As low a form of government as can be conceived as existing next above that of the family, worthy to be called human government, still exists among the barbarians inhabiting some portions of Central Africa, some of the East India Islands, and perhaps some of the South Sea Islands. These people unite in bands or tribes, and rove about seeking the means of subsistence and endeavoring to conquer other tribes. Some have central points of rendezvous, where the rudest habitations are constructed, in which the women and children remain during the absence of the men. The women almost universally are considered very much in the light of slaves by all these nomadic tribes, and as only fit to minister to their passions and to perform their drudgery. Their language is as rude as their habits, consisting of little more than a comparatively few spasmodically uttered harsh sounds. Written language they have none, excepting perhaps some images or rude figures symbolizing some special event they in this way attempt to commemorate, and which may be considered as the foundation of it for the tribes using them as they were the primary foundation of all written language.
One notable feature is universally observable among all these representatives of primitive government—they all recognize the necessity of a leader under some of the many forms of control exercised by the one over the many, and he is generally one who has exhibited some particular prowess in battle, the capacity to perform which he is supposed to be endowed with by some unknown power, and which renders him superior to all others, and best capable of ruling and protecting those who thus recognize him, and who obey him in every particular, even to sacrificing their lives. Such may be considered an outline of our conceptions of the most primitive form of government of the present day; and the fact that such still exists has a marked bearing upon the subject of general government, when it is remembered that the time was when no higher form existed on the face of the earth.
The law of evolution and that of dissolution being a universal deduction from the philosophic ultimatum that force persists, they apply to all things wherein force is exhibited; consequently human government must be the objective result of the persistence of force exhibited among the people of the earth, and at the same time the subject of all modifications that grow out of its transformations and equivalent relations. In whatever light, then, human government is viewed, these philosophic laws should never be lost sight of nor disregarded; but the causes of all the rises and falls, transformations, modifications and amalgamations, should be sought by the application of those laws to the objective points under consideration.
The question now naturally arises, Can human government, then be analyzed, and the facts it presents be found to correspond to the deductions of philosophic law?
It has been remarked that the simplest combinations of force among human beings, representing government which existed when none higher had been attained, was still represented on the earth by certain of its inhabitants. Beginning with this as the basis of the superstructure of human government, can there be traced a gradual scale of progress from it to the government of this country, in which scale each nation, tribe and tongue will find its appropriate place, which, unoccupied, would render the scale imperfect, as a chain would be imperfect were one of its central links missing? and would an analysis of each of these governments develop the fact that each successive one in the progressive scale would represent some new application of the principle of liberty, some more extended idea of equality, or some better formula of justice than the preceding had, which application, idea or formula entitles it to rank superior thereto, and also determines its position in the scale?
Of all systems and forms of government that came and passed away during the long lapse of ages, from the time the most primitive alone existed on the earth to the time wherein those flourished that have left records of their existence, we can know nothing except what may be gathered from philosophic deduction unsupported by any actual record of facts concerning them. It is, however, philosophically certain that very many such intermediate governments did exist, variously modified and advancing from the primitive forms. Possessing, as we may justly infer, but little capability for duration, their integration was rapidly succeeded by disintegration; being exposed to numerous and different external influences, rapid and successive changes were inevitable, because they were possessed of but little individuality and consequently but little capacity for resisting external influences. They were bound together by none of the higher laws of association, but were led by transient ephemeral contingencies, combining at times together, to soon divide and subdivide only to again form new and equally temporary amalgamations. Thus constantly organizing and dissolving, the long interval alluded to was occupied by primitive inhabitants in their march from the purely homogeneous toward the individualized times wherein civilization left records of itself.
While no special inquiries into the correctness of the formulas laid down at various times by various philosophers, which seek to include and cover all the phenomena of the universe, will be made, those of the most eminent may with propriety be stated; indeed, if it be attempted to show that history obeys a fixed law of evolution, the law that it is presumed to obey must be given, that it may be seen whether the deductions arrived at are included within the limits of the formula. If it should not so turn out, then either the deduction must be illegitimate, the formula imperfect or impossible, or the fact made apparent, that, while all the other sciences, as biology, psychology and their various divisions, are known to conform to certain well determined laws of causation, sociology, in which all history and government find their basis, conforms to no law, but is the product of the merest chance.
Until within the present century it was not claimed by any of the various philosophers who had flourished that there was such a science as sociology; or, if so claimed by any far-seeing mind, the attempt to demonstrate or formulate it was not made until the time of Comte, who, about the year 1830, did attempt it, and he may be justly styled the father of the present system of formulated science. Though his system is now shown to contain many imperfections and omissions, it is nevertheless certain, that but for it, the improvements since made would not have been possible to the present degree attained, though those who have made them may repudiate the idea, and scorn to acknowledge that they have built upon Comte.
Gathering from his profuse writings upon this point his earlier and most continuous opinions, the following are the terms in which they can be the most simply expressed: Social progression is a gradual change from rudimentary, homogeneous and anthropomorphic conditions to civilization, heterogeneity and to definite conceptions of the external world; and at the same time from nomadic characteristics, with aggressive purposes, to inhabitative propensities and individual industrial pursuits.
A number of philosophers, who have written since the days of Comte, have from time to time presented formulas which at best can only be considered as modifications of his, and it may confidently be asserted that no real addition was acquired until the Spencerian was made, which, while it included Comte’s, was more general and comprehensive, and at the same time more definite and special. This seeming anomaly was made possible by his having discovered the law of evolution, and by having exhaustively demonstrated that all mental action—emotional as well as intellectual—was included in it. It is as follows: Evolution is an integration of matter and a concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion undergoes a partial transformation. This general formula includes all evolution, organic and inorganic, and interprets not only the genesis of the sidereal and solar systems and of the earth, but also of life upon the earth, and has become the law of all social, moral and intellectual change. He afterward found it necessary to make a supplement especially applicable to organic life, in such terms as should not include the inorganic. It was as follows: “Life—and intelligence being the highest manifestations of life—consists in the continuous establishment of relations within the organism, in correspondence with relations existing within the environment or the surroundings.”