THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



NOVEMBER, 1880. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.* 



By HEEBERT SPENCER. 

 I. PEELIMINARY. 



THOUGHT and feeling can not be completely dissociated. Each 

 emotion has a more or less distinct framework of ideas ; and 

 each group of ideas is more or less suffused with emotion. There 

 are, however, great differences between their degrees of combination 

 under both of these aspects. We have some feelings which are vague 

 from lack of intellectual definition ; and others to which clear shapes 

 are given by the associated conceptions. At one time our thoughts 

 are distorted by the passion running through them ; and at another 

 time it is difficult to detect in them a trace of liking or . disliking. 

 Manifestly, too, in each particular case these components of the men- 

 tal state may be varied in their proportions. The ideas being the 

 same, the emotion joined with them may be greater or less ; and it 

 is a familiar truth that the correctness of the judgment formed de- 

 pends, if not on the absence of emotion, still, on that balance of emo- 

 tions which negatives excess of any one. 



Especially is this so in matters concerning human life. There are 

 two ways in which men's actions, individual or social, may be re- 

 garded. AVe may consider them as groups of phenomena to be ana- 

 lyzed, and the laws of their dependence ascertained ; or, considering 

 them as causing pleasures or pains, we may associate with them appro- 

 bation or reprobation. Dealing with its problems intellectually, we 



* The references to facts cited in this article and succeeding ones will be given when 

 the articles reappear in their permanent shape. Allusions here and there occurring in 

 them, to matters not before the reader, must be understood as consequent on their conti- 

 nuity with writings already published. 



TOL. XVIII. 1 



