POLITICAL FORMS AND FORCES. 325 



While holding that, in unorganized groups of men, the 

 feeling manifested as public opinion controls political con 

 duct, just as it controls the conduct distinguished as cere 

 monial and religious ; and while holding that governing 

 agencies, during their early stages, are at once the products 

 of aggregate feeling, derive their powers from it, and are 

 restrained by it ; we must admit that these primitive re 

 lations become complicated when, by war, small groups are 

 compounded and re-compounded into great ones. Where the 

 society is largely composed of subjugated people held down 

 by superior force, the normal relation above described no 

 longer exists. We must not expect to find in a rule coercively 

 established by an invader, the same traits as in a rule that 

 has grown up from within. Societies formed by conquest may 

 be, and frequently are, composed of two societies, which are 

 in large measure, if not entirely, alien ; and in them there 

 cannot arise a political force from the aggregate will. Under 

 such conditions the political head either derives his power 

 exclusively from the feeling of the dominant class, or else, 

 setting the diverse feelings originated in the upper and lower 

 classes, one against the other, is enabled so to make his indi 

 vidual will the chief factor. 



After making which qualifications, however, it may still be 

 contended that ordinarily, nearly all the force exercised by 

 the governing agency originates from the feeling, if not of the 

 whole community, yet of the part which is able to manifest 

 its feeling. Though the opinion of the subjugated and un 

 armed lower society becomes of little account as a political 

 Ike tor, yet the opinion of the dominant and armed upper 

 society continues to be the main cause of political action. 

 What we are told of the Congo people, that &quot; the king, who 

 reigns as a despot over the people, is often disturbed in the 

 exercise of his power by the princes his vassals,&quot; what we 

 are told of the despotically-governed Dahomans, that &quot; the 

 ministers, war-captains, and feetishers may be, and often are, 

 individually punished by the king : collectively they are too 



