We may be Frenchmen or Chinamen or Russians; we may live in the furthest
corner of Indonesia (do you know where that is?), but in some way or
other we belong to that curious combination of people which is called
the "state."
It does not matter whether we recognize a king or an emperor or a
president as our ruler. We are born and we die as a small part of this
large Whole and no one can escape this fate.
The "state," as a matter of fact, is quite a recent invention.
The earliest inhabitants of the world did not know what it was.
Every family lived and hunted and worked and died for and by itself.
Sometimes it happened that a few of these families, for the sake of
greater protection against the wild animals and against other wild
people, formed a loose alliance which was called a tribe or a clan. But
as soon as the danger was past, these groups of people acted again by
and for themselves and if the weak could not defend their own cave, they
were left to the mercies of the hyena and the tiger and nobody was very
sorry if they were killed.
In short, each person was a nation unto himself and he felt no
responsibility for the happiness and safety of his neighbor. Very, very
slowly this was changed and Egypt was the first country where the people
were organized into a well-regulated empire.
The Nile was directly responsible for this useful development. I have
told you how in the summer of each year the greater part of the Nile
valley and the Nile delta is turned into a vast inland sea. To derive
the greatest benefit from this water and yet survive the flood, it had
been necessary at certain points to build dykes and small islands which
would offer shelter for man and beast during the months of August and
September. The construction of these little artificial islands however
had not been simple.
[Illustration: THE YOUNG NILE.]
A single man or a single family or even a small tribe could not
construct a river-dam without the help of others.
However much a farmer might dislike his neighbors he disliked getting
drowned even more and he was obliged to call upon the entire
country-side when the water of the river began to rise and threatened
him and his wife and his children and his cattle with destruction.
Necessity forced the people to forget their small differences and soon
the entire valley of the Nile was covered with little combinations of
people who constantly worked together for a common purpose and who
depended upon each other for life and prosperity.
Out of such small beginnings grew the first powerful State.
It was a great step forward along the road of progress.
It made the land of Egypt a truly inhabitable place. It meant the end of
lawless murder. It assured the people greater safety than ever before
and gave the weaker members of the tribe a chance to survive. Nowadays,
when conditions of absolute disorder exist only in the jungles of
Africa, it is hard to imagine a world without laws and policemen and
judges and health officers and hospitals and schools.
But five thousand years ago, Egypt stood alone as an organized state and
was greatly envied by those of her neighbors who were obliged to face
the difficulties of life single-handedly.
A state, however, is not only composed of citizens.
There must be a few men who execute the laws and who, in case of an
emergency, take command of the entire community. Therefore no country
has ever been able to endure without a single head, be he called a King
or an Emperor or a Shah (as in Persia) or a President, as he is called
in our own land.
[Illustration: THE FERTILE VALLEY.]
In ancient Egypt, every village recognized the authority of the
Village-Elders, who were old men and possessed greater experience than
the young ones. These Elders selected a strong man to command their
soldiers in case of war and to tell them what to do when there was a
flood. They gave him a title which distinguished him from the others.
They called him a King or a prince and obeyed his orders for their own
common benefit.
Therefore in the oldest days of Egyptian history, we find the following
division among the people:
The majority are peasants.
All of them are equally rich and equally poor.
They are ruled by a powerful man who is the commander-in-chief of their
armies and who appoints their judges and causes roads to be built for
the common benefit and comfort.
He also is the chief of the police force and catches the thieves.
In return for these valuable services he receives a certain amount of
everybody's money which is called a tax. The greater part of these
taxes, however, do not belong to the King personally. They are money
entrusted to him to be used for the common good.
But after a short while a new class of people, neither peasants nor
king, begins to develop. This new class, commonly called the nobles,
stands between the ruler and his subjects.
Since those early days it has made its appearance in the history of
every country and it has played a great role in the development of
every nation.
I must try and explain to you how this class of nobles developed out of
the most commonplace circumstances of everyday life and why it has
maintained itself to this very day, against every form of opposition.
To make my story quite clear, I have drawn a picture.
It shows you five Egyptian farms. The original owners of these farms had
moved into Egypt years and years ago. Each had taken a piece of
unoccupied land and had settled down upon it to raise grain and cows and
pigs and do whatever was necessary to keep themselves and their children
alive. Apparently they had the same chance in life.
How then did it happen that one became the ruler of his neighbors and
got hold of all their fields and barns without breaking a single law?
[Illustration: THE ORIGINS OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.]
One day after the harvest, Mr. Fish (you see his name in hieroglyphics
on the map) sent his boat loaded with grain to the town of Memphis to
sell the cargo to the inhabitants of central Egypt. It happened to have
been a good year for the farmer and Fish got a great deal of money for
his wheat. After ten days the boat returned to the homestead and the
captain handed the money which he had received to his employer.
A few weeks later, Mr. Sparrow, whose farm was next to that of Fish,
sent his wheat to the nearest market. Poor Sparrow had not been very
lucky for the last few years. But he hoped to make up for his recent
losses by a profitable sale of his grain. Therefore he had waited until
the price of wheat in Memphis should have gone a little higher.
That morning a rumor had reached the village of a famine in the island
of Crete. As a result the grain in the Egyptian markets had greatly
increased in value.
Sparrow hoped to profit through this unexpected turn of the market and
he bade his skipper to hurry.
The skipper handled the rudder of his craft so clumsily that the boat
struck a rock and sank, drowning the mate who was caught under the sail.
Sparrow not only lost all his grain and his ship but he was also forced
to pay the widow of his drowned mate ten pieces of gold to make up for
the loss of her husband.
These disasters occurred at the very moment when Sparrow could not
afford another loss.
Winter was near and he had no money to buy cloaks for his children. He
had put off buying new hoes and spades for such a long time that the old
ones were completely worn out. He had no seeds for his fields. He was in
a desperate plight.
He did not like his neighbor, Mr. Fish, any too well but there was no
way out. He must go and humbly he must ask for the loan of a small
sum of money.
He called on Fish. The latter said that he would gladly let him have
whatever he needed but could Sparrow put up any sort of guaranty?
Sparrow said, "Yes." He would offer his own farm as a pledge of good
faith.
Unfortunately Fish knew all about that farm. It had belonged to the
Sparrow family for many generations. But the Father of the present owner
had allowed himself to be terribly cheated by a Phoenician trader who
had sold him a couple of "Phrygian Oxen" (nobody knew what the name
meant) which were said to be of a very fine breed, which needed little
food and performed twice as much labor as the common Egyptian oxen. The
old farmer had believed the solemn words of the impostor. He had bought
the wonderful beasts, greatly envied by all his neighbors.
They had not proved a success.
They were very stupid and very slow and exceedingly lazy and within
three weeks they had died from a mysterious disease.
The old farmer was so angry that he suffered a stroke and the management
of his estate was left to the son, who worked hard but without
much result.
The loss of his grain and his vessel were the last straw.
Young Sparrow must either starve or ask his neighbor to help him with a
loan.
Fish who was familiar with the lives of all his neighbors (he was that
kind of person, not because he loved gossip but one never knew how such
information might come in handy) and who knew to a penny the state of
affairs in the Sparrow household, felt strong enough to insist upon
certain terms. Sparrow could have all the money he needed upon the
following condition. He must promise to work for Fish six weeks of every
year and he must allow him free access to his grounds at all times.
Sparrow did not like these terms, but the days were growing shorter and
winter was coming on fast and his family were without food.
He was forced to accept and from that time on, he and his sons and
daughters were no longer quite as free as they had been before.
They did not exactly become the servants or the slaves of their
neighbor, but they were dependent upon his kindness for their own
livelihood. When they met Fish in the road they stepped aside and said
"Good morning, sir." And he answered them--or not--as the case might be.
He now owned a great deal of water-front, twice as much as before.
He had more land and more laborers and he could raise more grain than in
the past years. The nearby villagers talked of the new house he was
building and in a general way, he was regarded as a man of growing
wealth and importance.
Late that summer an unheard-of-thing happened.
It rained.
The oldest inhabitants could not remember such a thing, but it rained
hard and steadily for two whole days. A little brook, the existence of
which everybody had forgotten, was suddenly turned into a wild torrent.
In the middle of the night it came thundering down from the mountains
and destroyed the harvest of the farmer who occupied the rocky ground at
the foot of the hills. His name was Cup and he too had inherited his
land from a hundred other Cups who had gone before. The damage was
almost irreparable. Cup needed new seed grain and he needed it at once.
He had heard Sparrow's story. He too hated to ask a favor of Fish who
was known far and wide as a shrewd dealer. But in the end, he found his
way to the Fishs' homestead and humbly begged for the loan of a few
bushels of wheat. He got them but not until he had agreed to work two
whole months of each year on the farm of Fish.
Fish was now doing very well. His new house was ready and he thought the
time had come to establish himself as the head of a household.
Just across the way, there lived a farmer who had a young daughter. The
name of this farmer was Knife. He was a happy-go-lucky person and he
could not give his child a large dowry.
Fish called on Knife and told him that he did not care for money. He was
rich and he was willing to take the daughter without a single penny.
Knife, however, must promise to leave his land to his son-in-law in
case he died.
This was done.
The will was duly drawn up before a notary, the wedding took place and
Fish now possessed (or was about to possess) the greater part of
four farms.
It is true there was a fifth farm situated right in between the others.
But its owner, by the name of Sickle, could not carry his wheat to the
market without crossing the lands over which Fish held sway. Besides,
Sickle was not very energetic and he willingly hired himself out to Fish
on condition that he and his old wife be given a room and food and
clothes for the rest of their days. They had no children and this
settlement assured them a peaceful old age. When Sickle died, a distant
nephew appeared who claimed a right to his uncle's farm. Fish had the
dogs turned loose on him and the fellow was never seen again.
These transactions had covered a period of twenty years.