THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 469 



remote in the obscure background of his consciousness as to be prac- 

 tically non-existent. In all he says about what a legislature should 

 do, or forbid, or require, he tacitly assumes that any regulation may 

 be enacted, and when enacted must be obeyed. And then, along with 

 this authority not to be gainsaid, he believes in a capacity not to be 

 doubted. Whatever the governing body decides to do can be done, is 

 the postulate which lies hidden in the schemes of the most revolution- 

 ary reformers. Analyze the programmes of the Communalists, observe 

 what is hoped for by the adherents of the Social and Democratic 

 Republic, or study the ideas of legislative action which our own Trades- 

 Unionists entertain, and you find the implied belief to be that a Gov- 

 ernment, organized after an approved pattern, will be able to remedy 

 all the evils complained of, and to secm-e each proposed benefit. 



Thus, the emotion excited by embodied power is one which sways, 

 and indeed mainly determines, the beliefs, not only of those classed as 

 the most subordinate, but even those classed as the most insubordi- 

 nate. It has a deeper origin than any political creed, and more or less 

 distorts the conceptions of all parties respecting governmental action. 



This sentiment of loyalty, making it almost impossible to study 

 the natures and actions of governing agencies with perfect calmness, 

 greatly hinders sociological science, and must long continue to hinder 

 it. For the sentiment is all-essential. Throughout the past, societies 

 have been mainly held together by it. It is still an indispensable aid 

 to social cohesion and the maintenance of order. And it will be Ions: 

 before social discipline has so far modified human character that rev- 

 erence for law, as rooted in the moral order of things, will serve in 

 place of reverence for the power which enforces law. 



Accounts of existing uncivilized races, as well as histories of the 

 civilized races, show us a posteriori what we might infer with cer- 

 tainty a priori, that, in proportion as the members of a society are 

 aggressive in their natures, they can be held together only by a pro- 

 portionately strong feeling of unreasoning reverence for a leader or a 

 ruler. Some of the lowest types of men, who show but little of this 

 feeling, show scarcely any social cohesion, and make no progress 

 instance the Australians. Where appreciable social development has 

 taken place, we find subordination to chiefs; and, as the society 

 enlarges, to a king. If we need an illustration that, where there is 

 great savageness, social union can be maintained only by great loyalty, 

 we have it among those ferocious cannibals the Fijians. Here, where 

 the barbarism is so extreme that a late king registered by a row of 

 many hundred stones the number of human victims he had devoured, 

 the loyalty is so extreme that a man stands unbound to be knocked on 

 the head if the king wills it : himself saying that the king's will must 

 be done. And if, with this case in mind, we glance back over the 

 past, and note the fealty that went along with brutality in feudal 



