THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIAL STRUCTURE 839 



societies and states must not be taken as being accommodated 

 to this extraordinary standard. They are, howsoever men may 

 boast of their patriotism, generally of a calm and calculating char- 

 acter. We look upon the state, represented as it is by its govern- 

 ment, as upon a person who stands in contractual rather than in 

 sentimental relations to ourselves. Certainly this view is more or 

 less developed in different countries, under different circumstances, 

 with different individuals. But it is the one that is indorsed by 

 the most advanced and the most conscious members of modern 

 societies, by those powerful individuals who feel themselves as 

 masters of their own social relations. Societies and states are chiefly 

 institutions for the peaceful acquisition and for the protection of 

 property. It is therefore the owners of property to whom we must 

 look when we are inquiring into the prevailing and growing con- 

 ceptions of society and of the state. Now, it cannot be doubted that 

 they do not consider either society or the state as representing 

 that early community which has always been supposed to be the 

 original proprietor of the soil and of all its treasures, since this 

 would imply that their own private property had only a deriva- 

 tive right derived from the right and law of public property. 

 It is just the opposite which they think and feel: the state has 

 a derivative right of property by their allowance and their contri- 

 butions; the state is supposed to act as their mandatary. And 

 it is this view which corresponds to the facts. A modern state 

 it is by no means always the youngest states that are the most 

 characteristic types of it has little or no power over property. 



I cannot refrain from quoting here, as I have done elsewhere, 

 a few sentences of the eminent American sociologist, Mr. Lewis 

 Morgan, in which he sums up his reflections upon modern as con- 

 trasted with "ancient society:" l " Since the advent of civilization 

 the outgrowth of property has been so immense, its forms so di- 

 versified, its uses so expanding, and its management so intelligent 

 in the interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of 

 the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind stands be- 

 wildered in the presence of its own creation." He thinks it is true 

 that " the time will come when human intelligence will rise to the 

 mastery over property, and will be able to define the relations of 

 the state to the property it protects, as well as the obligations 

 and the limits of the rights of its owners," declaring himself unwill- 

 ing, as he does, to accept "a mere property career" as the final de- 

 stiny of mankind. 



But this outlook into a future far distant although it was 

 written, I believe, before there were any of the giant' trusts estab- 

 1 Ancient Society, p. 552. 



