298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



bodies ; since the coliesion of these implies greater fitness for con- 

 certed action, and more developed organization for achieving it. And, 

 similarly, these composite clusters must be to some extent consolidated 

 before the composition can be carried a stage further. Passing over 

 the multitudinous illustrations occurring among the uncivilized, it 

 will suffice if I refer to those given before,* and reenforce them by- 

 some which historic peoples have supplied. There is the fact that in 

 primitive Egypt the numerous small societies (which eventually be- 

 came the " nomes ") first united into the two aggregates. Upper Egypt 

 and Lower Egypt, which were afterward joined into one ; and the 

 fact that, in ancient Greece, villages became united to adjacent towns 

 before the towns became united into states, while this change preceded 

 the change which united the states with one another ; and the fact 

 that, in the old English period, small principalities were massed into 

 the divisions constituting the Heptarchy before these passed into some- 

 thing like a united whole. It is a principle in physics that, since the 

 force with which a body resists strains increases only as the squares of 

 its dimensions, while the strains which its own weight subject it to 

 increase as the cubes of its dimensions, its power of maintaining its in- 

 tegrity becomes relatively less as its mass becomes greater. Some- 

 thing analogous may be said of societies. Small aggregates only can 

 hold together while the cohesion is feeble, and successively larger ag- 

 gregates become possible only as the greater strains implied are met 

 by that greater cohesion which results from an adapted human nature, 

 and a resulting development of social organization. 



As social integration advances, the increasing aggregates exercise 

 increasing restraints over their units a truth which is the obverse of 

 the one just set forth, that the maintenance of its integrity by a larger 

 aggregate implies greater cohesion. The coercive forces by which 

 aggregates keep their units together are at first very slight, and, be- 

 coming extreme at a certain stage of social evolution, afterward relax 

 or, rather, change their forms. 



At the outset the individual savage gi*avitates to one group or 

 other, prompted by sundry motives, but mainly by the desire for pro- 

 tection. Concerning the Patagonians, we read that no one can live 

 apart : " If any of them attempted to do it, they would undoubtedly 

 be killed, or carried away as slaves, as soon as they were discovered." 

 In North America, among the Chinooks, " on the coast a custom pre- 

 vails which authorizes the seizure and enslavement, unless ransomed 

 by his friends, of every Indian met with at a distance from his tribe, 

 although they may not be at war with each other." At first, however, 

 though it is necessary to join some group, it is not necessary to con- 

 tinue in the same group. In early stages migrations from group to 

 group are common. "When much oppressed by their chief, Calmucks 



* "Principles of Sociology," 226. 



