w, in the greater part of the world and throughout the greater part of
history the two forms of social organization that have been
distinguished are the only forms to be found. Of course, they themselves
admit of every possible variation of detail, but looking below these
variations we find the two recurrent types. On the one hand, there are
the small kinship groups, often vigorous enough in themselves, but
feeble for purposes of united action. On the other hand, there are
larger societies varying in extent and in degree of civilization from a
petty negro kingdom to the Chinese Empire, resting on a certain union of
military force and religious or quasi-religious belief which, to select
a neutral name, we have called the principle of Authority. In the lower
stages of civilization there appears, as a rule, to be only one method
of suppressing the strife of hostile clans, maintaining the frontier
against a common enemy, or establishing the elements of outward order.
The alternative to authoritarian rule is relapse into the comparative
anarchy of savage life.

But another method made its appearance in classical antiquity. The city
state of ancient Greece and Italy was a new type of social organization.
It differed from the clan and the commune in several ways. In the first
place it contained many clans and villages, and perhaps owed its origin
to the coming together of separate clans on the basis not of conquest
but of comparatively equal alliance. Though very small as compared with
an ancient empire or a modern state it was much larger than a primitive
kindred. Its life was more varied and complex. It allowed more free play
to the individual, and, indeed, as it developed, it suppressed the old
clan organization and substituted new divisions, geographical or other.
It was based, in fact, not on kinship as such, but on civic right, and
this it was which distinguished it not only from the commune, but from
the Oriental monarchy. The law which it recognized and by which it lived
was not a command imposed by a superior government on a subject mass. On
the contrary, government was itself subject to law, and law was the life
of the state, willingly supported by the entire body of free citizens.
In this sense the city state was a community of free men. Considered
collectively its citizens owned no master. They governed themselves,
subject only to principles and rules of life descending from antiquity
and owing their force to the sp