210 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a every little hamlet resting in an Alpine valley, or perched on moun- 

 tain-crag, was an independent community, of which all the members 

 were absolutely equal entitled to vote in every assembly, and quali- 

 fied for every public function. . . . Each hamlet had its own laws, 

 jurisdiction, and privileges," the hamlets being federated into com- 

 munes, the communes into districts, and the districts into a league. 



Lastly, with the case of Switzerland may be associated that of San 

 Marino a little republic which, seated in the Apennines, and having 

 its center on a cliff a thousand feet high, has retained its independence 

 for fifteen centuries. Here eight thousand people are governed by a 

 senate of sixty, and by captains elected every half year, assemblies of 

 the whole people being called on important occasions. There is a 

 standing army of eighteen, " taxation is reduced to a mere nothing," 

 and oflicials are j^aid by the honor of serving. 



One noteworthy difference between the compound heads arising 

 under physical conditions of the kinds exemplified, must not be over- 

 looked the difference between the oligarchic form and the more or 

 less popular form. As shown at the outset of this section, if each of 

 the groups united by militant cooperation is despotically ruled if the 

 groups are severally framed on the patriarchal type, or are severally 

 governed by men of supposed divine descent then the compound 

 head becomes one in which the people at large have no share. But 

 if, as in these modern cases, patriarchal authority has decayed ; or if 

 belief in divine descent has been undermined by a creed at variance 

 w^th it ; or if peaceful habits have weakened that coercive authority 

 which w^ar ever strengthens then the compound head is no longer an 

 assembly of petty despots. With the progress of these changes it be- 

 comes more and more a head formed of those wdio exercise power not 

 by right of position but by right of appointment. 



There are other conditions which favor the rise of compound heads, 

 temporary if not permanent : those, namely, which occur at the disso- 

 lutions of preceding organizations. Among people habituated through 

 countless generations to personal rule, having sentiments appropriate 

 to it, and no conception of anything else, the fall of one despot is at 

 once followed by the rise of another ; or, if a large personally-governed 

 empire collapses, its parts severally generate governments for them- 

 selves of like kind. But, among less servile peoples, the breaking up 

 of political systems having single heads is apt to be followed by the 

 establishment of others having compound heads ; especially w^here 

 there is a simultaneous separation into parts which have not local 

 governments of stable kinds. Under such circumstances there is a 

 return to the primitive state. The preexisting regulative system hav- 

 ing fallen, the members of the community are left without any con- 

 trolling power save the aggregate will ; and, political organization 

 having to commence afresh, the form first assumed is akin to that 



