Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-01-16
THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY
BY H. G. WELLS

one can gather. that was the general state Of
affairs in both Egypt and Babylonla
The idea was formerly entertained that
in Egypt there was fixity OF classes put
this appears to be a misconceptlon due to 9
misreading of Herodotus. The only exclusive
class in Egvpt which did not intermarry was
as in England today, the semi-dlVlng royal
family.
At various points in the social system
there were probably developments or ex-
clusiveness, an actual barring out oil inter-
lopers Artisans of particular crafts possess
ing secrets for example, have among all
races and in all ages tended to develop guild
organizations restricting the practice OF their
craft and tn marriage OF members OUTSIDE
their guild. Conquering people have also,
and especially when there were marked phys
ical differences of race, been disposedapto
keep themselves aIoof from the conquered
peoples and have developed an aristocratic
eXclusiyeness.
Such organizations of restriction upon
free intercourse have come and gone in great
variety in the history of all long-stand1ng
civilizations. The natural boundaries OF
function ware always there, but sometinF0,
they have been drawn sharply and la!G ~$ress
upon. and sometimes they have been made
little of.
Patrician and Plebeian
There has been a general tendency among
| the Aryan peoples to distinguish noble Cpa-
! trician) from common (plebeian) families:
| the traces of it are evident throughout the
| literature and life of Europe today, and it
has received a picturesque enforcement IN
the science" of heraldry. This tradition is
still active even in democratic America.
/ Germany. the most methodical of Euro,
pean countries, had in the middle ages very
clear conception of the fixity of such d1stlnc-
| tons Below the princes (who themselves
constituted an exclusive class which did not
marry beneath itself) there were the:
| (a) Knights the military and official
caste with heraldic coats-of-arms
| % and g The Bugerstand the merchants;
| shipping people, and artisans; and
Cd The Bauernstand the cultivating serfs
or peasants. e.
Medieval Germany went as far as any Of
| the western heirs of the first great c1v1liza%-
| tions toward a fixatiOn of classes. The idea
is far less congenial both to the Engl1sh-
speaking people and to the French and Ital1-
ans who by sort of instinct, favor free
movement from class to class.
| Such exclusive ideas began at first among,
| and were promoted chiefly by, the upper
classes but it is natural response and nat
ural Nemesis to such ideas that the mass OF
the excluded should presently range them
selves in antagonism to the
1t was in Germany. as we shall see in the
concluding chapters Of this story, that the
! conception of natural and necessary com
| fIfct. sthe class war;" between the miscella-
! neous multitudes of the disinherited ('the
class-conscous proletariat" of the Marxist)
! and the rulers and merchants first arose. 1t
| was an idea more acceptable to the Germt
| mind than to the British French a.ns
! But before We come to that conflict, we must
traverse a long history of many centuries.
Into Caste
Copyright, 1929