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Society And its Purpose

Book 3 - Determining the End of Civil Societies

CHAPTER 5

The quantity of intelligence required to move the practical reason of the masses in the four social stages

345. Let us sum up what we have said. First, we stated that civil society cannot be formed without the presence of a certain quantity of intelligence in the families and individuals who compose this society. It follows that society is possible if intelligence remains active in the masses, impossible if intelligence is sluggish and almost inactive. Moreover, if intelligence, after being stimulated, either comes to a halt or goes completely astray, the society once formed either ceases or disintegrates as a result of internal convulsions. Finally, the measure of intelligence actually used by the reason of the masses is in proportion to the length, tenacity and animated life of civil society. With these principles in mind, it becomes clear that the formulation of a philosophical theory of politics depends upon seeking `the measure of intelligence put in motion by the reason of the masses at each of the four social stages already indicated.’

346. This investigation presupposes some psychological teaching springing from observation. The doctrine states that although people are all naturally gifted with some intelligence, the proximate power for using it is not given by nature, but acquired and dependent on all the particular circumstances which aid and occasion human intellective development. Granted an equal intellective power in two or more people, therefore, the proximate power for using it, on which alone depends their social aptitude, can vary in extraordinary ways. The degree of use that human beings make of their understanding is not in proportion to the breadth and force of the power they have received from nature, but to the proximate power they have gained in its use. My question, therefore, `What measure of intelligence is activated by the practical reason of the masses in each of the four social stages?’ is equivalent to: `What quantity of proximate power in the use of one’s intelligence is acquired by the masses in each of the four social stages through which they usually pass?’ or `How much does each of these states necessarily influence the intellective development of the reason of the masses?’

347. If I wished to note accurately the absolute power of the masses in the use of their intelligence, I would have to take into account the religious and moral teachings preserved by tradition in families, or taught by some special instructor. This, however, is not my aim. The problem concerns only the degree of power which the masses must draw from the proximate end of civil society, that is, the end they have determined at the different stages. In other words, we are trying to see `if the use to which the masses are brought in the employment of their intelligence is greater when they found the society, or when they are intent on making it powerful and glorious, or when they think only of enriching it, or finally when their only care is to enjoy its accumulated riches.’(127)

348. We have to decide, therefore, which concept is most suitable for fertilising the intelligence: the concept of society, that is, the object of the mind in the first stage; the concept of power, the object of the mind in the second stage; the concept of wealth, the object of the mind of the masses in the third stage; or the concept — rather, the use of pleasure at which the masses aim and to which they tend at the fourth and last stage. We have to establish whether, amongst all the ideas and thoughts of the mind, there is always one, more complex and fertile than all the others. Moreover, the development of the whole mind is solely the development of this most eminent thought.

Consequently, we can and must measure the possible development of the intelligence itself (that is, the extension of the proximate power acquired in the use of the intellective power) solely by the elevation and ensuing fertility of the thought or concept that forms the apex of each person’s intelligence. In other words, the measure of the proximate power we possess in our use of intelligence is in proportion to the virtual extension of the thought dominant in us as the end for which we operate. As we have seen, this dominant thought varies in the mind of the masses in the four social stages: it is either the thought of the existence of society, the thought of power, the thought of wealth or finally the thought of pleasure. Our question is: which of these thoughts gives rise to greater development in the human understanding? To solve the question as exactly as possible, we have to discover certain distinct characteristics of intelligence which we can use as accurate measures of each individual’s use of intelligence.

349. If we wanted to know in general which objects were the most suitable for exercising the intelligence, I would without doubt indicate spiritual objects. Our query is limited, however, to seeking the most suitable object for exercising the intelligence amongst the four ends which the masses propose for themselves at the four social stages. Because these objects are all external, I must limit my investigations to seeking the notes that indicate varying use of intelligence when its objects are for the greater part material. These notes can be reduced to four, and are derived from number, space, time and abstraction. From each of them we can derive a rule for measuring the quantity of intellectual movement.

350. Intellective action corresponding to external objects is distinguished from sensual action in the following ways: intelligence conceives 1. several objects (number); 2. objects which are either not present, or as distant as imagination can make them (space); 3. past and future objects, as well as present objects, in a given instant of time (time); 4.general, abstract objects as they have been formed by the intelligence itself, as well as entire, perfect objects as they are in reality (abstraction).

The rules that can be drawn from these four notes proper to intellective activity are the following.

Relative to number: `There is greater use of intelligence when this faculty extends to a greater number of objects, or embraces a more complex, multiple object.’

Relative to space: `There is greater use of intelligence when its object is more distinct and distant from the intelligent subject or from other objects with which the mind is occupied.’

Relative to time: `There is greater use of intelligence when the object of the mind and will is further away in time.’

Finally, relative to abstraction: `There is greater use of intelligence when the object is more general or abstract.’

351. Let us apply these rules to the four ends which the reason of the masses presupposes during the four social stages. We shall then see which of the ends provides greater impetus for the intellect.

I. We begin from the final stage in which the proximate end of the masses is that of enjoying the greatest possible abundance of sensual benefits. At this point the activity of the sensuous instinct totally lacks any of the four distinctive notes of intelligence; on the contrary it is furnished with notes directly opposed to those we have indicated. It is true that sensation producing instinct contains a twofold principle, that is, a subjective and an extrasubjective principle,(128) but this does not affect the fact that sensation is always particular; it is one, simple and therefore altogether lacking in number.

It may be objected that it is possible to have several sensations simultaneously, or that a single sensation can have various parts. This, however, does not multiple the sensation because no sensation has any part which includes and enfolds another part. The contrary occurs in intelligence: a single complex and multiple thought can include many others. Sense, therefore, lacks the first note we have assigned to intelligence, that of multiplicity, and has in its place the contrary note of simplicity.

352. In the second place, absent stimuli cannot move sense. In every sensual operation, the space between the feeling principle and what is felt vanishes; that which feels and that which is felt form only a single sensation. These are simply real relationships found in the sensation by the intelligence which analyses sensation; nothing more. Just as the note of distance is proper to the intelligence relative to its object, so the note of proximity or rather identification is proper to sense.

353. In the third place, sense, contrary to intelligence, does not perceive any past or future extrasubjective element. Just as the proper note of intelligence is to extend itself to past, present and future, so the note proper to sense-activity is to operate only in the present. Consequently, sense always acts swiftly, and tends to annul time as it annuls space. Intelligence, on the contrary, reaches its future object by expectation and successive operations.

354. Finally, abstraction has no part whatsoever in sense; there is nothing ideal in sense. All that occurs in the order of sensations pertains to reality. This is a new kind of opposition distinguishing the activity of sense-instinct from that of intelligence. It is obvious from what has been said that acting according to sensuous instinct does not presuppose any use of reason, and that in the final state of degenerate society reason comes to find itself eliminated and superfluous.

355. Is it not true, however, that sensations stimulate the intelligence to rise from its immobility? — It is true but, as I have shown elsewhere,(129) the intelligence does not go further than the act of intellective perception. Sensation does not contain a sufficient reason for moving the intelligence beyond what is necessary for the perception of external objects. Imagination does indeed associate itself with sensations, and draws the intelligence one step further, that is, to the first pure ideas.(130) Speech, received from society but concerned only with physical needs, also draws human understanding within the ambit of physical needs, to the first, most necessary abstractions. Here, however, all movement ceases.

356. Such development does not exceed that of savages, and is indeed less than that found in certain savage, nomad tribes. In this state, intelligence does nothing of itself; it follows the feelings, whose slave it becomes. Such limited use of intelligence is insufficient for the existence of civil society which needs a great deal of foresight. Social beings must be able to move their understanding with some freedom; they have to estimate things still a long way off, connect the past with the future, calculate the future on the basis of the present and the present on the basis of the future. All this is impossible for an intellect limited to the movements of sense. Such an intellect is like a bird tied to the back of a tortoise. Could we ever imagine a civil society formed by Caribs? Rousseau, describing these men of nature, the type of perfection he depicted in the satire with which he lampooned the society of his own time, says:

The intelligence of the masses, slaves to material, sensual delights, approaches this condition, at which the Roman people had gradually arrived as they moved from decadence in the republic to extinction at the time of the empire.

357. The principal difference distinguishing savages prior to society and savages (if I may call them that) who exist as their societies come to an end, is that the intelligence of pre-civilisation savages has never been greatly moved; that of post-civilisation savages has been subject to great movement. An intelligence in movement is not easily brought to a halt; it is communicated from father to son through language and great traditions, independently of other circumstances. Even in corrupt citizens, who ask nothing more of society than base, sensual delights, there remains some inherited movement, a kind of oscillation self-propagated in the mind, despite the lack of any movement of their own intelligence arising from the end of society. At this stage, the ancient forms of government are preserved, although only under the form of appearances and formality, without feeling or life.

The same language is maintained for a long time, although no one understands its fundamental meaning; lies are its only output. The authority of the ancestors is maintained; their decisions and principles are reiterated, although often only for the sake of rendering their meaning vain by captious, learned interpretations. Or perhaps they are mocked by being taken seriously when favourable, and rejected as out-of-date when unfavourable. Literature also is preserved, but in its exhausted condition it simply repeats what has been said without any true taste for beauty. There is no originality, no life; bored, degenerate minds find it impossible to do anything for themselves.

358. What is the purpose of all these traces of intellective movement? Their aim is to find the means for contenting common sensuality, the end of brutalised society. At this point, sensual pleasure itself seems to nourish intelligence, which it stimulates to find means of increasing its own abundance.(132) This, however, is not the case. If the movement of the intelligence were not pre-existent, sensual pleasure could never generate it. But when the intelligence is already aroused by preceding causes, the desire for pleasure uses it for its own purposes. If, on the other hand, no other cause intervenes to maintain the understanding in action, its activity insensibly diminishes until the intelligence of the masses loses all social action and society naturally perishes.

359. Another reflection needs to be added. Citizens who see the greatest possible enjoyment of material attractions as the sole end of society may have inherited a great measure of intelligence from those who have gone before them, that is, they may have a great proximate power for making use of intelligence. In this case a visceral, murderous conflict normally arises internally between inherited moral principles and the frenzy provoked by sensual pleasure. The intelligence, which is very active, only serves to push corruption to the extreme. It uses its resources simply to seek means of refining delight, and even plunges with incredible speed to the depths of corruption and wilful malice. At the same time, the senses, irritated as they are, tend to dull the intelligence and avoid the intolerable burden of its activity.

Consequently, the senses give rise in human beings to disquiet, accompanied by dark hatred for the principles of reason which it would if possible annihilate. From the collision between all these conflicting causes a kind of delirium arises. Human beings no longer reason; they blather endlessly about whatever forms the object of their attention, thinking themselves much wiser than all their predecessors, whom they despise and mock. When the masses are corrupt, this delirium is perceived by only a few individuals. Nevertheless, it leaves obvious signs of its presence in history which enable future ages, immune from that corruption, to recognise and note them.(133)

This is the principal difference between the state of the savage and the social state at the last stage of corruption. Both contain a suitable cause for stultifying the intelligence. In savages, this cause produces its effect; in the members of corrupt society it also produces its effect, but not completely nor so soon, granted the special circumstances which impede it. In savages, therefore, we find intellectual lethargy, in the members of materialised society, delirium; in savages, apathy, in the members of materialised society, frenzy. Both delirium and frenzy would undoubtedly auto-destruct if society were left to itself,(134) to be succeeded by the death of intelligence and an immobility and apathy not unlike that of savages.

360. II. The proximate end of society determined by the masses who have reached final corruption is not, of itself, capable of arousing any use of intelligence. It cannot, therefore, provide people with any proximate power over intelligence. But what degree of suitability for stimulating intelligence is present in wealth, the end to which civil association tends at its third stage?

361. Again, we first have to separate the measure of intelligence inherited by a nation from that which it obtains from the social end proposed for itself. A nation which has passed from the first and second stage has already developed to some extent; the masses have acquired some degree of proximate power over the use of their own understanding. When this nation arrives at its third stage, it preserves its degree of power over the use of the understanding which it has acquired in the preceding stages and handed down from father to son through speech and education. The intelligence received from ancestors is not however the intelligence proper to the age in which the descendants now find themselves; it is a less lively, almost stagnant intelligence. Nevertheless, this measure of intellective power is used by the masses who have reached the third stage, although the object of its use is no longer that intended by their predecessors. It is now employed relative to the new proximate end provided for society. In other words, it is used to discover the means for rendering society affluent.

362. The acquisition of wealth is the kind of object for which reason can work without necessarily positing any limit to its activity. This is true at least about the part of reason which has feelable things as its matter. Agriculture, manufacture and trade exhaust and overcome human intelligence. Such objects lend themselves, therefore, to keeping reason occupied however well developed it may be. Our question, however, is concerned with the degree to which this kind of object lends itself of its own nature to the development of reason, that is, we want to know what use of intelligence would be stimulated in a people whose desire for such objects was not preceded by any notable intellective development. What proximate power adapted to the use of their understanding would give them the thought and desire of wealth? This is what we have to decide.

363. It is easy to see that agriculture supposes a more restricted use of intelligence than that required by crafts, and that crafts require a lesser use of intelligence than commerce.(135) The truth of this will be clear if we apply the rules we have drawn from number, space, time and abstraction. The immediate objects of agriculture are few. The place where the cultivator labours is limited and always the same because agriculture binds families to the soil. The cultivator’s intelligence is limited in its foresight to a period of a few months, that is, from sowing to harvesting. Finally, the abstract ideas required by peasants are very few.

In general, crafts presuppose agriculture as the basis of the raw material on which they work. The number of objects on which the intelligence has to work in establishing and maintaining social crafts is much greater than that needed by agriculture. Moreover, understanding has to make an effort to unite crafts with preceding agricultural life. It needs to find tools suitable for each craft, study their relationship and their effect, and search for the best way of using them. Again, crafts are innumerable; their discovery is marked by an indefinite progression. They do not bind human beings to some determined piece of land, nor do they limit the intelligence to a determined time (their production is continuous, not periodic like that of agriculture). Finally, crafts require a good number of abstract ideas, at least from their inventors. Everything is reduced to co-ordinating means to an end. But to conceive an object as a means or instrument for obtaining a determined end is to conceive it already in an abstract way.

364. The development of intelligence is, however, furthered more by trade than by crafts. I do not mean the kind of trade that depends upon minimal, internal consumption, nor simply the sale of a country’s products and manufactured goods to foreigners whose intention is to transport them elsewhere, as the Egyptians(136) and Indians did. I am referring to trade in the hands of those who themselves transport their goods to the most distant places. This is trade on a grand scale. It was exercised in antiquity by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians and in modern times by the Italian republics, by the Dutch and the English.

365. There is no doubt that this kind of trade requires a greater use of intelligence than crafts or agriculture. Intelligence extends over an immense number of objects. There is a vast multitude of various peoples and customs to cope with, as well as innumerable goods of all kinds. The talent of trading countries lies in their constant awareness of whatever renders their trade easier and more profitable; they are continually working on means of transport by sea and land, on navigation, new roads, the domestication and maintenance of animals for carrying goods, mechanical devices for the construction of carts and boats, on the art of minting money, and so on.

In short, there is no limit to the number of objects which the intelligence of trading nations has naturally to keep in mind. Relative to space, trade (which puts the most distant nations in communication with one another) extends further than any other profession. Relative to time, the foresight of traders extends indefinitely so that today traders have become the best indicators of future political events. Finally, considerable use of the faculty of abstraction is a necessity in a certain kind of industry where so many means have to be co-ordinated, and even subordinated to one another in a chain of distribution where each is conditioned and ordered to moving another. As we have said repeatedly, every means requires some abstraction on the part of the mind; and a long series of concatenated means requires a series of elevated and complicated abstractions.

366. There is no doubt, therefore, that large-scale trade sets in motion amongst nations exercising it a greater quantity of intelligence than that required for manufacture and agriculture. It provides the kind of intellective stimulation for the masses that ensures a much greater proximate power in the use of their intelligence.

367. III. Nevertheless, it is the second social stage which prompts the movement of the greatest quantity of intelligence in nations, and gives the masses the greatest proximate power for applying their own understanding. At this stage, civil society tends to power and dominance over others. This end seems to have no limit in number, space, time or finally abstraction. The desire for power and glory, nourished by prosperity — as we can see in Rome — has a wonderful capacity for sharpening minds, increasing the strength and courage of the masses, and developing all their natural faculties. A conquering people is normally superior to all others for its political outlook and for valour until the corruption proper to this and the following stages intervenes to limit and regulate the intellective activity of minds.

Moreover, when a people with a single will extends the confines of the State and conquers others (as, for example, when Fabricius could affirm that the Romans wanted not gold, but the possessors of gold), it has risen above all family usages and moved away entirely from domestic society. With the removal of the limitations of paternal residence, families have grown closer, been perfectly fused and have formed a single body. Civil society now dominates family society, the government is perfectly constituted and rulers can form laws with which to regulate nations. These laws replace the ways of life proper to peoples who do not altogether escape from the bonds of domestic customs(137) and cannot make such rapid progress as totally united and civil peoples.

368. We need to reflect that a nation in which civil government can make itself strong and dispose of things with a universal outlook without encountering insuperable difficulties from families possesses a perpetual fount of intelligence, that is, civil government itself. This is especially the case where the people govern themselves. Government is under a continual necessity of making the greatest possible use of intellect; to govern means to reflect and to calculate. As a result, the masses normally attain great, continual power over their own intelligence whenever they exercise government, or whenever government is exercised amongst them with their consent.

Such universal governments, free to tend to the common good, do not surface in nations restricted to the acquisition of wealth through manufacturing industries. These nations do not produce sufficient use of intelligence to break family ties, as I said, and form a city into a compact body dominating all private interests. Only large-scale trade produces a sufficient measure of intelligence for this. It is true that certain great, powerful nations, such as Tyre and Carthage, sprang from trade and became warlike as a result of trade. But these nations, too, for whom trade had generated power and a civil government dominating family institutions, finally had to give way to those other nations in which the stage of power naturally succeeded, without having to burgeon again from wealth, the stage of social existence.(138)

369. IV. The first stage does not develop the same quantity of intelligence in the masses as the second stage; the use of intelligence in the first stage is sounder, incorrupt. During this period, the proximate end of society is restricted to its existence, foundation and defence; no one as yet wants to extend the country’s boundaries.(139) The end, as we said, is pure and immune from all injustice, and can only be useful for the country. Love of country is as sincere and strong as nature, without over-emphasis and exaggeration as it is at the second stage.

370. Let us conclude. A greater quantity of intelligence amongst the masses is put into motion at the second stage when their collective will tends to make the country glorious and dominant; the first stage, on the contrary, is characterised by a less extensive but more logical and moral use of intelligence.

At the third stage, the degree of intelligence developed amongst the masses, although less than that of the second stage, varies in accordance with the masses’ tendency to abundant wealth by means of trade, manufacturing industries or agriculture. The masses who tend to riches through trade acquire a use of intelligence comparable to that of nations intent upon domination. The masses who tend to riches through manufacture develop less intelligence than trading peoples, but more than those dedicated to agriculture. Finally, the masses who draw their wealth from agriculture normally use their understanding more uprightly, although less powerfully and within their own limited sphere, than artistic and manufacturing countries. Agriculture, we should note, has a close relationship with the task of founding civil societies; agriculture and the establishment of societies both help to preserve the good sense of populations.

The last stage, that of pleasure, has no power of itself to develop the understanding. In this final period, the masses, like a prodigal son who squanders and dissipates the wealth left him by his ancestors [App., no. 9], begin insensibly to weaken and use up the power acquired over their intelligence.

Notes

(127) How do human beings acquire a certain quantity of proximate power in the use of their own intelligence? — I have set out some laws (OT, 521–527) guiding the use of intellective acts to which human beings are drawn by certain exterior occasions, chief of which is the speech they receive from the society in which they are born, and the notions which are communicated to them with speech. Through this initial development they come to establish the ends of their actions. These ends which they propose for themselves provide the proximate power over the intelligence of which we have spoken. The more elevated the ends, the greater the proximate power for using the intelligence. If they place no end before themselves, they have no power at all to move their reason. Proposing an end, however, involves an act of will. The dominion that we acquire over our own mind depends in great part, therefore, on the activity and uprightness of the will itself.

(128) Cf. my analysis of sensation in OT, 878–960; AMS, 367–494.

(129) OT, 515–520.

(130) Animal imagination leads animal instinct to act far more effectively than actual sensation. I have already shown the presence in the animal of extended and lasting feelings which offer some explanation of the appearance of society amongst animals, that is, of gregarious living (AMS, 367–494).

(131) Discours sur l'origine, etc. P. 1.

(132) It is almost impossible to imagine that in the last century the spirit of sophistry would set out as a serious argument that luxury and sensual pleasure stimulate industry in human beings. — Nevertheless, Italy, our own Italy, produced Gioia who gave his support to such immorality amidst a mob of admirers who with their usual enthusiasm applauded this outstanding individual.

(133) One of the most usual, obvious signs of the delirium we are describing is the twofold division of the masses, one part of which is given to unbelief, the other to superstition. In Frammenti d'una storia della Empietà, I have indicated how these signs appeared in the Roman empire. The same reflections can be made relative to our own times, especially in nations where wealth and immorality is greatest. We see innumerable, strange religious sects, that is, superstitions, spring up daily in the midst of a mass of unbelievers.

(134) Providence, which watches over nations, seems not to permit this final stage; we shall try to explain why later in the work.

(135) I am not speaking about the art of hunting, fishing and pasture which are not proper to civil society, but precede it.

(136) `The fertility of their land,' says Robertson, speaking about the Egyptians in his Ricerche sull'India, 3, `and the mildness of their climate generously provided them not only with what was necessary, but also with luxuries. Thus they were so independent of other nations that one of their fundamental, political rules entailed the renunciation of all external commerce. As a result, they held all seafarers in abhorrence as profane and impious, and fortified their own ports to render them inaccessible to foreigners' (Cf. Diod. Sic. bk. 1, and Strabo, bk. 67). This comment by the English historian is not altogether exact. The fertility of Egypt does indeed explain why the Egyptians neglected trade with other nations, but it does not explain their abhorrence of navigation and their political principle of avoiding the exercise of trade.

We should remember rather that civil society in Egypt was founded on domestic ways of life, as we have seen also in India: the castes prove this. In the same way, Egypt was a peaceful society; it did not tend to dominion or to wealth. Scarcely touching its second stage under Sesostris, it passed quickly to its third. These oriental societies draw their subsistence, order, stability and durability from domestic habits, and principally from the division of the people into castes. The castes themselves thus became the belt-irons holding together the fabric of their society. The great utility of these castes and the respect shown to the ancient heads of families (who were converted into an equivalent number of divinities) brought about the consecration of such usages by religion and their commemoration in sacred books.

According to Cicero, the Egyptians venerated animals as gods which were very useful to them. We need to note that nothing is more contrary to the preservation of such customs, carried over from domestic to civil society, as travelling and contact with foreigners from whom alien habits and principles are obtained. Hence the abhorrence of navigation and trade. This also explains the uselessness of Sesostris' attempts to make Egypt a warlike and trading nation although, if we can trust the dubious authority of Nymphodorus (Delle cose barbariche), he seems to have had greater success when his policy was to unnerve and emasculate the people.

(137) It is incorrect to speak about Egyptian `laws'. Egypt did not have civil laws, properly speaking, but ways of family life consecrated by religion, as we said about India. Such ways of life limited the power of the king and blocked government. Indeed, they impeded the constitution of perfect civil government. `The kingdom was hereditary,' says a historian too little regarded today. `But according to Diodorus (bk. 1), kings in Egypt did not behave as in other monarchies where the only principles of action were the ruler's own will and good pleasure. Egyptian kings were more strictly obliged than others to live according to laws.

There existed special laws, put together by a king, which formed part of what the Egyptians called sacred books. Thus everything was regulated by ancient custom; it never occurred to them to live differently from their ancestors.' — `I have already pointed out that the food and drink of the kings was regulated by laws which governed both quantity and quality. Only ordinary food was served at table; the aim was to satisfy their natural needs, not delight the palate. The laws would almost seem to have been dictated not by a legislator, but a conscientious doctor intent only on preserving the health of the ruler.' — `The best part of Egyptian laws was that everyone was trained mentally to observe them. A new custom in Egypt was something to be marvelled at (Plato, Tim.); everything was always done in the same way, and exactness in little things provided support for great things. There has never been a people which preserved its customs and laws for so long' (Rollin, Histoire Ancienne, t. 1). These characteristics show clearly that the so-called civil laws of Egypt were rather ways of life which had come to be written down. The legislator did not invent, but compiled or at most made a choice of what to write.

(138) In trading nations which used power as a means of wealth, the stage of power follows or rather depends on that of wealth, with which it mingles. We know, for instance, that the Phoenicians conquered several ports belonging to the Idumeans on the shores of the Gulf of Arabia; they also took possession of Rhinocolura on the Mediterranean. They did this to take advantage of the trade route to India (Diod. Sic., bk. 1; Strab., bk. 16). This was how trade led the nation to conquest.

(139) The historian Justin had some idea of the first two social stages. This is how he describes the initial stage of nations: `It is normal to defend rather than extend the boundaries of the empire. Kingdoms are all limited to their own countries.' Then comes the second stage, of which he wisely remarks: `When they have overcome their neighbours, the newly-acquired populations strengthen them for action against others. Each new victory provides the tools for the next until all the peoples of the East have been conquered (Bk. 1, c. 1). Nothing could be more exact. — Appian notes moreover that the wars undertaken by the Romans prior to the third Punic war were all defensive (De Bello Punic.). The duration of Rome's best period can therefore be measured exactly from the foundation of the city to the destruction of Carthage or to the war with Antioch, when the Romans grew wealthy and tasted the delights of Asia (607 AUC).

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