It is an extremely stable and persistent mode of life and of social organisation. So long as the geographical conditions remain unchanged, it is difficult to see how any change would take place in it, how any progress towards civilisation could begin. And, as a matter of fact, the people who have remained in these regions continue to lead just the same patriarchal, pastoral, nomadic life. Long ages of this mode of life may well put upon a people the stamp of sociability and communism and kill out individualism and individual initiative! Demolins points out in a very interesting way how these effects of the patriarchal system of the pastoral nomads are displayed most clearly still by the population of southern Russia, who, of all the settled European peoples descended from such pastoral nomads, have suffered fewest disturbing influences; how still the individual is subordinated to the community, to the _mir_, by which all private life and industrial activity is directed and which is the owner of the principal property, namely the land; and how, in consequence, the people remain devoid of all individual initiative and enterprise. The Celts arriving in Gaul retained these qualities and something of the patriarchal organisation, although they were no longer simply pastoral nomads; for, in the course of their migrations, they had been forced to take up agriculture and the rearing of other domestic animals, especially the pig, through lack of sufficient open steppe land. While in this disorganised condition in Gaul, they were overrun by tribes of the Nordic race, who established themselves as a conquering nobility, superimposing upon the rudimentary political organisation of the Celts a loose military organisation of clans; each clan was led by a popular warrior who attached to himself by his personal qualities as large as possible a number of clients or clansmen, acquiring rights over their land and property, in return for the patronage and protection he offered them. These nobles with their blood relatives were the tall fair-haired Gauls described by Caesar. The Celts lent themselves readily to this system based on personal loyalty and leadership, owing to their lack of independence of character engendered by long ages of the patriarchal communal régime. And the new social organisation fostered and developed still more through many generations the spirit of dependence, the tendency to look for authoritative guidance and control to some recognised centre of power. Under the two circumstances, the long régime of patriarchal communism and the subsequent prevalence for many generations of the clan system, we may see, according to Demolins, the causes of those deep-seated tendencies of the French nation (summed up by Buckle in the phrase the spirit of protection) which throughout their history have played so large a part in shaping the destinies of the people, and which are still the source of grave anxiety to many patriotic Frenchmen.