d not exist. These forms of government were more or less
blended, and it required centuries to distribute the various powers of
government into special departments and develop modern forms.

_In Primitive Society Religion Occupied a Prominent Place_.--While
kinship was first in order in the foundation of units of social
organization, religion was second to it in importance. {114} Indeed,
it is considered by able writers as the foundation of the family and,
as the ethnic state is but the expanded family, the vital power in the
formation of the state. Among the Aryan tribes religion was a
prominent feature of association. In the Greek household stood the
family altar, resting upon the first soil in possession of the family.
Only members of the household could worship at this shrine, and only
the eldest male members of the family in good standing could conduct
religious service. When the family grew into the gens it also had a
separate altar and a separate worship. Likewise, the tribe had its own
worship, and when the city was formed it had its own temple and a
particular deity, whom the citizens worshipped. In the ancient family
the worship of the house spirit or a deified ancestor was the common
practice. This practice of the worship of departed heroes and
ancestors, which prevailed in all of the various departments of old
Greek society, tended to develop unity and purity of family and tribe.
As family forms passed into political, the religion changed from a
family to a national religion.

Among the lower tribes the religious life is still most powerful in
influencing their early life. Mr. Tylor, in his valuable work on
_Primitive Culture_, has devoted a good part of two large volumes to
the treatment of early religious belief. While recognizing that there
is no complete definition of religion, he holds that "belief in
spiritual beings" is a minimum definition which will apply to all
religions, and, indeed, about the only one that will. The lower races
each had simple notions of the spiritual world. They believed in a
soul and its existence after death. Nearly all believed in both good
and evil spirits, and in one or more greater gods or spirits who ruled
and managed the universe. In this early stage of religious belief
philosophy and religion were one. The belief in the after life of the
spirit is evidenced by implements which were placed in the grave for
the use of the departed, and by food which was pl