36 



ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book i 



The family 

 5d, e t b ~ 



One family 



w e ^ lies> 

 obliged, in 



order to get 



food, to separ- 



ate into differ- 



ent groups; 



of marriage and family that prevails amongst the 

 most advanced races of to-day. 



Next, as to the phenomena of governmental and 

 social organisations : these arise only with the 

 formation of groups larger than the family of 

 groups which we call communities, or nations, or 

 social aggregates ; and we have to consider how 

 these larger groups rose out of the aggregation of the 

 smaller. The process is explained, says Mr. Spencer, 

 by the same few " internal factors" The nation 

 sprang from the family by the following inevitable 

 stages. Let us take any family group, sufficiently 

 coherent to live together as a single household, and 

 supporting itself on the produce of the land that 

 surrounds its dwelling. Whilst this group is small, 

 the acreage will be small also, which, as ploughland, 

 hunting-ground, or pasture, is required to supply its 

 wants ; and each member of the group can easily 

 reach his work, starting from the commpn home, 

 and coming back to it in the evening. But as 

 children grow, and children and great-grandchildren 

 multiply, the land required by the household corre- 

 spondingly grows in extent, and at last becomes so 

 l ar g e that the whole of il: cannot be utilised by a 

 body of men living on the same spot. Hence, as 



' 



Mr. Spencer expresses it, "a fission of the group 



. . r . . J . J , . 



is necessitated ; and this process is repeated till 

 there are a multitude of groups instead of one. 

 These groups, says Mr. Spencer, constitute the raw 

 material of the nation. The nation is formed 

 "by the recompounding of these units once again." 



