zation.

It was the principle of reward for ability to which the leaders of men
owed their supremacy. When nations were organized this same principle
took another and very useful form. The distribution of wealth had become
strikingly unequal. There were endless grades of distinction between the
supremely wealthy and the absolutely poor. The wealthy were ready to
lavish their money in return for articles of pleasure and luxury. The
poor, in their thirst for a share of wealth, were strongly stimulated to
inventive activity in producing new and desirable wares. Inequality
became the mainspring of business activity; thought and inventive
ingenuity were strongly exercised; a rapid progress went on in the
production of new devices, new methods, and new articles of necessity
and luxury; manufacture flourished, commerce increased, civilization
appeared, the whole as a legitimate outcome of the conditions brought
about by war.

This phase of human evolution, as may be seen, was radically different
from that already considered, arising from the development of sacerdotal
influence and priestly power. They worked together, no doubt. The
establishment of the great primitive empires, as a peaceful process, was
greatly complicated by war, which tended steadily to increase the
temporal power of the ruler and enable him in time to control by the
sword alone. But it is interesting to find that long after the old
system was practically overthrown its shadow still lay upon the nations.
The powerful war monarchs of Assyria led their armies to conquest in the
name of the national deity, whose vicegerents they claimed to be. The
autocratic emperors of Rome went so far as to claim in some cases to be
gods themselves. Even in modern Russia some of this dignity pertains to
the emperor, as the supreme head of the national church. Old ideas are
proverbially hard to kill.

But the mission of the priesthood by no means stopped here. The priests
rose to influence as the teachers as well as the leaders of the people.
The members of this class, set aside from manual occupations, and
devoted to thought upon the relations of man to the divine, played an
important part in the development of the human mind. As a result of
their speculative activity of thought the old religious systems sank
into the background; the simple worship of primitive times was
overshadowed by intricate mythological systems, splendid in worship and
creed; cosmogonies and philosop