116 MAN THE ANIMAL 



not responses to commands, but rather group reflexes set off by 

 stimuli transmitted through the leader acting as sensory receptor 

 for the group. 



Austin's theory no longer enjoys quite the prestige it once did, 

 either in or out of the legal profession. The development of 

 sociology, and particularly the points of view growing out of 

 what may perhaps be fairly called the natural history type of 

 approach to the problem of sociality exemplified at its highest 

 level in the work of William Graham Sumner, have been major 

 factors in diminishing general esteem for Austin's closely 

 reasoned, but heavily a frioriy logical treatment of what is, after 

 all, a biological problem at bottom. There clings to it an odor of 

 scholasticism that is not in the present mode. At the same time 

 it must be said that in overt or concealed form Austin's main 

 thesis constantly bobs up in theoretical discussions of govern- 

 ment, politics, and social progress, and particularly in connec- 

 tion with "isms" of one sort or another. 



Austin's analysis of jurisprudence was thoroughly and pene- 

 tratingly criticised about a half century after its publication by 

 Sir Henry Maine, in his Early History of Institutions (1875). 

 Only one small portion of Maine's interesting discussion can be 

 quoted here, but that little must be, because of the important 

 implications for human biology embodied in its last sentence. 

 The whole quotation is an example or illustration brought for- 

 ward by Sir Henry to show that the most despotic sort of govern- 

 ment conceivable need contain none of the "command" element 

 postulated by Austin. "My instance," he said, "is the Indian 

 province called the Punjaub, the country of the Five Rivers, in 

 the state in which it was for about a quarter of a century before 

 its annexation to the British Indian Empire. After passing 

 through every conceivable phase of anarchy and dormant an- 

 archy, it fell under the tolerably consolidated dominion of a 

 half-military half-religious oligarchy known as the Sikhs. The 

 Sikhs themselves were afterwards reduced to subjection by a 

 single chieftain belonging to their order, Runjeet Singh. At first 

 sight there could be no more perfect embodiment than Runjeet 



