CHAPTER VI.

EARLY SOCIAL LIFE.

[Sidenote: Formation of settlements.]

We have seen, so far, that the early traces of man’s existence point to a gradual improvement in the state of his civilization, to the acquirement of fresh knowledge, and the practice of fresh arts. The rude stone implements of the early drift-period are replaced by the more carefully manufactured ones of the polished-stone age, and these again are succeeded by implements of bronze and of iron. By degrees also the arts of domesticating animals and of tilling the land are learnt; and by steps, which we shall hereafter describe, the art of writing is developed from the early pictorial rock-sculptures. Now, in order that each step in this process of civilization should be preserved for the benefit of the next generation, and that the people of each period should start from the vantage-ground obtained by their predecessors, there must have been frequent intercommunication between the different individuals who lived at the same time; so that the discovery or improvement of each one should be made known to others, and become part of the common stock of human knowledge. In the very earliest times, then, men probably lived collected together in societies of greater or less extent. We know that this is the case now with all savage tribes; and as in many respects the early races of the drift-beds seem to have resembled some now existing savage tribes in their mode of life, employing, to a certain extent, the same implements, and living on the same sort of food, this adds to the probability of their gregariousness. The fact, too, that the stone implements of the first stone period have generally been found collected near together in particular places, indicates these places as the sites of early settlements. Beyond this, however, we can say very little of the social state of these early stone-age people. Small traces of any burial-ground or tomb of so great an antiquity have yet been found, and all that we can say of them with any certainty is, that their life must have been very rude and primitive. Although they were collected together in groups, these groups could not have been large, and each must have been generally situated at a considerable distance from the next, for the only means of support for the men of that time was derived from hunting and fishing. Now it requires a very large space of land to support a man who lives entirely by hunting; and this must have been more particularly the case in those times when the weapons used by the huntsman were so rude, that it is difficult for us now to understand how he could ever have succeeded in obtaining an adequate supply of food by such means. Supposing that the same extent of territory were required for the support of a man in those times as was required in Australia by the native population, the whole of Europe could only have supported about seventy-six thousand inhabitants, or about one person to every four thousand now in existence.

Next to the cave-dwellings the earliest traces of anything like fixed settlements which have been found are the ‘kitchen-middens.’ The extent of some of these clearly shows that they mark the dwelling-place of considerable numbers of people collected together. But here only the rudest sort of civilization could have existed, and the bonds of society must have been as primitive and simple as they are among those savage tribes at the present time, who support existence in much the same way as the shell-mound people did. In order that social customs should attain any development, the means of existence must be sufficiently abundant and easily procurable to permit some time to be devoted to the accumulation of superfluities, or of supplies not immediately required for use. The life of the primitive hunter and fisher is so precarious and arduous, that he has rarely either the opportunity or the will for any other employment than the supply of his immediate wants. The very uncertainty of that supply seems rather to create recklessness than providence, and the successful chase is generally followed by a period of idleness and gluttony, till exhaustion of supplies once more compels men to activity. That the shell-mound people were subject to such fluctuations of supply we may gather from the fact that bones of foxes and other carnivorous animals are frequently found in those mounds; and as these animals are rarely eaten by human beings, except under the pressure of necessity, we may conclude that the shell-mound people were driven to support existence by this means, through their ill-success in fishing and hunting, and their want of any accumulation of stores to supply deficiencies.

The next token of social improvement that is observable is in the tumuli, or grave-mounds, which may be referred to a period somewhat later than that of the shell-mounds. These contain indications that the people who constructed them possessed some important elements necessary to their social progress. They had a certain amount of time to spare after providing for their daily wants, and they did not spend that time exclusively in idleness. The erection of these mounds must have been a work of considerable labour, and they often contain highly finished implements and ornaments, which must have been put there for the use of the dead. They are evidences that no little honour was sometimes shown to the dead; so that some sort of religion must have existed amongst the people who constructed the ancient grave-mounds. The importance of this element in early society is evident if we inquire further for whom and by whom these mounds were erected. Now, they are not sufficiently numerous, and are far too laborious in their construction, to have been the ordinary tombs of the common people. They were probably tombs erected for chiefs or captains of tribes to whom the tribes were anxious to pay especial honour. We do not know at all how these separate tribes or clans came into existence, and what bonds united their members together; but so soon as we find a tribe erecting monuments in honour of its chiefs, we conclude that it has attained a certain amount of compactness and solidity in its internal relations. Amongst an uneducated people there is probably no stronger tie than that of a common faith, or a common subject of reverence. It is impossible not to believe, then, that the people who made these great, and in some cases elaborately constructed tombs, would continue ever after to regard them as in some sort consecrated to the great chiefs who were buried under them. Each tribe would have its own specially sacred tombs, and perhaps we may here see a germ of that ancestor-worship which may be traced in every variety of religious belief.

It has been supposed by some that a certain amount of

[Sidenote: Barter.]

commerce or barter existed in the later stone age. The reason for this opinion is that implements of stone are frequently found in localities where the stone of which they are made is not native. At Presigny le Grand, in France, there exists a great quantity of a particular kind of flint which seems to have been very convenient for the manufacture of implements; for the fields there are covered with flint-flakes and chips which have been evidently knocked off in the process of chipping out the knives, and arrow-heads, and hatchets which the stone-age men were so fond of. Now, implements made of this particular kind of flint are found in various localities, some of which are at a great distance from Presigny; and it has therefore been supposed that Presigny was a sort of manufactory for flint weapons which were bartered to neighbouring tribes, and by them again perhaps to others further off; and so these weapons gradually got dispersed. But it is also possible that the tribes of the interior, who would subsist almost exclusively by hunting, and would therefore be of a more wandering disposition than those on the sea-coast, may have paid occasional visits to this flint reservoir for the purpose of supplying themselves with weapons of a superior quality, just as the American Indians are said to go to the quarry of Coteau des Prairies on account of the particular kind of stone which is found there.

In any case, whatever system of barter was carried on at that time was of a very primitive kind, and not of frequent enough occurrence to produce any important effects on the social condition of the people. That that condition had already advanced to some extent beyond its original rudeness, shows us that there existed, at all events, some capacity for improvement among the tribes which then inhabited Europe; but, when we compare them with modern tribes of savages, whose apparent condition is much the same as theirs was, and who do not seem to have made any advance for a long period, or, so far as we can judge, to be capable of making any advance by their own unassisted efforts, we cannot but conclude that the stone-age people, if left to themselves, would only have emerged out of barbarism by very slow degrees. Now we know that, about the time when bronze implements first began to be used, some very important changes also occurred in the manners and customs of the inhabitants of Europe. A custom of burning the dead superseded then the older one of burial; domestic animals of various sorts seem to have been introduced, and the bronze implements themselves show, both in the elaborateness of their workmanship and the variety of their designs, that a great change had come over European civilization. The greatness and completeness of this change, the fact that there are no traces of those intermediate steps which we should naturally expect to find in the development of the arts, denote that this change was due to some invading population which brought with it the arts that had been perfected in its earlier home; and other circumstances point to the East as the home from which this wave of civilization proceeded. Language has taught us that at various times there have been large influxes of Aryan populations into Europe. To the first of these Aryan invaders probably was due the introduction of bronze into Europe, together with the various social changes which appear to have accompanied its earliest use. To trace then the rise and progress of the social system which the Aryans had adopted previous to their appearance in Europe, we must go to their old Asiatic home, and see if any of the steps by which this system had sprung up, or any indications of its nature, may be extracted from the records of antiquity.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The patriarchal family.]

Hitherto scarcely any attempt has been made to discover or investigate pre-historic monuments in the East. We can no longer therefore appeal to the records of early tombs or temples, to indications taken from early seats of population; but though as yet this key to Aryan history has not been made available, we have another guide ready to take us by the hand, and show us what sort of lives our ancestors used to lead in their far-off Eastern home. That guide is the science of Language, which can teach us a great deal about this if we will listen to its lessons: a rich mine of knowledge which has as yet been only partially explored, but one from which every day new information is being obtained about the habits and customs of the men of pre-historic times.

All that we know at present of the Aryan race indicates that its social organization originated in a group which is usually called the Patriarchal Family, the members of which were all related to each other either by blood or marriage. At the head of the family was the patriarch, the eldest male descendant of its founder; its other members consisted of all the remaining males descended on the father’s side from the original ancestor, their wives, and such of the women, also descended on the father’s side from the same ancestor, as remained still unmarried. To show more exactly what people were members of the ancient patriarchal family, we will trace such a family for a couple of generations from the original founder. Suppose, then, the original founder married, and with several children, both sons and daughters. All the sons would continue members of this family. The daughters would only continue members until they married, when they would cease to be members of the family of their birth, and become members of their respective husbands’ families. So when the sons of the founder married, their wives would become members of the family; and such of their children as were sons would be members, and such as were daughters would be members only until they married; and so on through succeeding generations. On the founder’s death he would be succeeded as patriarch by his eldest son. On the eldest son’s death, he would be succeeded by _his_ eldest son, if he had a son; and if not, then by his next brother. The patriarchal family also included in its circle, in later times at all events, slaves and other people, who, although perhaps not really relations at all, were _adopted_ into the household, assumed the family name, and were looked upon for all purposes as if its actual members. This little group of individuals seems originally to have existed entirely independent of any external authority. It supported itself by its own industry, and recognized no other law or authority than its own. The one source of authority within this little state was the patriarch, who was originally regarded, not only as the owner of all the property of which the family was possessed, but also as having unlimited power over the different individuals of which it was composed. All the members lived together under the same roof, or within the same enclosure. No member could say that any single thing was his own property. Everything belonged to the family, and every member was responsible to the patriarch for his actions.

[Sidenote: Custom and law.]

Originally the power of the patriarch may have been almost absolute over the other members of the family, but it must very early have become modified and controlled by the growth of various customs. Indeed, in trying to picture to ourselves these early times, when as yet no regular notions of law had arisen, it is important to remember how great a force is possessed by custom. Even now, when we distinguish pretty clearly between law and custom, we still feel the great coercive and restraining powers of the latter in all the affairs of life. But when no exact notions of law had been formed, it seemed an almost irresistible argument in favour of a particular action that it had always been performed before. There would thus spring up in a household certain rules of conduct for the different members, certain fixed limits to their respective family duties. Before any individual would be commanded by the patriarch to do any particular duty, it would come to be inquired whether it was customary for such a duty to be assigned to such an individual. Before the patriarch inflicted any punishment on a member of the family, it would come to be inquired whether and in what manner it had been customary to punish the particular act complained of. Many things would tend to increase this regard for custom. The obvious advantages resulting from regularity and certainty in the ordering of the family life would soon be felt, and thus a public opinion in favour of custom would be created. Ancestor-worship, too, which plays so conspicuous a part in early Aryan civilization, acted, no doubt, as a powerful strengthener of the force of custom, as is indicated by the fact that in many nations the traditionary originator of their laws is some powerful ancestor to whom the nation is accustomed to pay an especial reverence.

Resulting from this development of custom into law in the early family life of the Aryans, we find that special duties soon became assigned to persons occupying particular positions. To the young men of the household were assigned the more active outdoor employments; to the maidens the milking of the cows; to the elder women other household duties. And the importance of knowing what the customs were also gave rise to the family council, or ‘sabhâ,’ as it is called in Sanskrit, which consisted of the elders of the family, the ‘sabhocita,’ presided over by the ‘sabhapati,’ or president of the assembly. The importance attached to the decisions of this council was so great, that the ‘sabyâ,’ or decrees of the ‘sabhâ,’ came to be used simply to express law or custom. It is probable therefore that this assembly regulated to a great extent the customs and laws of the family in its internal management, and also superintended any negotiations carried on with other families.

[Sidenote: The house-fire.]

To complete our picture of the patriarchal family, we have the traditions of three distinct customs or rites affecting its internal economy. Two of these rites, the maintenance of the sacred house-fire, and the marriage ceremony, probably date back to a very remote period; and the third, the custom of adoption, though of later development, may be regarded, in its origin at least, as primitive. Fire is itself so wonderful in its appearance and effects, so good a servant, so terrible a master, that we cannot feel any surprise at its having attracted a great deal of attention in early times. The traces of fire-worship are so widely spread over the earth that there is scarcely a single race whose traditions are entirely devoid of them. But the sacred house-fire of the Aryans is interesting to us chiefly in its connection with other family rites in which it played an important part. This fire, which was perpetually kept burning on the family hearth, seems to have been regarded in some sort, as a living family deity, who watched over and assisted the particular family to which it belonged. It was by its aid that the food of the family was cooked, and from it was ignited the sacrifice or the funeral pyre. It was the centre of the family life; the hearth on which it burned was in the midst of the dwelling, and no stranger was admitted into its presence. That hearth was to each member of the household as it were an _umbilicus orbis_, or navel of the earth--_hearth_, only another form of _earth_.[53] When the members of the family met together to partake of their meals, a part was always first offered to the fire by whose aid the meal was prepared; the patriarch acted as officiating priest in this as in every other family ceremony; and to the patriarch’s wife was confided the especial charge of keeping the fire supplied with fuel.

[Sidenote: Marriage.]

By _marriage_, as we have seen, a woman became a member of her husband’s family. She ceased to be any longer a member of the household in which she was born, for the life of each family was so isolated that it would have been impossible to belong to two different families at once. So we find that the marriage ceremony chiefly consisted in an expression of this change of family by the wife. In general it was preceded by a treaty between the two families, a formal offer of marriage made by the intending husband’s family on his behalf, together with a gift to the bride’s family, which was regarded as the price paid for the bride. If all preliminary matters went forward favourably, then, on the day fixed for the marriage, the different members of the bridegroom’s family went to the household of the bride and demanded her. After some orthodox delay, in which the bride was expected to express unwillingness to go, she was formally given up to those who demanded her, the patriarch of her household solemnly dismissing her from it and giving up all authority over her. She was then borne in triumph to the bridegroom’s house; and, on entering it, was carried over the threshold, so as not to touch it with her feet; thus expressing that her entry within the house was not that of a mere guest or stranger. She was finally, before the house-fire, solemnly admitted into her husband’s family, and as a worshipper at the family altar.

[Sidenote: Adoption.]

This ceremony was subject to a great many variations amongst the different Aryan races; but in every one of them some trace of it is to be found, and this always apparently intended to express the same idea, the change of the bride’s family. _Adoption_, which in later times became extremely common among the Romans--the race which seems in Europe to have preserved most faithfully the old Aryan family type--originated in a sort of extension of the same theory that admitted of the wife’s entry into her husband’s family, as almost all the details of the ceremony of adoption are copied from that of marriage. Cases must have occurred pretty often where a man might be placed in such a position as to be without a family. He may have become alienated from his own kindred by the commission of some crime, or all his relatives may have died from natural causes or been killed in war. In the condition in which society was then, such a man would be in a peculiarly unenviable position. There would be no one in whom he could trust, no one who would be the least interested in him or bound to protect him. Thus wandering as an outlaw, without means of defence from enemies, and unable to protect his possessions if he chanced to have any, or to obtain means of subsistence if he had none, he would be very desirous of becoming a member of some other family, in order that he might find in it the assistance and support necessary for his own welfare. It might also sometimes happen, that owing to a want of male descendants some house might be in danger of extinction. Now the extinction of a family was a matter of peculiar dread to its members. Connected with the worship of the hearth was the worship of the ancestors of the family. It was the duty of each patriarch to offer sacrifices on stated occasions to the departed spirits of his ancestors; and it was considered as a matter of the utmost importance that these sacrifices should be kept up, in order to insure the happiness of those departed spirits after death. So important indeed was this rite held to be, that it was reckoned as one of the chief duties which each patriarch had to perform, and the family property was regarded as dedicated to this object in priority to every other. It would therefore be the chief care of each head of a household to leave male descendants, in order that the offerings for his own and his ancestors’ benefit might be continued after his death. The only person, however, capable of performing these rites was a member of the same family, one who joined in the same worship by the same household fire: so if all the males of a family were to die out, these rights must of necessity cease.

The marriage ceremony had already supplied a precedent for introducing members into a house who were not born in it. It was very natural, then, that this principle should be extended to the introduction of males when there was any danger of the male line becoming extinct. This was done by the ceremony of adoption, which was in many respects similar to that of marriage, being a formal renunciation of the person adopted by the patriarch of his original family, in case he was a member of one, and a formal acceptance and admission into the new family of his adoption, of which he was thenceforward regarded as a regular member. This ceremony exhibits in a very marked manner the leading peculiarity of the patriarchal household. We see how completely isolated, in theory, such a group was from the rest of the world; having its own distinct worship, in which no one but its own members were permitted to share, reverencing its own ancestors only, who might receive worship from none but their descendants. So jealously was this separation of families guarded, that it was impossible for a man or woman at the same time to worship at two family shrines. While displaying its isolation in the strongest light, adoption is nevertheless a mark of decay in the patriarchal family. It is an artificial grafting on the original simple stock; and however carefully men may have shut their eyes at first to its artificial nature, it must have had a gradual tendency to undermine the reverence paid to the principle of blood relationship.

Before we consider, however, the causes of decay of this form of society, which we shall do in the next chapter, there are some other indications of their manner of livelihood which will help us to understand the social condition of these Aryan patriarchal families. We have seen that, with the introduction of bronze into Europe, various changes took place in the manner of men’s lives. One of these is the regular domestication of animals. It is true that domestic animals were by no means unknown before the bronze age in Europe: but until that time this custom had not attained any great extension. In remains of settlements whose age is supposed to be before the introduction of bronze, by far the larger number of animals’ bones found are those belonging to wild species, while those belonging to tame species are comparatively rare. This shows that the principal part of the food of those people who lived before the bronze age was obtained by hunting. After the introduction of bronze, however, exactly the reverse is the case. In these later remains the bones of domestic animals become much more common, while those of wild animals are comparatively rare, which shows what an important revolution had taken place in men’s habits.

[Sidenote: Introduction of the pastoral life.]

It must also be remembered that many remains supposed to belong to the later stone age may, in fact, belong to societies that existed during the bronze age, but who had not yet adopted the use of bronze, or else from their situation were unable to obtain any. As yet so little is known of how this metal was obtained at that time, that it is impossible to say what situations would be least favourable for obtaining it; but considering that tin, of which bronze is partly composed, is only found in a very few places, the wonder is rather that bronze weapons are so frequent amongst the different remains scattered over Europe, than that they should be absent from some of them. Moreover, the races that inhabited Europe before the Aryans came there would afterwards remain collected together in settlements, surrounded by the invading population, for a considerable length of time before they had either been exterminated or absorbed by the more civilized race. These aborigines would adopt such of the arts and customs of the Aryans as were most within their reach. The increased population and the greater cultivation of the land which followed the Aryan invasion would make it more difficult to obtain food from hunting, and the aborigines would therefore be compelled to adopt domestication of animals as a means of support, which they would have little difficulty in doing, as they would be able to obtain a stock to start from, either by raids on their neighbours’ herds or, perhaps, by barter. But the manufacture of bronze weapons, being a much more complicated affair than the rearing of cattle, would take a much longer time to acquire. This perhaps may account for the remains found in the lake-dwellings, some of which show a considerable degree of social advance, but an entire ignorance of the use of bronze, while in the later ones bronze weapons are also found. We may, then, regard the domestication of animals, to the extent that it was practised by the Aryans in their Asiatic home, as a new thing in Europe, and as introduced by the Aryans. It was on their flocks and herds that these races chiefly depended for subsistence, and the importance of the chase as a means of livelihood was very much less with them than it was with the old hunter-tribes that formed the earlier population of Europe. This in itself was a great advance in civilization. It implied a regular industry, and the possession of cattle was not only a guarantee against want, but an inducement to a more regular and orderly mode of living.

There are no lessons so important to uncivilized nations as those of providence and industry, and the pastoral life required and encouraged both these qualities. It was necessary to store up at one time of year food to support the cattle during another period; to preserve a sufficient number of animals to keep the stock replenished. The cows too had to be milked at regular times, and every night the flocks and herds had to be collected into pens to protect them from beasts of prey, and every morning to be led out again to the pasture. All this shows the existence of a more organized and methodical life than is possible to a hunter-tribe. The pastoral life, moreover, seems to be one particularly suited to the patriarchal type of society. Each little community is capable of supplying its own wants, and is also compelled to maintain a certain degree of isolation. The necessity of having a considerable extent of country for their pasturage would prevent different families from living very near each other. In its simplest state, too, the pastoral life is a nomadic one; so that the only social connection which can exist among such a people is one of kinship, for having no fixed homes they can have no settled neighbours or fellow-countrymen. The importance attached to cattle in this stage of civilization is evidenced by the frequent use of words in their origin relating to cattle, in all the Aryan languages, to express many of the ordinary incidents of life. Not only do cattle occupy a prominent place in Aryan mythology, but titles of honour, the names for divisions of the day, for the divisions of land, for property, for money, and many other words, all attest by their derivation how prominent a position cattle occupied with the early Aryans. The patriarch is called in Sanskrit ‘lord of the cattle,’ the morning is ‘the calling of the cattle,’ the evening ‘the milking time.’ The Latin word for money, _pecunia_, and our English word ‘fee’ both come from the Aryan name for cattle. In Anglo-Saxon movable property is called ‘cwicfeoh,’ or living cattle, while immovable property, such as houses and land, is called ‘dead cattle.’ And so we find the same word constantly cropping up in all the Aryan languages, to remind us that in the pastoral life cattle are the great interest and source of wealth to the community, and the principal means of exchange employed in such commerce as is there carried on.

[Sidenote: Commerce.]

The commerce between different tribes or families seems to have been conducted at certain meeting-places agreed upon, and which were situated in the boundary-land or neutral territory between the different settlements. Very frequently at war with each other, or at best only preserving an armed and watchful quiet,--each side ready at a moment’s notice to seize on a favourable opportunity for the commencement of active hostilities,--continual friendly intercourse was impossible. So that when they wished for their mutual advantage to enter into amicable relations, it was necessary to establish some sort of special agreement for that purpose. It is probable, then, that when they found the advantages which could be derived from commercial exchanges, certain places were agreed upon as neutral territory where these exchanges might take place. Such places of exchange would naturally be fixed upon as would be equally convenient to both parties; and their mutual jealousy would prevent one tribe from permitting the free entrance within its own limits of members of other tribes. Places, too, would be chosen so as to be within reach of three or four different tribes; and thus the place of exchange, the market-place, would be fixed in that border-land to which no tribe laid any special claim. So we see that to commerce was due the first amicable relations of one tribe with another; and perhaps our market crosses may owe their origin to some remains of the old ideas associated with assemblies where men first learnt to look upon men of different tribes as brothers in a common humanity.

It took a long time, however, to mitigate that feeling of hostility which seems to have existed in early times between different communities. Even when they condescended to barter with each other they did not forget the difference between the friend and the foe. In the _Senchus Mor_, a book compiled by the old Irish or ‘Brehon’ lawyers, this difference between dealing with a friend and a stranger is rather curiously indicated in considering the rent of land. ‘The three rents,’ says the _Great Book of the Law_, as it is called, ‘are rack rent (or the extreme rent) from a person of a strange tribe, a fair rent from one of the tribe (that is one’s own tribe), and the stipulated rent, which is paid equally by the tribe and the strange tribe.’ Such a distinction is generally recognized in all early communities. In dealing with a man of his own tribe, the individual was held bound in honour not to take any unfair advantage, to take only such a price, to exact only such a value in exchange, as he was legitimately entitled to. It was quite otherwise, however, in dealings with members of other tribes. Then the highest value possible might justly be obtained for any article; so that dealings at markets which consisted of exchanges between different tribes, came to mean a particular sort of trading, where the highest price possible was obtained for anything sold. It is probable that this cast, to a certain extent, a slur upon those who habitually devoted themselves to this kind of trading. Though it was recognized as just to exact as high a price as possible from the stranger, still the person who did so was looked upon to a certain extent as guilty of a disreputable action; viewed, in fact, much in the same light as usurious money-lenders are viewed nowadays. They were people who did not offend against the laws of their times, but who sailed so near the wind as to be tainted, as it were, with fraud. Indeed, our word ‘monger,’ which simply means ‘dealer,’ comes from a root which, in Sanskrit, means ‘to deceive;’ so commerce and cheating seem to have been early united, and we must therefore not be surprised if they are not entirely divorced even in our own time.

Now ‘mark,’ which, as we know, means a boundary or border-land, comes from a root which means ‘the chase,’ or ‘wild animals.’ So ‘mark’ originally meant the place of the chase, or where wild animals lived. This gives us some sort of picture of these early settlements, whose in-dwellers carried on their commerce with each other in such primitive fashion. They were little spots of cleared or cultivated land, surrounded by a sort of jungle or primeval forest inhabited only by wild beasts. It was in such wild places as these that the first markets used to be held. Here, under the spreading branches of the trees, at some spot agreed upon beforehand,--some open glade, perhaps, which would be chosen because a neighbouring stream afforded means of refreshment,--the fierce distrustful men would meet to take a passing glimpse at the blessings of peace. These wild border-lands which intervened also explain to us how it was that so great an isolation continued to be maintained between the different settlements. If their pasture-lands had abutted immediately on each other, if the herds of one tribe had grazed by the herds of another, there must have been much more intercommunion and mutual trust than appears to have existed.

The value of cattle does not consist only in the food and skins which they provide. Oxen have from a very early time been employed for purposes of agriculture; and we find among the names derived from cattle many suggesting that they must have been put to this use at the time when those names arose. Thus the Greeks spoke of the evening as βουλυτός (boulutos), or the time for the unyoking of oxen; and the same idea is expressed in the old German word for evening, ‘àbant’ (Abend), or the unyoking. This, then, is the next stage in social progress: when agriculture becomes the usual employment of man. With the advance of this stage begins the decay of the patriarchal life, which, as we shall see in the next chapter, gradually disappears and gives place to fresh social combinations. Though we have hitherto spoken only of the patriarchal life of the Aryans, it was a life even more characteristic of the Semitic race. They were essentially pastoral and nomadic in their habits, and they seem to have continued to lead a purely pastoral life much longer than the Aryans did. In the Old Testament we learn how Abraham and Lot had to separate because their flocks were too extensive to feed together; and how Abraham wandered about with his flocks and herds, his family and servants, dwellers in tents, leading a simple patriarchal life, much as do the Arabs of the present day. Long after the neighbouring people had settled in towns, these Semitic tribes continued to wander over the intervening plains, depending for food and clothing only on their sheep and cattle and camels.