Although the opinion has been entertained, that from the earliest ages it was the exclusive privilege of the first-born to offer sacrifice, it appears most probable that the separate function of priesthood was, like other offices and professions, one of gradual formation. Whether the primitive institution of sacrifice was spontaneous or commanded, every man, that is to say, every head of a family, was, I shall assume, at first his own offerer or priest[527]. Then, as the household developed into the community, the priestly office, in the first stages of political society, as a matter of course appertained to the chief. He, by the necessity of natural order, originally united in his own person the great functions of 1. Father. 2. Teacher. 3. Priest. 4. King. 5. Proprietor. 6. Commander. The severance of these offices successively would arrive sooner or later, according as the progress made in numbers and wealth was rapid or slow. Concentration of employments in a single hand marks the primitive condition or retarded movement of society, while the division of labour is the sign of more speedy and more advanced development. Even the annals of the people of Israel furnish instances in which we trace, at periods when these offices had undergone division under divine authority, vestiges of their former union. It appears that, besides Moses, who consecrated Aaron and his sons by divine command, Joshua, Samuel, and Saul[528] on certain occasions offered sacrifice. The exclusive character of priesthood has been impressed upon it, under Divine Revelation, by positive ordinance, and for a special purpose[529]. _Order of Priests not Hellenic._ The Hellenes in Homer appear to exhibit it in its earlier state of union with the office of civil government; and the Pelasgians to display it as a function which has indeed become special and professional, but only on that self-acting principle which, in the progress of society, leads to division of labour. If we suppose the case of two races, one of them inhabiting a rude and barren country in a state of perpetual poverty and warfare, and then recently, by a descent upon more fertile soils, brought into contact with civilised life: the other of them addicted from a much earlier period to pursuits of peace and industry, inhabiting plains, and accustomed to form agricultural settlements; there will be no cause for wonder upon our also finding that the latter of these races has a professional priesthood, while the former has none; but that the sacrificial office remains in the private dwelling with the father of the family, and on public occasions with the head of the civil government.