STUDIES IN CIVICS.




PRELIMINARY CHAPTER.


GOVERNMENT: WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT IS.

At the very beginning of our study, two questions naturally present
themselves: First. What is government? Second. Why do we have such a
thing?

These questions are much easier to ask than to answer. The wisest men of
the ages have pondered upon them, and their answers have varied widely.
Yet we need not despair. Even boys and girls can work out moderately good
answers, if they will approach the questions seriously and with a
determination to get as near the root of the matter as possible.

Beginning without attempting an exact definition of government, because we
all have a notion of what it is, we notice that only certain animals are
government-forming. Among these may be mentioned the ant, the bee, and
man. The fox, the bear, and the lion represent the other class. If we
should make two lists, including in one all the animals of the first class
and in the other all those of the second class, we should make this
discovery, that government-forming animals are those which by nature live
together in companies, while the other class as a rule live apart. The
generalization reached is, that _only gregarious animals form
governments_. We would discover upon further investigation that the