ly, house, and tribe of the Romans may be taken as
a type of them, and they are so described to us that we can scarcely
help conceiving them as a system of concentric circles which have
gradually expanded from the same point. The elementary group is the
family, connected by common subjection to the highest male ascendant.
The aggregation of families forms the gens, or house. The aggregation
of houses makes the tribe. The aggregation of tribes constitutes the
commonwealth. Are we at liberty to follow these indications, and to lay
down that the commonwealth is a collection of persons united by common
descent from the progenitor of an original family? Of this we may at
least be certain, that all ancient societies regarded themselves as
having proceeded from one original stock, and even laboured under an
incapacity for comprehending any reason except this for their holding
together in political union. The history of political ideas begins, in
fact, with the assumption that kinship in blood is the sole possible
ground of community in political functions; nor is there any of those
subversions of feeling, which we term emphatically revolutions, so
startling and so complete as the change which is accomplished when some
other principle--such as that, for instance, of LOCAL
CONTIGUITY--establishes itself for the first time as the basis of
common political action.'

If this theory were true, the origin of politics would not seem a great
change, or, in early days, be really a great change. The primacy of the
elder brother, in tribes casually cohesive, would be slight; it would
be the beginning of much, but it would be nothing in itself; it would
be--to take an illustration from the opposite end of the political
series--it would be like the headship of a weak parliamentary leader
over adherents who may divide from him in a moment; it was the germ of
sovereignty,--it was hardly yet sovereignty itself.

I do not myself believe that the suggestion of Sir Henry Maine--for he
does not, it will be seen, offer it as a confident theory--is an
adequate account of the true origin of politics. I shall in a
subsequent essay show that there are, as it seems to me, abundant
evidences of a time still older than that which he speaks of. But the
theory of Sir Henry Maine serves my present purpose well. It describes,
and truly describes, a kind of life antecedent to our present politics,
and the conclusion I have drawn from it will be strengthened,