Even before authentic history begins, the elements of religion and society had already crystallized into a solid coherent structure which was to persist without essential modification. Religion was inseparable from ordinary life, and, like that of all peoples who are dependent on the fruits of the earth, was a nature-worship. The tie between deities and worshippers was regarded as physical and entailed mutual obligations. The study of the clan-group as an organization is as instructive here as in other fields. The members of each group lived on terms of equality, the families forming a society of worship the rites of which were conducted by the head. Such groups (each with its local deity) would combine for definite purposes under the impulse of external needs, but owing to inevitable internal jealousies and the incessant feuds among a people averse from discipline and authority, the unions were not necessarily lasting. The elders of these groups possessed some influence, and tended to form an aristocracy, which took the lead in social life, although their authority generally depended merely upon custom. Individual leaders in times of stress acquired a recognized supremacy, and, once a tribe outstripped the rest, the opportunities for continued advance gave further scope to their authority. "The ... interminable feuds of tribes, conducted on the theory of blood-revenge, can seldom be durably healed without the intervention of a third party who is called in as arbiter, and in this way an impartial and wise power acquires of necessity a great and beneficent influence over all around it" (W. R. Smith). In time, notwithstanding a certain inherent individualism and impatience of control, veritable despotisms arose in the Semitic world, although such organizations were invariably liable to sudden collapse as the old forms of life broke down with changing conditions.[1]