EQUILIBRATION. 525 



man for man, and the more special sympathy of each vari- 

 ety of man for others of the same variety, together with 

 sundry allied feelings which the social state gratifies, act 

 as an attractive force, tending ever to keep united those who 

 have a common ancestry. And since the resistances to be 

 overcome in satisfying the totality of their desires when 

 living separately, are greater than the resistances to be over- 

 come in satisfying the totality of their desires when living 

 together, there is a residuary force that prevents their sepa- 

 ration. Like all other opposing forces, those exerted by 

 citizens on each other, are ever producing alternating move- 

 ments, which, at first extreme, undergo a gradual diminu- 

 tion on the way to ultimate equilibrium. In small, unde- 

 veloped, societies, marked rhythms result from these con- 

 flicting tendencies. A tribe whose members have held 

 together for a generation or two, reaches a size at which it 

 will not hold together ; and on the occurrence of some event 

 causing unusual antagonism among its members, divides. 

 Each primitive nation, depending largely for its continued 

 union on the character of its chief, exhibits wide oscilla- 

 tions between an extreme in which the subjects are under 

 rigid restraint, and an extreme in which the restraint is 

 not enough to prevent disorder. In more advanced nations 

 of like type, we always find violent actions and reactions of 

 the same essential nature — " despotism tempered by assas- 

 sination," characterizing a political state in which unbear- 

 able repression from time to time brings about a bursting 

 of all bonds. In this familiar fact, that a period of tyranny 

 is followed by a period of license and vice versa, we see how 

 these opposing forces are ever equilibrating each other; and 

 we also see, in the tendency of such movements and counter- 

 movements to become more moderate, how the equilibra- 

 tion progresses towards completeness. The conflicts be- 

 tween Conservatism (which stands for the restraints of so- 

 ciety over the individual) and Reform (which stands for 

 the liberty of the individual against society), fall within 



