however, for some reason or other which anthropologists have still
to discover, man takes to the institution of exogamy, the law of
marrying-out, which forces men and women to unite who are members of
more or less distinct food-groups, then, as we shall presently see,
the matrimonial aspect of social organization tends to overshadow the
politico-economic; if only because the latter can usually take care
of itself, whereas to marry a perfect stranger is an embarrassing
operation that might be expected to require a certain amount of
arrangement on both sides.
* * * * *
To illustrate the pre-exogamic stage of human society is not so easy
as it may seem; for, though it is possible to find examples, especially
amongst Negritos such as the Andamanese or Bushmen, of peoples of the
rudest culture, and living in very small communities, who apparently
know neither exogamy nor what so often accompanies it, namely, totemism,
we can never be certain whether we are dealing in such a case with
the genuinely primitive, or merely with the degenerate. For instance,
the chapter on the forms of social organization in Professor Hobhouse's
_Morals in Evolution_ starts off with an account of the system in vogue
amongst the Veddas of the Ceylon jungle, his description being founded
on the excellent observations of the brothers Sarasin. Now it is
perfectly true that some of the Veddas appear to afford a perfect
instance of what is sometimes called "the natural family." A tract
of a few miles square forms the beat of a small group of families,
four or five at most, which, for the most part, singly or in pairs,
wander round hunting, fishing, gathering honey and digging up the wild
yams; whilst they likewise take shelter together in shallow caves,
where a roof, a piece of skin to lie on--though this is not
essential--and, that most precious luxury of all, a fire, represent,
apart from food, the sum total of their creature comforts.
Now, under these circumstances, it is not, perhaps, wonderful that
the relationships within a group should be decidedly close. Indeed,
the correct thing is for the children of a brother and sister to marry;
though not, it would seem, for the children of two brothers or of two
sisters. And yet there is no approach to promiscuity, but, on the
contrary, a very strict monogamy, infidelities being as rare as they
are deeply resented. That they had clans of some sort was, indeed,
known to Professor Hobhouse and to the authorities whom he follows;
but these clans are dismissed as having but the slightest organization
and very few functions. An entirely new light, however, has been thrown
on the meaning of this clan-system by the recent researches of Dr.
and Mrs. Seligmann. It now turns out that some of the Veddas are
exogamous--that is to say, are obliged by custom to marry outside their
own clan--though others are not. The question then arises, Which, for
the Veddas, is the older system, marrying-out or marrying-in? Seeing
what a miserable remnant the Veddas are, I cannot but believe that
we have here the case of a formerly exogamous people, groups of which
have been forced to marry-in, simply because the alternative was not
to marry at all. Of course, it is possible to argue that in so doing
they merely reverted to what was once everywhere the primeval condition
of man. But at this point historical science tails off into mere
guesswork.
* * * * *
We reach relatively firm ground, on the other hand, when we pass on
to consider the social organization of such exogamous and totemic
peoples as the natives of Australia. The only trouble here is that
the subject is too vast and complicated to permit of a handling at
once summary and simple. Perhaps the most useful thing that can be
done for the reader in a short space is to provide him with a few
elementary distinctions, applying not only to the Australians, but
more or less to totemic societies in general. With the help of these
he may proceed to grapple for himself with the mass of highly
interesting but bewildering details concerning social organization
to be found in any of the leading first-hand authorities. For instance,
for Australia he can do no better than consult the two fascinating
works of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen on the Central tribes, or the no
less illuminating volume of Howitt on the natives of the South-eastern
region; whilst for North America there are many excellent monographs
to choose from amongst those issued by the Bureau of Ethnology of the
Smithsonian Institution. Or, if he is content to allow some one else
to collect the material for him, his best plan will be to consult Dr.
Frazer's monumental treatise, _Totemism and Exogamy_, which
epitomizes the known facts for the whole wide world, as surveyed region
by region.
The first thing to grasp is that, for peoples of this type, social
organization is, primarily and on the face of it, identical with
kinship-organization. Before proceeding further, let us see what
kinship means. Distinguish kinship from consanguinity. Consanguinity
is a physical fact. It depends on birth, and covers all one's real
blood-relationships, whether recognized by society or not. Kinship,
on the other hand, is a sociological fact. It depends on the
conventional system of counting descent. Thus it may exclude real
relationships; whilst, contrariwise, it may include such as are purely
fictitious, as when some one is allowed by law to adopt a child as
if it were his own. Now, under civilized conditions, though there is,
as we have just seen, such an institution as adoption, whilst, again,
there is the case of the illegitimate child, who can claim
consanguinity, but can never, in English law at least, attain to
kinship, yet, on the whole, we are hardly conscious of the difference
between the genuine blood-tie and the social institution that is
modelled more or less closely upon it. In primitive society, however,
consanguinity tends to be wider than kinship by as much again. In other
words, in the recognition of kinship one entire side of the family
is usually left clean out of account. A man's kin comprises either
his mother's people or his father's people, but not both. Remember
that by the law of exogamy, the father and mother are strangers to
each other. Hence, primitive society, as it were, issues a judgment
of Solomon to the effect that, since they are not prepared to halve
their child, it must belong body and soul either to one party or to
the other.
We may now go on to analyse this one-sided type of kinship-organization
a little more fully. There are three elementary principles that combine
to produce it. They are exogamy, lineage and totemism. A word must
be said about each in turn.
Exogamy presents no difficulty until you try to account for its origin.
It simply means marrying-out, in contrast to endogamy, or marrying-in.
Suppose there were a village composed entirely of McIntyres and
McIntoshes, and suppose that fashion compelled every McIntyre to marry
a McIntosh, and every McIntosh a McIntyre, whilst to marry an outsider,
say a McBean, was bad form for McIntyres and McIntoshes alike; then
the two clans would be exogamous in respect to each other, whereas
the village as a whole would be endogamous.
Lineage is the principle of reckoning descent along one or other of
two lines--namely, the mother's line or the father's. The former method
is termed matrilineal, the latter patrilineal. It sometimes, but by
no means invariably, happens, when descent is counted matrilineally,
that the wife stays with her people, and the husband has the status
of a mere visitor and alien. In such a case the marriage is called
matrilocal; otherwise it is patrilocal. Again, when the matrilocal
type of marriage prevails, as likewise often when it does not, the
wife and her people, rather than the father and his people, exercise
supreme authority over the children. This is known as the matripotestal,
as contrasted with the patripotestal, type of family. When the
matrilineal, matrilocal and matripotestal conditions are found
together, we have mother-right at its fullest and strongest. Where
we get only two out of the three, or merely the first by itself, most
authorities would still speak of mother-right; though it may be
questioned how far the word mother-right, or the corresponding, now
almost discarded, expression, "the matriarchate," can be safely used
without further explanation, since it tends to imply a right (in the
legal sense) and an authority, which in these circumstances is often
no more than nominal.
Totemism, in the specific form that has to do with kinship, means that
a social group depends for its identity on a certain intimate and
exclusive relation in which it stands towards an animal-kind, or a
plant-kind, or, more rarely, a class of inanimate objects, or, very
rarely, something that is individual and not a kind or class at all.
Such a totem, in the first place, normally provides the social group
with its name. (The Boy Scouts, who call themselves Foxes, Peewits,
and so on, according to their different patrols, have thus reverted
to a very ancient usage.) In the second place, this name tends to be
the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace that,
somehow flowing from the totem to the totemites, sanctifies their
communion. They are "all-one-flesh" with one another, as certain of
the Australians phrase it, because they are "all-one-flesh" with the
totem. Or, again, a man whose totem was _ngaui_, the sun, said that
his name was _ngaui_ and he "was" _ngaui_; though he was equally ready
to put it in another way, explaining that _ngaui_ "owned" him. If we
wish to express the matter comprehensively, and at the same time to
avoid language suggestive of a more advanced mysticism, we may perhaps
describe the totem as, from this point of view, the totemite's "luck."
There is considerable variation, however, to be found in the practices
and beliefs of a more or less religious kind that are associated with
this form of totemism; though almost always there are some. Sometimes
the totem is thought of as an ancestor, or as the common fund of life
out of which the totemites are born and into which they go back when
they die. Sometimes the totem is held to be a very present help in
time of trouble, as when a kangaroo, by hopping along in a special
way, warns the kangaroo-man of impending danger. Sometimes, on the
other hand, the kangaroo-man thinks of himself mainly as the helper
of the kangaroo, holding ceremonies in order that the kangaroos may
wax fat and multiply. Again, almost invariably the totemite shows some
respect towards his totem, refraining, for instance, from slaying and
eating the totem-animal, unless it be in some specially solemn and
sacramental way.
The upshot of these considerations is that if the totem is, on the
face of it, a name, the savage answers the question, "What's in a name?"
by finding in the name that makes him one with his brethren a wealth
of mystic meaning, such as deepens for him the feeling of social
solidarity to an extent that it takes a great effort on our part to
appreciate.
Having separately examined the three principles of exogamy, lineage
and totemism, we must now try to see how they work together.
Generalization in regard to these matters is extremely risky, not to
say rash; nevertheless, the following broad statements may serve the
reader as working hypotheses, that he can go on to test for himself
by looking into the facts. Firstly, exogamy and totemism, whether they
be in origin distinct or not, tend in practice to go pretty closely
together. Secondly, lineage, or the one-sided system of reckoning
descent, is more or less independent of the other two principles.[4]
[Footnote 4: That is to say, either mother-right or father-right in
any of their forms may exist in conjunction with exogamy and totemism.
It is certainly not the fact that, wherever totemism is in a state
of vigour, mother-right is regularly found. At most it may be urged
in favour of the priority of mother-right that, if there is change,
it is invariably from mother-right to father-right, and never the other
way about.]
If, instead of consulting the evidence that is to hand about the savage
world as it exists to-day, you read some book crammed full with theories
about social origins, you probably come away with the impression that
totemic society is entirely an affair of clans. Some such notion as
the following is precipitated in your mind. You figure to yourself
two small food-groups, whose respective beats are, let us say, on each
side of a river. For some unknown reason they are totemic, one group
calling itself Cockatoo, the other calling itself Crow, whilst each
feels in consequence that its members are "all-one-flesh" in some
mysterious and moving sense. Again, for some unknown reason each is
exogamous, so that matrimonial alliances are bound to take place across
the river. Lastly, each has mother-right of the full-blown kind. The
Cockatoo-girls and the Crow-girls abide each on their own side of the
river, where they are visited by partners from across the water; who,
whether they tend to stay and make themselves useful, or are merely
intermittent in their attentions, remain outsiders from the totemic
point of view and are treated as such. The children, meanwhile, grow
up in the Cockatoo and Crow quarters respectively as little Cockatoos
or Crows. If they need to be chastised, a Cockatoo hand, not necessarily
the mother's, but perhaps her brother's--never the father's,
however--administers the slap. When they grow up, they take their
chances for better and worse with the mother's people; fighting when
they fight, though it be against the father's people; sharing in the
toils and the spoils of the chase; inheriting the weapons and any other
property that is handed on from one generation to another; and, last
but not least, taking part in the totemic mysteries that disclose to
the elect the inner meaning of being a Cockatoo or a Crow, as the case
may be.
Now such a picture of the original clan and of the original inter-clan
organization is very pretty and easy to keep in one's head. And when
one is simply guessing about the first beginnings of things, there
is something to be said for starting from some highly abstract and
simple concept, which is afterwards elaborated by additions and
qualifications until the developed notion comes near to matching the
complexity of the real facts. Such speculations, then, are quite
permissible and even necessary in their place. To do justice, however,
to the facts about totemic society, as known to us by actual observation,
it remains to note that the clan is by no means the only form of social
organization that it displays.
The clan, it is true, whether matrilineal or patrilineal, tends at
the totemic level of society to eclipse the family. The natural family,
of course--that is to say, the more or less permanent association of
father, mother and children, is always there in some shape and to some
extent. But, so long as the one-sided method of counting descent
prevails, and is reinforced by totemism, the family cannot attain to
the dignity of a formally recognized institution. On the other hand,
the totemic clan, of all the formally recognized groupings of society
to which an individual belongs in virtue of his birth and kinship,
is, so to speak, the most specific. As the Australian puts it, it makes
him what he "is." His social essence is to be a Cockatoo or a Crow.
Consequently his first duty is towards his clan and its members, human
and not-human. Wherever there are clans, and so long as there is any
totemism worthy of the name, this would seem to be the general law.
Besides the specific unity, however, provided by the clan, there are
wider, and, as it were, more generic unities into which a man is born,
in totemic society of the complex type that is found in the actual
world of to-day.
First, he belongs to a phratry. In Australia the tribe--a term to be
defined presently--is nearly always split up into two exogamous
divisions, which it is usual to call phratries.[5] Then, in some of
the Australian tribes, the phratry is subdivided into two, and, in
others, into four portions, between which exogamy takes place
according to a curious criss-cross scheme. These exogamous
subdivisions, which are peculiar to Australia, are known as
matrimonial classes. Dr. Frazer thinks that they are the result of
deliberate arrangement on the part of native statesmen; and certainly
he is right in his contention that there is an artificial and man-made
look about them. The system of phratries, on the other hand, whether
it carves up the tribe into two, or, as sometimes in North America
and elsewhere, into more than two primary divisions, under which the
clans tend to group themselves in a more or less orderly way, has all
the appearance of a natural development out of the clan-system. Thus,
to revert to the imaginary case of the Cockatoos and Crows practising
exogamy across the river, it seems easy to understand how the numbers
on both sides might increase until, whilst remaining Cockatoos and
Crows for cross-river purposes, they would find it necessary to adopt
among themselves subordinate distinctions; such as would be sure to
model themselves on the old Cockatoo-Crow principle of separate
totemic badges. But we must not wander off into questions of origin.
It is enough for our present purpose to have noted the fact that, within
the tribe, there are normally other forms of social grouping into which
a man is born, as well as the clan.
[Footnote 5: From a Greek word meaning "brotherhood," which was applied
to a very similar institution.]
Now we come to the tribe. This may be described as the political unit.
Its constitution tends to be lax and its functions vague. One way of
seizing its nature is to think of it as the social union within which
exogamy takes place. The intermarrying groups naturally hang together,
and are thus in their entirety endogamous, in the sense that marriage
with pure outsiders is disallowed by custom. Moreover, by mingling
in this way, they are likely to attain to the use of a common dialect,
and a common name, speaking of themselves, for instance, as "the men,"
and lumping the rest of humanity together as "foreigners." To act
together, however, as, for instance, in war, in order to repel
incursions on the part of the said foreigners, is not easy without
some definite organization. In Australia, where there is very little
war, this organization is mostly wanting. In North America, on the
other hand, amongst the more advanced and warlike tribes, we find
regular tribal officers, and some approach to a political constitution.
Yet in Australia there is at least one occasion when a sort of tribal
gathering takes place--namely, when their elaborate ceremonies for
the initiation of the youths is being held.
It would seem, however, that these ceremonies are, as often as not,
intertribal rather than tribal. So similar are the customs and beliefs
over wide areas, that groups with apparently little or nothing else
in common will assemble together, and take part in proceedings that
are something like a Pan-Anglican Congress and a World's Fair rolled
into one. To this indefinite type of intertribal association the term
"nation" is sometimes applied. Only when there is definite
organization, as never in Australia, and only occasionally in North
America, as amongst the Iroquois, can we venture to describe it as
a genuine "confederacy."
No doubt the reader's head is already in a whirl, though I have
perpetrated endless sins of omission and, I doubt not, of commission
as well, in order to simplify the glorious confusion of the subject
of the social organization prevailing in what is conveniently but
loosely lumped together as totemic society. Thus, I have omitted to
mention that sometimes the totems seem to have nothing to do at all
with the social organization; as, for example, amongst the famous
Arunta of central Australia, whom Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have so
carefully described. I have, again, refrained from pointing out that
sometimes there are exogamous divisions--some would call them moieties
to distinguish them from phratries--which have no clans grouped under
them, and, on the other hand, have themselves little or no resemblance
to totemic clans. These, and ever so many other exceptional cases,
I have simply passed by.
An even more serious kind of omission is the following. I have
throughout identified the social organization with the kinship
organization--namely, that into which a man is born in consequence
of the marriage laws and the system of reckoning descent. But there
are other secondary features of what can only be classed as social
organization, which have nothing to do with kinship. Sex, for instance,
has a direct bearing on social status. The men and the women often
form markedly distinct groups; so that we are almost reminded of the
way in which the male and the female linnets go about in separate flocks
as soon as the pairing season is over. Of course, disparity of
occupation has something to do with it. But, for the native mind, the
difference evidently goes far deeper than that. In some parts of
Australia there are actually sex-totems, signifying that each sex is
all-one-flesh, a mystic corporation. And, all the savage world over,
there is a feeling that woman is uncanny, a thing apart, which feeling
is probably responsible for most of the special disabilities--and the
special privileges--that are the lot of woman at the present day.
Again, age likewise has considerable influence on social status. It
is not merely a case of being graded as a youth until once for all
you legally "come of age," and are enrolled, amongst the men. The
grading of ages is frequently most elaborate, and each batch mounts
the social ladder step by step. Just as, at the university, each year
has apportioned to it by public opinion the things it may do and the
things it may not do, whilst, later on, the bachelor, the master, and
the doctor stand each a degree higher in respect of academic rank;
so in darkest Australia, from youth up to middle age at least, a man
will normally undergo a progressive initiation into the secrets of
life, accompanied by a steady widening in the sphere of his social
duties and rights.
Lastly, locality affects status, and increasingly as the wandering
life gives way to stable occupation. Amongst a few hundred people who
are never out of touch with each other, the forms of natal association
hold their own against any that local association is likely to suggest
in their place. According to natal grouping, therefore, in the broad
sense that includes sex and age no less than kinship, the members of
the tribe camp, fight, perform magical ceremonies, play games, are
initiated, are married, and are buried. But let the tribe increase
in numbers, and spread through a considerable area, over the face of
which communications are difficult and proportionately rare.
Instantly the local group tends to become all in all. Authority and
initiative must always rest with the men on the spot; and the old natal
combinations, weakened by inevitable absenteeism, at last cease to
represent the true framework of the social order. They tend to linger
on, of course, in the shape of subordinate institutions. For instance,
the totemic groups cease to have direct connection with the marriage
system, and, on the strength of the ceremonies associated with them,
develop into what are known as secret societies. Or, again, the clan
is gradually overshadowed by the family, so that kinship, with its
rights and duties, becomes practically limited to the nearer
blood-relations; who, moreover, begin to be treated for practical
purposes as kinsmen, even when they are on the side of the family which
lineage does not officially recognize. Thus the forms of natal
association no longer constitute the backbone of the body politic.
Their public importance has gone. Henceforward, the social unit is
the local group. The territorial principle comes more and more to
determine affinities and functions. Kinship has dethroned itself by
its very success. Thanks to the organizing power of kinship, primitive
society has grown, and by growing has stretched the birth-tie until
it snaps. Some relationships become distant in a local and territorial
sense, and thereupon they cease to count. My duty towards my kin passes
into my duty towards my neighbour.
* * * * *
Reasons of space make it impossible to survey the further developments
to which social organization is subject under the sway of locality.
It is, perhaps, less essential to insist on them here, because, whereas
totemic society is a thing which we civilized folk have the very
greatest difficulty in understanding, we all have direct insight into
the meaning of a territorial arrangement; since, from the village
community up to the modern state, the same fundamental type of social
structure obtains throughout.
Besides local contiguity, however, there is a second principle which
greatly helps to shape the social order, as soon as society is
sufficiently advanced in its arts and industries to have taken firm
root, so to speak, on the earth's surface. This is the principle of
private property, and especially of private property in land. The most
fundamental of class distinctions is that between rich and poor. That
between free and slave, in communities that have slavery, is not at
first sight strictly parallel, since there may be a class of poor
freemen intermediate between the nobles and the slaves; but it is
obvious that in this case, too, private property is really responsible
for the mode of grading. Or sometimes social position may seem to depend
primarily on industrial occupation, the Indian caste-system providing
an instance in point. Since, however, the most honourable occupations
in the long run coincide with those that pay best, we come back once
again to private property as the ultimate source of social rank, under
an economic system of the more developed kind.
In this brief sketch it has been impossible to do more than hint how
social organization is relative to numbers, which in their turn are
relative to the skill with which the food-quest is carried on. But
if, up to a certain point, it be true that the structure of society
depends on its mass in a more or less physical way, there is to be
borne in mind another aspect of the matter, which also has been hinted
at as we went rapidly along. A good deal of intelligence has throughout
helped towards the establishing of the social order. If social
organization is in part a natural result of the expansion of the
population, it is partly also, in the best sense of the word, an
artificial creation of the human mind, which has exerted itself to
devise modes of grouping whereby men might be enabled to work together
in larger and ever larger wholes.
Regarded, however, in the purely external way which a study of its
mere structure involves, society appears as a machine--that is to say,
appears as the work of intelligence indeed, but not as itself instinct
with intelligence. In what follows we shall set the social machine
moving. We shall then have a better chance of obtaining an inner view
of the driving power. We shall find that we have to abandon the notion
that society is a machine. It is more, even, than an organism. It is
a communion of souls--souls that, as so many independent, yet
interdependent, manifestations of the life-force, are pressing
forward in the search for individuality and freedom.