In religion, in art, in all spheres of culture and politics, the mass of mankind in all hitherto known societies have not, except for transitory interludes, been preoccupied with the attainment of an immediate contact with the ultimate principles implicit in their beliefs and standards. The directly gratifying ends of particular actions, the exigencies of situations, considerations of individual and familial advantage, concrete moral maxims, concrete prescriptions and prohibitions, preponderate in the conduct of the majority of persons in most societies, large and small. The systemic coherence and the deeper and more general ground of beliefs and standards only intermittently hold their attention and touch on their passions. Ordinary life in every society is characterized by an unequal intensity of attachment to ultimate values, be they cognitive, moral, or aesthetic, and an unequal intensity of the need for coherence. Ordinary life shuns rigorous definition and consistent adherence to traditional or rational rules, and it has no need for continuous contact with the sacred. Ordinary life is slovenly, full of compromise and improvisation; it goes on in the “here and now”.

The rapidly mounting Occidental pressure that China felt after 1800, and her evident need of new devices to meet it, faced the Chinese intellectual with hard decisions. His reactions become more understandable if we consider them in the context of his history – a context of which he was particularly aware, since his training and his approach to political problems were strongly historical. His position had not always been as secure as it seemed ostensibly in 1800; his outlook and even his identity had undergone several transformations before he arrived at the Confucian orthodoxy of the Manchu period. Two centuries after Confucius, the dominant thinkers were power-oriented Legalists, eclipsed by the Confucians only after permanently discrediting themselves through their brutally oppressive methods of unifying government and thought. After the 2nd century, Confucian ardor declined; intellectual leadership (and an important share of political influence) had passed to essentially anti-political Taoists and anti-worldly Buddhists. The Confucianists of the 10th and 11th centuries established their intellectual primacy and unchallenged political leadership only through an intense ideological struggle with these rivals.

The Chinese scholar-official had long constituted a special type of iron-clad intelligentsia, firmly based on the Confucian tradition and accustomed to rule China with unchallenged authority. This tradition was threatened for the first time in 1838 with the outbreak of the “Opium” or First Anglo-Chinese War. Outwardly, this was a simple military defeat by a “barbarian” force on one frontier of China, remote from the capital and court at Peking. As such it was nothing new in Chinese history. Hsiung-nu, Toba Tartars, Mongols and Manchus had threatened and overrun Chinese borders through the centuries. To most articulate Chinese both this and successive assaults on China through the nineteenth century, were adequately explained by the traditional and reassuring formula.

This paper is intended merely to frame certain hypotheses and present some comparisons and contrasts which may stimulate discussion.

In the three societies considered in this essay, there are three quite different kinds of relation of religion to the state. In Iran, there came to be a church and, consequently, a church-state relationship. In India, there was the oddest of all embodiments of religion, one which was entirely sui generis. China had a dead minimum of religious organization distinct from the organization of state. It would not be true to say that there were never any ecclesiastical institutions in China, but they were non-existent during much of China's history and, during most of the time when they did exist, they were marginal to the society's main form. The outward observances of religion in China were always conducted chiefly by state personages as a part of their proper functions. China offers, in fact, an extreme case of possible relations between religion and government, a case at the opposite end of the spectrum from the end where Strayer finds those relations in Europe. Indian ecclesiastical institutions are, of course, to be found in the caste system. Through the caste system the Brahmans have exerted their immense authority. The origin of caste remains a matter of dispute and its relation with and effect upon the state remain obscure. The Iranian church came to be a solid and very formidable body, offering a most instructive comparison with the Christian church in Europe. But the Iranian church did not begin to emerge until the Parthian period, reaching its full development in the Sassanian era, from the third to the seventh centuries A.D.

Centralized bureaucratic polities can be defined as those political systems with the following major characteristics: first, the political sphere is relatively autonomous and distinct from other social institutions and second, there exist special permanent administrative organizations. We shall base our analysis on a number of pre-modern historical examples: the ancient Egyptian Empires, the Sassanid Empire of Persia, the Chinese Empires from the period of Han onwards, the Roman and Byzantine Empires, certain European countries (especially France) in the age of Absolutism, and the Spanish American Empire. Our purpose is to bring out the common characteristics of the political process in these historical societies, especially as it effects their continuity and stability. In the following pages we shall present some preliminary hypotheses and analyses about the political process in these polities. These hypotheses and analyses are derived from a larger and more detailed study which is in progress.

During the first millenium A.D. a series of states were formed by Turkic and Mongol peoples, the nomadic pastoralists of the Asian steppes - the Tatars of European and Chinese record. These political enterprises enlarged their scope and power during the period of a millenium, reaching a climax in the empire of Chingis Khan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; from this climactic achievement they have since declined. The social and political organization as well as the economy of these peoples are at once simple and complex, primitive and advanced. The characterization of this cultural world has been given focus in a sharp controversy, the controversy over the establishment and internal ordering of the political system.

The Institute of Pedagogy of the Spanish Higher Council of Scientific Research is undertaking an international enquiry into the organization of research in the historical sciences.

Under the auspices of UNESCO, social scientists of various disciplines and countries have held small meetings these past two years to discuss, plan and present research having to do with the general problem of peaceful co-existence. At the initial meeting, held in Geneva in 1956, it was decided to organize future sessions by academic discipline - meetings of economists, comparative jurists, of political scientists and sociologists. The sociologists' meeting was held in Moscow, January 6th to 12th, 1958. The International Sociological Association organized it; the Institute of Philosophy of the Soviet Academy of Science was host.