The Evolution of the State. 93 



binding rules of civic conduct. This supreme political 

 authority may find its warrant in a written code, as in the 

 United States Constitution ; it may rest upon unexpressed 

 political postulates, like the English Constitution; or it 

 may reside alone in the will of an absolute sovereign like 

 the Russian Czar. 



It will be seen at once that the evolution of such a 

 political entity is something different from the growth of 

 society or individual development. It witnesses in its 

 present condition the latest, and therefore the highest 

 known exposition of the governing faculty in man. Nor 

 will it be at all certain that we shall find, in the present 

 attainment of the State, a stage of development at all 

 commensurate with the development of science, art, litera- 

 ture or invention. Indeed, we are confronted at the 

 threshold of our inquiry by the question, has the State 

 evolved ? Is there any law of development by which 

 succeeding stages of political institutions may be said to 

 have been related to previous states of being ? 



Eemembering that the trend of all evolution is from the 

 simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the hetero- 

 geneous, we must expect to find humanity progressing 

 along the lines of an intelligent development, each step a 

 cause, and each step a sequence, proceeding upward and 

 onward toward a completer form of government. Ko one 

 can, of course, expect that upon this occasion any coherent 

 outline even, shall be suggested of the principles or laws 

 upon which the State shall have been evolved. Little more 

 can be done than to glance ra|)idly at certain epochs in 

 State evolution, find, if Ave may, some connecting links 

 between the different stages of society, and draw from 

 these such indications as may be discerned of future ten- 

 dencies. Of one thing, at the outset, the evolutionist may 

 be sure. The law of evolution is either universal or it does 

 not exist. The great generalization of Spencer, that things 

 do not drift, but proceed, is as inseparable fi'om the develop- 

 ment of the most magnificent commonwealth as from the 

 lowest animal cell known to the biologist. Whether we 

 find the law or not, it is there ; just as the rolling planets 

 of the universe were held poised in the limitless spaces 

 ages and ages before Newton discovered the law of gravi- 

 tation. 



Let us then consider, for a moment, some of the begin- 



