Note 91 — Chapter III · —Society And State In Relation To The Land

A tribe of hunters can never be more than a small horde, because the simple, monotonous savage economy permits no concentration of population, no division of labor except that between the sexes, and hence no evolution of classes. The common economic level of all is reflected in the simple social organization,91 which necessarily has little cohesion, because the group must be prepared to break up and scatter in smaller divisions, when its members increase or its savage supplies decrease even a little. Such primitive groups cannot grow into larger units, because these would demand more roots sent down into the sustaining soil; but they multiply by fission, like the infusorial monads, and thereafter lead independent existences remote from each other. This is the explanation of multiplication of dialects among savage tribes.