FUNDAMENTAL FORCES IN SOCIAL EVOLUTION 211 



grown, the governed people have become restive and 

 finally thrown off the yoke of the central authority. 

 We need not dwell further upon this which is so 

 apparent in all history. But one of the most signifi- 

 cant features of the development of society is the 

 fact that these disintegrating forces have been con- 

 stantly diminishing as civilization has been advanc- 

 ing. The gradual diminution of this disintegrating 

 force is shown by the increasing size of organizations. 

 Among low savage races it is rare to find more than 

 forty individuals remaining together. They have 

 hardly any adhesive power. The barbaric races are 

 on a higher plane of civilization and have a corre- 

 spondingly higher power of adhesion. Among them 

 we find tribes of men ranging as high as half a mil- 

 lion in numbers. With the civilized races this ad- 

 hesive power is vastly stronger. Among them mil- 

 lions upon millions of men succeed in remaining in 

 more or less close compacts, to form the modern 

 nations. Evidently, the forces which bind these 

 great organizations together are more potent than 

 they are among savages. 



But the forces which lead to organization are not 

 more potent in the one case than in the other. Sav- 

 ages are constantly combining for purposes of com- 

 mon advantage, but they are just as constantly dis- 

 integrating under the influence of other forces. 

 Among civilized races the tendency to combination is 

 no more universal, but the tendency toward disinte- 

 gration is lessened. The really significant question 

 is, therefore, not what makes centralization, but what 

 holds combinations together. What is it that enables 

 the millions of our modern nations to remain in 

 union, but the absence of which makes it an impossi- 



