Nowadays, we all are members of a "state."

We may be French or Chinese or Russians; we may live in the furthest corner of Indonesia (do you know where that is?), but in some way or other we belong to that curious combination of people which is called the "state."

It does not matter whether we recognize a king or an emperor or a president as our ruler. We are born and we die as a small part of this large Whole, and no one can escape this fate.

The "state," as a matter of fact, is quite a recent invention.

The earliest inhabitants of the world did not know what it was.

Every family lived and hunted and worked and died for and by itself. Sometimes it happened that a few of these families, for the sake of greater protection against the wild animals and against other wild people, formed a loose alliance which was called a tribe or a clan. But as soon as the danger was past, these groups of people acted again by and for themselves and if the weak could not defend their own cave, they were left to the mercies of the hyena and the tiger and nobody was very sorry if they were killed.

In short, each person was a nation unto himself, and he felt no responsibility for the happiness and safety of his neighbor. Very, very slowly this was changed, and Egypt was the first country where the people were organized into a well-regulated empire.

The Nile was directly responsible for this useful development. I have told you how in the summer of each year, the greater part of the Nile valley and the Nile delta is turned into a vast inland sea. To derive the greatest benefit from this water and yet survive the flood, it had been necessary at certain points to build dikes and small islands which would offer shelter for man and beast during the months of August and September. The construction of these little artificial islands however had not been simple.

A single man or a single family or even a small tribe could not construct a river-dam without the help of others.

However, much a farmer might dislike his neighbors, he disliked getting drowned even more and he was obliged to call upon the entire country-side when the water of the river began to rise and threatened him and his wife and his children and his cattle with destruction.

Necessity forced the people to forget their small differences, and soon the entire valley of the Nile was covered with little combinations of people who constantly worked together for a common purpose and who depended upon each other for life and prosperity.

Out of such small beginnings grew the first powerful State.

It was a great step forward along the road of progress.

It made the land of Egypt a truly inhabitable place. It meant the end of lawless murder. It assured the people greater safety than ever before and gave the weaker members of the tribe a chance to survive. Nowadays, when conditions of absolute disorder exist only in small pockets around the globe, it is hard to imagine a world without laws and policemen and judges and doctors and hospitals and schools.

But five thousand years ago, Egypt stood alone as an organized state and was greatly envied by those of her neighbors who were obliged to face the difficulties of life single-handedly.

A state, however, is not only composed of citizens.

There must be a few men who execute the laws and who, in case of an emergency, take command of the entire community. Therefore, no country has ever been able to endure without a single head, be he called a King or an Emperor or a Supreme Leader or a President, as he is called in our own land.

In ancient Egypt, every village recognized the authority of the Village-Elders, who were old men and possessed greater experience than the young ones. These Elders selected a strong man to command their soldiers in case of war and to tell them what to do when there was a flood. They gave him a title which distinguished him from the others. They called him a King or a prince and obeyed his orders for their own common benefit.

Therefore, in the oldest days of Egyptian history, we find the following division among the people:

The majority are peasants.

All of them are equally rich and equally poor.

They are ruled by a powerful man who is the commander-in-chief of their armies and who appoints their judges and causes roads to be built for the common benefit and comfort.

He also is the chief of the police force and catches the thieves.

In return for these valuable services, he receives a certain amount of everybody's money which is called a tax. The greater part of these taxes, however, do not belong to the King personally. They are money entrusted to him to be used for the common good.

But after a short while a new class of people, neither peasants nor king, begins to develop. This new class, commonly called the nobles, stands between the ruler and his subjects.

Since those early days, it has made its appearance in the history of every country and it has played a great role in the development of every nation.

I must try and explain to you how this class of nobles developed out of the most commonplace circumstances of everyday life, and why it has maintained itself to this very day, against every form of opposition.

To make my story quite clear, I have drawn a picture.

It shows you five Egyptian farms. The original owners of these farms had moved into Egypt years and years ago. Each had taken a piece of unoccupied land and had settled down upon it to raise grain and cows and pigs and do whatever was necessary to keep themselves and their children alive. Apparently, they had the same chance in life.

How then, did it happen that one became the ruler of his neighbors and got hold of all their fields and barns without breaking a single law?

One day after the harvest, Mr. Fish (you see his name in hieroglyphics on the map) sent his boat loaded with grain to the town of Memphis to sell the cargo to the inhabitants of central Egypt. It happened to have been a good year for the farmer, and Fish got a great deal of money for his wheat. After ten days, the boat returned to the homestead, and the captain handed the money which he had received to his employer.

A few weeks later, Mr. Sparrow, whose farm was next to that of Fish, sent his wheat to the nearest market. Poor Sparrow had not been very lucky for the last few years. But he hoped to make up for his recent losses by a profitable sale of his grain. Therefore, he had waited until the price of wheat in Memphis should have gone a little higher.

That morning, a rumor had reached the village of a famine in the island of Crete. As a result, the grain in the Egyptian markets had greatly increased in value.

Sparrow hoped to profit through this unexpected turn of the market, and he bade his skipper to hurry.

The skipper handled the rudder of his craft so clumsily that the boat struck a rock and sank, drowning the mate who was caught under the sail.

Sparrow not only lost all his grain and his ship but he was also forced to pay the widow of his drowned mate ten pieces of gold to make up for the loss of her husband.

These disasters occurred at the very moment when Sparrow could not afford another loss.

Winter was near, and he had no money to buy cloaks for his children. He had put off buying new hoes and spades for such a long time, that the old ones were completely worn out. He had no seeds for his fields. He was in a desperate plight.

He did not like his neighbor, Mr. Fish, any too well, but there was no way out. He must go, and humbly he must ask for the loan of a small sum of money.

He called on Fish. The latter said that he would gladly let him have whatever he needed, but could Sparrow put up any sort of guarantee?

Sparrow said, "Yes." He would offer his own farm as a pledge of good faith.

Fish knew all about that farm. It had belonged to the Sparrow family for many generations. But the Father of the present owner had allowed himself to be terribly cheated by a Phoenician trader who had sold him a couple of "Phrygian Oxen" (nobody knew what the name meant) which were said to be of a very fine breed, which needed little food, and performed twice as much labor as the common Egyptian oxen. The old farmer had believed the solemn words of the impostor. He had bought the wonderful beasts, greatly envied by all his neighbors.

They had not proved a success.

They were very stupid, very slow, and exceedingly lazy, and within three weeks they had died from a mysterious disease.

The old farmer was so angry that he suffered a stroke, and the management of his estate was left to the son, who worked hard but without much result.

The loss of his grain and his vessel were the last straw.

Young Sparrow must either starve or ask his neighbor to help him with a loan.

Fish who was familiar with the lives of all his neighbors (he was that kind of person, not because he loved gossip but one never knew how such information might come in handy) and who knew to a penny the state of affairs in the Sparrow household, felt strong enough to insist upon certain terms. Sparrow could have all the money he needed upon the following condition. Sparrow must promise to work for Fish six weeks of every year, and Sparrow must allow Fish free access to his grounds at all times.

Sparrow did not like these terms, but the days were growing shorter, winter was coming on fast, and his family was without food.

He was forced to accept, and from that time on, he and his sons and daughters were no longer quite as free as they had been before.

They did not exactly become the servants or the slaves of their neighbor, but they were dependent upon his kindness for their own livelihood. When they met Fish in the road, they stepped aside and said "Good morning, sir." And he answered them, or not, as the case might be.

Fish now owned a great deal of waterfront, twice as much as before.

Fish had more land and more laborers, and he could raise more grain than in the past years. The nearby villagers talked of the new house he was building, and in a general way, he was regarded as a man of growing wealth and importance.

Late that summer an unheard-of-thing happened.

It rained.

The oldest inhabitants could not remember such a thing, but it rained hard and steadily for two whole days. A little brook, the existence of which everybody had forgotten, was suddenly turned into a wild torrent. In the middle of the night, it came thundering down from the mountains and destroyed the harvest of the farmer who occupied the rocky ground at the foot of the hills. His name was Cup, and he too had inherited his land from a hundred other Cups who had gone before. The damage was almost irreparable. Cup needed new seed grain, and he needed it at once. He had heard Sparrow's story. He too hated to ask a favor of Fish, who was known far and wide as a shrewd dealer. But in the end, he found his way to Fish's homestead and humbly begged for the loan of a few bushels of wheat. He got them, but not until he had agreed to work two whole months of each year on the farm of Fish.

Fish was now doing very well. His new house was ready, and he thought the time had come to establish himself as the head of a household.

Just across the way, there lived a farmer who had a young daughter. The name of this farmer was Knife. He was a happy-go-lucky person, and he could not give his child a large dowry.

Fish called on Knife and told him that he did not care for money. He was rich, and he was willing to take the daughter without a single penny. Knife, however, must promise to leave his land to his son-in-law in case he died.

This was done.

The will was duly drawn up before a notary, the wedding took place, and Fish now possessed (or was about to possess) the greater part of four farms.

It is true there was a fifth farm situated right in between the others. But its owner, by the name of Sickle, could not carry his wheat to the market without crossing the lands over which Fish held sway. Besides, Sickle was not very energetic, and he willingly hired himself out to Fish on condition that he and his old wife be given a room and food and clothes for the rest of their days. They had no children, and this settlement assured them a peaceful old age. When Sickle died, a distant nephew appeared who claimed a right to his uncle's farm. Fish had the dogs turned loose on him, and the fellow was never seen again.

These transactions had covered a period of twenty years.

The younger generations of the Cup and Sickle and Sparrow families accepted their situation in life without questioning. They knew old Fish as "the Squire" upon whose goodwill they were more or less dependent if they wanted to succeed in life.

When old Fish died, he left his son many wide acres and a position of great influence among his immediate neighbors.

Young Fish resembled his father. He was very able and had a great deal of ambition. When the king of Upper Egypt went to war against the wild Berber tribes, he volunteered his services.

He fought so bravely, that the king appointed him Collector of the Royal Revenue for three hundred villages.

Often it happened that certain farmers could not pay their tax.

Then young Fish offered to give them a small loan.

Before they knew it, they were working for the Royal Tax Gatherer, to repay both the money which they had borrowed and the interest on the loan.

The years went by, and the Fish family reigned supreme in the land of their birth. The old home was no longer good enough for such important people.

A noble hall was built (after the pattern of the Royal Banqueting Hall of Thebes). A high wall was erected to keep the crowd at a respectful distance, and Fish never went out without a bodyguard of armed soldiers.

Twice a year, he travelled to Thebes to be with his King, who lived in the largest palace of all Egypt and who was therefore known as "Pharaoh," the owner of the "Big House."

Upon one of his visits, he took Fish the Third, grandson of the founder of the family, who was a handsome young fellow.

The daughter of Pharaoh saw the youth and desired him for her husband. The wedding cost Fish most of his fortune, but he was still Collector of the Royal Revenue and by treating the people without mercy, he was able to fill his strong-box in less than three years.

When he died, he was buried in a small Pyramid, just as if he had been a member of the Royal Family, and a daughter of Pharaoh wept over his grave.

That is my story which begins somewhere along the banks of the Nile and which in the course of three generations lifts a farmer from the ranks of his own humble ancestors and drops him outside the gate but near the throne-room of the King's palace.

What happened to Fish, happened to a large number of equally energetic and resourceful men.

They formed a class apart.

They married each other's daughters, and in this way, they kept the family fortunes in the hands of a small number of people.

They served the King faithfully as officers in his army and as collectors of his taxes.

They looked after the safety of the roads and the waterways.

They performed many useful tasks, and among themselves they obeyed the laws of a very strict code of honor.

If the Kings were bad, the nobles were apt to be bad too.

When the Kings were weak, the nobles often managed to get hold of the State.

Then it often happened that the people arose in their wrath and destroyed those who oppressed them.

Many of the old nobles were killed, and a new division of the land took place which gave everybody an equal chance.

But after a short while, the old story repeated itself.

This time, it was perhaps a member of the Sparrow family who used his greater shrewdness and industry to make himself master of the countryside, while the descendants of Fish (of glorious memory!) were reduced to poverty.

Otherwise, very little was changed.

The faithful peasants continued to work and pay taxes.

The equally faithful tax gatherers continued to gather wealth.

But the old Nile, indifferent to the ambitions of men, flowed as placidly as ever between its age-worn banks and bestowed its fertile blessings upon the poor and upon the rich with the impartial justice which is found only in the forces of nature.