what the social structure was,
which--mainly, as I shall show, under the inspiration of Liberal
ideas--is slowly but surely giving place to the new fabric of the civic
State. The older structure itself was by no means primitive. What is
truly primitive is very hard to say. But one thing is pretty clear. At
all times men have lived in societies, and ties of kinship and of simple
neighbourhood underlie every form of social organization. In the
simplest societies it seems probable that these ties--reinforced and
extended, perhaps, by religious or other beliefs--are the only ones that
seriously count. It is certain that of the warp of descent and the woof
of intermarriage there is woven a tissue out of which small and rude but
close and compact communities are formed. But the ties of kinship and
neighbourhood are effective only within narrow limits. While the local
group, the clan, or the village community are often the centres of
vigorous life, the larger aggregate of the Tribe seldom attains true
social and political unity unless it rests upon a military organization.
But military organization may serve not only to hold one tribe together
but also to hold other tribes in subjection, and thereby, at the cost of
much that is most valuable in primitive life, to establish a larger and
at the same time a more orderly society. Such an order once established
does not, indeed, rest on naked force. The rulers become invested with a
sacrosanct authority. It may be that they are gods or descendants of
gods. It may be that they are blessed and upheld by an independent
priesthood. In either case the powers that be extend their sway not
merely over the bodies but over the minds of men. They are ordained of
God because they arrange the ordination. Such a government is not
necessarily abhorrent to the people nor indifferent to them. But it is
essentially government from above. So far as it affects the life of the
people at all, it does so by imposing on them duties, as of military
service, tribute, ordinances, and even new laws, in such wise and on
such principles as seem good to itself. It is not true, as a certain
school of jurisprudence held, that law is, as such, a command imposed by
a superior upon an inferior, and backed by the sanctions of punishment.
But though this is not true of law in general it is a roughly true
description of law in that particular stage of society which we may
conveniently describe as the Authoritarian.

No