22 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [CHAP. 



they were called, remained quite firm for many years ; 

 at length a storm shook them down. 



In every congregation of mutually reacting elements, 

 some characteristic groupings arc usually recognised 

 that have become familiar through their frequent re- 

 currence and partial persistence. Being less evanescent 

 than other combinations, they may be regarded as 

 temporarily Stable Forms. No demonstration is 

 needed to show that their number must, be greatly 

 smaller than that of all the possible combinations of 

 the same elements. I will briefly give as great a 

 diversity of instances as I can think of, taken from 

 Governments, Crowds, Landscapes, and even from 

 Cookery, and shall afterwards draw some illustrations 

 from Mechanical Inventions, to illustrate what is meant 

 by characteristic and stable groupings. From some 

 of them it will also be gathered that secondary and 

 other orders of stability exist besides the primary 

 ones. 



In Governments, the primary varieties of stable forms 

 are very few in number, being such as autocracies, con- 

 stitutional monarchies, oligarchies, or republics. The 

 secondary forms are far more numerous ; still it is hard 

 to meet with an instance of one that cannot be pretty 

 closely paralleled by another. A curious evidence of 

 the small variety of possible governments is to be found 

 in the constitutions of the governing bodies of the 

 Scientific Societies of London and the Provinces, which 

 are numerous and independent. Their development 

 seems to follow a single course that has many stages, 



