94 The Evolutiou of the State. 



nings of government. Without doubt its earliest form was 

 the patriarchal. Even before the time when savaged 

 chose the tallest man for chief, the family head had exer- 

 cised his petty sway. The father was an absolute power 

 among all ancient peoples. Among the Romans he could 

 sell his children into slavery, and sons who held the high- 

 est offices could still own no estates. Such a potentate was 

 the unit of the rude State of his time. The numbers of 

 those who were considered as making up the State wer, 

 reckoned only by such headships, and the larger authority 

 conferred upon the leader of the State was fashioned upon 

 the basis of family government as it then existed. 



Out of these family associations came the clans, still 

 held together by ties of blood, all worshiping a common 

 ancestor and either contesting for the headship of the clan 

 or agreeing by consent of the heads of the families upon a 

 chief. The numbers of the clan were doubtless largely 

 increased by the fiction of adopted children, a process 

 which imported, to the special clan, new blood, and at the 

 same time extended its power and influence. The clan, 

 still further evolved into the tribal State, was a form of 

 government fitted only for nomadic people, and as soon as 

 the race advanced to the pursuits of agriculture and the 

 formation of stable communities, locality undoubtedly be- 

 came the important bond of adhesion, and a clearer con- 

 ception of the modern State began to appear. And when 

 the boundaries of cities were enlarged, by conquest, to 

 great territories, the flag became the symbol of one people, 

 and the great father or king over this land found in the 

 head of the family the suggestion and limitation of his 

 power. 



Now, the idea upon which the father's absolute domin- 

 ion over the family was based, rested upon the inability of 

 the wife and children to control themselves, or wisely 

 measure their own necessities ; and so long as the concep- 

 tion of the State was simply that of a huge family, the 

 king, whether chosen or hereditary, postulated his dominion 

 upon the immaturity of his subjects. The subjects were 

 children, the king the father. The king's will was the 

 law of the ruder State, as the father's had been of the 

 family, and long before the individual man had become 

 recognized as the true unit of the State, the old English 

 barons were combating the allied forces of the king and 



