m the military. Only one idea pervades the government,
and that is the idea of absolute rule by brute force. Society has as yet
developed few elements, has but few interests and little functional
diversity; there are only two classes, the ruler and the ruled, the
masters and the slaves. There being but few political and social
interests to play among each other, there cannot be development for want
of activity; there can be little progress of any kind. Such are the
simple, unprogressive, one-idea governments which prevailed in the
earliest times of which we have any tolerably authentic record, and
which still prevail among half-civilized peoples.

Government is simply a growth, a development, and it must correspond to
the character of the people out of whose mental status it has sprung. If
the people are homogeneous in their mental structure, their social and
political interests must be correspondingly homogeneous and simple. The
more rude and primitive the minds of any people, the fewer are the
relations external to the individual which obtain among them. But when a
people, or a mixture of peoples, have developed great versatility of
mind, a great variety of tastes, propensities, aspirations, and
interests, their social and political institutions become
correspondingly heterogeneous and complex. Such are the social and
political systems of Middle and Western Europe. There was nothing of the
kind in the ancient world. Then the people were more simple and less
versatile in their mental habitudes; and a simple, though despotic
government was the inevitable outgrowth. Rome was but a military
despotism, and it conquered and ruled with military stringency. It was
not till the reign of Diocletian that the civil functions were divorced
from the military, and then only to a partial extent. It remained for
Constantine to carry out more fully what Diocletian had begun, and to
divide, or, if you please, to differentiate the governmental functions
to an extent which had been altogether unknown before.

The people of the provinces subject to Roman dominion had no recognized
rights, no voice in their own government, but were dominated by the
central power at Rome. The right of representation, so sacred in modern
times as an element of confederate policy, they did not desire nor
appreciate; for, when seven provinces of the south of Gaul were
commanded by the emperor Honorius to send a representation of their
chief men to the city of