even a religious one; but either, or both, are no doubt the outward expression of the subconsciousness of a commanding physical power. What we know of social evolution leads to the same conclusion. The strong influence of the blood tie in early society grew out of the family, which may be called the primitive political cell. Originally, in the family, the wife or wives, children and dependants had no separate rights; the individual man was socially and politically nobody. He had no recognized existence outside the family. He had no rights, nor was he subject to any obligations, apart from the family. He could not own property or make contracts, except through the family. All transactions were family affairs, and family dealt or warred with family, and not with its individual members. Sir Henry Maine says: "There was no brotherhood recognized by our savage forefathers, except actual consanguinity regarded as a fact. If a man was not of kin to another there was nothing between them." In the original family group the father was a despot. His power extended to life and death; he was the one who gave commands, who judged when they were violated, and who inflicted punishment. All the essential attributes of political government as now developed, executive, judicial and legislative, were there enfolded in the germ. As the family grew, it became what in India is known as the Joint-Undivided Family; that is, the numerous descendants of a common ancestor constitute a family association, in which, as in the simple family, the individual is merged. In these larger families, the places of honor are reserved for those of the purest blood, who are those most directly allied to the founder. In the earlier stages of society members were taken into the family by the fiction of adoption; enemies were captured and made slaves, or whole tribes were conquered, which, frequently for purposes of protection, were also adopted. Always, however, there was first the fact and then the theory of the blood tie. Tribes were aggregated and grew into small nations or states, and thence into larger ones. When the little primitive community expanded into the village, paternal despotism in the family still continued. Sir Henry Maine further recounts, that in the Teutonic village communities each family in the township was governed by its own free head, or palerfamilias. The precinct of the family dwelling house could be entered by nobody but himself and those under his patria potestas, not even by officers of the law, for he himself made laws within and enforced laws made without." Here is the sovereign state in embryo. It is true that, in the earlier stages of society, the popular imagination invested the ruler with divine attributes and authority, and we know that much of the obedience to kingly authority arose out of this superstition. This was the motive only; the fact remains unaffected by it, that then there was one man who was recognized by all as expressing the national will, and who could wield the national force. The motives which at this day induce free, civilized men cheerfully to contribute their forces to carry out the will of the nation may be more intelligent, but after all, as in primitive days, they are only influences which may, more or less, control the formation and expression of the national will and use of the national force, but are not themselves either of those factors in the life of the state. There is this to be noted with reference both to the will and the force of the group, that in the simpler communities they act more directly than in highly civilized states. In the primitive family, the father called up the offender, tried, condemned, and punished him immediately. In the tribe the common assemblage, with almost equal swiftness, adjudicated and inflicted the penalty, and we know that in the semi-civilized despotisms of Asia and Africa, the action of the central power on offenders seems to us startlingly direct and sudden. Our more indirect way of using the general force to accomplish political and social ends is the consequence of that specialization which inevitably follows upon advancing civilization. On the economical side of life, we see every day that very few persons expend their forces directly upon the object which is the ultimate aim of their efforts. The mechanic, whose desire is to obtain a coat, will have to work a certain length of time, perhaps at laying a brick wall, in order to get sufficient money to buy the needed article. An analysis will show that his individual force has distributed itself through many channels before it produces the object of his desire. So in the political relations, there is a division of labor, and in the highly developed nation, the general force is usually set in motion, and reaches its object only by a series of indirect methods. In a simple democracy, the people would assemble, adopt the needed law instantly, and perhaps execute it with equal celerity; but in a representative republic, many instrumentalities have to be used before the law can be enacted, and before the force of the nation can be brought to bear to compel its execution. CHAPTER VI. LOCAL POWERS. THE nation is in structure a fusion and expansion of a series of units, which were originally little sovereignties, and which in their new relations as departments, or counties, or municipalities, retain portions of their old sovereign powers. Thus the nation consists, as it were, of a series of political circles through which its power is distributed. Local institutions find their beginnings in these units. National institutions are the instrumentalities which come into existence because of the aggregation of the units. syno Thus far the nation has been considered as the nym of the sovereign state, and as a homogeneous organic being; as one body with one will, and a common force. In such a state, theoretically, the central national will would be expressed by the authorized person or body of persons directly on all the relations existing between the individuals of the state with reference to which the national will had power to express itself. There would be one central administration which would act directly upon everybody, as we might suppose would be the case in a pure despotism where there are no laws except the will of the despot for the time being. In fact, however, very few sovereign states have ever existed which were not, historically considered, an accretion of what may be called political units. Every nation is socially a growth, and politically, in part, a welding together of units of various sizes, and in part an expansion of these original units. It must, however, always be borne in mind that the unit is not the man, but a group of men. Speaking of the politics of the Greeks in the earliest stages of authentic Hellenic history, Grote says that, in respect to political sovereignty complete disunion was among their most cherished principles. The only source of supreme authority to which a Greek felt respect and attachment was to be sought within the walls of his own city." "Political disunion-sovereign authority within the city walls-thus formed a settled maxim in the Greek mind. The relation between one city and another was an international relation, not a relation subsisting between members of a common political aggregate. Moreover, "the Roman territory was divided in the earliest times into a number of clan districts. * Every Italian, and doubtless, also, every Hellenic canton, must, like that of Rome, have been divided into a number of groups associated at once by locality, and by clanship. Such a clan settlement is the 'house' of the Greeks. The corresponding Italian terms 'house' or 'building' indicate, in like manner, the joint settlements of the members of a clan, and these come by easily understood transition to signify, in common use, hamlet or village." "These customs accordingly having their rendezvous in some stronghold, and including a certain number of clanships, form the primitive political unities with which Italian history begins." And, according to Sir Henry Maine, "the true view of India, is that, as a whole, it is divided into a vast number of independent, self-acting, organized social groups—trading, manufacturing, cultivating." In England, says Stubbs, “the "History of Greece," ii., 257. "Mommsen, History of Rome," i., pp. 63, 65. |