The change, by whatever causes produced, and
whatever the character of the early rulers, was on the whole very
beneficial. For the rise of monarchy appears to be an essential
condition of the emergence of mankind from savagery. No human being
is so hide-bound by custom and tradition as your democratic savage;
in no state of society consequently is progress so slow and
difficult. The old notion that the savage is the freest of mankind
is the reverse of the truth. He is a slave, not indeed to a visible
master, but to the past, to the spirits of his dead forefathers, who
haunt his steps from birth to death, and rule him with a rod of
iron. What they did is the pattern of right, the unwritten law to
which he yields a blind unquestioning obedience. The least possible
scope is thus afforded to superior talent to change old customs for
the better. The ablest man is dragged down by the weakest and
dullest, who necessarily sets the standard, since he cannot rise,
while the other can fall. The surface of such a society presents a
uniform dead level, so far as it is humanly possible to reduce the
natural inequalities, the immeasurable real differences of inborn
capacity and temper, to a false superficial appearance of equality.
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