as binding. At first confined to the clan, the idea of duty came at
length to extend throughout a state in which many clans were combined
and fused, and as it thus increased in generality and abstractness, the
idea became immeasurably strengthened and ennobled. At last, with the
rise of empires, in which many states were brought together in pacific
industrial relations, the recognized sphere of moral obligation became
enlarged until it comprehended all mankind.




XIII.

Methods of Political Development, and Elimination of Warfare.


This rise of empires, this coalescence of small groups of men into
larger and larger political aggregates, has been the chief work of
civilization, when looked at on its political side.[13] Like all the
work of evolution, this process has gone on irregularly and
intermittently, and its ultimate tendency has only gradually become
apparent. This process of coalescence has from the outset been brought
about by the needs of industrial civilization, and the chief obstacle
which it has had to encounter has been the universal hostility and
warfare bequeathed from primeval times. The history of mankind has been
largely made up of fighting, but in the careers of the most progressive
races this fighting has been far from meaningless, like the battles of
kites and crows. In the stream of history which, beginning on the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea, has widened until in our day it covers both
sides of the Atlantic and is fast extending over the remotest parts of