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leadership, or military government, limited to a war-expedition; but the only permanent government with which they are acquainted is domestic government. This is the state of things which Homer describes as existing among the Cyclopes, a fabulous race of giants, and which Plato and Aristotle cite as the type of primitive wildness. (5) Domestic government seems,

lages the jealousy of every warrior, of every savage, renders the situation of the chiefs as delicate as that of the head of a party in the most democratic state; theirs, in fact, is an extreme and terrible democracy' (p. 426). 'He told me that the assemblies of old men had no coercive power over the young; that the first mutinous or superstitious young warrior might in one morning excite a rising of young men,' &c. (p. 427.) Volney remarks that the state of society among the Bedouin Arabs is more advanced than among the North American Indians; inasmuch as the former have a real government (p. 446). The North American Indians have no property in land (p. 420, 434, 448). Mr. Bancroft (History of the United States, chap. 22, vol. iii. p. 274-9), assigns them a government in name, but his description denies it to them in substance.

Savages of a lower order than the red men of America are naturally without any government. On n'a vu chez les indigènes de la terre de Van-Diemen aucun genre d'organisation sociale. L'absence de subordination sociale, de culture et de richesses, abrège beaucoup l'examen des mœurs de ces insulaires; car il ne peut être question de leurs relations comme gouvernans et comme gouvernés, comme propriétaires et comme cultivateurs, comme maîtres et comme domestiques. Les seuls rapports sous lesquels on ait à les considérer, sont ceux qui résultent de l'état de famille, de l'état de communauté, et ceux qu'ils peuvent avoir avec d'autres peuplades, ou avec des hommes qui ne font point partie de leur association.-C. Comte, Traité de Législation, liv. iii. chap. 28.

Compare Aristotle, Eth. Nic. viii. 14: ἀνδρὶ δὲ καὶ γυναικὶ φιλία δοκεῖ κατὰ φύσιν ὑπάρχειν· ἄνθρωπος γὰρ τῇ φύσει συνδυαστικὸν μᾶλλον ἢ πολιτικὸν, ὅσῳ πρότερον καὶ ἀναγκαιότερον οἰκία πόλεως,

(4) 'Even after nations have chosen a military leader, they do not entrust him with any species of civil authority. The captain among the Caribbees did not pretend to decide in domestic disputes: the terms jurisdiction and government were unknown in their tongue.'-Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, p. 166.

(5) τοῖσιν δ ̓ οὔτ ̓ ἀγοραὶ βουληφόροι, οὔτε θέμιστες

ἀλλ ̓ οἶγ ̓ ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων ναίουσι κάρηνα

ἐν σπέσσι γλαφυροίσι

θεμιστεύει δὲ ἕκαστος

παίδων ἠδ ̓ ἀλόχων, οὐδ ̓ ἀλλήλων ἀλέγουσιν.

Odyss. ix. 112-115.

Plato refers to these verses as the type of the patriarchal life, before the existence of civil government (Leg. iii. 3, p. 680). Aristotle does the same, Polit. i. 2; Eth. Nic. x. 10. Also, Eurip. Cyclops, 117-20.

ΟΔ. τίνες δ' ἔχουσι γαῖαν ; ἢ θηρῶν γένος ;

ΣΕΙΛ. Κύκλωπες ἄντρ ̓ ἔχοντες, οὐ στέγας δόμων.
ΟΔ. τίνος κλύοντες; ἢ δεδήμευται κράτος ;
ΣΕΙΛ. νομάδες· ἀκούει δ ̓ οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδένος :

so far as our experience carries us, to have been the origin of political government.(6) The patriarchal rule over wives, children, and servants or slaves, at last produced a genuine political government over a small tribe; and if this power is associated with military successes, and the habitations of the people are fixed, the government becomes established. The community, having now emerged from the savage state, may be designated as barbarous: the people have rights of property, and other rights, enforced by some sort of judicature: the government is rude, but still it is a government.O

So Lucretius, in his account of the primitive state of mankind :-
Nec commune bonum poterant spectare, nec ullis
Moribus inter se scierant nec legibus uti.'

V. 955-6.

Compare the account of the actual state of the Bosjesmans, in Southern Africa :-'Il n'existe, parmi eux, aucune espèce de subordination sociale, quoiqu'on les rencontre quelquefois en troupes. Ils sont tellement isolés les uns des autres, qu'à côté de la caverne où vit une bête sauvage, on trouve une caverne dans laquelle vit la famille d'un Boschisman.' -C. Comte, Traité de Législation, liv. iii. c. 29.

(6) Nam cum sit hoc naturâ commune animantium, ut habeant lubidinem procreandi, prima societas in ipso conjugio est: proxima in liberis: deinde una domus, communia omnia. Id autem est principium urbis, et quasi seminarium reipublicæ. Sequuntur fratrum conjunctiones: post consobrinorum sobrinorumque, qui cum unâ domo jam capi non possint, in alias domos, tamquam in colonias, exeunt. Sequuntur connubia et affinitates; ex quibus etiam plures propinqui. Quæ propagatio, et soboles, origo est rerumpublicarum.'-Cic. de Offic. i. 17.

Aristotle describes a village as a combination of families, and a state or city as a combination of villages. He calls a village a colony of a family (Pol. i. 1). This view, however, is founded on the peculiar circumstances of Greece, where an important distinction existed between the open village and the walled town, the latter of which was necessary to independence. (See Müller's Dorians, iii. 4, § 8; Grote's History of Greece, vol. ii. p. 340-345.) According to Dion. Hal. i. 9, the aborigines of Italy lived in unwalled villages.

Whoever makes the presumptuous attempt to frame a distinct conception of the way in which states arose out of a foregoing order of things, where no civil society existed, is forced to mount up in thought to an age when such families as spring from one stock live in a patriarchal manner, united into a little community: such a community he considers as a house; and the coalition of these families, as the social compact, the formation of a state.'-Niebuhr, History of Rome, vol. i. p. 264, Engl. tr.

On patriarchal government, see Elphinstone's Account of Caubul, vol. i. p. 210, ed. 8vo, 1842.

(7) Ferguson (Essay on the History of Civil Society, part ii. sect. 2)

Now, whenever the essential marks of a sovereign government (viz. a habit of non-obedience on its own part to any political superior, and a habit of obedience to itself on the part of the people) can be discerned, an independent political community exists, however bad that government may be.

There are certain conditions for the existence of a government; there are certain conditions for its goodness; and these two are sometimes confounded. The confusion is similar to that which would arise in physiology, if the conditions of life were confounded with the conditions of health. It must not, therefore, be said that a harsh despotism, or an oppressive oligarchy, or an ill-regulated and violent democracy, is not a government, although it may be a bad government. (3) A political community,

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states that the history of mankind, in their rudest state, may be considered under two heads, viz., that of the savage who is not yet acquainted with property; and that of the barbarian, to whom it is-although not ascertained by laws-a principal object of care and desire.'

The distinction here made between the savage and the barbarous states of society resolves itself into the absence or presence of political government; for, without political government, property cannot exist. The distinction is an important one; and it would be convenient to apply the term savage to communities which are permanently in a state of anarchy, which ordinarily exist without government, and to apply the term barbarous to communities which, though in a rude state as regards the arts of life, are nevertheless ordinarily subject to a government. In this sense the North American Indians would be in a savage, while the Arab tribes, and most of the Asiatic nations, would be in a barbarous state. Montesquieu's distinction between savages and barbarians (Esprit des Lois, xviii. 11), is different in form; but in substance it is founded on the same principle. Hugh Murray (Enquiries respecting the Character of Nations and the Progress of Society, Edinburgh, 1808), lays it down (p. 230), that the savage form of society is without government.

(8) The sentiment that a despotism is not a government, and that a state thus governed is not a state at all, occurs in the Greek writers: thus, in Sophocl. Antig. 737, Hæmon says,

πόλις γὰρ οὐκ ἔσθ' ἥτις ἀνδρός ἐσθ ̓ ἑνός. According to Plat. (Leg. viii. 3, p. 832) democracy, oligarchy, and Tuparvis, are not constitutions, but factions.

Aristotle limits the name of Tоλireía-constitution or government-to a government which is administered according to law. Hence, when a democracy is administered, not according to laws, but by special arbitrary decrees-by a series of privilegia-he will not admit that it is a constitution.-Polit. iv. 4, ad fin.

The idea is most fully developed in the third book of Cicero's Republic, see c. 31-3. A summary of the entire argument is given by Augustine:

however ill it may be governed, is still a political community: a law, however mischievous it may be, is still a law. The evidence of positive facts must have weight, however bad may be the uses to which the power may be applied.

-7

The respublica, or commonwealth, must not be limited to communities which are governed for the common good, and where the bulk of the citizens have a share in the sovereign power. When, in any independent community, there is an exercise of power which combines the essential attributes of government, it ought to be admitted that a government exists, under whatever category of goodness or badness we may judge it to fall. To deny the existence of a government in such a case, is like denying the name of a church to a Christian communion because it is. not governed by bishops, or because it is deficient in some institution which another portion of the Christian world deems necessary for good ecclesiastical government: it is like limiting the appellation of rhetoric to those cases in which the art is used for a good purpose. (") Whenever, therefore, the essential conditions of political government exist, whether the powers be used in a manner deserving of praise or blame, we shall consider the subject as belonging to politics, and therefore as falling within the scope of this treatise.

$2 Some philosophers, seeing how much the principle of division of labour is promoted by regular government, have made

-Docet deinde quanta sit in disputando definitionis utilitas : atque ex illis suis definitionibus colligit, tunc esse rempublicam, id est rem populi, cum bene ac juste geritur, sive ab uno rege, sive a paucis optimatibus, sive ab universo populo. Cum vero injustus est rex, quem tyrannum, more Græco, appellavit; aut injusti optimates, quorum consensum dixit esse factionem; aut injustus ipse populus, cui nomen usitatum non reperit, nisi ut etiam ipsum tyrannum vocaret; non jam vitiosam, sicut pridie fuerat disputatum, sed, sicut ratio ex illis rationibus connexa docuisset, omnino nullam esse rempublicam : quoniam non esset res populi, cum tyrannus eam factione capesseret; nec ipse populus jam populus esset, si esset injustus, quoniam non esset multitudo juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociata, sicut populus fuerat definitus.'-De Civ. Dei, ii. 21. In like manner, Locke lays it down that absolute monarchy is 'no form of civil govern ment at all.'-On Government, b. ii. § 90.

(9) See Quintilian, ii. 15.

it the origin of civil society.(") If, however, we are to look for any one cause of political government over the entire world, war, or force, must be considered as having the best title; and not any voluntary arrangement, founded on the perception of a 'common utility. So far as the experience of savage tribes enables us to judge, patriarchal or family government is extended into political government by successful military expeditions, and the forcible subjugation of adjoining tribes under a common head? When this process has been completed, and submission has become a habit, a division of labour is gradually made under the teaching of experience. Men cease to provide for themselves the protection which they derive from the government; and they form gradually a distribution of labour, when they can reckon on such a degree of security of property as will enable them to preserve the superfluous produce of their own labour for exchange with the superfluous produce of the labour of others. The division of labour, therefore, is the first fruits of political government; and it tends, in return, to strengthen the institution to which it owes its existence. It re-acts upon the cause which gave it birth; but it cannot be considered as the origin of civil society.

(10) See Plat. (Rep. ii. 11, p. 369,) who traces the origin of government to the insufficiency of each man for the supply of his own wants, and to the measures which he in consequence adopts for associating with other persons to assist him. Aristotle (Pol. i. 2) likewise remarks, that a man who could not associate with others, or who was all-sufficient for his own wants, would form no part of a state : he would be either below or above human nature, and not a man- Onpiov Ocós.

Mr. Senior (Pol. Ec. p. 75) lays it down, that division of labour is the origin of civil society: The labour (he says) which every individual who relies on himself for protection must himself undergo, is more than sufficient to enable a few individuals to protect themselves, and also the whole of a numerous community. To this may be traced the origin of governments. The nucleus of every government must have been some person who offered protection in exchange for submission. On the governor, and those with whom he is associated, or whom he appoints, is devolved the care of defending the community from violence and fraud. And so far as internal violence is concerned-and that is the evil most dreaded in civilized society-it is wonderful how small a number of persons can provide for the security of multitudes.' M. Comte (Cours de Phil. Pos. tom. iv. p. 597-601) says, that the union of several families is a necessary condition for division of labour, and the first effect of political society.

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