tion to get as near the root of the matter as possible.

Beginning without attempting an exact definition of government, because we
all have a notion of what it is, we notice that only certain animals are
government-forming. Among these may be mentioned the ant, the bee, and
man. The fox, the bear, and the lion represent the other class. If we
should make two lists, including in one all the animals of the first class
and in the other all those of the second class, we should make this
discovery, that government-forming animals are those which by nature live
together in companies, while the other class as a rule live apart. The
generalization reached is, that _only gregarious animals form
governments_. We would discover upon further investigation that the
greater the interdependence of the individuals, the more complex the
government.

Confining our attention now to man, whose government is the most complex,
we may put our generalization into this form: Man establishes government
because _by nature he is a social being_. This may be taken as the
fundamental reason. Let us now proceed to trace the relation between cause
and effect.

In order that people may go from place to place to meet others for
pleasure or business, roads are needed. Some of these roads may cross
streams too deep for fording, so bridges must be provided. These things
are for the good of all; they are public needs, and should be provided by
the public. But "what is every body's business is nobody's business." It
follows that the public must appoint certain persons to look after such
things. By the act of appointing these persons, society becomes to that
extent organized. We see, then, that society organizes in order to provide
certain public improvements, _to carry on certain public works_.

For his own preservation, man is endowed with another quality, namely,
selfishness. Sometimes this is so strong in a person as to cause him to
disregard the rights of others. By experience man has learned that _every_
person is interested in seeing that conflicting claims are settled on a
better basis than that of the relative strength of the contestants. In
other words, all are interested in the prevalence of peace and the
rightful settlement of disputes. That this work may surely be done, it is
obvious that society must appoint certain persons to attend to it; that
is, society organizes _to establish justice._

Communities take their character from that of the