The authority of the patriarch was a part of the religion of the early Aryans; he was at once the ruler and the priest of his family; and though this union between the two characters long continued to have great influence on the conception of law, the first efforts at a distinction between Divine and human commands sprang from the regulations adopted by the assembly of the village. The complete equality and the joint authority exercised by its members was an education in self-government, which was needed to enable them to advance in the path of civilization, teaching them the importance of self-dependence and individual responsibility. Those who learnt that lesson best displayed in their history the greatness of its influence, having gained from it a vigour and readiness to meet and adapt themselves to new requirements such as was never possessed by those absolute monarchies which sprang out of an enlarged form of the principle of patriarchal government. The history of the various states which arose in Asia, each in its turn to be overwhelmed in a destruction which scarcely left a trace of its social influence, exhibits in a very striking manner the defects which necessarily ensue when a people ignorant of social arts attempts to form an extensive scheme of government. The various races who have risen to temporary empire by the chances of war in the East, have been in very many instances nomadic tribes whose habits had produced a hardihood which enabled them to conquer with ease their effeminate neighbours of the more settled districts, but whose social state was not sufficiently advanced to allow them to carry on any extended rule. Used only to their simple nomadic life, they were suddenly brought face to face with wants and possessions of which they had hitherto had no experience, and which lay beyond the bounds of their customs or ideas. They contented themselves with exacting from the conquered such tribute as they could extort, leaving their new subjects to manage their own affairs much as they had done before, till the conquerors, gradually corrupted by the luxuries which their position afforded, and having failed to make for themselves any firm footing in their new empire, were in their turn overwhelmed by fresh hordes of nomadic invaders.