656 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



part, we may infer that there will arise such tendency to 

 resist dictation by members of other parts, as will involve 

 the carrying of local rule to the greatest practicable limit. 

 Municipal and kindred governments may be expected to 

 exercise legislative and administrative powers, subject to no 

 greater control by the central government than is needful for 

 the concord of the whole community. 



Neither these nor any other speculations concerning ulti 

 mate political forms can, however, be regarded as anything 

 . more than tentative. They are ventured here simply as 

 foreshadowing the general nature of the changes to be anti 

 cipated ; and in so far as they are specific, can be at the best 

 but partially right. We may be sure that the future will 

 bring unforeseen political arrangements along with many 

 other unforeseen things. As already implied, there will pro 

 bably be considerable variety in the special forms of the 

 political institutions of industrial societies : all of them 

 bearing traces of past institutions which have been brought 

 into congriiity with the representative principle. And here 

 I may add that little stress need be laid on one or other 

 speciality of form ; since, given citizens having the pre 

 supposed appropriate natures, and but small differences in 

 the ultimate effects will result from differences in the 

 machinery used. 



579. Somewhat more definitely, and with somewhat 

 greater positiveness, may we, I think, infer the political 

 functions carried on by those political structures proper to 

 the developed industrial type. Already these have been 

 generally indicated ; but here they must be indicated some- 

 what more specifically. 



We have seen that when corporate action is no longer 

 needed for preserving the society as a whole from destruction 

 or injury by other societies, the end which remains for it is 

 that of preserving the component members of the society 

 from destruction or injury by one another: injury, as here 



