CIvilisasion : Its Cause and Cure 



general body of his fellows, no serious dis-harmony 

 could occur ; but it is when this vital unity of the 

 body politic becomes weak that it has to be pre- 

 served by artificial means, and thus it is that with 

 the decay of the primitive and instinctive social 

 life there springs up a form of government 

 which is no longer the democratic expression of 

 the life of the whole people ; but a kind of outside 

 authority and compulsion thrust upon them by 

 a ruling class or caste. 



Perhaps the sincerest, and often though not 

 always the earliest, form of Government is Monarchy. 

 The sentiment of human unity having been already 

 partly but not quite lost, the people choose — in 

 order to hold society together — a man to rule 

 over them who has this sentiment in a high degree. 

 He represents the true Man and therefore the 

 people. This is often a time of extensive warfare 

 and the formation of nations. And it is interesting 

 in this connection to note that the quite early 

 *' Kings " or leaders of each nation just prior to 

 the civilisation period were generally associated 

 with the highest religious functions, as in the 

 case of the Roman rex, the Greek basileus, the 

 early Egyptian Kings, Moses among the Israelites, 

 and Druid leaders of the Britons, and so on. 



Later, and as the central authority gets more 

 and more shadowy in each man, and the external 

 attraction of Property greater, so it does in Society. 

 The temporal and spiritual powers part company. 

 The king — who at first represented the Divine 

 Spirit or soul of society, recedes into the back- 



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