chief is very like all the rest of the tribe, lives in the same style,
provides for his own wants in the same way, has no special
privileges--is merely a chief or leader, and nothing more. And
afterward, when he may have acquired some degree of authority, that
authority is purely of a military character--civil government is not yet
born. Usage comes at length to confirm the chief's right, and human
selfishness works out its legitimate results: smaller men are dwarfed,
as occasion permits, in order that the one who is greatest may be
magnified. His office becomes hereditary, and his family is, at length,
fabled to have descended from the gods. This is the tendency of
primitive ignorance and superstition: there must be a sensual object for
the blind veneration of sensual minds; and the imagination readily
provides this, by attributing to the progenitors of their chiefs vast
corporeal forms, great strength and skill, undaunted courage, and
success in amorous intrigue--the perfection of those qualities which
they themselves most covet. Their chiefs or petty kings are now such by
divine origin; and when civil relations become developed, one man
combines within himself all the prerogatives of civil, military, and
religious government.

The ambition and turbulence of the chief or petty king and of his people
bring them into hostile conflict with other tribes or petty states; and
when victorious, they appropriate the conquered territory, and
annihilate, enslave, or extend their rule over the vanquished people.
This warlike encroachment and increase of power alarm other states, and
they form confederacies or leagues more or less intimate and permanent
for resistance and mutual protection. Thus does the unitizing element of
government gather strength with the progress of political movement.

The ambitious chieftain, having acquired greater power than his
neighbors, conceives of further aggrandizement, undertakes new
conquests, attacks the weak, and adds other states to his own, till in
time he may have made himself a great sovereign and won a great kingdom.
These new conquests impose additional cares on the ruler; but he uses
the tools of his power to execute his will; he governs his kingdoms with
absolute sway, as a general governs his army; it is a military despotism
of the simplest structure, and all prerogatives and interests are merged
in and subservient to this one. The civil function is not yet developed
as distinct fro