The head of the family passes into the hereditary king,
who comes to look upon himself and to be looked upon by others as a
being of superior rights. With the growth of the collective power as
compared with the power of the individual, his power to reward and to
punish increases, and so increase the inducements to flatter and to fear
him; until finally, if the process be not disturbed, a nation grovels at
the foot of a throne, and a hundred thousand men toil for fifty years to
prepare a tomb for one of their own mortal kind.
So the war-chief of a little band of savages is but one of their number,
whom they follow as their bravest and most wary. But when large bodies
come to act together, personal selection becomes more difficult, a
blinder obedience becomes necessary and can be enforced, and from the
very necessities of warfare when conducted on a large scale absolute
power arises.
And so of the specialization of function. There is a manifest gain in
productive power when social growth has gone so far that instead of
every producer being summoned from his work for fighting purposes, a
regular military force can be specialized; but this inevitably tends to
the concentration of power in the hands of the military class or their
chiefs.
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