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Table of Contents

1. The Historical or Evolutionary View of the State.—2. The Patriarchal and Matriarchal Theories.—3. Course of Development: the Aristotelian Cycle.—4. Military and Economic Factors.—5. Some General Features of Political Evolution.

1. The Historical or Evolutionary View of the State. The fallacious theories presented in the last chapter may be considered to prepare the way for a more correct estimate of the origin of the state. The view held by the best modern writers may be described as the historical or evolutionary theory of the state. By this is meant that the institution of the state is not to be referred back to any single point of time; it is not the outcome of any single movement or plan. The state is not an invention: it is a growth, an evolution, the result of a gradual process running throughout all the known history of man, and receding into the remote and unknown past. "The proposition that the State is a product of history," says Professor Burgess, "means that it is a gradual and continuous development of human society out of a grossly imperfect beginning through crude but improving forms of manifestation towards a perfect and universal organization of mankind." It is thus altogether erroneous to think of man as having in the course of his evolution attained to a full physical and mental development, and then looking about him to consider the advisability of inventing a government. We might as well imagine man, mentally and physically complete, deciding that the time had come for the invention of language, in order to satisfy his growing need of communicating with his fellows. Just as language has been evolved from the uncouth gibberings of animals, so has government had its origins in remote and rudimentary beginnings in prehistoric society. Man's capacity for associated action and social relationships of all kinds has proceeded by a gradual development parallel with that of his physical and intellectual aptitudes.

2. The Patriarchal and Matriarchal Theories. This general idea or principle of a gradual and progressive evolution seems clear enough. Yet if we attempt to go further and map out the stages of man's social development, the most serious difficulties are encountered. The simplest and earliest method of offering a historical account of the genesis of social amalgamation was found in taking the family to represent the primal unit of social history. The control exercised by a father over his children, which presently expands into the control of a patriarch over his descendants, was supposed to represent the origin of human government. It indicated at the same time a justification of the state as proceeding from the purely "natural" institution of the family. First a household, then a patriarchal family, then a tribe of persons of kindred descent, and finally a nation,—so runs the social series erected on this basis. This attempt to refer the institution of government to the authority of an original father of a family is known as the patriarchal theory. It has sought to defend itself by reference partly to historical instances, partly to current facts. We find it as early as in the writings of Aristotle, the first book of whose "Politics" contains a statement of the theory. "The family," says Aristotle, "arises first; . . . when several families are united, and the association aims at something more than the supply of daily needs, then comes into existence the village. . . . When several villages are united in a single community perfect and large enough to be nearly or quite self-sufficing, the state (πόλις[Greek: polis]) comes into existence." Since Aristotle's time the same view has been presented by a variety of writers as offering a valid account of the origins of political institutions. The case of such communities as the nomadic tribes of central Asia is adduced in proof of the correctness of the view.

The historical researches of the nineteenth century, however, have rendered it impossible to accept the patriarchal theory as offering a universal or final solution of the problem of the origin of government. The critics of this theory have conclusively shown, in the first place, that the patriarchal régime has not everywhere appeared as the foundation of later institutions, and, in the second place, that even where it has appeared, it has not of necessity been the oldest form of social regulation which may be traced in prehistoric times. Such has been the substance of the results reached by J. F. McLennan and others who have sought to substitute a rival hypothesis under the title of the matriarchal theory. By this is implied an altogether different social arrangement from that suggested by the supposition of a primitive family. Previous to the patriarchal or family group men are found living in "hordes" or "packs," in which the usual relations of husband and wife do not exist. Relationship, instead of being traced through the father, is traced in such a primitive society altogether through females. The nature of this relationship may be understood by referring to the account given by Mr. Edward Jenks in his recent "History of Politics."[34] Mr. Jenks describes as typical of primitive society the arrangement still existent among the natives of Australia and the Malay Archipelago. "It is the custom," he says, "to speak of the Australian and other savages as living in tribes; ... it would really be better to call it the 'pack,' for it more resembles a hunting than a social organization. All its members are entitled to share in the proceeds of the day's chase, and, quite naturally, they camp and live together ... [but] the real social unit of the Australians is not the 'tribe' but the totem group.... The totem group is primarily a body of persons distinguished by the sign of some natural object such as an animal or a tree, who may not intermarry with one another. 'Snake may not marry Snake. Emu may not marry Emu.' This is the first rule of savage social organization.... The other side of the rule is equally startling. The savage may not marry within his totem, but he must marry into another totem specially fixed for him. More than this, he not only marries into the specified totem, but he marries the whole of the women of that totem in his own generation.... Of course it must not be supposed that this condition of marital community really exists in practice. As a matter of fact each Australian contents himself with one or two women from his marriage totem." Under such a system, "as far as there is any recognition of blood relationship at all it is through women and not through men." Several writers on the matriarchal theory have considered that in this primitive stage of society not only is descent traced through the mother, and property passed in the female line, but the social group is ruled by the women, not the men. Such a condition of things is actually found, for instance, among the Hovas of Madagascar. But as a hypothesis of a universal social arrangement it has been quite refuted.

The exponents of the matriarchal theory—understood here in the narrower sense of a system of relationship and not of female rule—present it as the universal primitive condition of mankind. Out of it, they tell us, the patriarchal system has emerged through the adoption of settled pastoral and agricultural habits in place of the purely wandering or hunting life of primitive man. That such a system of tribal relationship as is here described exists in some savage communities of to-day, and has often existed in the past, seems beyond a doubt. There does not, however, seem any adequate proof for regarding it as the universal and necessary beginning of society. Indeed social history does not seem to lend itself to so simple a formula of successive development. No single form of the primitive family or group can be asserted. Here the matriarchal relationship, and there a patriarchal régime is found to have been the rule,—either of which may perhaps be displaced by the other. Indeed one has to admit the fact that there is no such thing as a "beginning" of human society. All that can be asserted is that in the course of time the monogamic family tended to become the dominant form, though even until to-day it has not altogether supplanted other forms of organization. This does not say, however, that paternal control of the family is to be looked on as the one necessary beginning of government and social control. For it must have happened in many instances that social authority of a rudimentary sort existed where as yet the monogamic family was unknown.[35]

3. Course of Development: the Aristotelian Cycle. The earlier stages of the social evolution seem therefore to lend themselves but poorly to any scheme of orderly and uniform progression. Much the same difficulty meets us in trying to reduce the successive stages of historical development to any general plan. It is clear that between the rudimentary form of social control exercised by the chief of a primitive tribe, and the complex and effective organization of a modern civilized government, a vast historical evolution is apparent. But to reduce the stages of this progression to a necessary coördinated sequence appears an impossible task. The same goal has been reached by different paths; not all political communities have passed through the same phases of development. What has been the result of an internal evolution in some has been effected in others by imitation and adaptation of what already existed elsewhere. Democratic government has been attained in various modern states by quite distinct historical stages.

Notwithstanding these considerations, the attempt to reduce political progress to the formula of a prescribed course of development has often been made. At the very outset of political speculation we have the famous "cycle theory" of Plato, and a theory of progressive change laid down by Aristotle. Plato thought that the natural life of a state must move through a definite course of political changes. Aristocracy, the rule of the best, passed into timocracy,—the government of honor or rule of the military class. This changed to oligarchy, then to mob rule, and finally to tyranny.[36] The views of Aristotle will be considered in some detail in a later chapter.[37] While criticising Plato's opinions and pointing out that successive political revolutions do not always follow the same order of development, Aristotle nevertheless considers the transition from monarchy to oligarchy, from oligarchy to tyranny, and from tyranny to democracy to have been the normal or usual nature of Hellenic political change.[38] However applicable this may have been to the history of the Greek city states of the seventh and following centuries before the Christian era, it cannot be accepted as any general or universal key to the political evolution of later ages.[39]

4. Military and Economic Factors. Equally attractive and no less futile is the attempt to ascribe the evolution of the modern state to the operation of a single, or at any rate a dominant, motive power. Of this an illustration is seen in the "History of Politics," already mentioned. "The origin of the state, or political society," says Mr. Jenks, "is to be found in the development of the art of war.... There is not the slightest difficulty in proving that all political communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare."[40] It is of course quite true that all modern political communities have had to fight for their existence. It is also true that certain aspects of their organization—standing armies, conscription, etc.—bear witness to the importance of the function of external defense. But it is not to be supposed on this account that the type assumed by modern political communities is to be ascribed entirely to the exigencies of their military life. Contrast with this the standpoint of the Marxian socialists of Germany, who tell us that the development of government, along with that of all social institutions, is to be attributed solely to economic factors. The state represents merely the organization by which the property-owning class enjoys the fruits of the laborer's toil.[41] In each of these cases a single factor in the history of the modern state is unduly magnified to appear as the paramount force in its development.

5. Some General Features of Political Evolution. To trace the rise and growth of any particular state, and the different phases of the evolution of its institutions, is the task of history, not of Political Science. Speaking of the state in general it is impossible to predicate any universal course of development or any necessary series of forms which it must assume. Looking, however, at the present stage that has been reached in the growth of political institutions, we may nevertheless indicate some of those general characteristics which the modern state has acquired and which differentiate it so entirely from rudimentary or primitive governments. In the first place there has been, speaking broadly, a progressive increase in the extent of territory occupied by a single state. At the dawn of history, mankind is found grouped in vast numbers of small political communities. On the map of the world to-day we find the greater part of the inhabited territory controlled by a relatively small group of vast states. Of the 52,300,000 square miles which make up the land surface of the globe the British Empire covers 11,516,000, the Russian Empire 8,660,000, the Chinese Empire 4,277,000, and the United States 3,567,000. True, this widening area of the territorial political unit has not been literally continuous. The Roman Empire was vastly greater than such small modern states as Greece or Roumania. But the tendency, though at times interrupted or over-accelerated, is nevertheless a leading factor in the history of the world. In the second place we may note the constantly increasing fixity and certainty of the action of the state. The rule of a primitive government, especially if spread over a relatively large area, is uncertain and irregular. Offenses against its authority may or may not meet with retribution, and when it punishes it acts with a vengeful severity arising from its weakness. In many cases its sway is little more than nominal. But the progressive development of political institutions has given to the state an organization which insures to it a definite and regular action. A third essential feature in the development of the state is the growth of political consciousness. The earlier stages of social union are largely intuitive and unconscious; nor does there ever come a single point of time at which collective action suddenly becomes deliberate. We have seen that the assumption of such a step in political development was one of the errors of the social-contract theory. But in comparing rudimentary government with modern civilized government we can observe the essential difference that exists in this respect.

Of the other broad features of the development of social structure, the separation that has been effected between the religious and the political aspects of society may be especially noted. The early forms of government were theocratic. The functions of priest and king were intermingled or closely allied. The divine law was presumed to constitute the sanction behind human enactments. Such is the system on which rested the theocracy of the Jews. In the modern state, however generally it may be admitted among the citizens that legislation ought to be based on the ethical principles of Christianity, the interpreters of the divine law, in the form of the priesthood, are not placed in a position of civil authority. The guidance of the spiritual and the political life of the community is in different hands. The nature of the earlier form of the state is seen in the survival of established or partially established churches in Great Britain and some other European countries. The formerly prevalent practice of invoking the authority of the state to suppress heresy and unbelief rested on the same conception of organization. The progressive separation of church and state has been one of the evident results of political evolution.

The growth of democratic government, the participation of the great mass of the people in political control, is the most important feature in the development of the state. Democratic government does not, of course, exist in all the great civilized states, but in the chief of them—either in the shape of a republic or under the more or less nominal semblance of monarchy—it has become an accepted fact. The progress of democracy has not, of course, been continuous and unbroken. We have but to compare the republic of Athens with the principalities of the dark ages, or with France of the eighteenth century, to see that the development of self-government has not moved in a continuous advance. But it is hardly to be denied that the principle of democratic rule has now become a permanent and essential factor in political institutions and that it alone can form the basis of the state of the future.