The guilds could only have been successful in their resistance to all these menaces if they had possessed plasticity, flexibility in adapting themselves, a desire for reformation, an eagerness to fall in with every new demand society might make, a spirit of continuity, unity, and justice,--in fact, such a combination of strong and great qualities as is rarely to be met with in the history of human institutions. We shall find that, instead of this, they allowed their inherent faults and failings, which we have already discovered in germ, to develop at the very height of their prosperity. It will be seen at a glance that three things grew up in their midst: _a lack of solidarity between those who occupied the various degrees of the hierarchy_; _divisions between the different craft guilds_; _and a narrow traditionalism which could not even ensure the good quality of products_. Let us trace the disastrous effects of these three dissolvent forces. I. _Division in the heart of the Guilds._--(_a_) In principle there existed in the guild a hierarchy which justified its own existence. It was founded on age and election. On the one hand, an inequality which time corrected every day and finally did away with. Adolescence was the age of apprenticeship; early manhood that of the journeyman; maturity that of mastership; and a man's earnings, independence, and power increased not only with the years, but according to his talent and capabilities. On the other hand--and here we have a still more provisional inequality--the elected officers received for a few months only, a power which they exercised under strict control, and then went modestly back into the ranks. This order of things, however, was soon upset by the growing domination of hereditary power and of wealth.