4 George E. Hoivard, 



by the double tie of common blood and the worship of a com- 

 mon ancestor.^ It was originally a state in miniature ; and 

 from it were successively evolved all the higher types of 

 social organization.^ 



In no branch of social science has the revelation of the 

 fact that primitive society was composed of groups of kindred 

 had more important consequences than in the domain of 

 Ancient Law. And nowhere has ignorance or forgetfulness 

 of it led to more curious errors or more fruitless speculation. 

 Too often it is the " shifting sandbank in which the grains 

 are individual men " which has occupied the mind of the in- 



1 Fustel de Coulanges, Ancient City, 9-52, gives the best treatment of an- 

 cestor worship; he is followed by Hearn, Aryan Household, 15 ff. Maine, Early 

 Law and Custom, chaps. Ill and IV, and Morris, The Aryan Race, 132 ff., 

 have excellent discussions. For India, see J. D. Mayne, Hindu Law and Usage, 

 55, and Lyall, Asiatic Studies, chap. II, for deification of men. On the Roman 

 lares, consult Duruy, History of Rome, I, 206. Cf. Starcke, The Primitive 

 Family, 97, loi; Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 384, 447. 



2 The development of the successive types of social organism appears to have 

 been as follows : 



GrcEco-Roman. — By process of natural growth a certain number of families be- 

 came united in a clan — the Roman ^'i'«^ or the Ionic genos. In like manner, in 

 course of time, a union of gentes formed a curia ox phratria ; and a gathering of 

 curies or phratries constituted the tribe, famous examples of which are the tribus 

 of early Rome and the Ionic phulai of the Homeric age. Finally a gathering of 

 tribes became a city or polls. 



Germanic. — In the age of Tacitus the starting-point of political life was the 

 mark or township {yicus), a localized clan or sippe. Next in order was the gau 

 or hundertschaft {J>agus'), composed of a number oivici or marks; while a union 

 ofgauen formed the volkerschaft or tribe-state. 



Each of these groups, in ascending series, must be regarded as successively 

 representing a newer and more enlarged conception of the state : the lower being 

 retained as subordinate members of the higher organism. But while the Greeks 

 and the Romans of the Republic were not able permanently to pass beyond the 

 city as the ultimate political unit, the Teutonic peoples advanced to the nation- 

 state, in which the volkerschaft was retained as an administrative district — the 

 English shire or the Frankish grafschaft. See Freeman, Comparative Politics, 

 chap. Ill; Fiske, American Political Ldeas, 64 ff.; Stubbs, Constitutional History, 

 I, chap. II; and especially Sohm, Die altdeutsche Reichs- U7id Gerichtsverfassu7ig, 

 vol.1. This subject is discussed in detail, with citation of the principal authori- 

 ties, in my Lntroduction to the Local Cotistitutional History of the United States, I, 

 chaps. I, V, VI. 



238 



