CHAPTER V. 



POLITICAL FORMS AND FOBCES. 



464. THE conceptions of biologists have been greatly en 

 larged by the discovery that organisms which, when adult, 

 appear to have scarcely anything in common, were, in their 

 first stages, very similar; and that, indeed, all organisms start 

 with a common structure. Recognition of this truth has re 

 volutionized not only their ideas respecting the relations of 

 organisms to one another, but also their ideas respecting the 

 relations of the parts of each organism to one another. 



If societies have evolved, and if that mutual dependence of 

 their parts which cooperation implies, has been gradually 

 reached, then the implication is that however unlike their 

 developed structures become, there is a rudimentary structure 

 with which they all set out. And if there can be recognized 

 any such primitive unity, recognition of it will help us to 

 interpret the ultimate diversity. We shall understand better 

 how in each society the several components of the political 

 agency have come to be what we now see them; and also 

 how those of one society are related to those of another. 



Setting out with an unorganized horde, including both 

 sexes and all ages, let us ask what must happen when some 

 public question, as that of migration, or of defence against 

 enemies, has to be decided. The assembled individuals will 

 fall, more or less clearly, into two divisions. The elder, the 

 stronger, anrl those whose sagacity and courage have been 

 proved by experience, will form the smaller part, who carry 



