CONDITIONS OF PROGRESS 



the formation of a huge social " aggregate of the 

 first order/' as in Egypt, Assyria, China, Mexico, 

 and Peru. The common characteristic of these 

 civilizations of lower type is that their growth 

 in size has been out of all proportion to their 

 increase in structural heterogeneity. Though 

 they may contain many cities, they contain no- 

 thing like the civic type of social organization, 

 as seen in Greece and Italy ; and though they 

 have taken on the semblance of nations, yet they 

 lack the fundamental conception of true Nation- 

 ality, — the union of individuals through com- 

 munity of interests, rather than through physical 

 community of descent.^ In all these half-civi- 

 lized societies, we find that the primitive tribal 



^ In antiquity the only conceivable bond of social union was 

 community of descent, actual or fictitious. Even the concep- 

 tion of territorial proximity as a source of common action did 

 not gain currency in Europe till towards the tenth century of 

 the Christian era. Theodoric the East-Goth, whom the old 

 historians called ** King of Italy," would not have understood 

 the meaning of the phrase. In those days a man could be king 

 of a group of kindred people, without reference to locality, 

 but such a thing as kingship of a geographical area was un- 

 intelligible. The modern nationality (of which the United 

 States is perhaps the most perfect type) is founded upon the 

 thorough subordination of the patriarchal theory of commu- 

 nity in blood to the modern theory of community in interests. 

 The so-called ** doctrine of nationalities," about which so 

 much sentimental nonsense has been written, ought rather 

 to be called the ** doctrine of races," since it is virtually a 

 revival of the patriarchal theory. It may be truly said that, 



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