stor worship
as its chief religious system. He held, and still holds, the position of
father of his people, the representative of the original ancestor, and
high priest of the nation.

In India the priestly establishment was differently organized. It was a
democracy instead of an aristocracy. There was no high priest to seize
the reins of government. As a result, no empire arose in India. A simple
outgrowth of the tribal system developed, each tribe under its chief,
while the priesthood as a whole remained the real rulers of the people.

If we come to America, we discover a similar condition of affairs, the
head of the religious establishment becoming everywhere the head of the
nation. This was the case in Mexico, where the Montezuma was high
priest, and derived his power largely from this position. It was the
case in Peru, where the Inca was the direct representative on earth of
the solar deity. It was the case with the agricultural communities of
the southern United States, whose Mico was at once high priest and
autocrat. It was doubtless the case with the Mound Builders, of whom
these communities were probably the descendants.

Such seems to have been the final outcome of the contest with nature,
where permitted to develop in its natural and unobstructed way. A series
of empires of a simple type of organization arose, their rulers uniting
temporal and spiritual power, and becoming autocrats in a double sense,
supreme lords of body and soul. It was in its nature a persistent type.
Once reached, it tended to continue indefinitely, stagnation following
the era of growth. But war and invasion have broken it up everywhere
except in China, a country largely defended by nature against invasion
and inhabited by an innately peaceful people. As the forest Pygmy group
represents to-day the completion of the first stage of human evolution,
so the patriarchal empire of China represents that of the second.
Stagnation there long since succeeded development. For several thousand
years China has almost stood still. It comes down to us as the
fossilized representative of an antique system, physically active but
mentally inert, its organization rigidly fixed, and not to be disturbed
unless the empire itself is rent to pieces.

XI

WARFARE AND CIVILIZATION

Long before the second phase of the evolution of man had been completed
the third phase had begun, that of the conflict of man with man. The
animal kingdom once subdue