It is often said that when the lower classes are held in chattel slavery, or bound as serfs to the estates of great landowners, there can be no "mobility of labor" as there is in modern times when the lower class enjoys personal freedom, and can come and go in response to the demands of the market. As a matter of fact, however, an active trade in slaves located skilled and unskilled labor where it was most wanted; and the mobility of labor was perhaps as great, in proportion to the development of the age, as it is today among the more advanced western peoples. This is only another example of the erroneous ideas that gain currency in modern times respecting the social economy of the ancients. We are too often tempted to think of the society of early times as immovably fixed, when in reality it illustrates the law of development as fully in its own way as does modern civilization.

$ 34. The rise of commerce illustrates, by the way, a fact of importance in connection with our thesis. There is danger of acquiring too rigorous an idea of the principle with which we are working. Social cleavage into upper and lower strata is an institution within the bowels of society, rather than the mark of two utterly contrasted and mutually exclusive social orders. When the noble class did not retain personal proprietorship of commerce, and an independent merchant class arose, it is plain that the latter was drawn from the lower people by a rigid process of selection. Even when the slave-managers of commerce did not succeed in reaching legal freedom, they were favored in proportion to their importance, and were living witnesses to a social mobility which, in fact if not in law, recruited the upper, directive stratum from the best elements of the lower.

But it was not commerce alone that illustrated this important fact. Ewald observes, in reference to the slave-stewards of noble houses, that "in order to prevent dispersion of the family property in default of a male heir, such a one was often adopted as a son, or married to his master's daughter" (18). In Genesis 15 we read that

Abraham recognizes his steward, Eliezer of Damascus, as his heir in case no son is born to the family. In 1 Chronicles 2:34 the same custom is illustrated in the following words: "Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a slave, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his slave to wife.” Other glimpses into class relations, with respect to the passage from the inferior to the superior stratum, are afforded by the following selections from the modern literature of Egyptian history.

"Many a monument consecrated to the memory of some nobleman gone to his long home, who during life had held high rank at the court of Pharaoh, is decorated with the simple but laudatory inscription, 'his ancestors were unknown people'" (19)..

"In the schools where the poor scribe's child sat on the same bench beside the offspring of the rich, to be trained in discipline and wise learning, the masters knew how by timely words to goad on the lagging diligence of the ambitious scholars, holding out to them the future reward which awaited youths skilled in knowledge and letters. Even the clever son of the poor man might hope by his knowledge to climb the ladder of the higher offices, for neither his birth nor his position in life raised any barrier, if only the youth's mental power justified fair hopes for the future. In this sense the restraints of caste did not exist, and neither descent nor family hampered the rising of the clever" (20).

"The scribe is simply a man who knows how to read and write, to draw up administrative formulas, and to calculate interest. The instruction which he has received is a necessary complement of his position if he belong to a good family, whilst if he be poor it enables him to obtain a lucrative situation in the administration or at the house of a wealthy personage" (21).

"Cases have been seen of the son of a peasant or of a poor citizen commencing by booking the delivery of bread or vegetables in some provincial office, and ending,

after a long and industrious career, by governing one-half of Egypt"

(22).

"The number of persons of obscure origin, who in this manner had risen in a few years to the highest honors, and died governors of provinces or ministers of Pharaoh, must have been considerable. Their descendants followed in their father's footsteps, until the day came when royal favor or an advantageous marriage secured them the possession of an hereditary fief [landed estate], and transformed the son or grandson of a prosperous scribe into a feudal lord. It was from people of this class, and from the children of Pharaoh, that the nobility was mostly recruited" (23).

Likewise in Babylonia, the slave "could become a free citizen and rise to the highest offices of state, Slavery was no bar to his promotion, nor did it imprint any stigma upon him" (24).

§ 35. Religion was an important factor in oriental social economy, as it is everywhere after a certain stage has been reached in the social process. Just here we need not specially refer to its origin. It is a well known fact that all primitive people are superstitious. At a very early period, before the entrance upon settled life, all races of men acquire ideas about a supersensuous world of spirits, great and small. These personal agents, usually thought to be invisible, are imagined as inhabiting all sorts of queer, out-of-the-way places, like trees, graves, mountain tops, the air, etc. They are thought to be greatly interested in, and affected by, the actions of men; and the primitive mind invests them with more or less power over nature and over human life. Their anger must be averted, and their favor obtained, by means of offerings, petitions, and appropriate courses of conduct.

The religious idea, like any other, might remain a mere idea, to survive or perish on its merits, if it had no potentiality of social service. But anthropology and history show that religion has a most decided influence over social life. The primitive social group, after passing a cer

tain stage in its history, always acquires ideas not only of spirits in general, but of a spirit which pertains especially to that group. This spirit becomes a god, or divinity, who is thought to be interested in and affected by the affairs of the group, and who has power to help or hinder; whose favor can be obtained, and whose anger can be averted, by offerings, petitions, and appropriate conduct. We have seen that it is necessary that social groups be as coherent as possible in the struggle for life; and it is plain that the religious idea serves to cement the bonds that hold primitive societies together. In the words of Professor W. R. Smith, primitive religion "did not exist for the saving of souls but for the preservation and welfare of society, and in all that was necessary to this end every man had to take his part or break with the domestic and political community to which he belonged" (25). The common worship of a common deity, who is thought to lead in battle and fight for his people, cannot but serve to strengthen communal feelings. In Assyria, for instance,

"Assur was supreme over all other gods, as his representative, the Assyrian king, was supreme over the other kings of the earth. . It was through 'trust in Assur' that the Assyrian armies went forth to conquer, and through his help that they gained their victories. The enemies of Assyria were his enemies, and it was to combat and overcome them that the Assyrian monarchs declare that they marched to war" (26).

§ 36. Although a god was regarded as belonging in a general sense to the entire group, he was held to be especially the god of the upper class. His priests were naturally chosen from the nobility. Political and religious headship were often united in the same person; and even when the priestly and kingly offices were not identified, the governmental and religious classes were closely connected. Religion and politics went hand in hand; or, in modern phrase, church and state were united.

As tribes coalesced into national groups, and settled permanently upon the soil, the upper classes caused the

erection of temples and the establishment of regular priesthoods and rituals. Temples were endowed with landed estates and slaves. In Egypt, according to Maspero, the territory of the gods embraced at all periods within historic times about one-third of the whole country (27).

"Under the Middle and also under the Old [Egyptian] Empire each province was the seat of an ancient noble family, who for generations inherited the government and the high-priesthood of its temple. It is true that these provincial princes could only actually bequeath to their children the family estate and the membership in the priestly college of their native temple; but if there were no special circumstances against it, the Pharaoh would always bestow the government on the great landowner of the province, and in choosing their high priest, the [lesser] priests could scarcely pass over the richest and most important personage among them" (28).

Thus it begins to be evident that early religion was more than an idea and a cult, and that it was intimately involved in the secular life of society. As we have previously observed, if the religious idea had not had potentiality of practical influence on society, it must have remained a mere idea without visible issue; but as it was, the social forces drew it down from the cloudland of the imagination into the center of the great human drama; and if we do not look sharply into the facts, we shall miss the connection of religion with real life.

Turning from Egypt to Chaldea, we find that

"The priests made great profit out of corn and metals, and the skill with which they conducted commercial operations in silver was so notorious that no private person hesitated to entrust them with the management of his capital: they were the intermediaries between lenders and borrowers, and the commissions which they obtained in these transactions were not the smallest or the least certain of their profits. They maintained troops of slaves, laborers, gardeners, workmen, all of whom either