POLITICAL RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 647 



retrospect to prospect ; and ask through what phases political 

 evolution is likely hereafter to pass. 



Such speculations concerning higher political types as we 

 may allow ourselves, must be taken with the understanding 

 that such types are not likely to become universal. As in the 

 past so in the future, local circumstances must be influential 

 in determining governmental arrangements; since these 

 depend in large measure on the modes of life which he 

 climate, soil, flora, and fauna, necessitate. In regions like 

 those of Central Asia, incapable of supporting considerable 

 populations, there are likely to survive wandering hordes 

 under simple forms of control. Large areas such as parts of 

 Africa present, which prove fatal to the higher races of men, 

 and the steaming atmospheres of which cause enervation, 

 may continue to be inhabited by lower races of men, subject 

 to political arrangements adapted to them. And in con 

 ditions such as those furnished by small Pacific Islands, mere 

 deficiency of numbers must negative the forms of government 

 which become alike needful and possible in large nations. 

 Recognizing the fact that with social organisms as with indi 

 vidual organisms, the evolution of superior types does not 

 entail the extinction of all inferior ones, but leaves many of 

 these to survive in habitats not available by the superior, we 

 may here restrict ourselves to the inquiry What are likely to 

 be the forms of political organization and action in societies 

 that are favourably circumstanced for carrying social evolu 

 tion to its highest stage ? 



Of course deductions respecting the future must be drawn 

 from inductions furnished by the past. We must assume 

 that hereafter social evolution will conform to the same 

 principles as heretofore. Causes which have everywhere 

 produced certain effects must, if they continue at work, be 

 expected to produce further effects of like kinds. If we see 

 that political transformations which have arisen under cer 

 tain conditions, admit of being carried further in the same 

 directions, we must conclude that they will be carried further 



