The "state," as a matter of fact, is quite a recent invention.

The earliest inhabitants of the world did not know what it was.

Every family lived and hunted and worked and died for and by itself.
Sometimes it happened that a few of these families, for the sake of
greater protection against the wild animals and against other wild
people, formed a loose alliance which was called a tribe or a clan. But
as soon as the danger was past, these groups of people acted again by
and for themselves and if the weak could not defend their own cave, they
were left to the mercies of the hyena and the tiger and nobody was very
sorry if they were killed.

In short, each person was a nation unto himself and he felt no
responsibility for the happiness and safety of his neighbor. Very, very
slowly this was changed and Egypt was the first country where the people
were organized into a well-regulated empire.

The Nile was directly responsible for this useful development. I have
told you how in the summer of each year the greater part of the Nile
valley and the Nile delta is turned into a vast inland sea. To derive
the greatest benefit from this water and yet survive the flood, it had
been necessary at certain points to build dykes and small islands which
would offer shelter for man and beast during the months of August and
September. The construction of these little artificial islands however
had not been simple.

[Illustration: THE YOUNG NILE.]

A single man or a single family or even a small tribe could not