the terrific struggles of the prehistoric age, and made progress in civilization, have invariably exhibited the phenomenon of cleavage. This book is not a blind apology for cleavage, but a protest against blind attacks on a great historic institution, and a plea for middle ground. The universe, as a whole and in all its details, so far as we know it, is a manifestation of opposed "forces," or "tendencies." Human society, as a cosmic fact, falls under the reign of this law; and it must be approached with this truth in view if we are to begin to comprehend the social problem. Although the lower class received no direct, immediately apparent, economic return for its labor, it received a large return indirectly. In the more primitive, animal period, life was precarious, food uncertain, clothing and shelter insufficient, ignorance universal. But the advance of the evolutionary process into settled life included all concerned in a growing social system which at first, on the whole, brought more good than evil -more actual good, and more possibilities of good, than men had known before. The upper class controlled the labor of the lower class under unequal terms. But cleavage actively enlisted the egoism of the upper class in the tremendous work of social development. A large part of the appropriated labor of the masses was converted into the material and spiritual tools whereby humanity conquers its environment and struggles upward along the path of progress. It was material tools, knowledge, mental training, organization in other words, capital in the largest sense that early prehistoric man lacked and needed. It is material and spiritual capital with which to develop nature's resources that man must have if he is to tion of the lower class more complete, and throws the incidental parasitism of the upper class out into ever bolder relief. This, however, is a problem by itself. It is illustrated eventually in the life of all settled society. But the total significance of cleavage should not be tested from the standpoint of the evils developed in connection with it. These do not control the entire perspective by any means.

rise above primitive levels. Development is the outcome of reactions between organism and environment. The higher evolution of mankind has come with the physical and intellectual appropriation of their environment. The degree in which we appropriate our environment, physically and intellectually, is the measure of our civilization. It is impossible for large numbers of men to affiliate in society without vast and various capital. The beginnings of material progress began to supply a small amount of capital, probably on the individualistic basis. But material progress, by producing a surplus in the midst of the primitive struggle for existence, issued in social cleavage; and this institution had the effect of a forced draught on a smoldering fire. In the resulting civilization, life became surer, the production of food steadier and more extensive, and the preparation of clothing and shelter more satisfactory, than in the earlier period. By promoting the growth of capital, the upper class unconsciously served the lower class, and forced the different sections of the humble folk to serve each other. Civilization, to all outward appearance, is based on exploitation; but in its deepest essence, it is founded on the law of service. Cleavage is a paradoxical involution of the law of service.

§ 39. But, having studied cleavage in the oriental world thus far with reference to its beneficent aspects, it is necessary at this point for us to emphasize the opposite side of the paradox. At length its abuses, never absent, began palpably to outweigh its benefits. As tribes took up definite homes, and formed settled nations and empires, the upper classes reached out and slowly absorbed the soil. Population steadily multiplied, and thus increased the demand for, and the value of, land. The growing monopoly of the soil gave the superior class a not less powerful, but far more subtle, hold upon the masses than did slavery. The masses, being in complete economic dependence, and without popular political institutions through which to express their wants, lost interest and vigor. The upper class, with its increasing wealth and

luxury, became effeminate and morally corrupt, having never had an intelligent understanding of its public, or social, function, and being wholly incapable of solving the problem which brought advancing civilization to a stand. Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Israel sank into mysterious decline in their ancient seats; and the proud oriental civilization began more and more to succumb to the shock of assault from without. New races came crowding upon the scene Elamites, Kasshites, Ethiopians, Scythians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. It would seem that oriental society, having waxed powerful up to a certain stage, ought to have repelled these enemies instead of offering a weaker and weaker front to their assaults. But the contrary was the case; and the genius of progress at length departed from the eastern world.

$ 40. Before carrying the development of our main thesis further it is necessary to look more closely into the great problem which oriental civilization failed to solve. This can be attempted to best effect in connection with a somewhat detailed study of that interesting oriental people known generally as "Israel." The Israelites bred a line of preachers, or "prophets," who made the first dramatic attempt in human history to cope with the social problem, and who have profoundly influenced later thought.* As Renan justly says, it is through prophecy that Israel occupies a place in the history of the world (33). In order to study Israel and the prophets it is necessary to make what will here seem, at first, like an unwarranted digression. This turning aside, however, will serve not only to illustrate the nature of the problem which oriental society encountered, and which every civilization is compelled sooner or later to face; but it will bring out with even greater emphasis the relation of cleav age to history, as well as make intelligible some of the

* The English word "prophet" meant primarily a preacher, not simply a predictor; although a predictive element might enter the preaching of the prophet; and the Hebrew term which it represents is to be taken in this general sense. Of this, however, more later.

later developments of our subject. Our general thesis forces us to examine the nature of this problem, since it is out of attempts to solve it that some of the later institutions of the oriental, classic, and western societies take their origin. Our thesis opens up one side of a paradox which must be treated from both sides if our examination of society is to reach the most intelligible results. However, since this proposition is anticipative its force does not become fully evident at this early stage of the inquiry.

$ 41. - It should be observed at the outset that Israel was a late comer among the ancient nations. The great peoples of oriental civilization had reached perhaps the height of their culture while yet the ancestors of the Israelites were wandering barbarians in the desert. The "children of Israel" came forward into the light of history during their conquest and settlement of a strip of territory on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. We have learned that the passage from barbarism to civilization is always attended by the permanent occupation of some definite territory; and we are thus prepared to see that the Israelite conquest of Canaan was a normal, not an extraordinary, event in history.

$42. We have but little trustworthy information touching the details of Israelitish history before the time of the Conquest. Like other ancient peoples, they developed a mass of myth and legend in the effort to account for their origin. Modern research, however, leaves no doubt as to their proximate origin, at least. They were simply one of the families of the great Semitic race; and, like other nations, they came forward into the light of history out of prehistoric barbarism. Just as the AngloSaxon people of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are descended principally from English forefathers, so the Israelites, in common with the Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, Phoenicians, Arameans, Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians, and other oriental peoples, were derived partly or wholly from prehistoric barbarian Semites, who had swarmed out in successive waves from their

earlier homeland (probably Arabia), and overspread the ancient eastern world. According to Genesis 19 and 30, even the legends of Israel recognize the kinship of the Israelites with the Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites; and chapters 11 and 15 of the same book speak of the ancestors of this people as immigrants from the country of Chaldea. The Israelites used practically the same language and system of writing as their neighbors, and had no difficulty in coming verbally to terms with them.

This people, then, was not a nation apart. The Israelites belonged to one of the great races of mankind; and came forward on the stage of history, like all historic nations, through the tumult of war and conquest (34).

§ 43. Critical study of the canonic literature of Israel (the Old Testament) shows that its beginnings were made in Semitic heathenism; and that after the Israelites had developed a purer form of religion, a higher stratum of writings was laid over the earlier; while the foundation literature itself was, to some extent, edited in a sincere effort to harmonize it with the later developments. The adjustment of the heathen writings to the newer faith, however, was not the outcome of a perfectly coordinated effort or series of efforts. There was no absolute unity of plan in the production and the arrangement of the literature; and the Old Testament is, in fact, a loose collection of books by many authors and editors. The books themselves are, in many instances, logically and chronologically out of place; and scholarship encounters little difficulty in restoring at least the essential outlines of the history and religious development of this interesting oriental people.

The general position of modern Biblical scholarship is well described in the following words of Professor C. H. Cornill of Konigsberg, an expert of the first rank:

"At the time when the historical books of the Old Testament were put into the final form in which they now lie before us, during and after the Babylonish exile, the past was no longer understood. Men were ashamed of it.