Barbarism

It may seem at first sight unjustifiable to describe ancient 
cultures of this kind as barbaric. But barbarism in the sense 
in which we are using the word is by no means the same thing 
as savagery. It is applied to any stage of social develop- 
ment which has not acquired the higher organisation of a 
settled urban and territorial state — in short, to the culture 
of the tribe as against that of the city. The essence of bar- 
baric society is that it rests on the principle of kinship 
rather than on that of citizenship or that of the absolute 
authority of the state. It is true that kinship is not the 
only element in tribal society; in practically every case the 
territorial and the military factors also intervene. But 
whereas in a civilised state the unit is the individual or the 
economic group, the unit of tribal society is the group 
of kinsmen. A man's rights depend not on his direct relation 
to the state, but on his position in the kindred, and in the 
same way crime is not conceived as an offence against the 
state, but as an occasion of feud or negotiation between two 
groups of kinsfolk. The guilt of blood lies on the whole 
kindred of the slayer and must be atoned by compensa- 
tion to the kindred of the slain. It is true that the 
higher political unit of the tribe or clan does not necessarily 
consist of men of common blood, though they are apt to 
claim such unity by some genealogical fiction. It is usu- 
ally a territorial or military union of groups of kinsmen. 

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