en. xx.] CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS. 69 



of social organization, as seen in Greece and Italy ; and 

 though they have taken on the semblance of nations, yet 

 they lack the fundamental conception of true Nationality, 

 the union of individuals through community of interests, 

 rather than through physical community of descent. 1 In 

 all these half-civilized societies, we find that the primitive 

 tribal or patriarchal mode of structure is simply expanded 

 without being essentially altered. The family is still the 

 unit of society, the sense of corporate responsibility is still 

 powerful, individual careers are still determined by status 

 and not by contract, originality in opinion or in demeanour 

 is still prohibited by the most formidable legal or social 

 penalties ; the tyranny of custom, in short, is still paramount, 

 and to crown all the three kinds of governmental agency, 

 political, ecclesiastical, and ceremonial, are still concentrated 

 in the person of the patriarchal ruler, who is at once king, 

 chief-priest or vice-deity, and master of ceremonies. 



Observe, now, the dilemma which seems to confront us. 

 In the operation of natural selection upon primitive tribes, 

 we seem to have found a satisfactory explanation of the 

 growth of such social &quot; aggregates of the first order&quot; 

 as China or old Mexico. But now, how are we going to 

 get past this stage? How shall we account for the forma 

 tion of social aggregates of a higher type ? The problem now 



1 In antiquity the only conceivable bond of social union was community of 

 descent, actual or fictitious. Even the conception of territorial proximity as 

 a source of common action did not gain currency in Europe till towards the 

 teiuh century of the Christian era. Theodoric the East-Goth, whom the old 

 historians called &quot;King of Italy,&quot; would not have understood the meaning of 

 the phrase. In those days a man could be king of a group of kindred 

 people, without reference to locality, but such a thing as kingship of a geo 

 graphical area was unintelligible. The modern nationality (of which the 

 United States is perhaps the most perfect type) is founded upon the thorough 

 subordination of the patriarchal theory of community in blood to the modern 

 theory of community in interests. The so-called &quot;doctrine of nationalities,&quot; 

 about which so much sentimental nonsense has been written, ought rather to 

 be called the &quot; doctrine of races,&quot; since it is virtually a revival of the patri 

 archal theory. It may be truly said that, in spite of greater ethnic diversity, 

 Switzerland, for example, is in many respects more completely a nationality 

 than Spain. 



