208 THE PATH OF DEGENERATIVE EVOLUTION 



for the most part dwell in the towns and fertile 

 plains. From this he concludes that the various 

 racial elements of a nation are eliminated in inverse 

 order to that in which they were introduced. In 

 France, for instance, the Frank has been com- 

 pletely absorbed in the Gaul. 



3. The degenerative evolution of political organiza-, 

 tions. The progressive and degenerative evolution 

 of political organizations has been described by 

 Herbert Spencer as follows 1 : 



" Political integration, as it advances, obliterates 

 the original divisions among the united parts. In 

 the first there is the slow disappearance of those 

 non-topographical divisions arising from relation- 

 ship, as seen in separate gentes and tribes 

 gradual intermingling destroys them. In the 

 second place, the smaller local societies united 

 into a larger one, which at first retains their 

 separate organizations, lose them by long co- 

 operation ; a common organization begins to 

 ramify through them. And, in the third place, 

 there simultaneously results a fading of their 

 topographical bounds, and a replacing of them by 

 the new administrative bounds of the common 

 organization. 



" Hence, naturally, results the converse truth that 

 in the course of social dissolution the great groups 

 separate first, and afterwards, if dissolution con- 



1 Herbert Spencer, " Political Institiitions, " Part iv. of Principles 

 of Sociology, p. 286. 



