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, not weakened, when we come to examine and deal with an