Principles of western civilisation

VI THE ASCENDENCY OF THE PRESENT 165

the relationship of that bond to the institution of Ancestor Worship, on the one hand, and to an immense period of military development in the still earlier past, on the other.

Within these early tribal groups, each of which existed quite apart and independent of the others, we find the members held together under conditions of most extraordinary severity. The privilege of membership of the group is hedged round with the most jealous precautions, Admission from the outside is almost impossible, or is at best permitted only under the most rare and exceptional circumstances or conditions; and the theory underlying the membership of the groups is invariably that of blood-relationship, to which is attached a religious significance of the first importance.

When we inquire what is the nature of this significant blood-relationship, we have in view at once the source from whence springs the entire conception of citizenship, with its peculiarly exacting demands, its unexampled exclusiveness, and its extraordinary potency and efficiency as a principle in human evolution. The tribal groups, it has been said, are religious communities of the strictest type. But the relationship of the communities to the deities who are worshipped is always the same. These deities invariably appear as gods or deified heroes, from whom direct descent is claimed by the whole group. This is the origin of the conception of bloodrelationship, to which is attached a religious significance of the first importance. It is from this conception that there springs, naturally and inevitably, the institution of a citizenship to which is attached a sense of exclusiveness and of superiority to all