th increasing power
there came greater weight of responsibility, heavier burden of duty; and
the freest in those civilisations were the poorest. Those who were
regarded as the children of the national household were ever cared for
with extremest care. The very fact that they were the lowest in
development gave them the greatest claim on the divine Man who ruled, so
that all through the note of those civilisations is the note which
to-day would be called socialistic--with one enormous difference, that
the most wise ruled. The result, in a sense, would be the result that
the Socialist dreams of, the absence of poverty, the universality of
some form of work done for the State as a whole, a duty of each man to
bear a share of the burden; but the burden grew lighter and lighter as
it came downwards to the younger members of the family, of the nation;
the duty the most burdensome was placed on the highest. And you will
find that, while still the tradition remained, it was very difficult
sometimes to get rulers and governors of large States and small. It
comes out in the Chinese books. The Emperor sends down word that
So-and-so is to be governor of a State, and So-and-so, in those
degenerate days, generally tried to escape from it, because of the
tremendous burden that the governorship imposed. For in the case of the
old Rulers, in the days when the divine Kings were the Kings and Priests
of the people, anything that was wrong in the nation was related to the
Ruler, and not to the people at large. Remember the words of one great
Teacher of later days, Confucius, when a King turned to him and said:
"Master, why is there robbery, why is there murder in my land? How shall
I stop it?" His stern answer was: "If you, O King, did not steal and
murder, there would be no robbery and no murder in your land." Always
the highest with the weight of responsibility; the younger with the
right to enjoy, to be happy, to be cared for. Where food was short, they
were the last to starve, and the King the first; where anything went
short of material things, they were the first to be given their share,
and the King the last. Such was the outline of the social organisation.
Slight traces of it remain even to the present day. You can see traces
of it in the civilisation that was destroyed in Peru by the conquerors,
the Spanish conquerors, of that land. Some traces of it still remain in
India, although degraded and decayed. The note is always the same: