ABSTRACT
In order to understand the differentiation of ranks in the progress of society, it is instructive to cast a glance over some factors which have a restrictive effect on the life of peoples with primitive technique and economics. It is especially important in this connexion to raise the question how the membership of the various associations is influenced. On the one hand, it is a question of how a certain technical process in given natural surroundings fixes the numbers of an association, while, on the other hand, we must take into consideration the fact that in consequence of increase in the population the associations may become numerically greater. In more advanced societies, above all, the practice of polygamy by rulers, and the existence in some quarters of organized concubinage and prostitution, have an unfavourable effect on the increase of the population.
