118 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



crude form, but as society advances they are perfected and greatly 

 multiplied, until in modern civilized society a state becomes a vast 

 plexus of corporations. 



In the earlier stages of society each state is small, being com- 

 posed only of a body of kindred by consanguinity and affinity, 

 actual or artificial. As each state is small many states are found. 

 In order that unification of states may progress organization by 

 kinship must give way, and gradually it does give way, to be re- 

 placed by organization on a property basis. Organization on a prop- 

 erty basis appears in many ways, but chiefly in two. First, captives 

 in war and other persons are made slaves, and themselves become 

 property ; and, second, a particular form of property — land — 

 gradually comes to be of prime importance, and is at last taken as 

 the basis of the primary classification of the state, which is terri- 

 torial. 



By various processes of alliance, by conquest, by development of 

 feudalities, and by slavery, states are integrated, and by the devel- 

 opment of the organs of government and private corporations, the 

 classes of the state are differentiated, and with this the plan of the 

 state is changed from a kinship to a property basis. 



COURSE OF EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT. 



The earliest form of government of which we have knowledge 

 consists of an assembly composed of men, from which are excluded 

 all deemed too young or too old to exhibit due wisdom. This 

 assembly is the law-making power, /. e. , the legislature, and the law 

 applying power, i. e., the court. It is, in fact, the body of able 

 men meeting to confer and decide upon conduct, and is essentially 

 legislature and judiciary undifferentiated. This assembly has a 

 presiding officer who obtains the position by common consent or 

 formal choice, and who sometimes acts as an executive officer in 

 carrying out the decisions of the assembly. But this executive 

 power, though it may sometimes, does not invariably inhere in the 

 presiding officer. 



